Sunday 5 May 2019

11:00 Lois wants to take part in her sect’s two worship services taking place today in Tewkesbury Library, but she does not want to strain her back by driving a car today, so she has asked me to drive her over there. Her back is still a bit sensitive. I drop her off the front of the library and drive home.

I talk a little on whatsapp with Sarah, our younger daughter, who lives in Perth, Australia, along with Francis and their 5-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie. Sarah has gone through her first week at her new company, as an accountant in the Consolidated Energy company's financial department in Balcatta, one of the northern suburbs of Perth, so not far from the family home in Ocean Reef.

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

Western Australia, along with Francis, Sarah, and the twins

Her first week of work is now over, and it went pretty well, she says. But it is very exhausting trying to master this nationwide company’s financial status, to get to know all her new colleagues and to get used to the company's work-culture, etc.

Francis is still busy designing the family's new home, which he hopes to build on a piece of land in the Chitterling area.

The twins still enjoy going to school. They were very much looking forward to starting the new term last Tuesday after the recent Easter break, which is nice to hear. They couldn’t wait, Sarah says!

I have a bit of alone time, and sit down with the computer - unfortunately, it does not take long before I run into a problem with the Word program and with the file I write my daily activities  in. The program is trying to format my text in some way I don't want. After 2-3 hours trying to get rid of this unwanted formatting, I give up and start a new file - damn, what a stupid waste of time. Good grief!

I even have to eat my lunch at the computer and do without my daily afternoon nap, which is a little annoying to put it mildly.

14:30 I drive back to Tewkesbury to pick up Lois after her 2 worship services. I want to park the car in the closest car-park to the library. Unfortunately, I spot the town’s female traffic warden who is prowling  around in the car-park in search of drivers who have not stuck a parking-ticket behind their windscreen.

Damn! Today is turning into a very bad day, no doubt about that. I don't want to pay the parking fee for just 5 minutes of parking. Fortunately Lois shows up and I pick her up and we drive home. We relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

It is nevertheless true that some parking wardens, and car park kiosk-attendants, etc. can sometimes be sympathetic guys. A local parking attendant, Brian Haemker, who works at the much-loved Water Street car park hit the headlines recently when he gave Onion News readers some insights into the secrets behind his daily duties.

ParkingHeadline

ParkingPic

The average customer at the Water Street parking garage probably hasn't even noticed Brian Haemker. They drive past him day in and day out, and probably assume he's just another parking attendant. But in reality he is so much more.

Haemker has spent the last six years uncovering the secrets of every nook and cranny of the Water Street car park, and amassing a treasure chest of privileged information.

"There is a whole row of level 4 that is almost untouched," Haemker said from his tiny booth. "That's because it's at the opposite end from the elevator. But there's a pedestrian bridge just a few steps ahead of here that gets you there pretty conveniently. In addition, there's a Coke machine right there."

"Many people don't think about that," Haemker added.

Haemker said drivers also often overlook the parking garage's basement level.

"I see it every day: people just start up the ramp without thinking," Haemker said. "Meanwhile, one third of the basement is sitting there open and it's the warmest spot too in winter."

Haemker said level 6 has some "amazing" parking spaces and explains that "the extra effort to get there is well worth it."

"Level 6 can be seen by drivers as a last resort," Haemker said. "That’s more than a little ironic, because this is where the best three spots in the whole garage are."

When journalists asked him about the worst parking places in the car park, Haemker designated the ones on the first floor, closest to the ticket booths, and a level 5 spot sitting on the end next to the railway.

"Your bumper is basically guaranteed to get dented there," he said.

Haemker says that the most annoying drivers are those who park in the garage throughout the working day, but do not take advantage of the lower prices for customers arriving before 8 am.

"Man, if only I had the extra four dollars a day to park whenever I feel like it," Haemker said. "Of course, these guys are likely to be getting refunded by their workplace, which must be nice."

Haemker said he is always happy to show drivers the way to good spots, but no one ever asks.

"People just park anywhere they can find a spot, which I think is just crazy," Haemker said.

What an interesting, and useful article – my thanks to Onion News for that one.

Good grief, what a crazy world we live in !!!!! But I learned a lot of useful tips from the article, and I have to try to remember them the next time I park in Haemker's parking garage - I have no doubts on that score! I'm a bit of an old crow, and I sometimes find it hard to navigate in dark parking garages and sometimes I get completely lost, to put it mildly, and can't find the exit. My godd, I'm getting old, no doubt about that !!!!!

16:00 I go up the loft ladder and prowl around in search of any remaining unwanted books (phase 1 of our downsizing  mini-project) and any unwanted LP's or audio tapes (phase 3 of the mini-project) that may happen to be found lying around between and under the piles of unwanted crap in the attic.

I "strike gold" again - a big box of my father-in-law's classical music LP's, and a big box of my old reel-to-reel tapes dating from my lonely teenage years when my tape recorder and my music tapes of pop music , recorded from radio, were my best friends – sob sob!

I drag my father-in-law's box of LP's down the loft-ladder and put the records  on top of one of the beds in our elder daughter Alison's old room, next to all the other LP's I have come across in the loft over the past 2-3 days.

Then I also drag down the loft ladder the big box with my old reel-to-reel tapes, and with a tinge of sadness I throw them in the dustbin: we haven’t any reel to reel audio tape equipment any more, and at least I have still in my possession the old red exercise book, where I used to note down the name of each song, as well as date of recording, and which radio or TV station I recorded it from – my god, what madness!!!! 

But these memories are more precious than the sound of the song itself, I think. You can in any case still hear the songs any time on YouTube.

I also come across a box of our younger daughter Sarah's old psychology textbooks dating from her student years at Lancaster University. Yikes - they weigh a ton, even the paperbacks!

the scene in the attic  earlier in the day: the only well-documented zone in the loft,

that surrounds the actual entrance-hatch: in the foreground about 25 heavy psychology textbooks,

dating to our daughter Sarah's student years at Lancaster University.

while in the background we see a blue box with my old reel-to-reel tapes,

dating to my teenage years, and a black box of my father-in-law's old LP records,

Yikes, what madness !!!!

I suddenly feel exhausted again, but I wanted to do something physical, as an outlet for my frustrations, after spending the day trying without success to solve a problem with the computer and the Word program. I had planned today to deal with so many tasks on my to-do list, but my whole plan came to nothing, that's for sure. Damn!

18:00 We have  dinner:  roast chicken, roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips - yum yum!

We see a little television - a documentary about King George VI and his "part in Hitler's downfall" ha ha!

This documentary is a bit of a disappointment, no doubt about that. The material about the king himself is incredibly thin, and not very important in the scheme of things. It would have been far more interesting to build a documentary around  the whole of MI5's incredibly subtle, sophisticated and successful "Double Cross" operation, which, by means of misinformation, double agents, and so on, convinced Hitler that the main allied invasion was planned  to take place in the Calais area, with the Normandy operation as a side-show  or diversionary tactic.

The "Double Cross" operation made an incredibly significant contribution to D-day’s success. When the German army in Normandy pleaded with Hitler to send reinforcements, he told them to "piss off", and refused even to get out of bed.

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

22:00 We go to bed - I read 20 pages of my bedtime book, Ben Elton's "Two Brothers" (Danish version), before I drift off to sleep - zzzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish translation

11:00 Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts to gudstjenester, der finder sted i dag i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek, men hun vil ikke anstrenge ryggen ved at køre bil i dag, så hun har bedt mig om at køre hende derover. Hendes ryg er stadig lidt følsom. Jeg sætter hende af foran biblioteket og kører hjem.

Jeg taler lidt på whatsapp med Sarah, vores yngste datter, der bor i Perth, Australien, sammen med Francis og deres 5-årige tvillinger, Lily og Jessie. Sarah er gået igennem sin første uge på sit nye selskab, som revisor i Consolidated Energy-selskabets financielle afdeling i Balcatta, én af de nordlige forstæder til Perth, så derfor ikke ret langt fra familiens hjem i Ocean Reef.

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

Western Australia, sammen med Francis, Sarah, og tvillingerne

Hendes første arbejdsuge er nu overstået, og den gik rimelig godt, siger hun. Men det er meget udmattende at prøve at mestre dette landsdækkende selskab økonomiske status, at lære alle sine nye kollegaer at kende, og at vænne sig til selskabets arbejdskultur osv.

Francis er stadig beskæftiget med at designe familiens nye hjem, som han håber at kunne få bygget på et stykke land i Chitterling-omegn.

Tvillingerne nyder stadig at gå i skole. De glædede sig meget til at starte den nye semester sidste tirsdag efter den nylige påskepause, hvilket er rart at høre.

Jeg har lidt alenetid, og sætter mig med computeren – desværre går der ikke lang tid, før jeg løber ind i et problem med Word-programmet og den fil, jeg skriver mine daglige gøren og laden i. Programmet forsøger konstant at ”formatere” min tekst på en eller anden måde, jeg ikke vil have. Efter 2-3 timers forsøg på at gøre filen fri for denne uønskede formatering, giver jeg op, og starter en ny fil – pokkers, sikke et dumt spild af tid. Du godeste!  Jeg må endda gå glip af min daglige eftermiddagslur, hvilket er lidt irriterende, for at sige mildt.

14:30 Jeg kører tilbage til Tewkesbury for at afhente Lois efter hendes 2 gudstjenester.  Jeg har lyst til at parkere bilen i den tætteste parkeringsplads på biblioteket. Desværre jeg får øje på byens kvindelige parkeringskontrollør, der lusker rundt på parkeringspladsen på jagt efter bilister, der ikke har stukket en en p-billet på forruden.

Pokkers! I dag bliver til en meget dårlig dag, ingen tvivl om det. Jeg har ikke lyst til at betale parkeringsafgiften for kun 5 minutters parkering. Lois dukker op og jeg henter hende, og vi kører hjem. Vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

Det er imidlertid sandt, at parkeringskontrollører, billetsælgere, kioskmænd osv nogle gange kan imidlertid være sympatiske. En lokal billetsælger, Brian Haemker, der arbejder på det elskede Water Street-parkeringshus ramte overskrifterne for nylig, da han gav Onion News-læsere nogle indsigter i hemmelighederne af sine daglige opgaver.

Den gennemsnitlige kunde på Water Street-parkeringshuset har sandsynligvis ikke lagt mærke til Brian Haemker. De har kørt forbi ham dag ind og dag ud, og antager sandsynligvis, at han bare er endnu en billetsælger. Men i virkeligheden er han meget mere.

Haemker har brugt de sidste seks år på at samle hemmelighederne om hver en afkrog af Water Street-parkeringshuset, og at hente en skattekiste af privilegerede oplysninger.

"Der er en hel række på niveau 4, der er næsten ubrugt," sagde Haemker fra sin lille kiosk. "Det er fordi det er i den modsatte ende fra elevatoren. Men der er en fodgængerbro kun et par skridt fremad, der får dig derover ganske bekvemt. Derudover er der en Coke-maskine lige der."

"Det tænker mange mennesker ikke på," tilføjede Haemker.

Haemker sagde, at bilisterne ofte overser parkeringshusets kælderniveau.

"Jeg ser det hver dag: folk starter bare op ad rampen uden at tænke," sagde Haemker. "I mellemtiden er en tredjedel af kælderen, der sidder der åbent, og det er det varmeste sted om vinteren."

Haemker sagde niveau 6 har nogle "fantastiske" parkeringspladser, og forklarer at "den ekstra indsats for at komme derhen er vel det værd."

"Niveau 6 kan ses af bilister som en sidste udvej," sagde Haemker. "Det der er lidt ironisk, for det er her, hvor de bedste tre pladser  i hele garagen er."

Da journalister spurgte ham om parkeringshusets værste pladser, udpegede Haemker dem, der ligger på første sal, tætteste på billetkioskerne, og en plads på niveau 5, der sidder på enden ved siden af trafikbanen.

"Din kofanger er dybest set garanteret for at blive bulet der," sagde han.

Haemker siger, at de mest irriterende chauffører er dem, der parkerer i parkeringshuset  i hele arbejdsdagen, men benytter sig ikke af de lavere priser for kunder, der ankommer før kl. 8.00.

"Mand, hvis bare jeg havde de ekstra fire dollars om dagen til at parkere, når jeg har lyst til det," sagde Haemker. "Selvfølgelig bliver disse fyre sandsynligvis refunderet af deres arbejdsplads, hvilket må være rart."

Haemker sagde, at han er glad for at vise chaufførerne vej mod gode pladser, men ingen beder nogensinde.

"Folk parkerer bare hvor som helst de kan finde en plads, hvilket  jeg synes er bare helt vanvittigt," sagde Haemker.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!! Men jeg lærte en masse nyttige tips fra artiklen, og jeg må prøve at huske dem, næsste gang jeg parkerer i Haemkers parkeringshus – det har jeg ikke nogen tvivl om ! Jeg er lidt af en gammel krage, og jeg har nogle gange svært ved at navigere i mørke parkeringshuse og nogle gange farer jeg helt vild for at sige mildt, og kan ikke finde udgangen. Du godeste, jeg bliver gammel, ingen tvivl om det!!!!!

16:00 Jeg går op ad loftstigen og lusker rundt på jagt efter nogle resterende uønskede bøger (fase 1 af vores downsize mini-projekt) og uønskede LP-plader eller lydbånd (fase 3 af mini-projektet), der ligger mellem bunkerne af uønskede lort i loftet.

Jeg ”finder guld” igen – en stor kasse med min svigerfars klassiske musik LP-plader, og en stor kasse med mine gamle spole-til-spole lydbånd, der daterer til mine ensomme teenage-år, da min lydbåndoptager og mine lydbånd af popmusik, optaget fra radio, var min bedste ven – hulk hulk!

Jeg slæber min svigerfars kasse med LP-plader ned ad lofstigen og lægger pladerne på en af sengene i vores ældste datter Alisons gamle værelse, ved siden af alle de andre LP-plader jeg i de seneste 2-3 dage har faldet over i loftet.

Så slæber jeg også ned ad loftstigen den store kasse med mine gamle spole-til-spole lydbånd, og med en lille smule tristhed smider jeg dem i affaldsspanden: vi har ikke noget spole-til-spole lydbåndudstyr mere, og jeg har i hvert fald stadig besiddelse af den gamle røde stil, hvor jeg noterede navnet af hver sang, samt optagelsesdatoen, og hvilken radio- eller tv-station jeg optagede den fra – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!  Men disse minder er mere værdifulde, end selve lyden af sangen, synes jeg. Man kan alligevel  høre dem hvornår som helst på YouTube.

Jeg falder også over en kasse med vores yngste datter Sarahs gamle psykologi-lærebøger, der daterer til hendes studerende-år på Lancaster-universitet. Yikes – de vejer en ton, endda paperbackene!

scenen i loftet tidligere på dagen:  loftets eneste veldokumenterede zone,

der omkranser selve loftlemmen: i forgrunden ca 25 tunge psykologi-lærebøger,

der daterer til vores datter Sarahs studerende-år på Lancaster-universitet.

mens i baggrunden ser vi en blå kasse med mine gamle spole-til-spole lydbånd,

der daterer til mine teenage-år, og en sort kasse med min svigerfars gamle LP-plader,

Yikes, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Jeg føler mig pludselig udmattet igen, men jeg havde lyst til at gøre noget fysisk, som et afløb for mine frustrationer, efter at have brugt dagen på at prøve uden succés at løse et problem med computeren og Word-programmet. Jeg havde planlagt i dag at klare så mange opgaver på min gøremålsliste, men hele planen blev til noget, ingen tvivl om det. Pokkers!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad: stegte kylling, stege kartofler, gulerødder og pastinakker – yum yum!

Vi ser lidt fjernsyn – en dokumentarfilm, der handler om kong Georg 6. og hans ”del i Hitlers undergang” ha ha!

Denne dokumentarfilm er lidt af en skuffelse, ingen tvivl om det. Dens materiale, der handler om selve kongen er utrolig tyndt, og ikke særlig vigtigt i skemaet af ting. Det ville have været langt mere interessant, at bygge en dokumentarfilm omkring helheden af MI5s utrolig sofistikerede og vellykkede ”Double Cross” operation, der ved hjælp af misinformation, dobbeltagenter osv bevidste Hitler om, at den hovedsagelige allierede invasion var planlagt at finde sted i Calais-området, med Normandie-operation som en biting eller diversion.

”Double Cross”-operationen gjorde et utrolig betydeligt bidrag til D-dags succés.  Da den tyske hær i Normandie bønfaldt Hitler om at sende forstærkninger, fortalte han dem at ”stikke af”.

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

22:00 Vi går i seng – jeg læser 20 sider af min sengetidbog, Ben Eltons ”To brødre” (danske version), før jeg glider over i søvnen – zzzzzzzz!!!!!