Friday December 6 2019

05:00 I get up early and sit down with the computer. Lois and I have two 6-year-old twin grandchildren - Lily and Jessie - in Australia, and one of the benefits of the time difference is that I can look online early in the day here, and see what the twins have been up to earlier "this morning" in their elementary school – they were actually having some kind of "baking lesson" and I have never seen Lily so "engaged" in anything quite as much as in this at school - my goodness!

Lily - girl no. 3 from left -

Jessie, Lily's twin, sits on Lily's left

Lily - no. 2 from left

Lily front left, Jessie back left – and the group now have their party hats on

How cute they are though !!!!!

Good grief - is Lily going to be a future TV "Bake-Off" champion maybe?

08:00 I make two cups of tea and take them up to the bedroom. Lois and I stay in bed for a while and I show her the pictures from Australia on my smartphone.

09:00 We roll out of bed and after breakfast I sit down at the dining table and read 6 pages of Sir John Mandeville's "Travels", written in the middle of the 13th century in Middle English. Lynda’s U3A Middle English group is holding its regular monthly meeting this afternoon in the bar of the town’s Everyman Theatre, and this book is the group’s current project.

I am a little disappointed when I see the section chosen by Lynda - an incredibly boring account of Mandeville's travels in the Holy Land and environs. His description mentions a lot of place names and lists what Bible story played out in each place - I'm sure such information was very fascinating to Mandeville's medieval readers because they would get to realise, perhaps for the first time, that places in the Bible was actually real places, but for today's readers, it's all a bit bland, to put it mildly!

It is especially disappointing considering that I know very well that some of Mandeville's other chapters contain descriptions of amazing monsters, such as the one-eyed Cyclops, also cannibals, and men whose heads grew underneath their shoulders, and the like, all tribes that he allegedly came across while on his travels. Damn!

a typical Cyclops of the kind Mandeville saw on his travels

And why aren’t we reading the chapter about the island where grooms pay professional "gigolos" to "take their bride's virginity" on their wedding night. In every town on the island there was a "corps" of these gigolos who lived by having intercourse with the city's “just married” young virgins.

The custom apparently stemmed from a widespread fear that inside each virgin's body lived a poisonous snake that tended to pop out and give the man a deadly bite while the woman's first intercourse was in full swing. Good grief, what a crazy world they lived in in those times!!!!

a nervous bridegroom waits anxiously beside the bed,

while a professional gigolo "takes the bride's virginity"

12:15 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 1:30 pm and take the bus into town. I happen to see Charlie, my former boss, taking the same bus, and we are able to talk about "the good old days" at work, which makes the journey a lot more fun.

I get off in front of the M&S department store and walk around the corner to the Everyman Theatre on Regent Street. I order a cup of coffee and a piece of cake in the theatre’s café, and at 2:30 pm I go up the stairs to the bar where Lynda's meeting is about to start.

14:30 The meeting starts - there are 6 of us in total, the whole group is here, which is nice. And despite the boredom of much of the text, which begins with a description of the Dead Sea (3 miles from Jericho) and the Jordan River, we nevertheless manage to have a lot of fun, which is nice. But we are, after all, in a bar, and maybe the alcohol is helping us a little.

the beginning of Chapter 9 - not one of Mandeville's best, in my opinion

but I’m going to let that one slide because we are sitting at a bar

and there is (almost) unlimited alcohol available ha ha ha!

16:00 The meeting ends and I take the bus home again. I feel totally exhausted, but Lois and I relax with a cup of tea and a pastry on the couch.

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching some television, the latest edition of Gogglebox, a fun programme where a bunch of now famous "ordinary TV viewers" comment on the week's programmes from the comfort of their sofas and armchairs.

During the programme tonight we see two of Gogglebox's most long-standing participants, the middle-aged Jennie and her best friend Lee, who live in Hull, Yorkshire.

Jennie may be getting to be a bit of an old crow now, because her knees are starting to creak a little. Welcome to the club, Jennie ha ha ha!

When she was out shopping recently, she saw a nice pair of boots that she thought would give her knees some good support, but fortunately her best friend Lee is there for her yet again with some up-to-date info, and he wastes no time in advising her against them.

Poor Jennie! And I suspect she might be glad now that she didn't buy a pair of these so-called "slut boots". However, knee support is very important for us old crows.

It's a bit of a shame that the producers can't make a pair of slut-boots  that perhaps don't look quite so sexy, so we old wrecks can chug our way around town without our knees creaking,  I have to say. Could these special slut-boots perhaps have an NHS logo on the front, for example?

But that’s something Lois and I are 100% sure about, so the jury is still out on that one. We need some kind of feasibility study, I suppose. Good grief, what madness !!!!

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

Danish translation: fredag den 6. december 2019

05:00 Jeg står tidligt op og sætter mig med computeren. Lois og jeg har 2 6-årige tvillingebørnebørn – Lily og Jessie - i Australien, og ene af fordelene med tidsforskellen er, at jeg kan kigge på nettet og ser, hvad tvillingerne er blevet i gang med ”i morges” i deres folkeskole – det var faktisk en slags ”bagning lektion”, og jeg har aldrig set Lily så engageret i noget, som i dette – du godeste!

Lily – pige nr. 3 fra venstre –

Jessie, Lilys tvilling sidder på Lilys venstre hånd

Lily – nr 2 fra venstre

Lily foran til venstre – gruppen har sine festhatte på

Hvor er de dog søde!!!!!

Du godeste – er Lily en fremtidig  ”Bagdystmester” måske?

08:00 Jeg laver to kopper te og tager dem op på soveværelset, og Lois og jeg bliver liggende lidt i sengen, og jeg viser hende billederne fra Australien på min smartphone.

09:00 Vi vælter ud af sengen og efter morgenmad sætter jeg mig ved spisebordet og læser 6 sider af Sir John Mandevilles ”Rejseskildringer”, skrevet i midten af 1300-tallet på middelengelsk. Lyndas U3A middelengelske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige månedlige møde i eftermiddag på baren af byens Everyman-teater, og denne bog er gruppens nuværende projekt.

Jeg bliver lidt skuffet, da jeg ser det afsnit, som Lynda har valgt – en utrolig kedelig beretning om Mandevilles rejser i det hellige land og deromkring. Hans beskrivelse nævner en masse stednavne, og lister hvilket bibelhistorie spillede sig ud i hvert sted – jeg er helt sikker på, at sådanne nogle oplysninger var meget fascinerende for Mandevilles middelalderlige læsere, fordi de ville blive klar, måske for første gang, at stederne i bibelen faktisk var relle steder, men for nutidens læsere, er det hele lidt intetsigende, for at sige mildt!

Det er især skuffende i betragtning af, at jeg ved godt, at nogle af Mandevilles andre kapitler indeholder beskrivelser af fantastiske monstre, såsom de enøjede kykloper, også kannibaler osv, som han angiveligt så på sine rejser. Pokkers!

en typisk kyklop fra perioden

Og hvorfor læser vi ikke det kapitel, der handler om den ø, hvor brudgomme betaler professionelle ”gigoloer” for at ”berøve deres bruds uskyld” om bryllupsnatten.  I hver by på øen var der et ”korps” af disse gigoloer, der levede af at have samleje med byens unge jomfrubrud. Vanen stammede fra en udbredte frygt for, at inde i hver jomfrus krop levede en giftig slange, som havde tendens til at poppe ud og give manden et dødeligt bid, mens kvindens første samleje var i fuld gang. Du godeste, sikke en skør verden de dengang levede i !!!!

en brudgom venter ængsteligt ved siden af sengen,

mens en professionel gigolo ”berøver brudens uskyld”

12:15 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 13:30 og tager bussen ind i byen. Tilfældigvis finder jeg, at Charlie, min tidligere chef, også tager bussen, og vi kan snakke om ”de gode gamle dage” på arbejdet. Jeg står af foran M&S-stormagasinet og går hen rundt om hjørnet til Everyman-teatret på Regentgade. Jeg bestiler en kop kaffe og et stykke kage på teatrets café, og kl 14:30 går jeg op ad trappen til baren, hvor Lyndas møde er ved at starte.

14:30 Mødet starter – vi er 6 i alt , hele gruppen er her, hvilket er rart. Og på trods af kedsomheden af meget af teksten, som begynder med en beskrivelse af det Døde Hav (3 miles fra Jeriko) og Jordanfloden, lykkes det os imidlertid at hygge os meget, hvilket er rart. Men vi er på baren, og måske hjælper alkoholen os lidt – du godeste!

starten på kapitel 9 – ikke en af Mandevilles bedste,efter min mening

men det springer jeg over, fordi vi sidder på en bar, og der er alkohol til rådighed ha ha ha!

16:00 Mødet slutter og jeg tager bussen hjem igen. Jeg føler mig helt udmattet, men vi slapper af med en kop te og et wienerbrød i sofaen.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, det seneste afsnit af Gogglebox, et morsomt program, hvor disse nu berømte ”almindelige tv-seere” kommenterer ugens programmer fra deres komfortable sofaer og lænestole.

I løbet af programmet  ser vi i aften to af Gogglebox-programmets mest langvarige deltagere, den midaldrende Jennie og hendes bedste ven Lee, der bor i Hull, Yorkshire.

Jennie er måske ved at blive lidt af en gammel krage, fordi hendes knæ er begyndte at knirke lidt. Velkommen til klubben, Jennie ha ha ha!

Da hun for nylig var på indkøb, så hun et pænt par støvler, som hun syntes ville give knæene god støtte, men heldigvis er hendes bedste ven Lee der for hende en gang til, og han spilder ingen tid med at fraråde hende.

Stakkels Jennie! Og jeg mistænker, at hun måske er glad for, at hun ikke købte et par af disse såkaldte ”slut-støvler”. Men knæstøtte er imidlertid meget vigtig for os gamle krager. Det er lidt af en skam, at producenterne ikke kan fremstille et par slutstøvler, som ikke ser så sexede ud, så vi gamle vrag kan tøffe rundt i byen, uden at vores knæ knirker – det må jeg nok sige. Kunne disse specielfremstillede støvler måske have en NHS-logo på forsiden, for eksempel?

Men det er Lois og jeg ikke 100% bombesikre på, så er juryen stadig ude om det. Vi har brug for en eller anden slags gennemførlighedsstuddie, formoder jeg. Du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!