Danskcolin: Sunday, February 24 2019

08:30 Lois and I take a bath, but sadly after breakfast we have to go out. Lois wants to take part in her sect’s two divine services taking place today in Tewkesbury library. She has asked me to drive her over there because she has not yet got used to her new glasses. I drop her off the front of the library and drive home. Unfortunately, except for Cheltenham itself it is very foggy again, which is a bit of a shame to say the least.

11:45 I come home and have lunch. At the same time, I watch a little television, the third episode of the Danish television series, "Ride Upon the Storm", starring the famous Danish actor Lars Mikkelsen, as Johannes, a priest with problems - to say the least. First and foremost, an alcohol dependency.

Johannes is a leading priest in the Danish Lutheran folk church, and he is determined to become the new bishop of Copenhagen, but in an exciting election in the 1st episode, he ended up losing out to a female priest with more modern ideas , Monika, who became bishop. Johannes was a little disappointed, to say the least, and he disappeared for a few days on a drunken binge.

Johannes is married to Elizabeth, but he also has a mistress, possibly a member of one or other of his parish's many committees. The girlfriend resembles his wife Elizabeth to a T, which is a bit of a shame for me as I try desperately to work out who's who.

In the first episode we saw Johannes having sex with a woman in a shower cubicle. I thought the woman was his wife Elizabeth, but now it turns out that it was the mistress he was having sex with in this scene. My god, what madness !!!!

Both Johannes’s sons have problems as well. Christian, the older son, is himself also a priest, and for a short time he was a chaplain in a war zone somewhere in the Middle East. By mistake, he killed an innocent young mother while accompanying his unit on patrol, and afterwards he lied to his captain, family, and relatives by minimising his involvement and denying responsibility. Now he has a bad conscience over it all and cannot sleep without sleeping pills, which his wife, a doctor, prescribes for him - and now he is quickly becoming dependent on the pills - yikes, good grief!

Christian, the other son, was expelled from his university after plagiarism was discovered in his Ph.D thesis. He goes off on a backpacking holiday in Nepal with his old friend from school, Mark. But just before the holiday, Christian unfortunately goes to bed with Mark's gorgeous Lebanese girlfriend, Amira.

Christian goes to bed with his best friend Mark's lovely

Lebanese girlfriend, Amira

In tonight's episode, while Christian and Mark are sitting and eating at a Nepalese youth hostel during their backpacking holiday in Nepal, Amira unfortunately sends a text to Christian, and Mark happens to look at Christian's smartphone and realises that the two have been texting each other and he suddenly becomes aware of his girlfriend's unfaithfulness with his best friend.

The two men's quarrel ends in a brawl right outside the hostel. Mark then leaves Christian in the hostel and continues his backpacking alone. Christian, now also alone in the Nepalese mountains, unfortunately gets his backpack stolen and he falls down a hill while trying to get it back, injuring and himself. Fortunately, a friendly Buddhist priest at the local temple takes him in and we start to wonder if Christian is showing signs of finally beginning to take a more spiritual approach to life.

My goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!!!

12:30 I talk a little on Skype with our daughter, Sarah, who lives in Perth (Australia) together with Francis, her husband, and their 5-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie.

She has fixed a Skype job interview for 7 am tomorrow (local time) - she has applied for a job in the Brisbane area and she wants to practice a little today with me on the Skype software and experiment a bit with her laptop's camera and microphone and that kind of thing, so that tomorrow's job interview goes as well as possible.

She is not very optimistic about the interview, however. She and Francis would need the firm's financial help to move from Perth to Brisbane, and to settle down there, and Sarah doubts if the firm would be willing to do this. But we'll see.

She's worried about her current job in Perth. The landscaping firm where she works as chief accountant has financial problems at the moment - Sarah thinks the company owner is spending too much money, and she is always having to persuade him to make savings, but it's not that easy to put it mildly - he's very headstrong, she says. Yikes, Sarah!

flashback to April 2018 - me (left) at a beach cafe in the Margaret River region,

Western Australia, with Francis, Sarah, and the twins

13:30 I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 2:30 pm and drive over to Tewkesbury to pick up Lois after her second service. We come home and relax on the couch with a cup of tea and a couple of pieces of bread with homemade gooseberry jam - yum yum!

16:30 Our neighbours, Stephen and Francis, pop round to thank us for looking after their house in their absence over the past 7 days. We are all four of us a little worried about the former doctor’s surgery, now closed, which is adjacent to Stephen and Francis's property. The doctors want to get the old surgery building demolished and replaced by 6 new houses - but the council’s planning committee has so far rejected the doctors' plans. We are now all waiting for the doctors to submit new plans. They are such bastards, those doctors !!!

(2 photos) Flashback to January: the doctors close the old surgery

and move into a new one 5 miles away from here

The doctors' plans for tearing down the old surgery building

and getting 6 new houses built on the land

My goodness - they are such bastards, those doctors !!!!

18:00 Lois and I have dinner and afterwards we drive into the town to see the Ferris wheel behind the Town Hall and the other specially illuminated buildings in the town centre: the Ferris wheel is going to be taken down after today and the special coloured lighting of buildings will also stop, so tonight is our last chance to see them. It’s not like us to do this kind of thing, so it's a bit of a refreshing change, to put it mildly. We are turning into two little children again, which is nice.

Neptune's Fountain

Promenade and Ferris wheel

the Ferris wheel, in Imperial Gardens behind the Town Hall

the Town Hall

The Queen’s Hotel

19:30 We come home again and relax with a cup of coffee on the sofa. An interesting documentary is showing on tv, all about the history of arias in opera. The host of the program is the charming Antonio Pappano, music director of the London Royal Opera House.

An interesting programme. Lois and I did not know, for example, that according to soprano Lucy Crow, Verdi exploited pauses in the music of his Aria “Caro Nome” in Rigoletto to depict 16-year-old Gilda's passion and sexual awakening, after she has just seen, for the first time, the young Duke who has captured her heart.

And Lucy herself sings the aria for us in tonight’s programme, to demonstrate her interpretation, which is nice.

Lois and I always like to watch opera scenes that are about more ordinary and routine events such as ones we can relate to in our own lives, e.g. operas focusing on breakfast rituals, such as smearing a piece of toast with jam, or desperate searching after missing keys and the like, frequent events in our home, to put it mildly!

For example, Mark-Anthony Turnage's modern opera, "Greek", which focuses on problems with spreading jam on toast.

typical scenes from Mark Anthony Turnage's modern opera, "Greek"

Also Puccini's "Che Gelida Manina" from La Boheme, where Mimi and poet Rodolfo are searching for Mimi's missing keys.

Lois and I have noticed many times that opera scenery is often plagued by faulty props, and the sequences shown in tonight's programme are no exception. Here we see Rodolfo in La Boheme, closing the door behind him in order to help Mimi find her missing keys, although seconds later the door opens itself again. Good grief, what madness !!!

Rodolfo closes the door as he enters Mimi's room ...

... but seconds later, as soon as he turns his back, the door opens itself again,

which is a bit of a shame to put it mildly.

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish translation

08:30 Lois og jeg tager et bad og efter morgenmad skal vi ud. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts 2 gudstjenester, der finder sted i dag i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek. Hun har bedt mig om at køre hende derover, fordi hun endnu ikke er vænnet sig til sine nye briller. Jeg sætter hende af foran biblioteket og kører hjem. Desværre er det meget tåget igen, bortset fra selve Cheltenham, hvilket er lidt af en skam, for at sige mildt.

11:45 Jeg kommer hjem og spiser frokost. Samtidigt ser jeg lidt fjernsyn, det 3. afsnit af den danske tv-serie, ”Ride Upon the Storm”, stjernespækket den berømte danske skuespiller Lars Mikkelsen, som Johannes, en præst med problemer – for at sige mildt. Først og fremmest en alkoholafhængighed.

Johannes er en førende præst i Danmarks lutheranske folkekirke, og han er fast besluttet at blive den nye biskop i København, men i et spændende valg i det 1. afsnit, endte han ud med at være taberen, og en kvindelig præst med mere moderne idéer, Monika, blev biskop. Han var lidt skuffet, for at sige mildt, og han forsvandt på druk i nogle dage.

Johannes er giftet med Elizabeth, men han har også en elskerinde, muligvis en kvinde, der er medlem af et eller andet af hans sogns mange udvalg. Elskerinden ligner konen Elizabeth på en prik, hvilket er lidt af en skam. I første afsnit så vi Johannes have sex med en kvinde i brusekabinen. Jeg troede, kvinden var Elizabeth, men nu viser det, at der var hans elskerinde, han havde sex med i scenen. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Begge Johannes sønner har problemer også. Christian er også præst, og han i en kort periode var en feltpræst i en krigzone et eller andet sted i Mellemøsten. Ved en fejltagelse skød han en uskyldig ung mor ihjel, mens han ledsagede sin enhed på patrulje, og efter løj han for sin kaptajn, sin familie og sine slægtninge, ved at minimere sin involvering og nægte ansvar. Nu har han en dårllg samvittighed over det hele og kan ikke sove uden sovepiller, som hans kone, en læge, udskriver til ham – og han bliver nu hurtigt afhængig af dem – yikes, du godeste!

Christian, den yngre søn, blev bortvist fra sit universitet efter plagiat blev opdaget i sin Ph.D-afhandling. Han tager på rygsækferie i Nepal sammen med sin gammel ven fra skoletiden, Mark. Men lige før ferien, går Christian desværre i seng med Marks pragtfulde libanesiske kæreste, Amira.

Mens Christian og Mark sidder og spiser på et nepaliske vandrehjem underderes rygsækferie i Nepal, sender Amira desværre en sms til Christian, og Mark ser tilfældigvis på Christians smartphone og indser, at de to har sms’et hinanden, og han bliver pludselig klar over sin kærestes utroskab med sin bedste ven.

De to mænds skænderi ender med en stor slåskamp lige udenfor vandrerhjemmet. Mark forlader så Christian på vandrehjemmet og fortsætter sin rygsæktur alene. Christian, nu også alene i de nepalske bjerger, får desværre sit rygsæk stjålet, og han falder ned ad bakke, mens han prøver at få den tilbage, og sårer sig. Heldigvis en venlig buddhistisk præst på det lokale buddhistiske tempel modtager ham, og vi spekulerer på, om Christian viser tegn på, at han omsider begynder at tage en mere åndelig tilgang til livet.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!!

12:30 Jeg taler lidt på Skype med vores datter, Sarah, der bor i Perth, Australien, sammen med Francis, sin mand, og deres 5-årige tvillinger, Lily og Jessie. Hun har bestemt en Skype-jobsamtale til kl 7 om morgenen (lokal tid) – hun har ansøgt om et job i Brisbane-området, og hun har lyst til at øve sig lidt med Skype-softwaren, og eksperimentere lidt med sin bærebares kamera og mikrofon, og den slags, så jobomtalen går så godt som muligt.

Hun er ikke særlig optimistisk om interviewet. Hun og Francis ville har brug for firmaets financielle hjælp til at flytte fra Perth til Brisbane, og at slå sig ned derovre, og Sarah er i tvivl om, om de ville være villige i at gøre dette. Men vi får se.

Hun er blevet bekymret over sit nuværende job i Perth. Det landskabsartitektur firma, hvor hun arbejder som hovedrevisor, har finansielle problemer for tiden – Sarah synes, at firmaets ejer bruger for mange penge, og hun er hele tiden nødt til at overtale ham til at gennemføre besparelser, men det er ikke særlig nemt for at sige mildt – han er meget egensindig, siger hun. Yikes, Sarah!

tilbageblik til april 2018 - mig (til venstre) på en strandcafé i Margaret River-regionen,

Western Australia, sammen med Francis, Sarah, og tvillingerne

13:30 Jeg går i seng for at tage en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 14:30 og kører over til Tewkesbury for at afhente Lois efter hendes sekts 2. gudstjeneste. Vi kommer hjem og slapper af i sofaen med en kop te og et par stykke brød med hjemmelavet stikkelsbærmarmelade – yum yum!

16:30 Vores naboer, Stephen og Francis, smutter ind hos os for at takke os for at passe på deres hus i deres fravær de seneste 7 dage. Vi er alle 4 lidt bekymrede over det tidligere lægehus, nu lukket, der støder op til Stephen og Francis’s ejendom. Lægerne ønsker at få lægehuset nedrevet og erstattet af 6 nye huse – men kommunens planlægningsudvalt har hidtil afvist lægernes planer. Vi venter alle nu på at lægerne indsende nye planer. De er sådanne nogle sjufter, de der læger!!!

Tilbageblik til januar: lægerne lukker det gamle lægehus,

og flytter ind i et nye 5 miles væk herfra

Lægernes planer om at reve det gamle lægehus ned

og få 6 nye huse bygget på jorden

Du godeste – de er sådanne nogle sjufter, de der læger !!!!

18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og bagefter kører vi ind i byen for at se pariserhjulet bagved Rådhuset og de andre specielt belyste bygninger i bymidten: pariserhjulet skal revet ned efter i dag og belysning af bygninger skal også stoppe, så derfor er i aften vores sidste chance for at se dem. Det ligner os ikke at gøre den slags ting, så det er lidt af en forfriskende forandring, for at sige mildt. Vi bliver til to små børn igen, hvilket er rart.

Neptunes Springvand

Promenade og pariserhjul

Parishjul i Imperial Gardens bagved Rådhuset

Rådhuset

Queen’s Hotel

19:30 Vi kommer hjem igen og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om historien af arier i opera. Programmets vært er den charmerende Antonio Pappano, musikdirektør til Londons Royal Opera House.

Et interessant program. Lois og jeg vidste ikke at Verdi udnyttede pauser i sin arie Caro Nome i Rigoletto for at udtrykke den 16-årige Gildas lidenskab og seksuelle opvågning, nu hvor hun for første gang fået øje på den unge hertug, der har fanget hendes hjerte, ifølge sopranen Lucy Crowe.

Og selve Lucy synger arien for os i aftenens program, for at demonstrere sin fortolkning, hvilket er rart.

Lois og jeg kan altid godt lide at se på operascener der handler om mere almindelige og rutinemæssige hændelser, som vi kan relatere til i vores egne liv, for eksempel operaer, der fokuserer på morgenmadritualer, som for eksempel, det, at smøre et stykke toast med marmelade eller det, at søge efter manglende nøjler og lignende, en hyppig begivenhed i vores hjem, for at sige mildt!

For eksempel Mark-Anthony Turnages moderne opera, ”Greek”, der fokuserer på problemer med at smøre toast med marmelade.

typiske scener fra Mark Anthony Turnages moderne opera, ”Greek”

Også Puccinis ”Che Gelida Manina” fra La Boheme, hvor Mimi og digteren Rodolfo søger efter Mimis manglende nøgler.

Lois og jeg har bemærket mange gange, at operasceneri ofte er præget af fejlagtige rekvisitter, og aftenens program er ikke nogen undtagelse. Her ser vi Rodolfo i La Boheme, lukker døren bag sig, for at hjælpe Mimi med at finde hendes manglende nøjler, selvom døren åbner sig sekunder senere. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!