Thursday, October 10 2019

09:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower cubicle and after breakfast I start cleaning and vacuuming in the living room, because our U3A Danish group is holding its regular fortnightly meeting here this afternoon and we do not want the other members to come to the conclusion that we live like pigs ha ha ha!

Most importantly, Lois and I have been trying for years to shake off our house’s former image as "Cheltenham's answer to Kilty's Court" - a reference to the notorious American trailer park that hit the headlines almost exactly 20 years ago, after a study conducted by leading local sociologist Dr. Terry Atkins (source: the influential news site, Onion News).

Flashback to March 1999: the notorious American trailer park,

Kilty’s Court, hits the headlines .... and for all the wrong reasons!

11:00 Our neighbour, Bob, swings by. He offers us half of one of his vegetable marrows, and Lois offers him a tub of our raspberries in return. Bob has spotted that strips of protective plastic around our windows facing the road have begun to loosen, and are about to fall off. Damn – there’s also something going wrong when you have a big house!

12:30 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 2 pm and prepare for our Danish group meeting.

14:30 The group members call at the door and we read another 4 pages of Anna Grue's crime novel, "The Further You Fall", which is the group's current project. We have also now begun to speculate as a group about the precise circumstances of the murder, and about the personality of one of the police's first suspects, which is nice and also stimulating.

Anna Grue's crime novel "The Further You Fall",

our U3A Danish group’s current project

A cleaning assistant, Lilliana, whom no one knows anything about (including not even her last name), has been murdered (actually garotted - ugh, creepy!) whilst working late at night in the kitchen of a major Danish advertising agency.

Police are in the process of giving the agency’s staff a little traditional “third-degree”, one by one, in an attempt to identify the murderer. And we read about employees coming out of the makeshift interrogation room one by one, with tears running down their cheeks, or with faces like thunder, and that kind of thing.

One of them, Fiona Krause, pulls a Kleenex out of "a hiding place somewhere in her dress", and our female group members start an interesting discussion about exactly what places they use as their personal hiding places for paper handkerchiefs, which I find very instructive, not to mention a bit mind-blowing  - good grief!

a distraught Fiona Krause pulls  a Kleenex out from “a hiding place somewhere

in her dress ” after a bit of “third-degree “ from the local police detectives

The meeting ends, but members carry on sitting and chatting in our living room for another 40 minutes. Eventually, they leave and Lois and I can relax with a cup of tea and a Danish pastry - yum yum!

We are totally exhausted, to put it mildly, after the usual preparations for the group meeting, and finally, leading the actual meeting - yikes, what a day. We're getting old, no doubt about that.

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching some television, the first episode in a series about the pre-baby boom generations, who went through at least one, and in some cases, two, world wars, plus the Great Depression of 1929 and the 1930’s, etc. These survivors are now some of the nation's oldest inhabitants, needless to say.

Some of those who participate in the programme are very old - older than "old crows": "old pterodactyls" maybe? Vera Price in Bristol turned 110 recently.

Lois and I try to discover these people’s  secret - why have they been able to live so long? First and foremost, it is striking that they are all very positive and cheerful, which could be an important clue, I have to say.

On the other hand, it’s possible that the programme-makers also approached a bunch of pessimistic, grumpy nonagenerian old buggers,  who told them to piss off, so that’s something we're not completely sure about. The jury is still out on that one.

However, all in all, we are inclined to believe that a positive attitude must not be such a bad thing. We must try to keep that in mind.

And it is interesting to hear the experiences of the soldiers who in 1940 were saved by all the small boats from the Dunkirk beaches, and about their return to England. They were apparently all a little depressed when they arrived back at Folkstone - they thought they had failed. But they were hailed as heroes by the ordinary people: again, a positive attitude can do wonders, no doubt about that.

Militarily of course, it was a defeat, and a big one, no question about that. But psychologically it did no harm that it was immediately looked on positively, as a minor miracle - getting 300,000 men back to fight another day, far more than had been expected.

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

Danish translation: torsdag den 10. oktober 2019

09:00 Lois og jeg vælter ud af brusekabinen og efter morgenmad går jeg i gang med at rydde op og støvsuge i stuen, fordi vores U3A danske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige fjortendagsmøde i eftermiddag hos os, og vi vil ikke have de andre medlemmer til at komme til den konklusion, vi lever som svine ha ha ha!

Først og fremmest har Lois og jeg forsøgt i årevis at ryste af os vores forrige image som ”Cheltenhams svar til Kilty’s Court” – en henvisning til den notoriske amerikanske trailer-park, der ramte overskrifterne for næsten nøjagtig 20 år siden, efter en undersøgelsen udført af den ledende sociolog  dr. Terry Atkins (kilde: det indflydelserige nyhedswebsted, Onion News).

Tilbageblik til mars 1999: den notoriske amerikanske trailer-park,

rammer overskrifterne ....og af alle de forkerte grunde!

11:00 Vores nabo, Bob, ringer på døren. Han tilbyder os en halvdel af én af sine mandelgræskar, og Lois byder ham en bøtte af vores hindbær til gengæld. Bob har spottet, at en stribe af beskyttende plastik omkring vores vinduer ud mod vejen er  begyndt at blive løs, og er ved at falde af. Pokkers!

12:30 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 14 og forbereder mig på vores danske gruppes møde.

14:30 Gruppens medlemmer ringer på døren og vi læser endnu 4 sider af Anna Grues krimiroman, ”Dybt at falde”, der er gruppens nuværende projekt. Vi er begyndt også at spekulere som en gruppe om de præcise omstændigheder af mordet, og om personligheden af én af politiets første mistænkte, hvilket er rart, og også stimulerende.

Anna Grues ”Dybt at falde”, vores U3A danske gruppes

nuværende projekt

En rengøringsassistent, Lilliana, som ingen ved noget om (inklusive hendes efternavn), er blevet myrdet (faktisk garrotteret – ugh, uhyggeligt!), mens hun arbejdede sent på aften i køkkenet af et stort dansk reklamebureau.

Politiet er igang med at give bureauets personale lidt traditionelt tredjegradsforhør én efter én, i et forsøg på, at identicere gerningmanden. Og vi læser om medarbejdere, der kommer en efter en ud af det interimistiske forhørsrum, med tårerne løbende ned kinderne, eller lignende en tordensky, og den slags.

En af dem, Fiona Krause, haler en Kleenex ud fra ”et gemmested inde i alle gevandterne”, og vores kvindelige gruppemedlemmer starter en intessant diskussion om, præcis hvilke steder de bruger som deres personlige gemmesteder til papirlommetørklæder, hvilket jeg selv finder meget belærende, for ikke at sige lidt sindsblæsende – du godeste!

en fortvivlet Fiona Kraus haler en Kleenex ud fra ”et gemmested inde i

alle gevandterne” efter lidt tredjegradsforhør fra siden af det lokale kriminalpoliti

16:00 Mødet slutter, men medlemmer bliver siddende og snakkende i vores stue i endnu 40 minutter. Til sidst tager de af sted, og Lois og jeg kan slapper af med en kop te og et wienerbrød – yum yum!

Vi er totalt udmattede, for at sige mildt, efter de sædvanlige forberedelser på gruppemødet, og til sidst, dét, at styre selve mødet – yikes, sikke en dag. Vi bliver gamle, ingen tvivl om det.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, det 1. afsnit i en serie om præ-babyboom-generationer, der gik gennem én, og i nogle tilfælde, to verdenskrige, også den store depression af 1929 og 1930’erne osv. De overlevende er nu landets ældste indbyggere, unødvendigt at sige.

Nogle af dem, der deltager i programmet, er meget gamle – ældre, end ”gamle krave”: ”gamle flyveøgle” måske. Vera Price i Bristol fyldte 110 for nylig.

Lois og jeg forsøger at opdage disse menneskers hemmelighed – hvorfor har de kunnet leve så længe? Først og fremmest er det iøjenfaldende, at de er alle meget positive og muntre, hvilket kunne være et vigtigt spor!

På den anden side, kan det være sandt, at programmagerne hendvendte sig også til en flok pessimistiske gnavne kandidater, der fortalte dem til at pisse af, så det er vi ikke helt sikre på. Juryen er stadig ude om det.

Men vi hæler imidlertid til at tro, at et positiv holdning ikke er sådan en dårlig ting trods alt. Det må vi prøve at huske på.

Og det er interessant at høre oplevelserne af de soldater, der i 1940 blev reddet af alle de små både fra Dunkirk-strandene og deres hjemkomst til England. De var lidt deprimerede, da de ankom til Folkstone – de syntes, de var mislykkedes. Men de blev hilset som helte af de almindelige mennesker: igen en positiv holdning kan gøre underværker, ingen tvivl om det.

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzz!!!!