Danskcolin: Thursday March 14th 2023

Parking has become more and more of an issue recently, hasn't it. The local papers here in Worcestershire have been full of stories about "issues" between rival car-drivers - it's grown into a bit of "a thing" in these parts, particularly in the Bell End area of our normally quiet county of Worcestershire.

Did you see this week's big headline [source: Onion News, Worcestershire Desk] ?

BELL END, WORCESTERSHIRE —In the midst of a skirmish over someone’s trolley blocking a parking spot at Tesco's, sources confirmed that the hair of local woman Deena Platt puffed up to several times its usual size Friday, intimidating her rival female shoppers.

According to witnesses, after Platt paused to take a long drag off of her Virginia Slim cigarette, the bouffant atop her heavily made-up face more than tripled in volume, and she towered over a smaller-coiffured North Piddle woman in a powerful display of territorial dominance.

Following a tense standoff, Platt’s clumpy-mascaraed eyes are said to have narrowed and her fluffy fringe unrolled into a fan of long, sharp spikes, forcing her opponent to scamper away in defeat.

At press time, the impressive display had reportedly landed Platt the attention of several large, (size 7.5) - hatted, potential mates.

I'm starting to think that car-parking is local people's chief hobby in these parts - almost every day there's a new story splashed all over the front pages. You would not BELIEVE !!! This one's all about a parking attempt in Upper Wick, just outside Worcester itself.

What a crazy county we live in !!!!

But I can't claim to be above all this parking nonsense myself. My particular obsession is to always "get there in plenty of time, so I can find a good parking spot", and it drives Lois mad sometimes. "Stop fussing, Colin!" is her cry, and I must say, I can't really blame her.

Lois has an appointment with Rachel, her hair-stylist at 9 am this morning, at the Divine Hair Salon ["Just the name of the shop, dear"] about a mile away from us, down in the Barnard's Green area of Malvern. Lois is currently trying to "grow out" her fringe.

a typical bedside alarm clock showing an "unearthly hour"

Because of Lois's 9 am appointment, this morning I get up specially early, around 6 am, and bring Lois a cup of tea in bed at 7 o'clock. Then I go downstairs and have a hurried bowl of cornflakes, calling up the stairs to her intermittently asking for so-called "updates" on "what stage she's reached" with her washing, dressing etc.

However, I'm sure Lois is underneath quite pleased, although she doesn't exactly admit it, because when we drive the mile down to Barnard's Green, we get a premier parking spot just outside the salon, and, as the icing on the cake we only have a mere 20 minutes to wait in the car until the staff open up the salon shortly after 9 o'clock.

I sit on the plush, comfy sofa in "waiting-area" of the
harem-like Divine Hair Salon, like some Arab sheik

waiting for one of his wives to finish being 'pampered with'

(see ringed area with stylist Rachel behind the little partition-wall !!!!)

09:30 So, with Lois's fringe now looking more and more "grown out", we drive back home feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.

13:30 And the "electricity" of this vibe is still buzzing as we get into bed at 1:30 pm for an earlier-than-usual "nap time". We've got a meeting of our local U3A Intermediate Danish group on Skype coming up at 2:30pm, so we've got to make the most of the time available.

Pretty soon, my Samsung starts "diddling", and Lois's Huawei begins "beeping" under the bedclothes. And our euphoria is punctured a little by this afternoon's "lead" on the local news website of Onion News. How do they get all these stories, these guys? I think I should be told, don't you?

Could Lois herself have been the source for this story? I realise from the Onion's picture (above) that Lois is keying something or other in on our phone during that awkward "5 minutes in the middle of a 20-minute wait", the - you know - the part of the wait that's particularly irksome.

I wonder..... !

Luckily, there are also some more "positive" stories also in this afternoon's news. And what Lois and I like more than anything, when we're in bed, is to have some nice graphic images to look at, and there are 2 real "doozies" today on the quora forum website, the discussion forum that we're both addicted to.

A picture, and especially a map, is better than a thousand words, isn't it, but these particular "doozies" raise more questions than they answer. But what do you think?

First, there's a puzzling "map of Irish surnames" which I guess means the areas of Ireland where they're particularly common. Most of the names are obviously of Gaelic origin, but there are also a few Anglo-Saxon names, like Smith or Butler, which is interesting, and even Welsh names, like Morgan. I wonder why?

And secondly there's a map of Europe's "Bible Belts", in response to an American questioner, puzzled about where this "Belt" can be found. Lois and I thought that Bible Belts were an American thing, and we didn't know that there are also several of them dotted here and there around in the UK and Europe.

Europe's "Bible Belts"

Fascinating stuff isn't it - but there are so many questions we would want to ask, and there's so little time, especially today, but we have to hurry up, roll out of bed and get dressed for our zoom meeting - busy busy busy!!!!

14:30 Our Danish Skype meeting begins, and I'm afraid I waste a bit of time this afternoon asking (nb in English - naughty Colin !!!!!) our only genuine Danish-born member, Jeanette, about her recent hip-operation, and how she felt after it, and that kind of malarkey.

Jeanette, the only genuinely Danish person

in our U3A Intermediate Danish group

My own operation will be coming up next month, and I can't help feeling a bit nervous - it's my "first ever 'hip do' ". Some people have gone through several of them, I know, sometimes more than a hundred, even. [Do you really expect me to believe that, Colin?!!!! - Ed]

I suppose some people really overwork their hips, but I've always been wary of that - and that's why maybe I haven't had to go through this surgery till I'm already quite ancient, at 77.

As well as our Danish friend Jeanette, and Lynda, the ex-leader of the U3A "History of English" group, of the other people we know, my cousin Liz's husband Roger has had one of his hips done, and my cousin Susan in Denver, Colorado, says her partner Skip has had both his done. Our friend Jen in Oxford has had both of hers done, I think, and the wife of a couple we got to know in Washington DC - Stephen and Anne-Marie - she had hers done when she was only in her 40's. So I'm obviously "behind the curve" on this one, and I'll have to "put my skates on", to put it mildly!!!

my cousin Susan in Denver, with her partner Skip

Watch this space: because it's my "pre-op" do at Worcester coming up on Monday.

Yikes !!!!!!!!!!!!!

21:00 We wind down for bed on the couch again tonight, watching another 2 episodes of the new sitcom, "Things You Should Have Done" on BBC3. The series is all about dopey teenager Chi trying to achieve some projects on her to-do-list that she's never got round to before - this one's entitled "Trying to do something for somebody else for once".

In this 5th episode, the dopey Chi sets out to fulfil one of her ambitions: to "do something for somebody else for a change. Her Aunty Karen has been diagnosed as "uptight", so Chi and Karen's husband and son, the dopey Lucas, decide to take Karen on a surprise camping week by the sea.

To make the trip more of a surprise for Aunty Karen, Chi blindfolds her during the 4 hour car journey, only allowing the aunt to take off her blindfold when they arrive at their destination, the Happy Oyster Holiday Park.

It turns out, however, that Aunty Karen isn't as pleased as the dopey Chi evidently hoped she'd be. And we hear about why that is - apparently the Happy Oyster Holiday Park is only 5 minutes away from where Aunty Karen lives.