Danskcolin: Wednesday September 14th 2022

I'm looking this morning for a Danish short story that isn't filthy at all - a reasonable quest you might think.

You see, as you know, Lois and I run the local U3A Intermediate Danish group - well, it's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it haha! And, during our fortnightly zoom meetings, our group likes to read Danish short stories together - that's basically all we do except to gossip and complain - in English - about everything we don't like about the world today, which can be a comfort, but which tends to take up most of the 2 hours, so there isn't always a lot of time to learn much Danish.

Poor us !!!!!

a typical U3A group meeting on zoom (not ours)

And it always falls to me, as joint group-leader, to choose the next short story that the group will read together, another one out of Sissel Bjergfjord's book about passionate Danish allotment-owners.

Danish writer Sissel Bjergfjord with her book of short-stories

about the tempestuous lives of some passionate Danish vegetable-growers

I've chosen one of the stories, which is entitled "An angel, René", which sounds harmless. So today I start typing out the vocab lists that the group will need to understand the story.

Before long, however, I discover that the heroine of the story, passionate vegetable-grower Lotte, married with two children, is telling us she's been having fantasies about the guy who works the neighbouring allotment, René, and this starts alarm-bells going off in my head. And oh dear - yes, soon Lotte is telling us all about these fantasies, and in some detail.

reading something embarrassing in a book group - some may enjoy it,

but for others it can make them wish the ground would swallow them up - oh dear!

Should I junk this story having already made up a couple of vocabulary lists for our group members? As group leader I have a responsibility and I don't think I can necessarily assume that our mixed-sex group of intermediate Danish language-learners will be all be okay about translating this kind of material into English in one of our group sessions.

However, on the other hand, I don't want to throw away the substantial investment of time I've already put into compiling the vocabulary lists. So I decide to "redact" i.e. "censor" the detailed bits and just replace them with a summary. Well, wouldn't you?!!!

And at the beginning of the story Lotte seemed such a self-confident woman with her two lovely children and her husband, Sergio, even though Lotte admits that Sergio "could be a bit more romantic" with her.

Poor Lotte !!!!!!

And poor me !!!!! It's not easy being a group leader, that's for sure!

11:00 Lois and I are still trying to downsize for our impending move to a smaller house in Malvern, so we drive over to Bishops Cleeve this morning so I can donate more clothes to the Daisychain charity shop, while Lois buys some veg in Joyce Arnold's fruit-and-veg shop.

we drive over to the Daisychain charity shop in Bishops Cleeve

I finish my bit first so I go back to the car in the Tesco supermarket car-park, while Lois gets the veg and also some chocolate caramel shortbread in the new café. While sitting in the car, I get another reminder of the momentous week that the UK is going through, when I notice that the flag outside the Air Training Corps building is at half-mast for the week of national mourning for Queen Elizabeth.

the flag flying at half-mast today for the Queen's week of mourning,

outside the Air Training Corps building next to the Tesco supermarket car-park

12:00 Even after this trip to the charity shop, we still have loads of stuff we don't need. Luckily, we bring into play our other "downsizing" weapon: our neighbour Bob, now in his 80's. He had 6 children, and so has numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, so we let him rummage through our garage and garden shed, encouraging to take this or that "for his family".

Bob (right) in happier times, seen here with one of his dozens of grandchildren,

just arrived home from Afghanistan

15:00 In the afternoon, Lois and I watch, on TV, the Queen's coffin being taken from Buckingham Palace to the 900 year-old Westminster Hall, built in the reign of William II, where she will lie in state for the next few days, so that members of the public can file past it:

Already by 5 pm, the queue is 4 miles long, Lois says. Here are some early pictures of that queue:

queues of people already forming to view the coffin

- already several miles long. My goodness !!!!

And it's quite nostalgic for Lois and me to see these queues, because when we were driving to Waterloo Railway Station in April 2002, in order to catch a Eurostar train to the Continent, we saw a similar queue, snaking over the Thames bridges, for the Queen's mother, who also lay in state at Westminster Hall.

Do you remember me telling you about that holiday? Of course you do! We got the Eurostar to Brussels - you know? - and then we took the night train to Vienna. Night train to Vienna - what could be more exciting than that? Tucked up but sleeping somewhat fitfully in our little "couchette", we woke several times during the night when the train stopped at places we'd never heard of in Germany. And after a couple of nights in Vienna we hired a car and drove over the border into Hungary.

I think you remember now, don't you haha!

If not, these iconic pictures will certainly jog your memory!

Flashback to April 2002: Lois sitting in a café at Vienna airport.

waiting to pick up our hire car and start our holiday - and we're all excited!

And you must remember this iconic picture of me leaning out of our hotel room window in Eger, Hungary - the town where the Hungarians saw off the invading Turks in 1552. The hotel management had added a British flag to the flag collection outside the hotel, in honour of our stay, which was a nice touch.

our hotel in Eger, Hungary in April 2002: the Senator-Ház

Happy days !!!!!!

16:30 A bit of light relief at last, when Steve, our American brother-in-law, sends details of what will surely be the "must-have" Christmas present this year, a new board-game based on the EU State of the Union speech.

"As the entire Continent waits with bated breath for Ursula von der Leyen’s annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday, there’s good news for those of you who just can’t get enough of the SOTEU (as all the cool kids call it) — a board game."

For people like Lois and me, who dislike board games with complicated rules that take you a week to master, this one seems to be quite simple, which is nice: you just throw a dice and answer a question card related to the square you land on, we think.

When Lois and I take a closer look at some of the squares on the board, however, we decide not to buy it for now.

Maybe next year, if we spend a bit of time on studying over the next few months - perhaps we'll be ready by Christmas 2024. At the moment, I don't think either of us would make it round the game's terrifying "first bend", which would be a pity!

But we'll see!

Lois and I don't think we would make it past

the board game's terrifying "first bend"

19:30 Lois disappears into the dining-room to take part in her church's monthly Business Meeting on zoom.

I settle down on the couch and watch more of the day's "royal events". And it's really quite moving to see live pictures of the members of the public now slowly filing past the late Queen's coffin in the 900-year-old Westminster Hall in London.

21:00 Lois emerges from her church's monthly business meeting on zoom, and she tells me a bit of about the evening's proceedings.

It's Lois's job to book visiting preachers, and she has still has 8 "holes" to fill in the calendar for the Sundays in 2023. When she reports these "holes" to the Business Meeting, poor Lois tends to get showered each time with the same suggestions, such as "Why don't you ask young Brother Taylor, or Brother this or Brother that - they'd love to come and preach to us!".

And each time she has to point out e.g. "Since the last Business Meeting, I've emailed young Brother Taylor three times without getting a single reply from him".

Lois and I don't think it's rudeness on these young preachers' part. We think they're just very vague and their diaries and calendars are totally disorganised.

a typical young-and-vague young preacher,

in a world of his own, looking at his phone,

[nb the man pictured is not Bro. Taylor in case you know him haha!]

Poor Lois !!!!!!!

21:15 We go to bed on an interesting retrospective on the life and career of comedy actress Hattie Jacques.

And it's fascinating tonight to see again some of Hattie's iconic roles as bossy hospital matrons. In this scene she tries one evening to seduce surgeon Kenneth Williams in the 1972 film "Carry On Matron".