08:30 Lois and I take a shower and after breakfast we
talk a little on whatsapp with our younger daughter, Sarah, and her 5-year-old
twins, Lily and Jessie, who moved to Perth, Australia 3 years ago.
In Australia the school year starts in February - towards the end of their summer. The girls will be starting school for the first time next week, either on
Monday or on Tuesday - Sarah is not quite sure. We ask if she and Francis have
bought the children's school uniforms yet, but the answer is "not
yet". They intended to buy them this weekend, but they suddenly remembered
that it’s the Australia Day weekend and the shops are all closed.
This is typical of Sarah and Francis. They are not very
good at planning and they tend to postpone everything to the last moment: they
are the extreme opposite of Lois and me.
flashback to April 2018 - me (left) at a
beach cafe in the Margaret River region,
Western Australia, along with Francis,
Sarah, and the twins
Last night they took the twins to the coast to see the
Australia Day fireworks show. Tomorrow (Monday) is a holiday, so we hope that
we will be able to talk to Sarah again.
Both Sarah and Francis have recently got into the habit
of browsing through the job ads. Sarah, a qualified chartered accountant, would
like a less stressful job, though she has noticed that these less stressful
jobs come with lower pay, which seems a little unfair ha ha!
Francis has spent the last 5 years looking after the
twins. When they start school next week, he will have the chance to get some sort
of job, which will help support the family financially, there is no doubt about
that. Lois and I worry a little about his tendency to be too inflexible and
too fussy when it comes to picking and choosing between jobs.
10:30 Claire calls us. She knows I'm about to drive Lois
over to Tewkesbury this morning so Lois can take part in her sect’s 2 services.
Claire asks us to pick her up “on the way” as we did last Sunday. She is not a
member of the sect, but she still likes to attend the services, it seems.
I've already told Lois that I'm not willing to pick up
Claire again. It means a massive detour, because Claire lives in Quedgeley on
the other side of Gloucester. And there's a much better solution to the problem
- in the shape of Gill, a member of the sect, who doesn't live that far from Claire's house. It
would be much simpler for Gill to pick up Claire.
Gill - a recent photo
But unfortunately Claire would much rather be picked up by us than by
Gill - Gill is a bit of a demon driver and her car's rear seat is always packed
with her piano tuning equipment. Also, Gill is outspoken, and does not hesitate
to tell Claire if she thinks she is doing or saying
something stupid. Whereas unlike Gill, Lois
and I are always very polite and friendly.
Sorry, Claire, I would like to help you, but you live too
far away !!! Try calling Gill again !!!!!
My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!!
10:45 Lois puts the phone down. I ask Lois why Claire
doesn't order a taxi, but she says Claire is on unemployment benefit - she has
some emotional issues and can't hold down a job. Also, Claire doesn't like
taxis: she says she has had some unpleasant experiences with taxi drivers.
I tell Lois that I saw an interesting news item about a
taxi driver the other day - the source was Onion News, the influential US news
site.
What an amazing story - a humble taxi driver getting a
mention three times within 1 day in the Guinness book of records. No wonder
Claire wants to stay away from them all !!!!
11:00 Lois and I drive over to Tewkesbury and I drop her off
in front of the town library where Lois's sect holds its services every Sunday.
12:00 I come home and have lunch. I have a little alone
time and set about writing the first 4 paragraphs of an email to Tünde, my
Hungarian pen-pal. My Hungarian has become a little rusty, I have to admit. But
it is fun to try to write something that is at least a little bit amusing if I possibly
can.
13:30 I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get
up at 2:30 pm and drive over to Tewkesbury again. I pick Lois up in the nearby
parking lot and we drive home. We relax with a cup of tea and a biscuit on the
sofa.
18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening
watching a bit of television. We are both tired for some reason, and we doze
off a little, every now and then during the evening – my god, we are getting
old, no doubt about that!
An interesting documentary is on, all about
"Hector", which has been called Canada's Mayflower: a small ship that
was considered too feeble to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but which somehow, in 1773, transported
approx. 200 Scots from Scotland to Nova Scotia, where a Philadelphia-based
Scottish businessman, John Witherspoon, had bought 200,000 acres, which he
wanted the Scots to cultivate.
Each of the Scottish immigrants paid Witherspoon 5 pence
per acre for a plot of land, and £3 each for a one-way ticket on the ship, so
they were not in any way "the poorest of the poor". However, many of
the passengers were illiterate and could not write their names on the passenger
list, so they just wrote the first letter of the name: unfortunately this was mostly just
"M" - the same shortened form for all of them - Mackenzie, McLeod,
Macdonald etc. My god, what madness !!!
And there were no embarrassing interactions with the native
(Mi'kmaw) tribes when the immigrants landed on the coast of Nova Scotia. The
Scots had brought their mandatory bagpipes with them, and began to play them to
celebrate their safe arrival in the New World - and the natives simply ran away
into the forests.
My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzzz !!!!!
Danish
translation
08:30 Lois og
jeg tager et brusebad og efter morgenmad taler vi lidt på whatsapp med vores
yngste datter, Sarah, og hendes 5-årige tvillinger, Lily og Jessie. Pigerne
starter i skole næste uge, enten på mandag eller på tirsdag – det er Sarah ikke
helt sikker på. Vi spørger om hun og Francis har købt børnenes skoleuniformer
endnu, men svaret er ”ikke endnu”. De havde til hensigt at købe dem denne
weekend, men de mindedes pludselig, at det er Australia Day-weekenden, og
butikkerne er alle lukkede.
Dette er
typisk af Sarah og Francis. De er ikke særligt gode til at planlægge og de har
tendens til at udskyde alting til det sidste øjeblik: de er det ekstrem modsatte
af Lois og mig.
tilbageblik til april
2018 - mig på en strandcafé i Margaret River-regionen,
Western
Australia, sammen med Francis, Sarah, og tvillingerne
I går aftes
tog de tvillinger med til kysten for at se Australia Day-fyrværkerishowet. I
morgen (mandag) er en hellidag, så håber vi på, at vi vil kunne tale med Sarah
igen.
Både Sarah og
Francis er for nylig kommet i vane med at blade igennem jobannoncerne. Sarah,
en uddannet revisor, vil gerne have en mindre stressende job, selvom hun har
bemærket, at disse mindre stressende jobs kommer med lavere løn, hvilket virker
lidt unfair ha ha!
Francis har
brugt de sidste 5 år på at passe på tvillingerne. Når de starter i skole næste
uge, vil han have chancen for at få et eller andet job, hvilket vil hjælpe med
at støtte familien financielt, det er der ikke nogen tvivl om. Lois og jeg
bekymrer lidt over, at han har tendens til at være for ufleksibel og kræsen,
når det kommer til at vælge og vrage mellem jobs.
10:30 Claire
ringer til os. Hun ved, jeg er ved at køre Lois over til Tewkesbury i formiddag
, så Lois kan deltage i sin sekts 2 gudstjenester. Claire beder os at afhente
hende på vej, som vi gjorde sidste søndag. Hun er ikke et medlem af sekten, men
hun kan godt lide at deltage i gudstjenesterne, lader det til.
Jeg har
allerede fortalt Lois, at jeg ikke er villig til at afhente Claire igen. Det
betyder en meget lang omvej, fordi Claire bor i Quedgeley i den anden side af
byen Gloucester. Og der er en meget bedre løsning til problemet – Gill, et
medlem af sekten, bor ikke ret langt væk fra Claires hus. Det ville være meget
simplere for Gill at afhente Claire.
Gill
– et nyligt foto
Claire ville
meget hellere blive afhentet af os, end af Gill – Gill er lidt af en skræmmende
chauffør, og hendes bils bagsæde er altid propfyldt med hendes
klaverstemningsudstyr. Også Gill er frimodig, og tøver ikke med at fortælle
Claire hun gør eller siger noget dumt, hvis det der er hendes mening. Mens i
modsætning til Gill er Lois og jeg altid meget høflige og venlige.
Undskyld
Claire, jeg ville gerne hjælpe dig, men du bor for langt væk!!! Prøv at ringe
Gill igen !!!!!
Du godeste,
sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!
10:45 Lois
lægger telefonen på. Jeg spørger Lois hvorfor Claire ikke bestiller en taxa,
men hun siger Claire er på dagpenge – hun har visse følelsesmæssige issues, og
kan ikke holde på et job. Også kan Claire ikke lide taxaer: hun siger at hun
har haft nogle ubehagelige oplevelser med taxachauffører.
Jeg fortæller
Lois, at jeg forleden så et interessant nyhed om en taxachauffør – kilden var
Onion News, den indflydelsesrige amerikanske nyhedswebsted.
Hvor er det dog en forbløffende historie – en ydmyg
taxachauffør bliver nævnt tre gange indenfor en dag i Guinness- rekordbogen. Det
kan ikke undre, at Claire har lyst til at holde sig væk fra dem alle !!!!
11:00 Lois og
jeg kører over til Tewkesbury og jeg
sætter hende af foran byens bibliotek, hvor Lois’ sekt hver søndag holder sine
gudstjenester.
12:00 Jeg kommer
hjem og spiser frokost. Jeg har lidt alenetid og går i gang med at skrive de
første 4 afsnit af en email til Tünde, min ungarske penneveninde. Mit ungarsk
er blevet lidt rustent – det må jeg indrømme. Men det er sjovt at forsøge at
skrive noget, der er mindst en lille smule morsomt, hvis jeg kan.
13:30 Jeg går
i seng for at tage en gigantisk
eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 14:30 og kører over til Tewkesbury igen. Jeg
afhenter Lois i den nærliggende parkeringsplads og vi kører hjem. Vi slapper af
med en kop te og en kiks i sofaen.
18:00 Vi
spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. Vi er
begge trætte, af en eller anden grund, og vi blunder lidt af og til i løbet af
aftenen – du godeste, vi bliver gamle, ingen tvivl om det!
De viser en
interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om ”Hector”, der er blevet kaldet
Canadas Mayflower: et lille skib, der
var betragtet som for svagt til at krydse Atlanter-avet, som på en eller anden
måde transporterede ca. 200 skotter fra Skotland til Nova Scotia, hvor en
Philadelphia-baseret skotsk forretningsmand, John Witherspoon, havde købte
200.000 hektar, som han ville have skotterne til at dyrke.
Enhver af de
skotske indvandrende betalte Witherspoon 5 pence pr hektar, og 3£ for en
enkeltbillet til skibet , så de var overhovedet ikke ”de fattigste af de
fattige”. Men mange af passagererne var imidlertid analfabetiske og kunne ikke
skrive deres navne på passagierlisten, så de bare skrev det første bogstav:
desværre var de der for det meste bare ”M” – det samme forkortet form for dem
alle - Mackenzie, McLeod, Macdonald osv. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!
Der var ikke
nogle pinlige interaktioner med de indfødte (Mi’kmaw) stammer, da de
indvandringe landede på kysten af Nova Scotia. Skotterne havde medbragte deres
obligatoriske sækkepiber, og begyndte at spille dem for at fejre deres sikre
ankomst i den nye Verden, og de indfødte simpelthen løb væk ind i skovene.
Du godeste,
sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!!
22:00 Vi går i
seng – zzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment