Danskcolin: Thursday 1 August 2019

08:00 Lois and I get up early with the idea of missing out on our normal shower . We want to head over early to the small town of Bishop's Cleeve, and donate to a local charity shop some of the unwanted kitchen utensils and the like which our 42-year-old daughter Sarah left with us when she moved to Australia in December 2015 with Francis and their (then) 2 and a half year old twin daughters, Lily and Jessie.

But the plan doesn't come to fruition because Lois suddenly remembers that Ian, our friendly local window cleaner is coming to us at 9 am to do his usual work. We decide to postpone our visit to the charity shop till tomorrow. It's impossible to park in front of the store after 10 am or so, damn it!

09:00 I start reading some pages of Chaucer's medieval poem "The Miller’s Tale", because Lynda's U3A medieval group is holding its regular monthly meeting tomorrow, and this tale is the group's current project.

The Miller's Tale

The story is one of the bawdiest in the book, the Canterbury Tales - all the elements are there already - a rich older man, John, a carpenter who has foolishly married a sexy, young, 18-year-old teenage girl, Alison.

The author immediately comments that this kind of arrangement is not the best from the husband’s point of view, if he does not want his circle of friends laughing at him behind his back, as soon as the young girl’s eyes begin to wander.

The couple own a youth hostel in Oxford, where a young astronomy student, Nicholas, is staying, and right from the start we find the young man's hands already on Alison's thighs and crotch - my god, what a madness !!!

To begin with, Alison refuses to kiss him back, and she's about to tell him to take his hands off her: and that's where the group stopped reading at the end of last month's meeting.

At the beginning of this month's excerpt, Alison has agreed to let Nicholas have a quickie, and when it’s finished he buggers off somewhere. But he’ll be back, he says. He has greater ambitions, as far as Alison is concerned - he wants to spend a whole night with her, and to do so in her marital bed.

Finally Nicholas and Alison come up with a complicated plan to arrange for Alison's husband, John, to be out of the way, so they can fulfil Nicholas' ambitions.

They put the plan into operation: Nicholas, who is an "astronomy" student, tells John that he has read in the stars that Noah's biblical flood is about to repeat itself. He persuades John to make three 1-person boats, one for each o them to sleep in - to be on the safe side, in case the flood starts - which the silly man then does.

The following evening, John, Alison and Nicholas all go to bed each in their own little boat, but as soon as John falls asleep, exhausted after his day's work, Nicholas and Alison creep back to Alison's marital bed to enjoy a marathon session of what the Danes call "sheet gymnastics".

Silly old John, making 3 small boats,

in case Noah's biblical flood recurs - what madness !!!

Good grief, what a sick world we live in !!!!

10:00 Ian, our friendly local window cleaner, finishes his work and goes off, so we can now hop into the shower.

10:30 We tumble out of the shower, and I get a phone call from Lynda: she says she has decided to cancel her U3A Middle English group's monthly meeting, scheduled for tomorrow (Friday) because only 2 members (me and Margaret, as well as Lynda herself) are able to come - damn!

I tell her that I have already studied the lines of the "Miller's tale" that she had assigned to me, but she assures me that she just wants to postpone the meeting until September, so all my hard work will not be wasted, which is reassuring.

This week has been an extraordinary week, in terms of appointments and events that have come to nothing or gone wrong for some reason:

Monday: Lois and I get the time of our neighbour Bill's funeral ceremony wrong: we show up late and discover that the ceremony is already over.

Tuesday: My "Hungarian hour" with my friend "Magyar" Mike is postponed to Wednesday, but then cancelled completely (first because of Mike's appointment with his dentist, and then because of his unexpected back pain)

Thursday: Our U3A Danish group meeting is cancelled because only one member can attend, apart from Lois and me.

Friday: Lynda's U3A Middle English group meeting is cancelled because only 2 members (plus Lynda herself) can attend.

And Lois' "Baby Bounce & Rhyme" session at the local library is not happening now: staff have told her that the summer break has started, so the next session will be in September.

My god, what an unpredictable world we live in !!!!

12:30 We drive over to our new doctor's surgery so Lois can take a second blood test. She took the first one a few weeks ago, but the doctor's receptionist then called us and asked Lois to take a second test, to clarify a couple of anomalous results from the 1st test - damn!

Overton Park, our new doctor’s surgery

13:30 We come home and hop into our daughter Sarah's old double bed for a couple of hours. Sarah's old room overlooks the backyard and it is soothing to be lying in the bed, listening to the birds singing, rather than listening to the traffic noise that we hear in our normal bedroom.

Sarah's old bedroom window overlooking the backyard,

so quiet and peaceful - lovely !!!!

16:00 We get up and relax with a cup of tea and a biscuit on the terrace.

17:00 I read 2 more pages of the Danish crime novel, Anna Grue's "The Further You Fall", which is our U3A Danish group's current project.

Anna Grue's novel, "Deep to fall,"

our U3A Danish group’s current project

Anna Grue, the author of the novel

The plot is fascinating, I have to say. A cleaning assistant, Lilliana, whom no one knows anything about (including what her last name is), has been murdered (garrotted) while working late in the kitchens of a large Danish advertising agency.

No one who works at the advertising agency really knows Lilliana or has exchanged more than a few words with her. Today, one of the agency’s staff, Christoffer, suddenly recalls seeing Lilliana with a friend of the same age or so, both sitting together and having a coffee in a local cafe - the friend is a black woman, "very black" - Christoffer says he has never seen anyone who has such dark skin. And the friend's hair was braided in a “million long, thin braids”, gathered together at the neck with a strip of fabric. My god, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Dan, the hero of the crime novel, an advertising man and amateur detective who works at the same agency as Lilliana, hears Christopher's anecdote about the black woman and promises to pass it on to Flemming, his friend in the local police.

Fascinating !!!! If the police can pick up this black woman, they might get their hands on the first really detailed information about Lilliana, which will be good.

18:00 Lois and I have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching a bit of television. An interesting documentary is on, all about Winston Churchill's mansion, Chartwell, in the county of Kent. The programme's hosts are the charming Alan Titchmarsh, the former TV gardener, and Dan Jones, the young archaeologist.

It is nostalgic for Lois and me to see Chartwell again, which we visited 20 years ago with our daughter Sarah.

Tonight we also see one of the secret underground bases that Churchill had had built along the coast. And we see graffiti that the soldiers left on the walls of the tunnels: their names, for example, or their amateurish carvings: and a "stick-man" with a bomb about to hit him on the head - that one is Lois' and my favourite carving.

Sometimes the simplest art is the most effective ha ha ha !!

We are shown the tunnels at Fan Bay, Kent

a "stickman" with a bomb about to hit him on the head -

sometimes the simplest art is the most effective ha ha ha !!!!

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

Danish translation: torsdag den 1. august 2019

08:00 Lois og jeg står tidligt op med det formål af, at gå glip af vores normale brusebad og køre over til den lille by Bishops Cleeve, og donere til en lokal velgørenhedsbutik nogle af de uønskede køkkenredskaber og lignende, som vores 42-årige datter Sarah efterlod hos os, da hun i december 2015 flyttede til Australien sammen med Francis og deres (dengang) 2,5 årige tvillingedøtre, Lily og Jessie.

Men planen bliver ikke til noget, fordi Lois pludselig mindes om, at Ian, vores lokale vinduespudser kommer kl 9 hos os for at lave sit sædvanlige arbejde. Vi beslutter at udskyde vores besøg hos velgørenhedsbutik til i morgen. Det er umuligt at parkere foran butikken efter kl 10 eller deromkring – pokkers!

09:00 Jeg går i gang med at læse nogle sider af Chaucers middelengelske digt ”Møllerens fortælling”, fordi Lyndas U3A middelengelske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige møde i morgen, og denne fortælling er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Møllerens fortælling

Fortællingen er én af de mere sjofle i bogen – alle de elementer er dér allerede – en rig ældre mand, John, en tømrer, der giftede sig med en sexet, ung, 18-årig teenagepige, Alison. Forfatteren kommenterer med det samme, at denne slags arrangement er ikke den bedste fra mandens synspunkt, hvis han ikke vil have sin omgangskreds til at grine af ham bag hans ryg, så snart hendes øjne begynde at vandre.

Parret ejer et vandrehjem i Oxford, hvor en ung astronomi-studerende, Nicholas, opholder sig, og allerede lige fra starten er den unge mands hænder på Alisons lår og skridt – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!! For at begynde med, nægter Alison at kysse ham tilbage, og hun er i gang med at fortælle ham, han må tage hænderne væk fra hende: og det var dér, gruppen holdt op med at læse på sidste måneds møde.

I begyndelsen af denne måneds uddrag har Alison aftalt at give Nicholas et quickie, og bagefter stikker han af for øjeblikket. Men han har større ambitioner, hvad angår Alison – han har lyst til at tilbringe en hel nat med hende i hendes ægteskabelige seng.

Endelig kommer Nicholas og Alison med en kompliceret plan om at arrangere fraværet af Alisons mand, John, så de kan opfylde Nicholas' ambition.

Nicholas, en ”astronomi”-studerende, fortæller John, at han har læst i stjernene, at Noas bibeliske oversvømmelse er ved at gentage sig. Han overtaler John at lave tre 1-persons både, som de alle tre kan sove i – hellere være på den sikre side - hvilket den fjollede mand gør. Den følgende aften går John, Alison og Nicholas alle tre i seng hver i deres 3 spritnye små både, men så snart John falder i søvn, udmattet efter dagens arbejde, kryber Nicholas og Alison tilbage til Alisons ægteskabelige seng for at nyde en maratonsession af dét, danskerne kalder ”lagengymnastik”.

Den fjollede John, i gang med at lave 3 små både,

for det tilfælde, at Noas bibeliske oversvømmelse gentager sig – sikke et vanvid!!!

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

10:00 Ian, vores venlige lokale vinduespudser, skal af sted, og vi smider tøjet og hopper ind i brusekabinen.

10:30 Da vi vælter ud af brusekabinen, ringer Lynda til mig: hun siger, at hun har besluttet at aflyse sin U3A middelengelske gruppes månedlige møde, der var bestemt til i morgen (fredag) kl 14:30, fordi kun 2 medlemmer (mig og Margaret, samt selve Lynda) kan komme – pokkers! Jeg fortæller hende, at jeg allerede har studeret de linjer af Chaucers ”Møllerens fortælling”, som hun havde tildelt mig, men hun forsikrer mig, at hun bare vil udskyde mødet til september, så vil alt mit hårde arbejde ikke være spildt, hvilket er beroligende.

Denne uge har været en ekstraordinær uge, hvad angår aftaler og arrangementer, der er ikke blevet til noget, eller som er gået forkert af en eller anden grund:

Mandag: Lois og jeg får tiden af vores nabo Bills begravelsesceremoni forkert: vi dukker sent op og opdager, at ceremoniet allerede er slut.

Tirsdag: Min ”ungarske time” med min ven ”Magyar” Mike bliver udskudt til onsdag, men så aflyset fuldstændigt (først på grund af Mikes aftale hos sin tandlæge, og derefter på grund af hans uforventede rygsmerter)

Torsdag: vores U3A danske gruppes møde bliver aflyst, fordi kun ét medlem kan komme.

Fredag: Lyndas U3A middelengelske gruppes møde bliver aflyst, fordi kun 2 medlemmer (plus selve Lynd) kan komme.

Lois’ ”Baby Bounce & Rhyme”-session på det lokale bibliotek sker ikke: personalet har fortalt hende, at sommerpausen er startet, så den næste session først vil være i september.

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

12:30 Vi kører over til vores nye lægehus, så Lois kan tage en 2. blodprøve. Hun tog den første for et par uger siden, men lægehusets receptionist ringede til os derefter og bad Lois om, at tage en 2. blodprøve, for at klargøre et par afvigende resultater fra den 1. blodprøve – pokkers!

Overton Park, vores nye lægehus

13:30 Vi kommer hjem og hopper ind i vores datter Sarahs gamle dobbeltseng i et par timer. Hendes gamle værelse har udsigt over baghaven og det er beroligende at ligge inde i sengen og lytte til fuglene synge, snarere, end den trafiklarm, vi hører i vores normale søveværelse.

Sarahs gamle soveværelsevindue med udsigt over baghaven,

så stille og rolig – dejligt!!!!

16:00 Vi står op og slapper af med en kop te og en kiks på terrassen.

17:00 Jeg læser endnu 2 sider af den danske krimiroman, Anna Grues ”Dybt at falde”, som er vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt.

Anna Grues krimiroman, ”Dybt at falde”, vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt

Anna Grue, romanens forfatterinde

Plottet er meget interessant, det må jeg nok sige. En rengøringsassistent, Lilliana, som ingen ved noget om (inklusive hendes efternavn), er blevet myrdet (garrotteret), mens hun arbejdede sent på aften i køkkenet af et stort dansk reklamebureau.

Ingen, der arbejder hos reklamebureauet virkelig kender Lilliana og har næsten ikke vekslet et par ord med hende. I dag mindes en af bureauets personale, Christoffer, at han har set Lilliana med en veninde i samme alder, eller deromkring, sidde begge to sammen og drikke en kaffe i en lokal café – veninden er en sort kvinde, ”meget sort” – Christoffer siger, han aldrig har set nogen, der har så mørk hud. Og venindens hår var flettet i en million lange, tynde fletninger, samlede i nakken med en strimmel stof. Du godeste, sikke et skør verden vi lever i!!!!

Dan, krimiromanens helt, en reklamemand og amatørdetektiv, der arbejder hos samme bureauet som Lilliana, hører Christoffers anekdote om den sorte kvinde, og lover at give den videre til Flemming, sin ven i det lokale politi.

Fascinerende!!!! Hvis politiet kan hente denne kvinde, vil de måske få fat i de første virkelig detaljerede oplysninger om Lilliana, hvilket vil være godt.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. De viser en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Winston Churchills palæ, Chartwell, i grevskabet Kent. Programmets vært er de charmerende Alan Titchmarsh, den tidligere tv-gartner, og Dan Jones, den unge arkæolog.

Det er nostalgisk for Lois og mig at se Chartwell igen, som vi besøgte for ove 20 år siden, sammen med vores datter Sarah.

I aften ser vi også en af de hemmelige undergrundsbaser, som Churchill fik bygget langs kysten. Og vi ser graffiti, som soldaterne efterlod på væggene af tunnellerne: deres navne for eksempel, eller deres amatøragtige billedskæringer: en ”stickman” med en bombe, der er ved at ramme ham på hovedet er Lois’ og min yndlingsskæring.

Nogle gange er den simpleste kunst den mest effektiv ha ha ha!!