Thursday has dawned and it's the day of the last Skype meeting of the little local U3A Intermediate Danish Group that Lois and I run - i.e. the last meeting before our traditional summer break - and so there's a bit of a holiday atmosphere when the meeting starts at 2:30 pm, and we find it hard to persuade members to calm down, stop joking around, and do a bit of work for a change instead of just chatting (especially when it's just chatting in English).
What madness!!!!
It's a bit of a funny meeting in other ways too, because Jeanette, our only genuinely Danish member, had a hip replacement operation only about 2 weeks ago - an operation that seems to have gone very well for Jeanette, which augurs well for me whenever I get around to having mine done - yikes!!!!!
Jeanette, the only genuinely Danish member
of our local U3A Intermediate Danish group
Those crazy Danes, eh !!!!
The downside to the afterlife, however, is, as we find out, that a lot of the ghosts are quite bored a lot of the time. They just tend to sit around, no longer able to look forward to, say, the first beer of the day, or their first cigarette. One of these dead gardeners, by the name of Åge, spends every day just following around his former wife Birthe, who's still alive, his eyes glued to her posterior, and breathing on her neck - yes, ghosts still breathe, apparently. That surprised me too, I have to admit!
Then the two men disappear behind the curtain - after all there's no time to waste - they've only got 20 minutes haven't they haha!
And today's short story that we're reading is a good one to end on before our summer break. This book of short stories is all about a bunch of Danish weekend gardeners who spend every Saturday and Sunday working their allotments outside Copenhagen.
a typical Danish allotment complex, each with its own little summer house,
just outside Copenhagen
Every so often, all these gardeners get together at the allotment complex's communal hall, for a rowdy dance party with their lovers and partners. At the last such party, a guy called Kola dies of chronic excess drinking and he is carried out feet first by paramedics. This puts a bit of a damper on the party, admittedly, but not for long - this is Danes we're talking about here, don't forget!
And at the end of the book, there's a nice touch: the rather sweet short-story that we're reading now. This final story gives Kola's account of his own death, which is quite useful. After all nobody really knows what happens when you die, so it's nice to get a few titbits of info on the subject, ahead of the event, isn't it.
It turns out, surprisingly, that Kola and all the other weekend-gardeners who've died of excessive drinking and other debauchery, tend to stick around in the complex even after their deaths. Who would have thought it, eh?!
And these ghosts like having the occasional bit of fun by haunting, and scaring the wits out of, those gardeners at the complex who are still alive. After all, Kola knows a lot of the other dead gardeners really well, so it's nice that they can still chat and socialize together and have a bit of a laugh, isn't it. Be fair!
The ghost of a typical deceased Danish weekend gardener
still putting a bit of time in on his allotment at the weekend,
which is nice to see. That's what you call true dedication, though, isn't it.
What was it that Woody Allen said in his synopsis of that light opera? Oh yes, "The curtain rises on a vast, primitive wasteland, not unlike certain parts of New Jersey".
Maybe death is like that, perhaps? Or maybe not - but I definitely think we should be told. Don't you?
16:00 The meeting breaks up, and Lois and I feel totally exhausted as usual after one of these meetings, which we're in theory "moderating".
But it's been nice to get sympathy from group-members over the plight of our daughter Sarah and her little family, a plight which also rebounds on Lois and me, of course. What bad luck Sarah and Francis have had, since coming back from Australia, both with (a) the house they're trying to buy here, because one of the owners has died and so Sarah and Francis have got to wait out the probate process, and also with (b) the rental home they want to move into as soon as possible - the owners have been stalling and saying they need to decorate first. What a madness it all is!
flashback to last month: our daughter Sarah, with Francis
and the twins, relaxing in the pool at Malvern Splash
flashback to Sunday: the twins in our kitchen, with the cake that Lois
has been helping them to bake for their parents' anniversary
And our fear with the rental home debacle is, of course, that the "decorating" of the rental home may take some time, and also that maybe the owners will ask for a higher rent after they've decorated. Is that legal? We don't know, but maybe we should be told.
Oh dear!
19:30 An email comes in from Steve, our American brother-in-law, to tip us off that Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak are coming out to face the cameras at the White House.
Steve's email
We switch to BBC News, just in time to hear Joe erroneously calling Rishi "Mister President". He does apologise, though, and he means well, doesn't he.
Poor Joe!!!!!!!
The two men have been meeting a lot recently - in Belfast and at Hiroshima, and now in the White House, in the room where Joe recalls that Churchill met Roosevelt during World War II. And he promises that he and Rishi will solve all the world's problems in the next 20 minutes, which is nice! And he also recalls in particular the aid both countries are giving to Ukraine for their fight against the brutal invasion by the Russians.
And it sets me thinking. All the most exciting TV game-shows are based on challenges set against almost impossible time limits, aren't they. Wouldn't it make a great Celebrity game-show to set world leaders this sort of challenge - solving world problems etc, but forcing them to suffer the pain of eviction from the show if they don't achieve solutions before the clock has counted down to zero?
I wonder.....!
19:00 And then a miracle happens, you know, the sort of miracle that poor Moody Blues singer-songwriter Justin Hayward was looking for after his girl-friend had cruelly dumped him, just as he was starting to imagine them growing old together. You must remember that one, shurely! You know, in his "Question" song (1970) !
Tonight's miracle - for us and our little family - is an unexpected call from our daughter Sarah in reply to a text from Lois. You see, Sarah and family tend to spend the working week living in a tent in some ghastly field at Ashton-under-Hill, just outside Evesham, and then they come to us on Friday evenings to get a taste of home comforts, if slightly cramped ones, over the weekend.
And Lois had texted Sarah today at work to check that they'd be coming to us again tomorrow Friday, around 6pm as usual, and staying with us here for Friday and Saturday night.
Sarah's big news tonight, however, is that the owners of the rental home have said that they've finished doing all the decorating. They are now saying that Sarah and family can move in this weekend.
Yippee !!!!! And this means that the twins can maybe start at the local Church of England Primary School, just for a few weeks, till the summer holidays start.
My goodness!!!
the Church of England Primary School in Alcester,
where Sarah and Francis are hoping to send the twins
some typical students at the school
And now Lois and I have to forget about Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden, and work out what we've got to do this weekend to help them, but luckily we've got slightly longer than 20 minutes to do it, although not an awful lot more - yikes!
The family have got a lot of things to transport, but they've only got a tiny electric Austin Mini Cooper, and we've only got a not-much-bigger Honda Jazz. That is, unless Francis can find them a bigger second-hand car tomorrow Friday, while Sarah's at work.
The provisional plan is for Francis to drop Sarah and the twins off at our house after work on Friday, so they can stay with us Friday night, while Francis goes back to the campsite; and then for Lois to look after the twins during the day tomorrow Saturday, while Sarah and I drive over to the family's tent at Ashton-under-Hill so that I can help transport their belongings in our little Honda Jazz.
What a mad world it is, suddenly !!!!!
22:00 Lois and I go to bed feeling of delight that the family can move into the house at last, after all their trials and tribulations. But it's delight coupled with some anxiety about how this weekend will go. Yikes!!!!!
Zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
But I sense we're sleeping fitfully. How WILL it all go this weekend? And can Moody Blues singer-songwriter Justin Hayward give us any help here?
Luckily I've got my satnav and my phone and Google Maps and all.
Back in 1970, there were no such things to help Justin find the road he had to choose.
Poor Justin (again) !!!!!!
Zzzzzzzzzz!!!!
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