Friday January 31 2020

The morning is hijacked by a shopping trip to Bishop's Cleeve: food shopping at Joyce Arnold’s, the local greengrocer’s, and the Tesco supermarket.

local celebrity Joyce Arnold on the left, 

in front of her greengrocer's store

Bishop's Cleeve's local Tesco supermarket

Afterwards, we recharge our batteries in Lowry’s café with a cup of coffee and a flapjack. It's only 10:30 am, so we manage to steal a march on the area's old folks into the bargain - the usual influx of local old crows usually starts between 10:45 and 11 am: they haven't shown up yet, so Lois and I can grab the cafe's "good" sofa on the ground-floor, which is nice!

Lowry's café

Lois and I steal a march on the area's old crows,

and grab the cafe's "good" sofa, which is nice!

As we sit and sip our coffee, we pack up two copies of "Peter Rabbit" children's magazine and a couple of children's books into a large jiffy bag, and fill out the customs label and customs declaration so we can take the bag along to the local post office: we want to ship the magazines and books to Lily and Jessie, our 6-year-old twin grandchildren in Perth, Australia.

Lois and I are typical old crows, and we have created a system of reminder emails to remind us whenever a new edition of Peter Rabbit has come out – my god, what madness !!!!

an excerpt from our Peter Rabbit children's magazine reminder email

- my god, what madness !!!!

11:30  By now the cafe is packed with other old crows, as expected - and some are watching us closely. They can see we are getting ready to leave, and they’re all hoping they can grab the café's "good" sofa for themselves as soon as we disappear – sheer insanity!!! We go along to the post office and drive home again. What a morning – and the whole “escapade” has taken 2 and a half hours - yikes!

I take a look at my smartphone. Our daughter Alison has sent me an email saying that her daughters, Josie (13) and Rosalind (11) are planning to go on a school outing to the Netherlands, along with other members of their high school girls soccer team. How exciting! The team plans to raise the money they need by organising a sponsored walk / run. I contact Alison and agree to contribute some of the money they need.

an excerpt from Josie and Rosalind's sponsorship form

Both Josie and Rosalind are crazy about girls’ soccer, to put it mildly, and they have been to many Arsenal and Chelsea women's soccer matches in the past few months. And they have personally met some of Arsenal's Dutch stars and Chelsea's Swedish stars, which is nice.

Rosalind (left) and Josie (right) with

Chelsea's Millie Bright

flashback to November: Rosalind (left) with 2 of Arsenal women's soccer team’s

Dutch stars: Danielle van der Donk (right) and Jill Roord (standing behind)

- my god, what an incredible experience!

12:00 Lunch and a gigantic afternoon nap.

16:00 We relax with a cup of tea and a pastry. For the past few days, I've been trying to persuade Lois to organise her family history computer files into a single folder so I can download them onto one of my shiny new memory sticks, but she tends to postpone this kind of task, and I don’t blame her - it's not the most fascinating task imaginable, no doubt about that.

I want to upgrade our biggest computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10, maybe on Sunday: the upgrade of my laptop went like clockwork a few weeks ago, and I'm very eager to complete the upgrade of our other computer while it's still free of charge, I have to say.

I don't like Windows 10, I have to admit that. But gradually, I am coming across ways to get around all the many things the Windows 10 system does not do as well as its predecessor. In fact, I am creating a simulated pseudo-Windows 7 environment, it has just occurred to me haha.

18:00 We have dinner and afterwards we settle down again on the sofa and watch some television, an entertaining episode of "The Goes Wrong Show" which proved that these amateurish, slightly accident-prone actors, despite their snafus etc, can achieve some limited success in moving their audience with this emotional period romance - tears flowed, no doubt about that: one spectator was taken out on a stretcher during tonight's performance, which speaks volumes, Lois and I think.

We have only a couple of criticisms - a few eye-catching snafus, which incredibly are not noticed by the rest of the cast or by the audience in the auditorium, but Lois and I certainly noticed: we may be just a pair of old crows, but it's hard to pull the wool over our eyes!

And we wonder if some other TV viewers noticed the foul-ups too. The first one happens when one of the housekeeper's obviously false boobs (two cheap party balloons, it seems) flies away: the actress in question must have caught the balloon and hid it back under her blouse again, but it doesn't look as good as it did before , we have to say!

(this is the moment the "boob" flies off into the distance!)

(boob safely back under the blouse again, but doesn't look 

quite right still, Lois and I think!)

And did anyone else notice that the allegedly disabled ex-American football star, who has apparently broken both legs and has  to sit in a wheelchair all day, got up a few times during the play? That wasn't very professional either, Lois and I think.

Good grief, what a crazy world we live in !! Standards are not what they were, no doubt about that !!!!

22:00 We go to bed - I read about 20 pages of my bedtime book before drifting off to sleep - zzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish  translation: fredag den 31. januar 2020

Formiddagen er hijacket af en indkøbstur i Bishops Cleeve: madindkøb hos Joyce Arnold, den lokale grønthandlerforretning, og Tesco-supermarkedet.

Joyce Arnold til venstre, foran sin grønthandlerforretning

Bishops Cleeves lokale Tesco-supermarked

Bagefter genoplader vi vores batterier i Lowrys-caféen med en kop kaffe og en flapjack. Det er kun kl 10:30, så lykkes det os at komme områdets oldinge i forkøbet – den sædvanlige tilstrømning af lokale gamle krager starter normalt mellem 10:45 og kl 11: de er ikke dukket op endnu, så Lois og jeg kan snuppe caféens ”gode” sofa i etagestuen, hvilket er rart!

Lowrys-caféen

Lois og jeg kommer områdets gamle krager i forkøbet,

og snupper caféens ”gode” sofa, hvilket er rart!

Mens vi sidder og nipper til vores kaffe, pakker vi to eksemplarer af ”Peter Rabbit”-børnemagasin og et par børnebøger i en stor jiffypose, og udfulder toldetiket og tolddeklaration, så vi kan tager posen hen til det lokale postkantor: vi ønsker at afsende magasinerne og bøgerne til Lily og Jessie, vores 6-årige tvillingebørnebørn i Perth, Australien.

Lois og jeg er typiske gamler krager, og vi har oprettet et system af rykkeremails, for at minde os om, at en ny udgave er blevet publiseret – du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

et uddrag fra vores Peter Rabbit-børnemagasin rykkeremail

- du godeste, sikke et vanvid!!!!

11:30 Caféen er nu propfyldt med andre gamle krager, som forventet – og nogle holder øje med os. De kan se, vi forbereder os på at tage af sted, og de håber alle, de kan snuppe caféens ”gode” sofa for sig selv, så snart vi forsvinder – sikke et vanvid!!! Vi går hen til postkontoret og kører hjem igen. Sikke en formiddag – det hele eskapade har taget 2 og en halv timer – yikes!

Jeg kigger lidt på min smartphone. Vores datter Alison har sendt mig en email, hvor der står, at hendes døtre, Josie (13) og Rosalind (11)  planlægger at deltage i en udflugt til Holland, sammen med andre medlemmer af deres højskoles pigefodboldhold. Hvor spændende! Holdet planlægger at samle pengene de har brug for ved at organisere en sponsoret gåtur/løbetur. Jeg kontakter Alison og aftaler at bidrage med nogle af de penge, de har brug for.

et uddrag fra Josie og Rosalinds sponsoreringsformular

Både Josie og Rosalind er vilde med pigefodbold, for at sige mildt, og de har været til mange Arsenal og Chelsea damefodboldkampe i de seneste få måneder. Og de har mødt personligt nogle af Arsenals hollandske stjerner og Chelseas svenske stjerner, hvilket er rart.

Rosalind (til venstre) og Josie (til højre) sammen med 

Chelseas Millie Bright

tilbageblik til november: Rosalind (til venstre) sammen med 2 af Arsenals damefodboldholds

hollandske stjerner: Danielle van der Donk (til højre) og Jill Roord (stående bagved)

- du godeste, sikke en utrolig oplevelse!

12:00 Frokost og en gigantisk eftermiddagslur.

16:00 Vi slapper af med en kop te og et wienerbrød. Jeg har i de seneste få dage prøvet at overtale Lois til at organisere sine familiehistorie-computerfiler i én enkelt folder, så jeg kan downloade dem på én af mine spritnye hukommelsestikke, men hun har tendens til at udskyde denne slags opgave, og jeg bebryder hende ikke – det er ikke det mest fascinerende opgave, man kan forestille sig, ingen tvivl om det.

Jeg ønsker at opgradere vores største computer fra Windows 7 til Windows 10, måske på søndag: opgraderingen af min bærebare gik som urværk for nogle uger siden, og jeg er meget ivrig efter at fuldføre opgraderingen af vores anden computer, mens den stadig er gratis, det må jeg nok sige.

Jeg kan ikke lide Windows 10, det må jeg indrømme. Men gradvist falder jeg på måder at komme udenom alle de mange ting, systemet ikke gør så godt som dens forgænger. Faktisk skaber jeg et simuleret pseudo-Windows 7 miljøet, er det lige nu gået op for mig haha.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad og bagefter sætter vi os til rette i sofaen igen og se lidt fjernsyn, et underholdende afsnit af ”The Goes Wrong Show”, som beviste på, at disse amatøragtige skuespillere, på trods af deres bommerter osv, kan opnå en vis grad begrænset succés med at røre deres publikum med denne følelsmæssig periode-romantik - tårerne flød, ingen tvivl om det: én tilskuer blev fjernet på en båre under aftenens forestilling, hvillket taler volumer, synes Lois og jeg.

Vi har kun et par kritikker – et par iøjenfaldende bommerter bliver ikke bemærket af resten af skuespillere eller af publikummet i salen, men Lois og jeg lagde mærke til dem: vi er måske bare et par gamle krager, men det er svært at stikke en blå i vores øjne!

Og vi undrer os, om nogle andre tv-seere lagde mærke til bommerterne også. Den første skete, da en af husholderskens åbenbart forlorne patter (to billig festballoner, lader det til) flyver væk: den pågældende skuespillerinde må have fanget ballonen og gemt den igen under sin bluse, men det ser ikke sࣸå godt ud,som det gjorde før, det må vi nok sige!

det øjeblik, én af de forlorne patter, flyver væk i det fjerne

Patten gemt under blusen igen, men den ser ikke helt rigtig ud, synes vi !

Og lagde nogen anden mærke til, at den angiveligt handicappede eks-fodboldstjerne, der tilsyneladende har brækket begge ben og er nødt til at sidde i en kørestol hele dagen, rejste sig op et par gange i løbet af teaterstykket? – hvilket var ikke helt professionelt, synes Lois og jeg.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !! Standarder er ikke det, de engang var, ingen tvivl om det!!!!

22:00 Vi går i seng – jeg læser omkring 20 sider af min sengetidbog, før jeg glider over i søvnen – zzzzzzz!!!!!