A funny old day. I'm a member of Lynda's local U3A Middle English group, and the group is holding it monthly meeting tomorrow afternoon on zoom, so I've got to try to wade through the approximately 160 lines of Middle English group we'll be looking at: two poems written in the 1400's by a poet called John Lydgate.
15th century Middle English poet John Lydgate
For Friday's zoom meeting, I've got to be prepared to recite about 25 lines of one of Lydgate's poems in a fake 15th century accent and translate them into Modern English. Then I have to comment on "interesting words" in the 25 lines allotted to me by group leader Lynda.
A lot of people wouldn't be interested in this, but it's fascinating to me. Almost all of the languages of Europe have developed from languages spoken over 6000 years ago in Westrrn Asia by the legendary Yamnaya people.
the Yamnaya's linguistic legacy (nb the captions conveniently
air-brush out languages like Hungarian and Finnish, which have a different ancestry)
How do you do that?, I hear you cry. Well, if you find very similar words in loads of different European languages, you know they must originate from a long way back, before we got separated into our particular European regions.
There are a couple of words like that in the John Lydgate poems I'm looking at. "Reach" is one of those words - a related word pops up in the Latin word "rigidus" meaning (obviously) 'rigid'. So what's the connection between "reach" and "rigid", I hear you cry (again). Well, if you "reach" or "overreach yourself" trying to grab something a bit far way, you arm is going to go a bit "rigid", isn't it. See? It's obvious now I say it, isn't it haha!!
"Wax" is another one - if the moon waxes and wains, it gets bigger and then it gets smaller again. The related word to "wax" in Latin is "augere" meaning "to augment" - yes, I admit they've dropped the "w" on the front, but apart from that it's pretty similar isn't it. See? !!!!! Simples!!!!!!
[Can I just say I haven't got the faintest idea what you're talking about?] [No, sorry, we haven't got time for that right now! - Colin}
13:15 We drive over to Bishops Cleeve to have our feet pampered at the Village Clinic by their foot specialists. Isn't that weird? Well, not weird for Lois - she used to go regularly before the pandemic arrived. But it's first time for me.
The Village Clinic's wild and crazy staff
I sit in the podiatrist's waiting-room, waiting for Lois's
appointment to finish - poor me !!!!!
As I wait I gaze wistfully beyond the stack of helpful leaflets on the desk, out of the waiting-room windows and look at the sight of Lowry's café, where Lois and I spent many a joyful hour having a cup of coffee and a cake, in those glorious pre-pandemic days of long ago.
I gaze at the view behind the leaflets desk to Lowry's café,
where Lois and I used to spend many a joyous hour
having coffee and cake - happy days !!!!!
Ah! Pre-pandemic Lowry's café - the memories come flooding back!
15:00 We rush back home and just manage to arrive in time for the fortnightly meeting of our local U3A Intermediate Danish group on zoom.
We've just started reading another story about a group of outwardly stolid, but inwardly seethingly passionate suburbanite Danish vegetable-growers, who spend their weekends at their summer-houses in an allotment complex just outside Copenhagen.
Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord, who wrote the book of short-stories
that our group is reading at the moment
a typical Danish allotments complex
So we're looking for clues. The narrator has a friend, and when the narrator's garden strimmer breaks down, the friend helps out. At one point the narrator goes inside the club-house, and grabs a raspberry drink, plus a beer for the friend. At one point the friend starts talking about how you lay the foundations of a house, and the narrator instantly "switches off" mentally when it starts to get "too technical".
Yes, you've guessed it, we conclude that the narrator is a woman, and the friend is a man. See? How simple-minded and "old-school" we all are! Well, we'll see, as the months roll by, and we read more of the story, whether our guess is right or not, won't we.
18:00 A text comes in from our daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with husband Ed and their 3 children Josie (15), Rosalind (14) and Isaac (11).
Alison says that Isaac would like a "Hotspur" Spurs membership-card for his birthday next month, that is, for Tottenham Hotspurs, one of the big Premier League soccer teams in London. He's growing up fast, that lad, no doubt about that.
A week ago it was Rosalind's 14th birthday and a friend's mum drove Rosalind and her friend up to the O2 Arena in London to see a concert by American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish, who Alison says co-wrote and performed the theme song for the recent James Bond film, "No Time To Die".
Billie Eilish performing at the O2 Arena, London, last Saturday night
I remember that back in 1988 I took Alison herself, then aged 13, to see Michael Jackson's concert at Wembley Stadium, London. I must admit that just before the end of the show I persuaded Ali to miss the final 60 seconds of the show so that we could sneak out to the car park and make a quick getaway.
22:00 Lois and I feel "like limp rags", as we always do after a so-called "Danish Day", so after a couple of hours of TV we give up and go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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