Thursday December 5 2019

09:00 Lois and I tumble out of the shower cabin and after breakfast we start cleaning up the house and vacuuming everywhere, because our U3A Danish group is holding its regular fortnightly meeting at our house this afternoon.

This is the last group meeting before Christmas, and Lois intended to make Danish biscuits or similar, but we run out of time finally, and decide to serve some store-bought biscuits for them instead - a bit of a shame, but we are nonetheless after all, just two old crows - yikes!

Fortunately, as it turns out later, the group's only genuine Danish member, Jeanette, a Dane who lives not far from here with her English partner, brings a tub of genuine Danish ginger biscuits that she made today, which is nice.

Jeanette, our U3A Danish group's only genuine Danish member,

pictured here in happier times ha ha ha!

12:00 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 2pm and get ready for our Danish group meeting. I step out of the house to move our car slightly to the right so there is more room for the members' cars. I usually park right in the middle of the parking area in front of our house so others can't park there ha ha ha! When all is said and done, I'm just a sad old mean toxic bastard ha ha ha (again) !!!!

After moving the car, I walk 100 yards down the road in the direction of the village - all morning Lois and I have been hearing the noise of a demolition machine, which this morning began tearing down the old medical centre 3 doors away from here.

The doctors closed the surgery in January, and moved to a brand new medical centre, 5 miles away, on the other side of the small town of Bishop's Cleeve. They have sold the land around the old medical centre to a construction company, and the company has now been allowed to start building 6 houses there, all 6 houses being very narrow and very close to each other in the modern style, to maximize the construction company's profits.

They were such bastards, those doctors !!!!

flashback to January: the doctors close the old medical centre,

without even sending their patients a letter about it ! My god!

They move into a new surgery, 5 miles away from here.

The old one-storey medical centre can be seen in the background behind Lois.

The doctors' plans to tear down the old surgery

and have 6 new houses built on the land

My goodness - they were such jerks, those doctors !!!!

Today I have my camera with me and want to take a souvenir photo of the start of the demolition, but unfortunately the construction company has installed some barriers and thee also happens to be a large ambulance parked right in front of the construction site entrance, damn it!

You can only see a little bit, but the entrance to the old medical centre has already been torn down - no doubt about that.

The demolition of the old medical centre

is now in full “swing” (geddit?) - damn!

14:30 Our Danish group members call at the door and we study Danish for an hour and a half. Our progress today is a little disappointing - we manage to read only 4 pages of our Danish crime novel, Anna Grue's "Deep to Fall", instead of our usual 5, but there is a lot of chit-chat, more than usual, about Christmas plans and the like, so we actually have a lot of fun today. And Jeanette's homemade Danish biscuits taste very good, I have to say. Yum yum!

Jeanette's tub of Danish ginger biscuits:

there are not many left by the end of the meeting -

no surprise there: yum yum!

The meeting ends, but the members stay sitting in our living room for 30 minutes or so, and continue to talk about this and that. Eventually, they leave, and Lois and I can relax with a cup of tea on the couch. We are completely knocked out, as always after a "Danish" day. We are getting old fast, no doubt about that - yikes !!!!

18:00 We have dinner and spend the rest of the evening watching some television, the latest edition of "Who Do You Think You Are", a series about genealogical studies revolving around the ancestors of some celebrity or other. Tonight's episode is about the “dwarf” (what’s the PC for that????) comedian and movie star Warwick Davis's family origins.

An interesting programme, and very enjoyable, partly because of Warwick’s engaging personality.

It turns out that one of Warwick’s ancestors in the 19th century was illegitimate, even though the child's parents married a few years later - but then this marriage was in itself illegal, because his father was already married to another woman whom he had already had 5 children by: my goodness, what a crazy world we live in !!!

Another ancestor caught syphilis while working at a WWI munitions factory and sadly died in his 30’s, although the explanation handed down within the family was that he developed a mental illness from working with cordite in the factory. My god, family pride !!!

A 3rd ancestor, by the name of Dennis Manning, Warwick's great-grandfather, was a musician, a very respectable profession at the time, but in his case not so "respectable" today from the perspective of political correctness.

As a violinist, singer and possibly also comedian, Manning became a member of an American music and comedy troupe that were touring the UK in 1858-9 - for some unknown reason, the troupe were missing a violinist and Dennis got the job. The troupe had actually performed in front of Queen Victoria at some stage in their tour.

The problem for us today is that, in at least a part of their show, the troupe blacked up their faces using make-up and parodied contemporary European ideas about stereotypical black people's behaviour, and the like.

Poor Warwick - he had a lot of ancestors that he can't boast too loudly about!!! Including a bigamist and a "minstrel" – good grief, what madness !!!!

But isn’t genealogy totally fascinating? Who would want to study anything else ??? !!!!!!

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

Danish translation: torsdag den 5. December 2019

09:00 Lois og jeg vælter ud af brusekabinen og efter morgenmad går vi i gang med at rydde op i huset og støvsuge overalt, fordi vore U3A danske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige fjortendagsmøde i eftermiddag hos os. Dette er det sidste gruppemøde før jul, og Lois havde til hensigt at lave danske kiks eller lignende, men endelig løber vi fri for tid, og beslutter at servere nogle butikkøbte kiks for dem i stedet for – lidt af en skam, men vi er dog trods alt bare to gamle krager – yikes!

Heldigvis, som det viser sig senere, medbringer gruppens eneste ægte danske medlem, Jeanette, en dansker, der bor ikke særlig langt herfra med sin engelske partner, en bøtte med ægte danske ingefær kiks, hun har lavet i dag, hvilket er rart.

Jeanette, vores U3A danske gruppes eneste ægte danske medlem,

afbildet her i lykkeligere tider ha ha ha!

12:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en kort eftemiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 14 og forbereder mig på vores danske gruppemøde. Jeg træder ud af huset for at flytte vores bil lidt til højre, så der er mere plads til medlemmernes biler. Jeg parkerer normalt helt i midten af det parkeringsområde, der ligger foran vores hus, så andre ikke kan parkere der ha ha ha! Når alt kommer til alt, er jeg bare en trist gammel giftig sjover ha ha ha (igen) !!!!

Efter jeg flytter bilen, går jeg hen 100 meter ned ad vejen i retning af landsbyen – hele formiddagen har Lois og jeg hørt larmen fra en nedrivningsmaskine, der i morges begyndte at rive det gamle lægehus ned 3 døre væk herfra.

Lægerne lukkede centret i januar, og flyttede til en spritny lægehus, 5 miles væk herfra, i den anden side af den lille by Bishops Cleeve. De har solgt jorden omgivende det gamle lægehus til et byggefirma, og firmaet har nu fået lov til at starte at bygge 6 huse der, alle 6 meget smalle og meget tætte på hinanden på den moderne måde, for at maksimere byggefirmaets profiter.

De er sådanne nogle sjovere, de der lægere!!!!

Tilbageblik til januar: lægerne lukker det gamle lægehus,

og flytter ind i et nyt, 5 miles væk herfra.

Det én-etagers gamle lægehus kan ses i baggrunden bag Lois.

Lægernes planer om at reve det gamle lægehus ned

og få 6 nye huse bygget på jorden

Du godeste – de var sådanne nogle sjufter, de der læger !!!!

Jeg har mit kamera med, og har lyst til at tage et souvenirbillede af starten på nedrivningen, men desværre har byggefirmaet installeret nogle barrierer, og også tilfældigvis holder en stor ambulance lige foran indgangen til byggepladsen – pokkers! Men man kun se en lille smule, og entréen til det gamle lægehus er allerede blevet revet ned – ingen tvivl om det.

Nedrivningen af det gamle lægehus

er nu i dag allerede i fuld gang – pokkers!

14:30 Vores danske gruppes medlemmer ringer til døren og vi studerer dansk i en time og en halv. Vores fremskridt i dag er lidt skuffende – det lykkes os at læse kun 4 sider af vores danske krimiroman, Anna Grues ”Dybt at falde”, i stedet for vores sædvanlige 5, men der foregår en masse snik-snak, mere, end normalt, om juleplaner og den slags, så faktisk hygger vi os meget. Og Jeanettes hjemmelavede danske kiks smager meget godt, det må jeg nok sige. Yum yum!

Jeanettes bøtte med danske ingefær kiks:

der er ikke mange tilbage ved slutningen af mødet –

ingen overraskelse der: yum yum!

16:00 Mødet slutter, men medlemmerne bliver siddende i vores stue i 30 minutter eller deromkring, og fortsætter at snakke om dette og hint. Til sidst tager de af sted, og Lois og jeg kan slappe lidt af med en kop te i sofaen. Vi er helt slåed ud, som altid efter en ”dansk” dag. Vi ældes hurtigt, ingen tvivl om det – yikes!!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, det seneste afsnit af ”Who Do You Think You Are”, en serie, der handler om genealogiske undersøgelser, der kredser om forfædrene af en eller anden kendis. Aftenens afsnit handler om dværgkomikeren og filmstjernen Warwick Davis’ familieoprindelser.

En interessant program. Det viser sig, at én af Davis’ forfædre i 1800-tallet var illegitim, selvom barnets forældre giftede sig et par år senere med hinanden – men dette ægteskab var i sig selv ulovligt, fordi faren allerede var giftet med en anden kvinde, som han allerede havde haft 5 børn med: du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!

En anden forfæder blev smittet af syfilis, mens han arbejdede på en krigsmaterielfabrik under den 1. verdenskrig, og han døde desværre i 30’erne, selvom forklaringen, der blev overleveret indenfor familien var, at han pådrog sig en psykisk sygdom af at arbejde med cordit i fabrikken. Du godeste, familiestolthed!!!

En 3. forfæder, ved navnet Dennis Manning, Warwicks tipoldefader, var en musiker,  en helt respektabel profession på det tidspunkt, men i hans tilfælde ikke så ”respektabel” i dag på grund af politisk korrekthed.

Som violinist, sanger og muligvis også muligvis komiker,  var han et medlem af en amerikansk musik- og komedietrup, der 1858-9 var på turné i Storbritannien – af en eller anden ukendt grund manglede truppen en violinist, og Dennis fik jobbet. Truppen havde faktisk optrådt foran dronning Victoria på et eller andet stadie af turnéen.

Problemet i dag er, at de i mindst en del af deres show, "malede" truppen sværtede sine ansigter ved brug af make-up og parodierede stereotypiske sorte menneskers adfærd, og den slags.

Stakkels Warwick – han havde en masse forfædre, som han ikke kan prale af for højlydt!!! Inklusive en bigamist og en ”minstrel” – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

Er genealogi ikke totalt fascinerende. Hvem ville ønske at studere noget andet???!!!!!!

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzz!!!!