We drive over to Bishops Cleeve
to go shopping at the town’s greengrocer’s and at the nearby Tesco supermarket.
Afterwards, we pop into the local post office and its affiliated newsagent’s to buy a couple of children's magazines we want
to send off to Lily and Jessie, our twin grandchildren in Perth, Australia.
Unfortunately, the store only has
one copy of the "Peter Rabbit" magazine, and we usually send them two
copies, in order to cut down on the risk of quarrels. After a lot of
discussion, we decide to buy the shop's only copy, and buy a copy of the
previously untried "Milkshake". Now we can sit back and
wait for hell to break loose over there in Perth ha ha ha.
we are forced to buy a
copy
of the previously untried children's
magazine "Milkshake"
It's a bit of a shame that the
store only has one copy of "Peter Rabbit". It’s always the popular
titles that are the first to be sold out, which is a bit of a shame to put it
mildly.
Also, Lois and I note that, as
usual, the store has multiple unsold copies of the "Mauled by Bears" title
that recently featured in the Top 6 Least Popular Specialist Journals (source:
Onion News).
But why the sudden apparent lack
of interest in grease traps? It was all the rage just a few years ago. How
fleeting is fame !!!
My goodness, what a crazy world
we live in !!!
Flashback to happier times: a typical
Danish grease trap
pictured here in the device’s
"golden years"
We come home and relax with a cup
of coffee on the sofa.
12:00 We have lunch and
afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. Meanwhile, Lois pops next
door to talk to Bill, our elderly neighbour, who was recently told he had a
terminal cancer and didn't have much time left. He can no longer look after
Mary, his wife, and his family has moved Mary into a nearby nursing home, about
1 mile away from here.
Lois finds she can't talk to Bill,
however - he's being examined. Instead, she speaks a little with Debbie, Bill's
daughter, who has flown over from New Zealand to spend some time with her
father. Debbie says Bill has decided he also wants to move into some kind of
nursing home so he can get palliative care - he can't manage alone in the house
any more, apparently, especially at night when he quickly tends to get anxious,
poor Bill.
Debbie says the family has come
to the conclusion that Bill and Mary don't have to sell their house to afford nursing
home fees, which is nice. It may be that the family will decide to rent out the
house, but we are not completely sure about that.
Lois comes home.
15:30 Two of our other neighbours
pop in to see us - Stephen and Francis, who on Tuesday returned from a 3-week
vacation in Canada: mainly British
Columbia, also the Calgary area and Toronto, where they met up with one of
Stephen's old college friends and his family.
They have bought a couple of
gifts for us to thank us for looking after their house and garden in their
absence: some maple syrup, and a
decorative "tea towel" showing an example of Native American art.
They tell us that Canadians are
now deeply apologetic for the fact that their ancestors mistreated the
indigenous peoples after they first arrived from the UK and France, and also for
many years thereafter. They now refer to what we used to call “Indians”, as "First Nation" Canadians. We tell
them that a similar campaign is currently underway in Australia.
The decorative "First Nation"
tea towel, which our neighbours Stephen and Frances
bought for us when on vacation in
Vancouver, Canada: we suspect that it depicts some
kind of bird, but we are not quite sure
- the jury is still out on that one.
16:30 Stephen and Frances have to
leave. They want to pop in at Bill’s and talk a little with him and with
Debbie.
18:30 Lois and I have dinner and
spend the rest of the evening watching a bit of television. A celebrity version
of "Gogglebox" is on, a fun
program where various TV viewers look at some of the week's programmes and
comment on them from their sofas and armchairs etc.
For us the only disadvantage of
this series is that programme participants usually do not watch the kind of
programmes that Lois and I typically see, but I’m going to let that one slide,
because they’re all predominantly good-hearted ha ha ha.
We have another problem tonight -
that we do not have the faintest idea of who the majority of these
"celebrities" really are: most of them are a mixed bag of B-list
celebrities, soap opera actors and reality TV "stars".
Also, their comments are not as amusing
as the non-celebrities’ comments are, perhaps because they are part of the same
world as the programmes they are commenting on.
The ordinary people in the
non-celebrity version are very good at puncturing the bubble of pretentiousness
that television celebrities live in. But tonight, the commentators are just as
pretentious as the people they’re commenting on.
However, Lois and I have a lot of
fun tonight whenever the limelight falls on the politicians, another
pretentious bunch, to put it mildly!
The candidates for the leadership
of the Conservative Party (except Boris?) have all been competing to admit that
they abused drugs in their younger years.
Gove, like all the others, now
says he deeply regrets his "error".
Gove in happier days....
My goodness, what a crazy world
we live in !!!! I would have thought that "historical" drug abuse was
the least of their problems!!! Come back, Maggie, all is forgiven ha ha ha!
22:00 We go to bed - I read about
20 pages of my bedtime book, Ben Elton's
"Two Brothers" (Danish version), before I drift off to sleep -
zzzzzzzzz !!!!
Danish translation
10:00 Lois og jeg føler begge to, at vi for tiden mangler energi af en
eller anden grund, og vi har brug for at genoplade vores batterier. Men pligten
kalder desværre.
Vi kører over til Bishops Cleeve for at gå købe ind i byens grøntsagshandleren
og det nærliggende Tesco-supermarked. Bagefter smutter vi ind i det lokale
postkontor og dets sammenhængende
bladhandlerforretning, for at købe et par børnemagasiner, vi vil afsende til
Lily og Jessie, vores tvillingebørnebørn i Perth, Australien.
Desværre har butikken kun 1
eksemplar af ”Peter Rabbit”-magasinet og vi afsender dem normalt to
eksemplarer, for at mindre risikoen for skænderier. Efter en masse diskussion
beslutter vi at købe butikkens eneste eksemplar, og købe et eksemplar af det
hidtil uprøvet ”Milkshake”. Nu kan vi lægge hænderne i skødet og vente på, at helvede bryder løs derovre ha ha ha.
vi bliver tvunget til at købe et eksemplar
af det hidtil uprøvet børnemagasin ”Milkshake”
Det er lidt af en skam at butikken kun har et eksemplar
af ”Peter Rabbit”. Der er altid de
populære titler, som er de første til at blive udsolgt, hvilket er lidt af en
skam, for at sige mildt.
Også bemærker Lois og jeg, at som sædvanligt, har
butikken multiple usolgte eksemplarer af ”Mauled by Bears”-magasinet, der for
nylig blev fremvist i listen over Top 6 mindst populære specialist-tidsskrift
(kilde: Onion News).
Og hvorfor den pludselig tilsyneladende mangel på
interesse for fedtfælder? Det gjorde furore for kun et par år siden. Hvor er
dog berømmelse flygtig!!!
Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!
Tilbageblik til lykkeligere tider: en typisk dansk fedtfælde
i apparatets ”gyldene år”
Vi kommer hjem og slapper af
med en kop kaffe i sofaen.
12:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en
gigantisk eftermiddagslur. I mellemtiden smutter Lois ind i nabohuset for at
tale med Bill, vores ældre nabo, som for nylig blev fortalt, han havde en
terminal kræft og ikke havde meget tid tilbage. Han kan ikke passe på Mary, sin
kone, mere og hans familie har anbragt Mary på et nærliggende plejehus, omkring
1 mile væk herfra.
Lois finder, hun ikke kan tale med Bill – han er i gang med at blive
undersøgt. I stedet for taler hun lidt med Debbie, Bills datter, der har fløjet
herover fra New Zealand for at tilbringe lidt tid med sin far. Debbie siger, at
Bill har besluttet, han har lyst til selv at flytte ind i et eller andet
plejehjem så han kan få palliativ pleje – han kan ikke klare sig alene i huset
længere, i sær om natten, når han føler sig angstelig, stakkels Bill.
Debbie siger, familien er kommet til den konklusion, at Bill og Mary
behøver ikke at sælge deres hus for at have råd til at betale plejehjemgebyrer,
hvilket er rart. Det kan være, at familien vil beslutte at leje huset ud, men
det er vi ikke helt sikre på. Lois
kommer hjem.
15:30 To af vores andre naboer smutter ind hos os – Stephen og Francis,
der i tirsdag kom tilbage fra en 3-ugers ferie i Canada: British Columbia, også Calgary-området og
Toronto, hvor de mødtes med en af Stephens gamle collegeven og hans familie. De
har købt et par gaver til os, for at takke os for at passe på deres hus og have
i deres fravær: ahornsyrop, og en dekorativ ”viskestykke” med et eksempel på
indiansk kunst på.
De fortæller os, at canadierne er nu til dags i gang med at undskylde
dybt konstant, at deres forfædre behandlede dårligt den oprindelige befolkning
efter de først ankom fra Storbritannien og Frankrig og i mange år derefter. De
henviser til indianerne nu som ”first nation” canadiere. Vi fortæller dem, at der for tiden går en
lignende kampagne i gang i Australien.
Det
dekorative ”First Nation” viskestykke, som vores naboer Stephen og Frances
købte til os
på ferie i Vancouver, Canada: vi mistænker, at det skildrer en eller anden
fugl,
men det er
vi ikke helt sikre på – juryen er stadig ude om det.
16:30 Stephen og Frances skal af sted. De vil smutter ind hos Bill og
snakke lidt me hende og med Debbie.
18:30 Lois og jeg spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se
lidt fjernsyn. De viser en kendis-afsnit af ”Gogglebox”, et morsomt program, hvor forskellige tv-seerne ser på nogle af
ugens programmer og kommenterer dem i deres sofaer og lænestole osv.
For vores
vedkommende er den eneste ulempe ved dette program, at programmets deltagere
sædvanligt ikke de slags programmer, som Lois og jeg typisk ser, men det
springer jeg over.
Vi har endnu et problem i aften – at vi ikke har den fjerneste anelse
om, hvem størstedelen af disse ”kendisser” virkelig er: mange af dem er en blandet landhandling af B-liste
kendisser, sæbeoperaskuespillere og reality-tv-”stjerner”.
Også er deres kommentarer ikke så morsomme, som de ikke-kendissers,
måske fordi de er en del af samme verden, som programmerne de kommentarer. De almindelige
mennesker i den ikke-kendis version, er meget dygtige til at punktere boblen af
prætentiøshed, som tv-kendisser lever ind i. Men i aften er kommentatorerne
lige så prætentiøse, som dem, de kommentarer.
Men Lois og jeg hygger os meget i aften, da rampelyset falder på
politikerne, endnu et prætentiøst bundt, for at sige mildt!
Kandidaterne til lederskabet af det konservative parti (bortset fra
Boris?) har været i gang med at indrømme om kap, at de misbrugte stoffer i
deres yngre år.
Gove, som alle de andre, siger nu, at han dybt fortryder sin ”fejl”.
Gove i lykkeligere tider
Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!! Jeg ville have troet, at ”historisk” stofmisbrug
var de mindste af deres problemer!!! Kom tilbage, Maggie, alt er tilgivet ha ha
ha!
22:00 Vi går i seng – jeg læser ca. 20 sider af min sengetidbog, Ben
Eltons ”To brødre” (danske version), før jeg glider over i søvnen – zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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