Friday 10 May 2019

07:30 Today, Lois and I have to go back to Cheltenham after 3 days with our elder daughter Alison and her family - Ed, her husband, and their 3 children, Josie (12), Rosalind (10) and Isaac (8). We said thank you and goodbye to Ed last night, and today we get up early to say goodbye to the kids.

08:00 Alison drives the two younger children to the local primary school and 15 minutes later Josie also has to go off - her 3 girlfriends call at the door and all four walk around the corner and up the hill to the local high school. Friday is a "mufti" (dress-down) day for Josie - and she does not have to wear school uniform, which she is quite happy about!

Alison helps Josie get ready for school

Alison and the 3 children just before they leave for school

we watch Josie and her 3 girlfriends walking around the corner and up the hill

to the local high school: Friday is a "mufti" (dress down) day, so they do not need

to wear school uniform today, which they are very happy about to put it mildly.

08:45 Alison comes back and we say thank you and goodbye. It has been very nice to spend 3 days with her and the family. We haven't seen much of Ed - he works long hours for a temporary job in London, and comes home late, mostly between 19 and 21.

The family moved home to Haslemere, England last July, after nearly 6 years of residence in Copenhagen, when his company dismissed him, but with a generous compensation package. He is still in search of a promising and satisfying permanent job, and is involved in the recruitment process of 3-4 companies. The problem is that the recruitment process takes a lot of time when looking for jobs at Ed's level, which is quite high, we believe, even though he doesn't talk much about it to us, for obvious reasons.

The most difficult thing when we are with Alison's family is finding some interesting conversational news items to tell them about. We're just a couple of old crows, who basically don't do anything except routine household and gardening chores and watching tv in the evenings. 

We can talk about how different things were from today in the old days, or talk about our family history research, but I'm not sure that's so thrilling to hear about when you're in your 40's, let alone in your childhood or teens!

We can tell them about what it's like in Australia, where they've never been, and tell them about our other daughter Sarah's family down under, and we can tell Ali about her cousins in Oxford and Cambridge, and tell the children about their cousins down under, and that's about it.

So we try to make up for all that by trying to be funny as much as possible and generally kidding around with them.

When Lois and I arrived in Haslemere on Tuesday, we brought with us a lot of unwanted board games, puzzles, soft toys, etc., that I had collected from here and there in the nooks and crannies of our attic:  we brought with us one large suitcase and 3 large black sacks packed with sweet memories of our 2 daughters’ childhoods in the 1980’s in the US and in England.

I asked Alison if we could throw out the dozens of sacks of her school and university notes, etc. that are still lying here and there in our attic. I was expecting her to say "Yes, throw them all out", but to my surprise she says she would like to leaf through them all first - yikes!

I think she is like Lois on issues of this kind. I find it very difficult to persuade Lois to throw anything out, and sometimes I become convinced that we will never be able to downsize and move to a smaller house with a smaller garden. If you get this message, please send help !!!!

12:00 Lois and I arrive home - a two and a half hour journey including a 30-minute break at Reading Services. At Reading we just sit in the car and drink our own flask of coffee and eat a currant bun. We don't like the Costa, Starbucks etc coffee concessions in the Services because of the long queues that build up while the staff are faffing about taking forever to make a single cup - good grief, what madness!!!

I feel exhausted - I got out of the habit of driving more than about 1 hour at a time, after Alison's family moved to Denmark in 2012. Also I'm 7 years older - yikes! In addition, Lois can't generally share the driving  any more because of back problems, which is a bit of a shame to put it mildly.

We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and  take a gigantic afternoon nap.

Meanwhile, Lois swings by the neighbours: first to Frances and Stephen, two doors away, to thank them for taking care of our house, our post, etc. during our absence.

Afterwards, she has a little chat with Neil, our neighbour  Bill's son. Bill and Mary, who live in the house next door to us and are both in their  80’s, are having  a lot of problems at the moment. Bill has been hospitalised because of problems with gallstones, or something similar, and Mary suffers from severe dementia - yikes! It's fortunate that the couple have a bunch of relatives either living near Cheltenham, or able to come on visits to Mary and help out.

Our house is one of a group of 4 houses, and we, plus Frances and Stephen, are the "young ones" even though we are in our early 70’s. Bill and Mary are in their early 80’s, plus our other neighbour Bob, a widow, is also in his early  80s. Yikes!

18:00 Lois and I have  dinner - one of the low-fat ready meals we bought in the local Cookshop store in Leckhampton the other day. We are both exhausted.

We listen a little to the radio, an interesting programme in the series "The Last Word". Lois and I have got into the habit of hearing this program every week because we want to find out if anyone in the past 1-4 weeks has died or not (I have noticed that most weeks there are only 4- 5 deaths, which is a bit of comfort, to put it mildly). The programme presenter is the charming Andrea Catherford, standing in for Matthew Bannister.

The great British female athlete, Winnie Jordan, sadly died recently. Her career as an athlete, so promising in the 1930’s, was unfortunately ruined by the outbreak of World War II, which put an end to major athletic events.

In the 1930’s, it was quite unusual to be a female athlete, and society in general disapproved of women who participated in athletics, to put it mildly, and there were fears that it was dangerous for women's health. Doctors told Winnie that she wouldn't be able to have children, and that she probably wouldn’t live to be more than about 35. In fact, she died just the other day, aged 99.

Winnie Jordan i 1951, sammen med sin unge søn, Nicholas

Not that I want to cast doubt on doctors who make such convincing pronouncements based on prejudice and minimal evidence!

I’m sure doctors don’t do that kind of thing today ha ha!

22:00 We go to bed – zzzzzzzz!!!!!

Danish translation

07:30 I dag skal Lois og jeg tilbage til Cheltenham efter 3 dage hos vores ældste datter Alison og hendes familie – Ed, hendes mand, og deres 3 børn, Josie (12), Rosalind (10) og Isaac (8). Vi sagde tak og farvel til Ed i går aftes, og i dag står vi tidligt op for at kunne sige farvel til børnene.

08:00 Alison kører de to yngre børn til den lokale folkeskole og 15 minutter senere skal Josie af sted – hendes 3 veninder ringer på døren og de går alle fire rundt om hjørnet og op ad bakken til den lokale højskole. Fredag er en ”mufti” (civil) dag for Josie – og hun behøver ikke  gå i skoleuniformen, hvilket hun er meget glad for.

Alison hjælper Josie til at forberede sig på skole

Alison og de 3 børn, lige før de skal af sted

Vi kigger på Josie og hendes 3 veninder gå på vej rundt om hjørnet og op ad bakken

til den lokale højskole:  fredag er en ”mufti” (civil) dag, så behøver de ikke

at gå i skoleuniform i dag, hvilket de er meget glade for, for at sige mildt.

08:45 Alison kommer tilbage og vi siger hende tak og farvel. Det har været meget rart at tilbringe 3 dage med hende og familien. Vi har ikke set ret meget til Ed – han arbejder lange timer for tiden på et midlertidigt job i London, og kommer sent hjem, for det meste mellem kl 19 og kl 21.

Familien flyttede hjem til Haslemere, England sidste juli, efter næsten 6 års ophold i København, da hans selskab afskedigede ham, men med en generøs kompensationspakke. Han er stadig på jagt efter en lovende og tilfredsstillende  permanent job, og er involveret i rekrytteringsprocessen hos 3-4 firmaer. Problemet er, at rekrytteringsprocessen tager en masse tid, når man søger jobs på Eds niveau, der er ganske høj, tror vi, selvom han taler ikke ret meget om det med os, af åbenbare grunde.

Da Lois og jeg i tirsdags ankom til Haslemere, medbragte vi en masse uønskede brætspil, puslespil, bløde legetøj osv, som jeg havde samlet fra her og der i vores lofts krinkelkroge: vi bragte en stor kuffert samt 3 store sort sække propfyldt med søde minder  af vores 2 døtres barndom i 1980’erne.

Jeg spurgte Alison, om vi kunne smide ud de dusinvis af sække af hendes skole- og universitetsnotater osv, som stadig ligger her og der i vores loft. Jeg forventede, at hun ville sige ”Ja, smed dem alle ud”, men til min overraskelse siger hun, at hun først gerne ville blade dem igennem – yikes! Jeg synes, hun er ligesom Lois med hensyn til spørgsmål af den karakter. Jeg har det meget svært med at overtale Lois at smide noget ud, og nogle gange bliver jeg overbevist, at vi aldrig vil kunne downsize og flytte til et mindre hus med en mindre have. Hjælp !!!!

12:00 Lois og jeg ankommer hjem – en 2,5 timers kørsel med en 30-minutters pause på rastepladsen ved Reading. Jeg føler mig udmattet – jeg kom ud af vane med at køre bil i mere, end cirka 1 time, efter Alisons familie i 2012 flyttede til Danmark. Også er jeg 6 år ældre – yikes! Derudover kan Lois ikke dele kørslen længere på grund af rygproblemer, hvilket er lidt af en skam, for at sige mildt.

Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur.

I mellemtiden smutter Lois ind hos naboerne: først hos Frances og Stephen, to døre væk, for at takke dem for at passe på vores hus, vores post osv under vores fravær.

Bagefter snakker hun lidt med Neil, vores nabo Bills søn. Bill og Mary, der bor i nabohuset til vores og begge to er i 80’erne, har en masse problemer for tiden. Bill er blevet indlagt til hospitalet på grund af problemer med galdesten, eller noget lignende, og Mary lider af alvorlig demens – yikes! Det er heldigt, at parret har en flok af slægtninge, der bor i nærheden af Cheltenham, eller som kan besøge Mary og hjælpe til.

Vores hus er ét af en gruppe 4 huse, og vi, samt Frances og Stephen, er de ”unge”, selvom vi er først i 70’erne. Bill og Mary er først i 80’erne, derudover Bob, en enke, er også først i 80’erne. Yikes!

18:00 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad - én af de fedtfattige færdigretter, vi forleden købte i det lokale Cookshop-butik i Leckhampton. Vi er begge to udmattede.

Vi lytter lidt til radio, et interessant program i serien ”Det sidste ord”. Lois og jeg er kommet i vane med at høre dette program hver uge, fordi vi ønsker at finde ud af, om nogen i de seneste 1-4 uger døde eller ej (jeg har bemærket, at der i de fleste uger kun sker 4-5 dødsfald, hvilket er lidt trøstende, for at sige mildt). Programmets vært er den charmerende Andrea Catherford.

Den kvindelige atlet, Winnie Jordan, døde desværre for nylig. Hendes karriere som atlet, der så så lovende ud i 1930’erne, blev desværre ødelagt af den 2. verdenskrig, som satte en stopper for store atletiske stævner. I 1930’erne var det helt usædvanligt at være en kvindelig atlet, og samfundet i generelt misbilligede kvinder, der deltog i atletik, for at sige mildt, og der var frygter for, at det var farligt for kvinders helbred. Lægere fortalte Winnie, at hun ikke ville leve mere end 35 år. Faktisk døde hun forleden, på 99 år.

Winnie Jordan i 1951

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

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzz!!!!