Wednesday 31 July 2019

06:00 Lois and I wake up early in our daughter Sarah's old double bed, which we have gotten into the habit of using in the summer; the room overlooks the backyard and it is refreshing to wake up with the window wide open and listen to the birds singing, rather than listening to the traffic noise that we tend to have to endure in our normal bedroom overlooking the road. We stay in bed and I read about 20 pages of my bedtime book.

09:00 Our U3A Danish group is due to meet here tomorrow at 2:30 pm for our routine fortnightly meeting. Unfortunately this morning, Lois suddenly remembers that she has to take a second blood test at 1 pm tomorrow at our new doctors’ surgery. She took the first test 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 first blood test - damn!

Overton Park, our new doctors’ surgery

We are not absolutely sure we can be home before our Danish group meeting is scheduled to start, so in the end I decide to cancel it and postpone it until August 15th, i.e. in 14 days’ time. In any case some other members have already said that they would not be able to come tomorrow, so no big deal, I think.

It is fortunate that Lois and I switched to a new surgery in the town when the doctors in our old surgery decided to close their old premises, which was only 3 doors away from us, and move to a newly built surgery 5 miles away, on the other side of Bishop's Cleeve.

The doctors told their existing patients not to worry about how they would get to the new surgery because the Marchants bus company had 2 buses (W1 and W2) that went near the new surgery. But I read on the web a few days ago that the company has just decided to stop both the W1 and W2 bus services next October. My god, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Flashback to January: the doctors close the old surgery

and move into a new one, 5 miles away from here, the swines!!!

The brand new surgery on the other side of Bishop's Cleeve, which our former

doctors moved into 6 months ago: my goodness, those doctors were such bastards,

no doubt about that !!!!

10:00 Our U3A Danish group's current project is to read and translate into English a Danish crime novel, Anna Grue's "The Further You Fall". But yesterday I suddenly realised that members only have my vocabulary lists for the first 50 pages or so, so it is important that I prepare some more.

During the day I manage to compile vocabulary lists for the next 10 pages - unfortunately 10 pages equals only 2 fortnightly meetings - damn! I have made a rod for my own back here, no doubt about that! Damn (again) !!!!

The plot itself is very interesting however. A cleaning assistant, Lilliana, whom no one knows anything about (including even what her last name is), has been murdered (garrotted) while working late in the kitchens of a large Danish advertising agency.

Police immediately go out and pick up Benjamin, Liliana's workmate, as their first suspect - the young man has already lied to police about his movements during the evening in question. And with his various weird fashion choices (make-up, piercings, safety pins, etc.) he “looks like the prototype of a serial killer”, say some of the police, though Flemming Torp, the novel's leading police detective, doesn't himself believe that Benjamin is the killer – his view is that the young people who are most painted and pierced and tattooed and back-combed etc are in his opinion usually the softest and gentlest beneath the surface.

(from right to left) the hero of the novel, advertising man Dan Sommerdahl (Peter Mygind),

Dan's wife, Marianne (Laura Drasbæk), and Detective Flemming Torp (André Babikian)

Flemming and other police detectives are now going crazy, questioning not only Benjamin but also all the advertising agency's staff, including the agency's "big chief", Sebastian Kurt. Most of the staff break down in tears during the interrogation, while Kurt, the big chief, storms out as soon as the police are finished with him, “with a face like thunder”. Oh dear!

There is a terrible mood in the agency because of the gruesome murder that occurred the previous evening and the aggressive conduct of police interrogations, but fortunately there is always the sexy art director Fiona Krause, guaranteed to come up with some funny comments to lighten the mood.

She noted that some people have first names which are usually last names,  and vice versa, and she comments that under different circumstances, their “big chief” (Sebastian Kurt)  might have been called "Kurt Kurt", and "If Bille August had married Joen Bille, then she could have become Bille Bille”- and Fiona laughed so much that tears rolled down her cheeks, according to the story.

Atta girl Fiona – you go, girl!

She adds that while it was a bit creepy that someone had garrotted one of the agency's nice cleaning ladies just a few hours ago, people couldn't just go around crying about it all day, which seems reasonable enough ha ha!

16:00  Lois and I relax with a cup of tea and a biscuit on the couch, and afterwards, we begin to collect together some of the potentially useful kitchen utensils and the like that our daughter Sarah left with us when she and Francis, her husband, and their little twins moved to Australia in 2015.

We plan to donate all these unwanted items to a local charity shop tomorrow, as part of our current downsizing mini-project. The items include some of the wedding gifts from Sarah's first marriage (in 2001), still in their original boxes.  Please! What madness !!!!

18:00 We have dinner. Unfortunately, both of us now have back pain - damn it! Lois doesn't have the faintest idea of ​​how and when she strained her back today, but in my case it's obvious – it’s because I've spent most of the day sitting with the computer - damn (again) !!!!

19:30  Lois wanted to attend her sect's monthly business meeting  tonight in Tewkesbury library, but because of her back pain she decides to sit in the dining room and listen to the meeting by phone instead.

20:00 I settle down in the living room and watch some television, an interesting documentary about Vickers, a large British company that manufactured aircraft, ships, tanks and other weapons during World War II.

VickersListing

An interesting programme, although the programme makers choose to bombard me with statistics, which is a bit of a shame.

It is nevertheless somewhat surprising how successful Britain was in winning the "production war" against the Nazis. We were late starting, in comparison with Hitler, but soon after the beginning of the war in 1939 we had begun to manufacture many times as many weapons, planes, ships, tanks, etc. as the Nazis.

One of Germany's problems was always a relative shortage of labour. This documentary does not mention it, but I have read that the Nazis insisted that German women should stay home and look after their children, while in the UK there was no taboo about women working in the country's factories.

I am reminded of Gracie Field's famous song about "The Thingummy Bob".

Gracie Fields

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

Danish translation

06:00 Lois og jeg vækker op, i vores datter Sarahs gamle dobbeltseng, som vi har kommet i vane med at bruge om sommeren; værelset har udsigt over baghaven, og der er forfriskende, at vågne op med vinduet på vid gab og lytte til fuglene synge, i stedet for at lytte til trafiklarmen, som vi har tendens til at måtte udholde i vores normale soveværelse, der har udsigt over vejen. Vi bliver liggende i sengen en halv time og jeg læser 20 sider af min sengetidbog.

09:00 Vores U3A dansker gruppe samles hos os i morgen kl 14:30 til vores rutinemæssige fjortendagsmøde. Desværre i formiddag mindes Lois om, at hun skal tage en 2. blodprøve kl 13 hos vores nye læger. 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

Vi er ikke helt sikre på, vi kan være hjem derefter før vores danske gruppemøde er bestemt til at starte, så til sidst beslutter jeg at aflyse det og udskyde det til den 15. august, dvs om 14 dages tid. Nogle medlemmer har i hvert fald allerede sagt, at de ikke kunne komme i morgen, så ingen stor skade, mener jeg.

Det er heldigt, at Lois og jeg skiftede til et nyt lægehus i byen, da lægerne i vores gamle lægehus besluttede at lukke deres gamle lægehus, der var kun 3 døre væk herfra, og flytte til et nyt lægehus 5 miles væk, i den anden side af Bishops Cleeve.

Lægernes fortalte deres eksisterende patienter ikke at bekymre sig over, hvordan de skulle tage til det nye lægehus, fordi Marchants busselskabet havde 2 busser (W1  og W2), der kørte forbi det nye lægehus. Men jeg læste på nettet for et par dage siden, at selskabet har besluttet at stoppe både W1 og W2-busserne næste oktober. Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

Tilbageblik til januar: lægerne lukker det gamle lægehus,

og flytter ind i et nye 5 miles væk herfra

Det spritnye lægehus i den anden side af Bishops Cleeve, som vores tidligere

læger flyttede til for 6 måneder siden: du godeste, de der læger er sådanne nogle sjufter,

ingen tvivl om det !!!!

10:00 Vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt er at læse og oversætte til engelsk en dansk krimiroman, Anna Grues ”Dybt at falde”. I går blev jeg pludselig klar over, at medlemmer kun har mine ordforrådlister til de først 50 sider eller deromkring, så er det vigtigt at jeg udarbejder flere.

I løbet af dagen når jeg at udarbejde ordforrådlister til de næste 10 sider – desværre 10 sider svarer til kun 2 fjortendagsmøder – pokkers! Jeg har bindet ris til min egen bag, ingen tvivl om det! Pokkers (igen) !!!!

Selve plottet er meget interessant imidlertid. 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.

Politiet henter Benjamin, Lilianas arbejdskammerat som deres første mistænkt – den unge mand er allerede har lyvet til politiet om sine bevægelser i løbet af den pågældende aften. Og med sine forskellige modevalg (makeup, piercinger, sikkerhedsnåle osv) ligner han prototypen på en seriemorder, tror politiet, selvom Flemming Torp, romanens førende poitidetektiv, ikke tror at Benjamin er gerningsmanden – han tror faktisk, at de unge, der er allemest malet og piercet og tatoveret og touperet efter hans mening er sædvanligt de blødeste indeni.

(fra højre til venstre) romanens helt, reklamemanden Dan Sommerdahl (Peter Mygind),

Dans kone, Marianne (Laura Drasbæk), og detektiven Flemming Torp (André Babikian)

Flemming og politiets andre detektiver går nu amok i at forhøre ikke bare Benjamin, men også reklamebureauets personale, herunder bureauets ”høje chef” Sebastian Kurt. De fleste personale bryder sammen i gråd under forhøringen, mens Kurt, den høje chef, stormede ud, da de var færdige med ham, med ansigtet formørket som en tordensky.

Der er en forfærdelig stemning i bureauet på grund af den grusomme mord, der fandt sted den foregående aften, og den brutale fremfærd af politiets afhøringer, men heldigvis er der altid den sexede Fiona Krause, der er garanteret for at komme med nogle morsomme kommentarer, for at lette stemningen.

Hun har bemærkt, at nogle folk har fornavne som efternavn og omvendt, og hun kommenterer, at under anderledes omstændighederne kunne deres høje chef have heddet ”Kurt Kurt”, og ”Hvis Bille August giftede sig med Joen Bille, så kunne hun kalde sig Bille Bille” – og hun grinede så meget at tårerne løb ned over hendes kinder.

Kom så, Fiona!  Hun siger, at selvom det var lidt uhyggeligt, at der var nogen, der havde slået en af bureauets rengøringsdame ihjel, kunne folk ikke gå rundt og græde over det hele dagen, hvilket synes fornuftigt nok ha ha!

16:00 Lois og jeg slapper af med en kop te og en kiks i sofaen, og bagefter går vi i gang med at samle nogle af de potentielt nyttige køkkenredskaber og lignende, som vores datter Sarah efterlod hos  os, da hun sammen med Francis, sin mand, og deres små tvillinger flyttede til Australien i 2015. Vi planlægger at donere alle disse uønskede ting til en lokal velgørenhedsbutik i morgen. De inkluderer nogle af de bryllupsgaver fra Sarahs første ægteskab (i 2001), stadig i deres oprindelige æsker – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad. Vi har begge to desværre ondt i ryggen – pokkers! Lois har ikke den fjerneste anelse om, hvordan og hvornår hun anstrengte ryggen, men i mit tilfælde er det fordi jeg har brugt størstedelen af dagen på at sidde med computeren – pokkers (igen) !!!!

19:30 Lois havde lyst til at deltage i sin sekts månedlige forretningsmøde, der finder sted i aften i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek, men på grund af sine rygsmerter beslutter hun at sætte sig i spisestuen og lytte til mødet på nettet i stedet for.

20:00 Jeg sætter mig i stuen og ser lidt fjernsyn, en interessant dokumentarfilm, der handler om Vickers, et stort britisk selskab, der fremstillede fly, skibe, tanker og andre våben under den 2. verdenskrig.

Et interessant program, selvom programmagerne vælger at bombardere mig med statistikker, hvilket er lidt af en skam. Det er lidt overraskende, hvor succésfuld Storbritannien var i at vinde ”produktionskrigen” mod nazisterne. Vi var sent med at gå i gang, i sammenligning med Hitler, men snart efter starten af krigen i 1939 var vi begyndt at fremstille mange gange så meget våben, fly, skibe, tanker osv som nazisterne.

Ét af Tysklands problemer var altid en forholdsvisse mangel på arbejdskraft. Denne dokumentarfilm nævner det ikke, men jeg har læst, at nazisterne insisterede på, at tyske kvinder skulle forblive hjemme og passe på børnene, mens i Storbritannien var der ikke noget tabu om, at kvinder arbejder i landets fabrikker.

Jeg mindes om Gracie Fields berømte sang om ”The Thingummybob”.

Gracie Fields

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!!