Danskcolin: Wednesday June 30th 2021

09:00 Lois and I (mostly Lois) do some more work on our mystery relative David, that my sister Gill's DNA sample matches with. David is an online journalist working for the BBC, and Lois and I have been working on finding David's half-brother. Both David and his half-brother were adopted soon after their births, which could have been some years apart. We'll call the half-brother "Mr. X".

a typical DNA test result from ancestry.com

We (and also Gill) are looking at a family where the foster parents adopted a total of 7 children over a period of years, probably in the 1950's and 1960's, three boys and four girls. We believe that "Mr X" is one of these three boys. Where are they now? We don't know - but it's possible that one of the boys is a doctor in the Midlands: it isn't certain, although we've managed to find a picture of the guy. However, we have managed to trace one of the girls, Anna, and we know her married name and address for sure, which is good.

Adoption is a touchy issue, and you have to be careful not to progress too precipitously. Gill is biding her time, waiting for BBC journalist David to react and say what he wants. Presumably he wants to find out who his blood-relatives are, or else he wouldn't have sent his DNA sample in to the data bank. But we will have to tread very carefully when it comes to contacting Anna, in case she or her foster brothers and sisters don't want David to contact them.

Complications, complication! And sensitivities, sensitivities! Oh my god!!!

12:30 Just before lunch I get a text from Lily, one of our twin granddaughters in Perth, Australia. The twins will be turning 8 towards the end of next month (July) and they've got to the stage when they like to get hold of Mummy's phone and send messages and even pictures, which is nice for Lois and me.

Is it not worth all the money in the world to have grandchildren, even if they live 9,000 miles away, who think enough of us to send us little texts and pictures like this? [Right, that's it! You've used that phrase once too often! Next time you try to use it, you'll be barred! - Ed]

Lois and I have visited our daughter Sarah and her family in Perth twice, in 2016 and 2018. I've tried to analyse the Australia accents we have heard there, without much success. But Perth is a special case because there are so many Brits living there anyway.

flashback to Christmas Day 2020: (left to right: Francis,

Jessie, Lily and Sarah

Lois and I used to get the bus into Perth city centre about 10 am and we used to chat with the other old codgers doing the same thing. Many of them were Brits who had gone over there in the 1950's and 1960's when the Australian Government were trying to encourage as many Brit immigrants as possible, and so only charged them £10 a head. These were the so-called "£10 Poms".

Fortunately today on the quora forum website, one of our favourite Australian pundits, Reese Mac, has been weighing in on the vexed subject of Australian accents. Reese has lived in Australia for 50 years, so he's a good enough guide, to my way of thinking anyway - call me gullible if you like! [All right! - Ed]

Reese says, "While I hesitate to use the class system to express the distinctions, Australia does in reality have a class system, though it's less ingrained than the British one. But it's worth noting that the boundaries between the classes in Australia are far greyer than in Britain.

There are three main Australian accents: 'Refined', 'general' and 'broad'.

'Refined' is almost British, upper middle class.

'General' is somewhere in between and accounts for the majority of Australians, particularly urban middle classes.

'Broad' is most often spoken by lower and lower working classes particularly in regional areas.

Beyond this however general speakers (the majority of Australians) have the innate ability to switch seamlessly between all three depending upon the social situation.

A friend of mine on Quora once put it like this:
“ 'Refined' is what we might use when we are having tea with the governor, 'general' is what we use with our employers, teachers and mothers, while 'broad' is what we use when we are on a building site or down the pub with our mates”

Which is entirely accurate. And most Australians float easily and unconsciously between all three accents.

So there you have it. Simples! And my thanks to Reese for making it all so crystal-clear. I can see that Lois and I will need to work on our "broad" accent, in case we're on a building site next time we visit, or down the pub with our mates. Perhaps we could start a U3A group of like-minded 'mates' to master the accent with us. Now there's an idea haha!

15:30 Lois and I already run a U3A Danish group - the only one in the UK. The group is holding its fortnightly meeting tomorrow on Skype, so I ring the group's Old Norse and Viking expert, Scilla, to see how she's getting on.

She's been in hospital recently, suffering from pneumonia and low blood pressure. The good news is that she's out of hospital, and back staying with her son Tom in Frome, Somerset. But she's been having to make some tough decisions: she's giving up her car, and also her flat in Cheltenham. Quite a decision to take, with the huge loss of independence and freedom it brings with it. She's likely to stay with Tom until next summer, when Tom's going on a world cruise, at which point she'll probably go and stay with her other son in Brighton, Sussex, or her daughter, who lives near Canterbury, Kent.

What will happen when Lois and I are faced with that sort of decision? I have only one thing to say - "YIKES!!!!!"

There is some other good news from Scilla, however, which is that she's anxious to keep up with the group's Danish crime novel, so she wants me to continue to send her material by post, which is nice.

19:00 We speak on the telephone with our elder daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 children, Josie (14), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (10).

flashback to earlier this month: Lois's birthday meal at Headley.

(left to right) Alison, Ed, Rosalind, Josie, Lois and Isaac

Alison has now had her second coronavirus vaccination, which she's very pleased about. Isaac is pleased that he's been accepted for a secondary school in Liphook starting in the autumn - he'll be part of the school's immersive language scheme - he'll be studying Mandarin Chinese and also studying some of his non-core subjects actually in Chinese, which is pretty scary to put it mildly: yikes!!! Another boy from his primary school has also been accepted, and 4 boys from his school have been accepted for the parallel French immersive courses.

Tomorrow evening Isaac will be taking one of the lead roles in his school's performance of the musical "Big Bad Wolf", to take place at the town of Haslemere's prestigious theatre, Haslemere Hall.

the town of Haslemere's prestigious theatre, Haslemere Hall

Isaac was hoping to get contact lenses fitted today, so that he could wear them tomorrow for the performance, but that didn't happen due to a power cut. Alison thinks he'll be able to see well enough without glasses, but Lois said it could be quite effective if he wore glasses over his wolf-mask: especially as the wolf in the musical is quite intelligent, and conducts his own defence in court after the Red Riding Hood incident ("The Queen versus Mr BB Wolf" haha). But we're not 100% sure - the jury's still out on that one: Ali says she'll put it to Isaac as a suggestion!

Isaac in his "wolf" costume - scary or what !!!!!

20:00 Lois has been doing a lot of work in the garden today, picking raspberries and other jobs, and also sitting at the computer doing family history research. So she's going to duck out of her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom tonight, which seems sensible.

We watch a bit of TV, another programme in Scottish comedienne Susan Calman's series on British seaside resorts. Tonight's is all about St Ives, Cornwall, one of mine and Lois's favourite holiday destinations.

It's so nice tonight to see pictures of our favourite seaside resort, St Ives in Cornwall, where the colour of the sea and sky is so incredibly blue - it doesn't look like it's anywhere in the British Isles, that's for sure, but incredibly it actually is part of Britain.

I must say I'm finding this series of Susan Calman's quite dull. She is doing what, to Lois and me, seem quite ordinary things, although she laughs a lot while she's doing them, so that's worth something, I guess.

And it's nice tonight to see Susan in the Fudge Pantry, on the narrow main shopping street, which sells Cornish fudge: it's a shop Lois and I always go in whenever we're in St Ives.

Yum yum!

Our last two holidays in St Ives were in 2014 and 2015, with our daughter Sarah, her husband Francis, and their twins, Lily and Jessie. The family emigrated to Australia in December 2015.