Tuesday, October 15 2019

09:00 Lois and I head over to Bishop's Cleeve, a small village 3 miles north of Cheltenham to shop at the local Tesco supermarket. On the way, we pop into the Joyce Arnold greengrocery shop to buy our fruit and vegetables. Afterwards, Lois buys a skirt in TOFS (The Original Factory Shop), also a pair of flowery rubber boots at the George Lewis shoe shop - she needs a pair of rubber boots to go for walks this winter on the local football field.

Joyce Arnold (left) and her greengrocers shop

The George Lewis shoe shop 

- we don't know who the mother and child are, by the way:
they weren't still there, when we swung by yesterday, that's all we know!

Choosing shoes and boots is always difficult. Both Lois and I have a problem with one foot being bigger than the other. And Lois likes to be fashionable too, so the locals, taking a walk with the dog on the football field, don't think she's just another of the area's hundreds of old crows!

A local mum hit the headlines recently, when she recommended  a particular  pair of boots for her daughter, according to our go-to news website, the influential Onion News Local.

Claiming that the footwear in question would go well with a lot of things in her daughter's wardrobe, a local mum sent her a blurry and indistinct photo of her home computer screen Friday, apparently showing a pair of boots she might like.

“I looked at the internet and thought of you when I saw these on the Amazon site. Don't they look comfortable?" said the text message from her mother, who followed up the text with a pixelated mobile phone image of the boots in an indescribable style and colour along with several open tabs and a folder on the desk entitled" Family Photos 2014. "

“I know you mentioned last spring, that you were looking for some new boots, and these look like the pair of boots you wore when I visited you last year. Looks like they have your size too. “At press time, her mother sent her daughter a photo of the URL so she could order them when she got home.

Both Lois and I were a little jealous of the woman's daughter when we read this story, I have to admit. Because now that Lois and I are both old crows, we depend on our children to give us advice! And they are always too busy with their own children to help us - damn!

But sorry! That was a bit of a digression. Back to reality and our shopping trip in Bishop's Cleeve!

10:30 Finally, we recharge our batteries with a cup of coffee and a flapjack in Lowry’s café. Many’s the time we have popped  into Lowrys over the years, but today we are a little disappointed. The café has new owners, but our experience today is not a good omen, to put it mildly. The coffee is weaker than usual and the service is lousy - damn! Next time we will try another café, a little further down the street.

Lowry's café: is it going downhill now after being

 taken over by new owners?

11:00 We come home and rush into the shower cubicle. After lunch, I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I feel exhausted today, for some reason. I'm getting old, no doubt about that. But I sleep like a baby - yikes!

15:30 I sit down at the dining table and continue to read the 63rd chapter of Njal's saga, written in the 13th century in Iceland, although the saga itself and the events in it are much much older. Scilla's U3A Old Norse group is holding its regular fortnightly meeting here on Wednesday and this saga is the group's current project.

The big feud continues to ravage all of Iceland. It started as a simple quarrel between two women, Hallgerda and Bergthora, in the first place just because of a row over the seating plan for a feast.

Hallgerd and Bergthora's feud originally stemmed from an unexpected brawl

that broke out over a dispute about the seating plan for a feast

The feud has escalated, to put it mildly, and now the entire population of Iceland are trying to kill each other. Currently, a mass brawl is raging on a promontory next to Ring River: two heavily armed groups of men, Gunnar's gang and Starkad's gang are trying to obliterate each other.

the Battle of Ring River: two heavily armed groups of Icelanders,

Gunnar's gang and Starkad's gang, are trying to annihilate each other.

Heads can be seen flying off bodies in all directions - yikes!

And not just heads - legs too!

Kolskegg hacks off Kol's leg, and Kol takes a break for a moment to look at it. Kolskegg bawls Kol out, however, for standing and looking  at the severed leg. "You don't need to stare at it, it is just what it looks like - your leg has come off!", he says.

Kol was forced to concede the truth of this statement to  Kolskegg, I suspect. And possibly Kol may have nodded to, or gestured at, Kolskegg, just before he falls down dead, but I'm not completely sure about that. It’s just my speculation - unfortunately, the saga poet does not comment.

But I sympathise a little with Kol. A severed leg is something you do not see every day of your life - and it is worth taking a break to look at it, I have to say, even if you are just about to drop dead.

What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stop and stare, Or, obviously, "hop and stare" in Kol's case.

What is this life if full of care

We have no time to stand  hop and stare

No time to gaze on severed limbs

And pacify the pain with a pitcher of  “Pims”…

(one of my classic parodies, after WH Davies:
note my text-book use of alliteration in the last line)

17:30 We have dinner, a little earlier than usual, because afterwards Lois has to go out. She wants to attend her sect’s weekly Bible seminar, taking place tonight in Brockworth  library. She doesn't like driving a car in the dark, so she has asked me to drive her over to her friend Frans's house. And then Fran will drive her the rest of the way.

19:00 I come home and relax with a cup of coffee. I have a little alone time and watch a little television, the latest episode of a Channel 5 documentary series about the Tower of London.

Before we started watching this TV series, Lois and I did not know that until the 19th century the Tower complex also housed a mini-zoo, dating from the 13th century onwards, until it finally closed in the 1830’s. It contained lions, tigers, baboons, an elephant and even a polar bear.

The polar bear was a gift from the Norwegian king, in 1252. It was kept on a leash, and allowed to catch fish in the River Thames. My god, what a crazy world they lived in, in those times !!!

Today, all these wonderful animals have disappeared, which is a bit of a shame. And now there are only a bunch of crumby statues to remind us of the Tower’s glorious past as a zoo.

Tonight I hear exactly why the animals disappeared in the 1840’s. When the Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), who won the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, saved Europe from Napoleon and started a century of peace on the continent, finally retired, he was appointed "Constable of the Tower".

He was immediately astonished by the chaos he found in the complex - animals wandering here and there, and Yeoman Warders ("beefeaters") running amok, permanently drunk and getting into fights, extorting money from visitors and suchlike. And on top of that, the moat was an open sewer - all of the complex's toilets ran off into the moat - it must have stunk to high heaven, to put it mildly.

The Duke had been known in the army for his strict discipline - his nickname was "The Iron Duke". And he set out to clean up the entire complex - he drained the moat, found good homes for the animals, and fired all the Yeoman Warders, replacing them with retired soldiers and officers.

What a man! And he was also a Conservative Prime Minister - twice!

Come back, Arthur, all is forgiven ha ha! We need you today, to put it mildly.

You won't have to drain any moats, the way Trump wanted to "drain the swamp". You just need to find good homes for Boris and Jeremy, and for some of the dumber MPs, so that the more sensible ones can get on with the job ha ha ha!

22:00 Lois returns from Brockworth. I go to bed, but she needs to relax a little and wind down after the evening’s  stimulating Bible seminar.

I have got into the habit of choosing her “wind-down” programme for her. I'm so warm-hearted ha ha!

Today I chose a famous movie from the 1960’s: "The Girl With Green Eyes" starring Rita Tushingham, and also Peter Finch, a film set in Dublin, in the "swinging 60’s".

Lois wakes me up when she jumps up into bed with me at midnight, and we talk a bit about the movie. Rita plays a young woman who has been brought up in the countryside  in a house covered with pictures of the Pope and Jesus’s bleeding hearts and suchlike, so she moves to Dublin to get some excitement into her life. She meets a married English writer, played by Peter Finch, and they go to bed together. The relationship goes downhill though - they are from different worlds after all. By the end of the movie, Rita decide to move to London to start a new little life.

Very nostalgic, says Lois, except for the pictures of the pope and the bleeding hearts, etc. - we were both teenagers in the early 1960’s.

Lois, as a teenager, to the left, on the bed

Lois in her room

Happy times !!!!!

- zzzzzzzz !!!

Danish translation: tirsdag den 15 oktober 2019

09:00 Vi kører over til Bishops Cleeve, en lille landsby, der ligger 3 miles nord for Cheltenham for at købe ind på det lokale Tesco-supermarked. På vej kigger vi ind i Joyce Arnold-grøntsaghandleren for at købe vores frugt og grønt. Bagefter køber Lois en nederdel i TOFS (The Original Factory Shop), også et par blomstrede gummistøvler i George Lewis-skobutikken – hun trænger til et par gummistøvler til at gå ture i vinter på den lokale fodboldbane. 

Joyce Arnold-grøntsaghandleren

George Lewis-skobutikken

Det er altid svært at vælge sko og støvler. Begge Lois og jeg har et problem med, at den ene fod er større, end den anden. Og Lois kan godt lide også at være moderagtig, så de lokale indbyggere, i gang med at gå en tur med hunden på fodboldbane, ikke synes, hun bare er endnu én af områdets hundredvis af gamle krage!

En lokal mor ramte overskrifterne for nylig, ved at anbefale et speciel par støvler til sin datter, ifølge vores go-to nyhedswebsted, det indflydelsesrige Onion News Local.

En lokal mor, efter at hun påstod, at det pågældende fodtøj ville gå fint med en masse ting i hendes datters klædeskab, sendte hende et sløret og utydeligt foto af sin hjemmecomputerskærm fredag tilsyneladende med et par støvler, hun måske kunne lide.

”Jeg kiggede på internettet og tænkte på dig, da jeg så disse på Amazon-webstedet. Ser de ikke komfortable ud? ” stod der i sms’en fra moren, der fulgte sms’en op med et pixeleret mobiltelefonbillede af støvlerne  i en ubeskrivelig stil og farve sammen med flere åbne tabs og en mappe på skrivebordet med titlen “Familiefotoer 2014.”

“ Jeg ved du nævnte sidste forår, du ledte efter nogle nye støvler, og disse ser ud som det par støvler, du havde på dig, da jeg kom på besøg hos dig sidste år. Det ser ud til, at de også har din størrelse. ” På pressetidspunkt sendte moren sin datter et foto af URL'en, så hun kunne bestille dem, da hun kom hjem.

Vi var lidt jaloux på kvindens datter, da vi læste denne historie, det må jeg indrømme. For nu, hvor Lois og jeg er begge to gamle krager, afhænger vi af vores børn for at give os råd! Og de er altid for travlte med deres egne børn til at hjælpe os – pokkers!

Men undskyld! Det var lidt af et sidespring. Tilbage til virkeligheden og vores indkøbstur i Bishops Cleeve!

10:30 Til sidst genoplader vi vores batterier med en kop kaffe og en flapjack i Lowrys-caféen. Vi har mange gange smuttet ind i Lowrys gennem årene, men i dag er vi lidt skuffet, for at sige mildt. Caféen har nye ejere, men vores oplevelse i dag varsler ikke ret godt, for at sige mildt. Kaffen er svagere, end normalt, og betjeningen er elendig – pokkers! Næste gang vil vi afprøve en anden café, lidt videre ad gaden.

Lowry’s café: går den nu ned på bakke, efter den for nylig blev overtaget af nye ejere?

11:00 Vi kommer hjem og skynder os ind i brusekabinen. Efter frokost går jeg  seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg føler mig udmattet i dag, af en eller anden grund. Jeg bliver gammel, ingen tvivl om det.  Men jeg sover som en baby – yikes!

15:30 Jeg sætter ved spisebordet og fortsætter med at læse det 63. kapitel af Njals saga, skrevet i det 13. århundrede i Island, selvom selve sagaen og begivenhederne derinde er meget meget ældre. Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige fjortendagsmøde på onsdag hos os og denne saga er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Den store fejde fortsætter med at hærge hele Island over. Det startede som et simpelt skænderi mellem to kvinde, Hallgerda og Bergthora, først over bordplanen til en fest.

Hallgerd og Bergthoras fejde stammede oprindeligt

fra en uforventet slagsmål, der brød ud over bordplanen til en fest

Fejden har eskaleret, for at sige mildt, og nu er hele befolkningen i gang med at prøve at dræbe hinanden. I øjeblikket hærger et masseslågsmål på et forbjerge ved siden af Ring-å: to tungt bevæbnede grupper mænd, Gunnars bande og Starkads bande prøver at tilintetgøre hinanden.

slaget ved Ring-å:  to tungt bevæbnede grupper islændinge,

Gunnars bande og Starkads bande prøver at tilintetgøre hinanden.

Hoveder kan ses flyvende af kroppe i alle retninger – yikes!

Og ikke bare hoveder – ben også. Kolskegg skiver Kols ben af, og Kol tager en pause for at se på den et øjeblik. Kolskegg  skælder Kol ud imidlertid for at stå og kigge på den skilte ben. Han siger, ”Du har ikke brug for at kigge på den, den er, som den ser ud – din ben er gået af.”

Det bliver Kol tvunget til at give Kolskegg ret i, mistænker jeg. Og muligvis nikker Kol til Kolskegg, lige inden, han falder ned død, men det er jeg ikke helt sikker på – dette aspekt skriver sagadigteren desværre ikke noget om.

Men eg sympatiserer lidt med Kol. En skilt ben er noget, man ikke ser hver dag af sit liv – og det er det værd at tage en pause for at kigge på den, det må jeg nok sige, selvom man er lige ved at dø.

What is this life if full of care

We have no time to stand and stare

No time to gaze on severed limbs

And soothe the pain with several “Pims”…

(en af mine klassiske parodier, efter WH Davies)

17:30 Vi spiser aftensmad, lidt tidligere, end normalt, fordi Lois bagefter skal ud. Hun ønsker at deltage i sin sekts ugentlige bibelseminar, der finder sted i aften i byen Brockworths bibliotek. Hun kan ikke lide at køre bil i mørket, så hun har bedt mig om at køre hende over til hendes veninde Frans hus. Fran vil køre hende resten af vejen.

19:00 Jeg kommer hjem og slapper af med en kop kaffe. Jeg har lidt alenetid og ser lidt fjernsyn, altså det seneste afsnit i en Channel 5 dokumentarserie, der handler om Tower of London.

Før vi begyndte at  se på denne tv-serie, vidste Lois og jeg ikke, at komplekset husede også indtil for nylig en mini-zoologisk have, der daterede fra det 13. århundrede og deromkring, indtil 1830’erne. Det indeholdt løver, tigre, bavianer, en elefant og endda en isbjørn.

Isbjørnet var en gave fra den norske konge, i 1252. Det var beholdt på en læsse, og tilladt at fange fisk i floden Thames. Du godeste, sikke en skør verden, de levede i, i de der tider!!!

I dag er alle disse vidunderlige dyr forsvundet, hvilket er lidt af en skam. Der er kun nogle elendige statuer, der minder os om kompleksets herlige fortid som zoologisk  have.

I aften hører jeg, præcis hvorfor dyrene forsvandt i 1840’erne. Hertugen af Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), der vandt slaget ved Waterloo i 1815, reddede Europa fra Napoleon og startede et århundrede af fred på kontinentet, gik endelig på pension, og han blev udnævnet til ”Kommandant i Tower”.

Han blev umiddelbart forbavset af kaosset han fandt i komplekset – dyre, der løb på kryds og tværs, og Yeoman Warders (”beefeaters”) der gik amok, konstant berusede og rodende sig ind i slagsmål, afpressende besøgere penge og den slags. Og oven i købet var voldgraven en åben kloak – alle kompleksets toiletter løb af i voldgraven – det må have stinket lang væk, for at sige mildt.

Hertugen havde været kendt i hæren for sin strenge disciplin – hans øgenavn var ”The Iron Duke”. Og han begav sig til at rense hele komplekset op – han fik voldgraven drænet, fand hjemmer til dyrene, og fyrede alle de Yeoman Warders, udskiftende dem med pensionerede soldater og officere.

Sikke en mand! Og han var også en konservativ premierminister – to gange!

Kom tilbage, Arthur, alt er tilgivet ha ha ! Vi trænger til dig i dag, for at sige mildt.

Du behøver ikke dræne nogle voldgrave, den måde, Trump havde lyst til at ”dræne sumpen” på. Du behøver bare at finde pæne hjemmer til Boris og Jeremy og nogle af de dummeste MP’er, så de fornuftigere kan komme videre med deres arbejde ha ha ha!

22:00 Lois kommer tilbage fra Brockworth. Jeg går i seng, men hun trænger til at slappe lidt af og geare ned efter aftenens stimulerende bibelseminar.

Jeg er kommet i vane med at vælge hendes ”nedgearende” program. Jeg er så varmhjertet ha ha!

I dag har jeg valgt en berømt film fra 1960’erne :  ”The Girl With Green Eyes” stjernespækket Rita Tushingham, også Peter Finch, en film, der spiller sig ud i Dublin, i de ”svingende 60’er”.

GreenListing

GreenBlurb

Hun vækker mig, da hun hopper op i sengen til mig ved midnatstid og vi snakker lidt om filmen. Rita spiller en ung kvinde, der er blevet opdraget ude på lande i et hus dækket med billeder af paven og Jesus blødende hjerte og den slangs, så hun flytter til Dublin for at få sig lidt begejstring i sit liv. Hun møder en gift engelsk forfatter, spillet af Peter Finch, og de går i seng sammen. Forholdet går ned ad bakke imidlertid – de er fra anderledes verdener trods alt. Ved slutningen af filmen beslutter at flytte til London for at starte et nyt lidt liv.

Meget nostalgisk, siger Lois, bortset fra billederne af paven og de blødende hjerter osv – vi var begge to teenagere i 1960’erne.

Lois, til venstre, som teenager

Lykkelige tider!!!!!

– zzzzzzzz!!!