Danskcolin: Thursday April 14th 2022

Lois and I have to-do lists as long as your arm, and longer than ours haha. However, we make only slow progress with them today.

10:00 I have to check the tyre pressures on our car, but the main challenge will be just to get up off the ground afterwards. If I don't make it, I'll be lying there a long time, that's for sure: people in this neighbourhood are suspicious of anybody - particularly an old codger - lying down near a tyre and appearing to be asleep. What a crazy world we live in !!!!

When did I last check the pressures, I hear you cry? Well according to my blog it was about 6 weeks ago. Is that frequent enough? I think I should be told - and quickly!

flashback to my celebrated March 3rd tyre-test, where I come at

the tyre from the right hand side...

...and my classic November 11th 2021 test, where I come at it from the left

I always like to surprise the tyre - hence the two radically different lines of approach, like Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo haha!

11:00 Lois and I run the UK's only U3A Intermediate Danish group for old crows and codgers, and it's my job to email out vocabulary lists for the next 5 pages of our current short story.

The story we're reading is taken from Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord's collection "Midlertidig Opvartning", all about the hidden passions of a group of outwardly reserved vegetable gardeners, all of whom have allotments in the same plot of land just outside Copenhagen.

Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord with the collection

of short stories that our group of old codgers and crows is currently reading

In our current story, keen vegetable grower Albert is missing his "ex", who's called Lise. Albert and Lise used to garden their veggies together and have simultaneous orgasms (when not gardening).

Unfortunately the couple split up, however, at Lise's request, and now Albert's got to work his allotment alone. Lise on the other hand is away achieving national fame as a prize-winning author, with her picture all over flashy Danish tabloid "Ekstra Bladet", sporting bright red lipstick of the kind she always refused to wear when she was with Albert: my god!

Poor Albert !!!!! And he's sort of lost touch with Lise now, and doesn't even know whether she's met anyone new yet. Oh dear!

Poor Albert (again) !!!!!!

a typical edition of Danish tabloid "Ekstra Bladet"

a typical lonely veggie gardening enthusiast,

ploughing a lonely furrow and missing his "ex"

20:00 Lois and I settle down on the couch and we browse our social media. I see that our daughter Alison with her husband Ed and their 3 children Josie (15), Rosalind (13) and Isaac (11) have been spending the day in London. The children are all off school at the moment, because it's the Easter break.

"The boys" - i.e. Ed and Isaac, went to the Transport Museum: no pictures of that as yet. But "the girls" - Ali plus Josie and Rosalind - went to see Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Tudor-inspired open-air Globe Theatre by the Thames, and Ali has posted some charming pictures up on Facebook, which is nice.

Lois and I went to see "The Tempest" here about 20 years ago, and will never forget the experience. There was an actual thunderstorm during the performance: you couldn't script that! Luckily Lois and I were under cover, up in the galleries or whatever they're called. Vanessa Redgrave was in it too, as a bonus, playing Prospero.

Happy days !!!!!

flashback to 2000: I enjoy a drink at the Globe Theatre, where Lois and I

have come to watch Vanessa Redgrave in Shakespeare's "The Tempest"

Lois peruses the programme for "The Tempest" - in the background

can be seen the Thames and St Paul's Cathedral

the picture I took from our gallery seat of "The Tempest"

- the 2000 production, starring Vanessa Redgrave

20:30 We watch some TV, the second programme in a new reality-TV series "The Simpler Life", in which 24 volunteers agree to spend 6 months on a remote farm in Devon living the simple life of the Pennsylvania Amish community, a life which eschews most of the benefits of modern technology in an attempt to return to so-called "simpler times".

And there's a genuine Pennsylvanian Amish family on hand - a couple with their teenage offspring - to guide the volunteers through this 6-month "challenge".

These 24 volunteers have offered to spend six whole months living the simple, un-technological 17th century Pennsylvania Amish lifestyle - six whole months: my god!

the isolated Devon farm where this experiment in living the

simple, un-technological 17th century Amish life-style takes place

we see some of the 24 volunteers "raising a barn"...

..and washing the community's clothes by hand

Yes, they're supposed to be here for six whole months, but in fact, when Episode 2 of this series starts, some of the volunteers have already quit, and we're only into the third week. My god (again) !!!!!

Surprisingly to me, at least, is the fact that it's the young people, the 20-somethings, who are the keenest to try, and persevere with, this "new old" approach to life, and it's the older ones who start to get fed up with it the quickest. But Lois says that's what you'd expect - the older you get, the less you want to bother with changing your views, she says! Oh dear!

And Lois is right! In tonight's episode a big split develops amongst the volunteers. The basic idea for the experiment is that this is a community, with a community budget, under the control of a young "treasurer", who decides to prioritise being able to buy adequate amounts of food, at least until the community's own crops are ready to be harvested.

Makes sense, doesn't it! Make sure you've got enough to eat.

However the middle-aged Hazel is missing her weekend pints of beer, and some of the other "crinklies" agree. They want the community budget idea to be dropped in favour of separate budgets for individual households, so that the "crinklies" can buy beer if they want to.

The dispute comes to a head at a stormy community meeting, where the so-called "Beer First Party" gets outvoted by the so-called "Food First Party", and as a result, there are more departures. I think we're down to 16 volunteers now, compared to the 24 who started.

scenes from the tense and stormy community meeting, during which the so-called

"Beer First" Party gets voted down by the so-called "Food First" Party - oh dear!!!!

The results of the stormy community meeting are disastrous. It leads to more departures, but not only that - because even the "Beer First" Party members who choose to remain don't seem too bothered about doing the chores any more - oh dear!

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!

Nevertheless it's quite nostalgic for Lois and me to watch this programme tonight, as it brings back memories of a holiday we had in Pennsylvania in 1985, with our 2 little daughters Alison (10) and Sarah (8), where we visited the Pennsylvania "Dutch Country" and saw some of the typical Amish farmsteads.