Danskcolin: Wednesday September 29th 2021

06:15 Another start for Lois and me - yesterday we had to get out of bed at 6 am in case the Team Knowhow repair guy for our freezer rang the doorbell, which he could have done at any time between 7am and 10:35am.

Today Lois gives me a kick at 6 am to remind me we didn't put our general waste and garden waste wheelie-bins and food-waste bins out on the kerb last night - it was raining hard and it was warm and cosy on the sofa, and going outside was just too awful to contemplate. Now I'm having to pay for that decision - damn!!!

a Cheltenham waste disposal truck

(not the one that comes this morning)

09:00 I finish off the "slides" for my so-called presentation, "How the Vikings Changed Our Language", a talk which I'm giving on Friday afternoon on zoom to Lynda's local U3A Middle English group.

I email the slides out to the group members, so now the die is cast. Almost everything I know is actually on the slides, so in theory the members don't need to hear me stumbling my way through it on zoom, and I shouldn't need to actually give the talk,. However, I think my presence is expected, if somewhat grudgingly, and I'm hoping I can get a good discussion going, if nothing else.

Well, we'll see!

In my talk I mention "Goths", normally a taboo subject, although I keep away from so-called "Mall-o-Goths".

And for my talk I've used my primitive graphic skills to do a slide of the Germanic language family tree as it could have looked 2000 years ago, I've included a badly-drawn blue-or-purple circle and arrow to indicate the move of the Goths towards the Mediterranean.

one of my so-called slides for my so-called talk

Lois says I've used the "male symbol" to indicate that the Goths went south - but perhaps a lot of them were in fact men. I'm not sure - perhaps we should be told?

some typical Goths - they look like men to me, but who knows

under all that armour - hard to say!

In any case, men or not, those Goths knew what they were doing: going south and getting a bit of sunshine. Makes sense to me !!!!

10:00 Lois and I discuss Goths briefly, and then, later, when we do some tidying up in the garden, we experiment with doing our own "take" on the famous Grant Wood picture, "American Gothic" (1930).

the original "American Gothic" (1930)

the iconic Cosmo Kramer version

our own "take" on the idea: I don't think we've got it quite right -

but it's a start. Call it a work in progress.

13:00 After lunch we go for a walk on the local football field. It's sunny but freezing cold, with a bitter wind - brrrr!!! Summer's over all right, that's for sure.

We go for a walk on the local football field, but it's bitterly cold - brrrr!!!

- and we more or less have the place to ourselves.

14:00 We go up to bed for a couple of hours' rest.

I have to put Lois's ear-drops in her left ear, so she lies on her right hand side for me. This is the first time I've done it, and it's going to be a twice-daily job from now on till she has her appointment at the ear clinic.

After I've put the drops in, she then has to lie still till the drops have gone wherever it is they go - it's impossible to see them after they have left the thingummy-jig, which is a pity! We have to just say goodbye to them and hope for the best!

the basics of the job: it's not exactly rocket-science haha!

19:15 After dinner, Lois has a 45 minute gap before she has to go back into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class, so we watch the first half or so of the women's football quarter-final between Spurs and Arsenal.

We know that our grandchildren in Headley, Hampshire, will be particularly interested in this game. Isaac (11) is a Spurs fan, although he's only really interested in the men's side. Josie (15) and Rosalind (13) are both fans of the Arsenal women.

Lois is rooting for Spurs, just because Arsenal have won the cup so many times - she's always got a soft spot for the underdog: that's basically why she married me haha! And she's rewarded within the first couple of minutes when Spurs score the first goal.

Unfortunately for Lois, Arsenal then fight back and score 5 goals, to win the match.

Poor Lois!!! But our granddaughters will be pleased, no doubt about that!

Both girls are big Arsenal fans now, although I can remember when they used to support the Chelsea women. How fickle fans are these days!

flashback to January 2020 at the Reading Stadium, to watch

Chelsea Women play Reading Women: (left to right)

our son-in-law Ed, Josie, Isaac, our daughter Alison, and Rosalind

the Chelsea women celebrate one of their goals:

rightmost is Chelsea defender Millie Bright

Millie comes over to talk to Rosalind and Josie, which is nice

20:00 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom. I settle down on the couch to watch Episode 6 of the 2nd Season of the Danish crime series "The Killing", which Lois doesn't like.

I watch this episode through, but, by chance, Lois comes back in to sit on the couch with me for the final 5 minutes, as soon as her zoom session is over. That's a pity for Lois, because in the last 5 minutes of the Episode another 2 gruesome attacks are discovered, which unfortunately Lois has to "witness" - oh dear.

Up till now the victims have all been Danish soldiers mixed up in some alleged atrocity in a remote Afghan village. Tonight these latest 2 victims are:

(1) the soldiers' chaplain who was stationed with them in Afghanistan (and whose name I still haven't managed to take in) - Inspector Sarah Lund finds the man stabbed and strung up in his church's toilets, and

(2) the former Danish Justice Minister, Monberg, who's been undergoing hospital treatment (see picture above).

In another of the series's trademark poorly-lit scenes,

Inspector Sarah Lund finds the ex-Afghanistan army chaplain

stabbed and strung up in his church's toilets.

Denmark's Justice Minister Buch finds his predecessor, Monberg

lying dead in a pool of blood in a hospital basement.

That's politics Danish-style haha!!!

Poor Monberg !!!!

And poor chaplain, whatever your name is !!!!!!!

Only 4 episodes to go now !!!!!

21:00 We wind down with an old episode of the 1990's sitcom "The Brittas Empire", all about Gordon Brittas, manager of the Whitbury Leisure Centre.

I think it's safe to say that while Gordon Brittas sees himself as a firm but good-natured leisure centre manager, who's above all concerned to see that no rules are broken, he's not popular either with his staff, or with the customers, or, perhaps least of all, with his wife Helen.

In tonight's episode Brittas is away at a "Management Conference" in Bulgaria. However news comes back that he's been crushed by machines in a horrible accident while visiting a car factory. The town of Whitbury then goes into celebratory mode, and suddenly the Leisure Centre is crowded with customers, and Brittas's wife Helen starts making plans for life without Gordon.

Then suddenly Brittas turns up unannounced - his reported "death" was a case of mistaken identity, it seems. This is a pity for his wife, because she's arranged to get married the same day, to a man she picked up 2 days ago at Gordon's supposed "cremation".