Monday October 28 2019

10:00 Lois and I rush out into the garden. The weather girl has said we have 3 more days before the rain starts again, and we are both very eager to carry on putting the garden to bed for the winter. And within a minute we are both down and dirty in the vegetable garden.

within minutes we are getting "down and dirty" in the vegetable garden

11:30 We come back into the house and relax with a cup of coffee on the sofa. And after the postman has delivered today's mail, we head into a neighbouring house, Stephen and Francis's, to pick up their mail - they are spending the week with their daughter in Eastbourne and her family, and they have asked us to look after their house in their absence. We find that the flat pack bookcase that the couple ordered from IKEA has been delivered, so we drag it into the house and put it down in the hall.

This is a bit sad, we think. Stephen and Francis's (as far as we know) first ever delivery of IKEA furniture, and another sign that the IKEA epidemic is now widespread in the UK, something we first read about some 16 years ago, on our go-to local news site, the influential Onion News Local .

IKEA, the fast-growing Swedish retailer of cheap home furnishings, claimed an additional 10,000 UK lifestyles in 2003, according to a report released Tuesday by the Centre for Interior Design Control.

"This epidemic of self-assembled, modernist furniture is still largely contained in densely populated urban areas, but the danger is that it will spread to other regions across the UK", CIDC spokesman Chris Greeves said on Tuesday. "As it moves, our nation will suffer almost continental levels of Scandinavian design perhaps within as little as a decade."

Greeves said IKEA is not easily controlled as it largely spreads by word of mouth.

"It passes between rooms until it has not only attacked your living room, but also your 1.5 bathrooms, your cleanly appointed kitchen and then your entire sun-drenched, open-plan loft apartment. In the most extreme cases, it will even spread to the string-light decorated roof terrace overlooking your recently gentrified neighbourhood. "

The IKEA epidemic began to attract attention in 1985, when the first UK IKEA store was diagnosed in Harwich, and almost overnight infected an estimated 2,500 homes in the Gerards Cross area with Stenkulla tables, Blankhult chairs and Ingebo sofas.

The port city of Harwich, where the epidemic was first diagnosed

from a flatpack coffee table, discovered on a Swedish ferry,

hidden in a container concealed under tons of loose meatballs.

The virus soon spread quickly to Gerards Cross (not shown).

My god, what a crazy world we live in !!! But how incredibly prophetic Greeves' words turned out to be - I know that for sure!!! Now that Stephen and Francis's house has become the latest victim of the epidemic, it's only a matter of time before mine and Lois's turn comes, and we become just another statistic - yikes!

12:00 We have lunch and afterwards I go to bed and take a gigantic afternoon nap. I get up at 3 pm and we relax with a cup of tea on the couch.

I sit down with the computer and hack through the next few pages of our Danish crime novel - Anna Grue's "The Further You Fall", which is our U3A Danish group's current project.

And as I flip through the pages, I compile a vocabulary list for each page to save our group members from having to look up the difficult words in a dictionary. I am so warm-hearted ha ha ha !!!!

Anna Grue's crime novel, "The Further You Fall,"

our U3A Danish group's current project

Anna Grue, the author of the novel

Police Detective Flemming Torp is currently investigating the killing of Lilliana, a mysterious cleaning lady, who gets mysteriously garotted whilst working late at night in the kitchens of a large Danish advertising agency, Kurt & Ko.

Police suspect the killer also works for the same agency as Lilliana, so Flemming has asked his best friend, advertising man Dan Sommerdahl, to help him with the investigation, because Dan, of course, knows the agency staff well, and has his finger on "who’s screwing who" and the like.

Police Detective Flemming Torp (left) along with

his best friend, Dan Sommerdahl and Dan's wife, Marianne

The mysterious Lilliana - no one even knows her last name - shared a dingy apartment with another mysterious woman of the same age: Sally, an African woman who unfortunately disappeared without a trace at the same time as her roomie, Lilliana, was garotted, which is strange.

Flemming and Dan have searched the two women's apartment, their wardrobes and underwear drawers, etc., to try and discover traces of the two women's identities.

Flemming is the professional when it comes to detective work, and Dan is just an advertising consultant who has fantasies about becoming a famous amateur detective.

But it's actually Dan, the amateur, who notices the biggest clue to the killer's identity so far: Lilliana, a poor young woman in a poorly paid job, has stored a bottle of expensive French champagne in her fridge - and in the gold paper around the cap is embossed the agency's logo K&K. Such bottles were custom-made for the agency's ten-year anniversary the previous year, with a distribution strictly limited to the firm’s directors and top customers. Lilliana also had a new pack of condoms on her bedside table - yikes !!!!!

The company logo, found on Lillian's bottle of expensive champagne

Another clue: just before Lilliana got killed (garotted), we read in the first chapter of the novel that at first she reacted with delight when she saw the perpetrator's face - until she suddenly realised that he was going to murder her. Could it be that the killer is actually one of the agency's top executives? That is, someone who has also been her lover, and who gave her that bottle of custom-made expensive French champagne - ha! Maybe the killer is the big chief himself, Sebastian Kurt - yikes !!!!

And today I read one more clue pointing to Sebastian Kurt. When Dan asks Sebastian, his boss, if he actually knew Lilliana, Sebastian replies that yes, he met her a few times. Dan then asks him if he ever talked to her. And Sebastian smiles and answers, "No, my Estonian is a little rusty!"

My god, what a revelation - Sebastian, the big chief, is aware that Lilliana is an Estonian, something which no one else in the company appears to know !!!!

Sebastian, however, suddenly becomes very embarrassed, after his apparent "slip of the tongue", and he abruptly cuts short his chat with Dan, with a quick "Sorry, I have a meeting in Copenhagen in an hour's time".

Can it be true that Sebastian Kurt, the filthy-rich big chief, who is married to the sexy Henriette who "looks like a photo model", has really been in the habit of visiting Lilliana, the poor Estonian, drably dressed cleaning lady, in her badly lit, musty two-bedroom apartment, to have condom-protected sex with her, on her 2 foot 6 inch wide sofa bed? It seems unlikely, to put it mildly. But we'll see - aha! The plot thickens !!!!

18:00 We have dinner. We settle down on the couch with the idea of spending the rest of the evening watching some television. But suddenly, Lois recalls that she never rang back her cousin Iris in Southport. Iris actually called us last Friday, but we pretended we weren't home and let the answering machine take the call. Unfortunately, Iris likes to talk and talk, and tonight Lois’s call to her lasts 1-2 hours - damn!

21:00 The call ends and we turn on the television. We've become a little sleepy to put it mildly, but the BBC-2 channel is showing  our favourite TV quizzes, Only Connect and University Challenge, and we get our weekly chance to try and prove that we are not yet suffering from dementia.

As usual, in University Challenge, we note down every time we come up with the correct answer, when the 8 young fresh minds of the program's student participants strike out.

Tonight our score is 6, which is not too bad, considering we are tired and the competition is between an Oxford college  team and a Cambridge college team, and the rivalry between the two teams is fierce, to put it mildly: the final score is LMH Oxford 150 Downing College Cambridge 145.

Although our "two-person team" - Lois and me - come up with 6 correct answers that the students cannot find, it is mostly thanks to Lois, I have to say.  I come up with 2 answers, while she comes with 5. 

There is one answer, we both come up with: we can both recognise the famous “Harry Lime” theme tune to the classic "Third Man" movie. But strictly speaking this is a question tailored to old crows ha ha!

Suddenly, it occurs to me that 2 out of 6 of our "triumphs" tonight in fact result from questions custom-made for old crows.

This includes another question to which I come up with the correct answer to:

I know the correct answer is "Attica State", but only because of John & Yoko's 1971 song "Attica State, Attica State, we’re all mates with Attica State".

There must be an old crow mole that has somehow infiltrated the programme's question-setters, no doubt about that !!!

Damn! Could it be that Lois and I are not as smart as we thought? But we’re not completely sure – the jury’s still out on that one.

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzz !!!!!

Danish translation

10:00 Vi skynder os ud i haven. Vejrpigen har sagt, vi har endnu 3 dage, før regnvejret starter igen, og vi er begge to meget ivrige efter at fortsætte med at putte haven i seng til vinteren. Og indenfor et minut er vi kommet ned og beskidt i grøntsagshaven.

vi kommer ned og beskidt i grøntsagshaven igen

11:30 Vi kommer tilbage ind i huset og slapper af med en kop kaffe i sofaen. Og efter postbudet har leveret dagens post, smutter vi ind i nabohuset, Stephen og Francis', for at afhente deres post – de tilbringer ugen med deres datter i Eastbourne og hendes familie, og de har bedt os om, at passe på deres hus i deres fravær. Vi opdager, at den fladpakbogreol, som parret bestilte fra IKEA, også er blevet leveret, så vi slæber den ind i huset og lægge den ned i entréen.

Dette er lidt trist, synes vi. Stephen og Francis’ først levering at IKEA-møbler nogensinde, og  endnu et tegn på, at IKEA-epidemiet har bredt sig til Storbrittanien, som vi først for 16 år siden læste om på vores go-to lokale nyhedswebsted, det indflydelsesrige Onion News Local.

IKEA, den hurtigt voksende svenske forhandler af billig boligindretning, hævdede yderligere 10.000 britiske livsstiler i 2003, ifølge en rapport, der blev offentliggjort tirsdag af Center for Interior Design Control.

"Denne epidemi af selvmonterede, modernistiske møbler er stadig stort set indeholdt i tætbefolkede byområder, men faren er, at den vil sprede sig til andre regioner i hele Storbritannien," sagde CIDC-talsmand Chris Greeves tirsdag. "I takt med at det bevæger sig, kan vores nation lide kontinentale niveauer af skandinavisk design inden for et årti."

Greeves sagde, at IKEA ikke let kontrolleres, da den stort set spreder sig fra mund til mund.

"Det passerer mellem værelser, indtil det ikke kun har angrebet din stue, men også dine 1,5 badeværelser, dit rent indrettede køkken og derefter hele din solbeskinnede, åbenlandskabede loft-lejlighed. I de mest ekstreme tilfælde vil den endda sprede sig til den streng-lysindrettede tagterrasse med udsigt over dit for nylig gentrificerede kvarter. "

IKEA-epidemien begyndte at tiltrække opmærksomhed i 1985, da den første britiske IKEA-butik blev diagnosticeret i Harwich og inficerede næsten natten over anslået 2.500 hjem med Stenkulla-borde, Blankhult-stole og Ingebo-sofaer.

Havnebyen Harwich, hvor epidemien først blev diagsnosticeret

fra en flatpak sofabord, opdaget på en svensk færge,

skjult under tonsvis af løse frikadeller

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!  Men hvor viste Greeves’ ord sig at være utrolig profetisk – det ved jeg med sikkerhed!!! Nu, hvor Stephen og Francis’ hus er blevet til epidemiens seneste offer, er det kun et spørgsmål om tid, før min og Lois’ tur kommer op, og vi bliver til intet andet, end endnu én statistik – yikes!

12:00 Vi spiser frokost og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage en gigantisk eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 15 og vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen.

Jeg sætter mig med computeren og jaske de næste få sider af vores danske krimiroman igennem – Anna Grues ”Dybt at falde”, som er vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt.

Og idet jeg blader siderne igennem, udarbejder jeg en ordforrådliste til hver side, for at spare vores gruppemedlemmer for at slå de svære ord op i en ordbog. Jeg er så varmhjertet ha ha ha!!!!

Anna Grues krimiroman, ”Dybt at falde”,

vores U3A danske gruppes nuværende projekt

Anna Grue, romanens forfatterinde

Politidetektiven Flemming Torp er for tiden i gang med at undersøge drabet af Lilliana, en mystisk rengøringsassistent, der bev garrotteret mens hun arbejdede sent på aftenen i køkkener af et stort dansk reklamebureau, ved navnet Kurt & Ko.

Politiet mistænker, at morderen også arbejder for samme bureauet som Lilliana, så har Flemming bedt sin bedste ven Dan Sommerdahl om at hjælpe ham med undersøgelsen, fordi Dan selfølgelig kender godt bureauets personale, ”hvem sover med hvem” og den slags.

Politidetektiven Flemming Torp (til venstre) sammen med

sin bedste ven, Dan Sommerdahl og Dans kone, Marianne

Den mystiske Lilliana – ingen ved hendes efternavn – delte en snusket lejlighed med en anden mystisk kvinde i samme alderen:  Sally, en afrikansk kvinde, der desværre forsvandt sporløs i grov træk samtidig  med, at hendes roomie, Lilliana, blev garrotteret, hvilket er mærkeligt.

Flemming og Dan har ransaget de to kvinders lejlighed, deres garderober og undertøjskuffer osv, for at prøve at opdage spor efter de to kvinders identiteter.

Flemming er den professionelle, når det kommer til detektivarbejde, og Dan er bare en reklamekonsulent, der har fantasier om at blive til en berømt amatørdetektiv.

Men det er faktisk Dan, amatøren, der lægger mærke til det hidtil største spor efter morderens identitet: Lilliana, en fattig ung kvinde i et dårligt betalt job, har gemt en flaske dyr fransk champagne i sit køleskab – og i guldpapiret rundt om proppen er der præget bureauets logo K&K. Sådanne flasker blev specialfremstillet til bureauets tiårs jubilæm det foregående år. Hun havde også en frisk pakke kondomer på sit natbord – yikes!!!!!

reklamebureauets logo

Og lige før Lilliana blev dræbt (garrotteret), læste vi i romanens første kapitel, at hun til at begynde med reagerede med glæde, da hun så gerningsmandens ansigt – indtil hun pludselig blev klar over, at han havde til hensigt at myrde hende. Kan det være, at morderen faktisk er en af bureauets topledelse? Dvs én, der ogsår har været hendes elsker, og at han forinden gav hende den der flaske specialfremstillede dyre franske champagne  – ha! Måske er morderen selve den høje chef, Sebastian Kurt – yikes!!!!

Og i dag læser jeg endnu ét spor, der peger på Sebastian Kurt. Da Dan spørger Sebastian, sin chef, om han faktisk kendte Lilliana, Sebastian svarer, at han mødt hende et par gange. Dan spørger ham så, om han har talt med hende. Og Sebastian ler og svarer, ”Nej, mit estiske er lidt rustent!”

Du godeste, sikke en afsløring – Sebastian, den høje chef, er vidende om, at Lilliana er ester, hvilket ingen anden i selskabet vidste!!!!

Og Sebastian bliver pludselig meget pinlig, efter sin tilsyneladende ”fortalelse”, og afslutter abrupt sin omtale med Dan, med et hurtigt ”Undskyld, jeg har et møde inde København om en times tid”.

Kan det være sandt, at Sebastian Kurt, den stenrige høje chef, der er giftet med den sexede Henriette, som ”ser ud som en fotomodel”, virkelig har haft for vane at besøge Lilliana, den fattige estiske, kedeligt klædt rengøringsdame i hendes dårligt belysede, hengemte to-værelses lejlighed for at have kondom-beskyttet sex med hende på hendes smalle sofaseng? Det virker usandsynligt, for at sige mildt. Men vi får se – aha! Knuden strammes!!!!

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad. Vi. Vi sætter os til rette i sofaen med det formål af, at bruge resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn. Men pludselig mindes Lois om, at hun ikke har ringet tilbage til sin kusine Iris i Southport. Iris ringede os faktisk i fredags, men vi lavede som om, vi ikke var hjemme, og lod telefonsvarer tage opkaldet. Desværre kan Iris lide at snakke og snakke, og opkaldet varer sammenlagt 1-2 timer – pokkers!

21:00 Opkaldet slutter og vi tænder for fjernsynet. Vi er blevet lidt søvnige for at sige mildt, men BBC-2 kanalen  viser vores yndlings tv-quizzer, Only Connect og University Challenge, og vi får vores ugentlige chance for at prøve at bevise, at vi ikke endnu lide af demens.

Som sædvanligt noterer vi hver gang, vi kommer med det korrekte svar i University Challenge, mens de 8 unge friske hjerner på programmets studerende-deltagere er på bar bund. I aften er vores score 6, hvilket ikke er for dårligt, i betragtning af, at vi er trætte, og konkurrencen er mellem en Oxford colleges 4-mands hold og en Cambridge colleges, og rivaliseringen mellem de to hold er skarp, for at sige mildt: den finale score er 150-145.

Selvom vores ”tomandshold” – Lois og mig – kommer med 6 korrekte svar, som de studerende ikke kan finde på,  er det for det meste takket være Lois, det må jeg nok sige: jeg kommer med 2 svar, hun kommer med 5 – ét svar, kommer vi begge to med: vi kan begge to genkende den berømte kendingsmelodi til den klassiske ”Third Man” film. Strengt taget, et spørgsmål skræddersyet til gamle krager ha ha!

Pludselig falder det mig ind, at 2 ud af 6 af vores ”triumfer” i aften resulterer fra spørgsmål, specielfremstillede til gamle krager.

Et andet spørgsmål, som jeg kommer med det korrekte svar til, er også specielfremstillet til gamle krager:

Jeg kommer med det korrekte svar ”Attica State”, men kun på grund af John & Yokos 1971-sang ”Attica State, Attica State, We’re all mates with Attica State!”.

Der må være en gammel krage-muldvarp, der har infiltreret programmets spørgsmålstillere, ingen tvivl om det!!!

Pokkers! Det kan være, at Lois og jeg ikke er så smarte, som vi troede.

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!

Sunday October 27 2019

04:00 I get up super early - for the first time in almost 70 years I was seemingly unaware that we had to put our clocks back 1 hour last night. What's wrong with me nowadays? I'm starting to age quickly, no doubt about that!

I discover my mistake as soon as I turn on my laptop and read the time - damn it! But I decide not to disturb Lois by jumping back into bed - I'm so warm-hearted ha ha ha!

08:00 I make two cups of tea and bring them up the stairs. We stay in bed for a while and I send a text message to Sarah, our daughter in Perth, Australia, to tell her about the new time difference: 8 hours instead of 7. Sarah and us have the habit of talking with each other on whatsapp every Sunday morning.

09:30 The whatsapp call begins with some conversations with Sarah's 6-year-old twins Lily and Jessie. They are very excited at the moment, because an exciting week is coming up - a Halloween party at school, also their teacher, Mrs. Lackey's birthday party, also to take place at school.

How adorable, though, our little "Australian" twin grandchildren are! And they are growing up fast. They were only 2 and a half years old when the family left England and moved to Australia. Now they speak perfect English, and I spend a little time thinking to myself about the miracle of how young children learn to speak, and master unconsciously and without the slightest hassle the complexities of language, etc.

Sarah has sent me a photo of the girls in the Halloween costumes that they have got so excited about: and it's a little strange to recall that Halloween in Australia is associated with nice warm weather, not the grey dark nights we have at the end of October in England.

our 6-year-old twin grandchildren, Lily and Jessie

in their Halloween costumes

Sarah says that they have found that in Australia you have to put a pumpkin with candles in front of the house if you hope to be get visited by little trick-or-treat enthusiasts, so she asks Lois how best to prepare the pumpkin, etc.

Lois and I can also see in the photo how much Lily's face in particular has matured: it's not the face of a toddler anymore, and her brain must now be humming with thousands of thoughts and ideas - I'm sure of that. And Jessie’s too.

Flashback to November 29, 2015: The twins are watching our television

on their last day in Cheltenham. Sarah has dressed them up,

all ready for their long journey to the other end of the world

Sarah has herself designed the children's costumes this year, which is nice. Here, the supermarkets are packed with Halloween costumes at the moment, but there is strictly only a limited time period when such costumes are available.

Halloween costumes and associated merchandise are ideal projects for the growing number of pop-up shops, and Lois and I are currently reading about one pop-up shop in particular, which opened in a very favourable area, a so-called "rust belt town" in the county of Cornwall, where the old abandoned tin mines once flourished (source: our go-to local news site, the influential Onion News Local).

Reporting that it would be nearly impossible to narrow down all the possibilities, sources confirmed Friday that Halloween pop-up shop Spooky City could take its pick of almost any storefront in the Cornish  Rust Belt town where it intended to operate until 31st October.

"Well, I see a lot of empty windows, so at least we have plenty of room to show our costumes and hopefully lure some people in," said Spooky City owner and businessman Curtis Hawkins, who noted that apart from the Exxon station, the charity shop, and a vape shop, every single retail space he looked at on the High Street was vacant.

“I could set up shop in the abandoned Kmart building. It looks like I could also take just about any place in the mall just off the A30. I wanted to use one of these old grocery stores, but they are clearly falling down. ”

At press time, reports confirmed that the pop-up shop had gone bankrupt two weeks before Halloween.

A heart-warming story. Capitalism is, first and foremost, about seeing opportunities and exploiting them as quickly as possible, before the next man does. And it's nice to see that businessmen like Curtis are still made of "the right stuff", I have to say!

10:00 Lois and I have to leave. Lois wants to attend her sect's two worship services, taking place today in Tewkesbury library. Her back has been hurting her for the past 2-3 days, so she has asked me to drive her over there. I drop her off in front of the library and drive home again.

I have some alone time, but not as much as usual. If I have to drive Lois over to Tewkesbury and pick her up at the end of the sect's second service, my alone time gets reduced from 4.5 hours to 2.5 hours, which is a bit of a shame, but I try to do my best to cross off as many household and other tasks as possible on my 2-mile-long to-do-list - yikes!

I hurry out into the backyard and start to weed a little in the vegetable garden, which Lois and I have tried to start putting to bed for the winter - unfortunately, our efforts have been derailed by the almost constant rain - damn! I finally declare the so-called Sector B 100% weed-free before I hang up my trowel for the day.

Sector B - now weed free thank goodness!

12:00 I come back in the house. I have lunch and at the same time read another chapter of Njal's saga, written in the 13th century in Iceland, although the saga itself and the events in it are much older. 

Scilla's U3A Old Norse group is holding its regular fortnightly meeting at our house on Wednesday and this saga is the group's current project. Busy busy busy - and I have my doubts as to whether I will have time to take my usual afternoon nap today - damn it!

I flip through the 64th chapter of the saga and I see that Thorgeir has made another woman pregnant. This time it is Thorfinna, one of Njal's relatives, who has become the latest victim of Thorgeir's talents in seduction and honeyed words. You bad boy Thorgeir! And you bad girl, Thorfinna!

Problems such as unplanned pregnancies were mostly solved in medieval Iceland just the same way every other problem was solved: with a lawsuit in which, in this case, the woman's family demands an appropriate sum off the man's family, which seems to make sense.

Thorfinna (left) and Thorgeir in happier times -

before the lawsuit started ha ha!

13:30 I drive over to Tewkesbury and pick Lois up in the closest car park to the library and we drive home again. We relax with a cup of tea on the couch and afterwards I go to bed to take a short afternoon nap. I get up at 4 pm and read another chapter of Njal's saga, chapter 65.

17:00  I jump up on my exercise bike and cycle 6 miles. But I forget to follow up my bike training with a little light weight training - damn it! My memory has become really awful, no doubt about that.

18:00 We have dinner: roast pork with apple sauce, roast potatoes, and various home-grown vegetables, and apple pie for dessert - yum yum!

20:00 We spend the rest of the evening watching some television, the latest edition of "Antiques Roadshow", a fun programme that showcases special antique events organised at some great house or other out in the countryside.

Local residents bring along some of their family antiques and heirlooms so that the programme's experts can investigate them, speculate a little about their origins, etc., and assess their value in today’s  antiques market and the like. The programme's host is the charming Fiona Bruce.

Tonight's episode has been staged at Castle Ward, a large country mansion in Northern Ireland. The mansion is a bit unusual because the owners, Bernard Ward and his wife, Lady Anne, who had the house built in the 18th century had very different tastes. Agreeing to differ, they arranged that the front facade was built  in classic Palladian style (Bernard's taste), while the reverse is unashamedly gothic (Lady Anne's taste).

The mansion’s  palladian front  facade, Bernard's taste

The Gothic back of the mansion,  Lady Anne's taste

What madness !!!!

The interior of the house also has a bit of a personality split, to put it mildly. Bernard's half reflects his strictly conservative, Palladian tastes.

Bernard's half of the interior: Palladian and conservative

Lady Anne's half of the interior reflected her extreme gothic tastes, to put it mildly.

Lady Anne's half: as gothic as is humanly possible

Lois and I wonder what the couple's bedroom looked like, with maybe one side of the room decorated in Gothic and the other in Palladian perhaps.

Lois suggests the possibility that they never slept together, like many gentry couples in those bygone times. I do some research on my smartphone, however, and I find that the couple actually had a total of 8 children - 4 sons and 4 daughters - so it’s unfortunately a case of "back to the drawing board" there, to put it mildly, and the jury’s very much “still out”.

Good grief, what a crazy world we live in !!!!

Lois and I are reminded that our respective nightstands have different styles: mine is mostly tidy and strictly functional, with clock radio, landline phone, note pad and ballpoint pen, and a case for glasses, etc. Lois’s has become a bit of a mess, to put it mildly, with bedside lamp, ornaments, and stacks of books and magazines and the like. My goodness!

Lois' nightstand: a recent picture (October 7)

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz !!!!

Danish translation: søndag den 27. oktober 2019

04:00 Jeg står op supertidligt – jeg har for første gang i næsten 70 år været uvidende om, at man skulle stille urene tilbage 1 time i nat. Hvad er der galt med mig nu til dags? Jeg er begyndt at ældes hurtigt, ingen tvivl om det!

Jeg opdager min fejl så snart jeg tænder for min bærebare – pokkers! Men jeg beslutter ikke at forstyrre Lois ved at hoppe tilbage i sengen – jeg er så varmhjertet ha ha ha!

08:00 Jeg laver to kopper te og bringer dem op ad trappen. Vi bliver liggende i sengen for en stund, og jeg sender en sms til Sarah, vores datter i Perth, Australien, for at fortælle hende om den nye tidforskel: 8 timer i stedet for 7. Sarah og vi har for vane at tale på whatsapp med hinanden hver søndag formiddag.

09:30  Whatsapp-opkaldet begynder med nogle samtaler med Sarahs 6-årige tvillinger Lily og Jessie. De er meget begejstrede for tiden, fordi en spændende uge er i vente – en Halloween-fest i skolen, også deres lærerinde, Mrs Lackeys fødselsdagsfest, også i skolen.

Hvor er de dog søde, vores små "australske" tvillingebørnebørn! Og de vokser op hurtigt. De var kun 2,5 år gamle, da familien forlod England og flyttede til Australien. Nu taler de perfekte engelsk, og jeg tænker lidt for mig selv om miraklet om, hvordan små børn lærer at tale, og mestre ubevidst og uden den mindste besvær de kompleksiteter af sprog osv.

Sarah har sendt mig et foto af pigerne i de halloween-kostumer, der er blevet så begejstret over: og det er lidt mærkeligt at mindes om, at halloween i Australien er associeret med dejligt varmt vejr, ikke de grå mørke aftener vi har ved slutningen af oktober måned i England.

vores 6-årige tvillingebørnebørn, Lily og Jessie

i deres halloween-kostumer

Sarah siger, at de har fundet ud af, at man i Australien må stikke et græskar med lys i foran huset, hvis man håber at kunne få besøg af små trick-or-treat entusiaster, så hun spørger Lois om, hvordan man bedst skal forberede græskarret osv.

Lois og jeg kan se også på fotoet, hvor meget især Lilys ansigt har udviklet sig: det er ikke ansigtet af en pusling mere, og hendes hjerne brummer nu med tusindvis af tanker og idéer – det er jeg helt sikker på. Jessies også.

tilbageblik til den 29. november 2015: tvillingerne ser på vores fjernsyn

på deres sidste dag i Cheltenham. Sarah har klædt dem på,

klar til deres lange rejse til den anden ende af verden

Sarah har selv designeret børnenes kostumer, hvilket er rart. Her er supermarkederne propfyldt med halloweenkostumer for tiden, men der er strengt tage kun en begrænset periode, hvor sådanne nogle kostumer kan fås, ingen tvivl om det.

Halloween kostumer og associerede handelsvarer er ideelle projekter for den voksende antal af pop-up butikker, og Lois og jeg læste for tiden om én pop-up butik i særdeleshed, der åbnede i et meget gunstigt område, en såkaldt ”rust-bæltsby” i grevskabet Cornwall, hvor den gamle forladte tinminer engang blomstrede (kilde: vores go-to lokale nyhedswebsted, det indflydelsesrige Onion News Local).

De kilder som rapporterede, at det ville være næsten umuligt at indskrænke alle mulighederne, bekræftede fredag, at Halloween-pop-up-butik Spooky City kunne tage sit valg af næsten enhver butiksfront i rustbæltsbyen, hvor den havde til hensigt at operere indtil 31. oktober.

”Nå, Jeg ser en masse tomme vinduer, så i det mindste har vi masser af plads til at vise vores kostumer og forhåbentlig lokke nogle mennesker ind, ”sagde Spooky City-forretningsmanden Curtis Hawkins, som  bemærkede, at bortset fra Exxon-stationen, Goodwill-butikken , og en vape-butik, var hver eneste detailhandel, han kiggede på på Main Street, ledig.

”Jeg kunne oprette butikken i den forladte Kmart-bygning. Det ser ud til, at jeg også kunne tage næsten ethvert sted i det der indkøbscenter, der støder på motorvejen. Jeg ville bruge en af disse gamle købmandsforretninger, men de kollapser helt klart.”

På pressetid bekræftede rapporter, at pop-up-butikken var gået konkurs to uger før Halloween.

Kapitalismen handler, først og fremmest, om at se muligheder og udnytte dem så hurtigt som muligt, før den næste mand gør det. Og det er rart at se, at forretningsmænd såsom Curtis stadig er gjort af ”det rigtige stof” – det må jeg nok sige!

10:00 Lois og jeg skal af sted. Lois ønsker at deltage i sin sekts to gudstjenester, der finder sted i dag i byen Tewkesburys bibliotek. Hun har haft ondt i ryggen de seneste 2-3 dage, så har hun bedt mig om at køre hende derover. Jeg sætter hende af foran biblioteket og kører hjem igen.

Jeg har lidt alenetid, men ikke så meget som normalt. Hvis jeg skal køre Lois over til Tewkesbury og afhente hende ved slutningen af sektens 2. gudstjeneste, bli ver min alenetid reduceret fra 4,5 timer til 2,5 timer, hvilket er lidt af en skam, men jeg prøver at gøre mit bedste med at strege så mange huslige og andre opgaver som muligt på min 2 miles-lange gøremålsliste – yikes!

Jeg skynder mig ud i baghaven og går i gang med at luge lidt i grøntsagshaven, som Lois og jeg har forsøgt at begynde at putte i seng til vinteren – desværre har vores indsatser blevet forpurret af den næsten konstant regnvejr – pokkers!

12:00 Jeg kommer tilbage ind i huset. Jeg spiser frokost og samtidig læse endnu et kapitel af Njals Saga, skrevet i det 13. århundrede i Island, selvom selve sagaen og begivenhederne derinde er meget meget ældre. Scillas U3A oldnordiske gruppe holder sit regelmæssige fjortendagsmøde på onsdag hos os og denne saga er gruppens nuværende projekt. Travlt travlt travlt – og jeg har mine tvivler om, om jeg vil have tid til at tage min sædvanlige eftermiddagslur i dag – pokkers!

Jeg blader igennem sagaens 64. kapitel, og jeg ser, at Thorgeir har gjort endnu en kvinde gravid. Denne gang er det Thorfinna, én af Njals slægtninge, der er blevet det seneste offer for Thorgeirs talenter i forførelse og lokketoner. Din slemme dreng Throgeir! Og din slemme pige, Thorfinna!

Disse problemer blev for det meste løst i det middelalderlige Island med en sagsøgning, hvor kvindens familie kræver en hensigtsmæssig sum af mandens familie, hvilket virker at give mening ha ha!

Thorfinna (til venstre) og Thorgeir i lykkeligere tider –

før retssagen begyndte ha ha!

13:30 Jeg kører over til Tewkesbury og afhenter Lois på den tætteste parkeringsplads på biblioteket, og vi kører hjem igen. Vi slapper af med en kop te i sofaen og bagefter går jeg i seng for at tage et kort eftermiddagslur. Jeg står op kl 16 og læser endnu et kapitel af Njals saga, kapitel 65.

17:00 Jeg hopper op på min kondicykel og cykler 6 miles. Men jeg glemmer at følge min cykeltræning op med lidt let vægttræning – pokkers! Min hukommelse er blevet rigtig forfærdelig, ingen tvivl om det.

18:00 Vi spiser aftensmad: flæskesteg med æblesovs, stegte kartofler, og forskellige hjemmedyrkede grøntsager, og æbletærte til dessert – yum yum!

20:00 Vi bruger resten af aftenen på at se lidt fjernsyn, det seneste afsnit af ”Antiques Roadshow”, et morsomt program, der fremviser eventer, organiserede på ét eller andet palads ude på landet.

Lokale indbyggere medbringer nogle af deres familie-antikviteter og arvestykker, så programmets eksperter kan undersøge dem, spekulere lidt om deres oprindelser osv, og vurdere deres værd på antikvitetsmarkedet og den slags. Programmets vært er den charmerende Fiona Bruce.

Aftenens afsnit spiller sig ud på Castle Ward, et stort palads ude på landet i Nord-Irland. Paladset er lidt usædvanligt, fordi ejerne, Bernard Ward og sin kone, Lady Anne, som fik paladset bygget i 1700-tallet havde meget forskelllige smage. Facaden er klassisk palladiansk (Bernards smag), mens bagsiden er vaskeægte gotisk (Lady Annes smag).

Paladsets palladianske facade, til Bernards smag

Paladsets gotiske bagside, til Lady Annes smag

Sikke et vanvid!!!!

Husets indre har også lidt af en personlighedsspaltning, for at sige mildt. Bernards halvdel genspejler sine strengt konservative, palladianske smage.

Bernards halvdel af indret: palladiansk og konservativ

Lady Annes halvdel genspejler imidlertid sine løjerlige gotiske smage, for at sige mildt.

Lady Annes halvdel: så gotisk som muligt

Lois og jeg spekulerer lidt på, hvordan parrets soveværelse så ud, med den ene siden af værelset måske pyntet i gotisk og den anden side i palladiansk. Lois foreslår muligheden at de aldrig sovede sammen, ligesom mange ædelige par i de der svundne tider. Jeg gør lidt forskning på min smartphone imidlertid, og jeg opdager, at parret faktisk fik sammenlagt 8 børn - 4 sønner og 4 døtre - så er det hele et tilfælde af ”tilbage til tegnebrættet” der, for at sige mildt.

Du godeste, sikke en skør verden vi lever i !!!!

Lois og jeg mindes om, at vores henholdsvise natborde har forskellige stiler: mit er for det meste ryddeligt og strengt funktionelt, med clockradio, fastnettelefon, blok og kuglepen, og  futteral til briller osv. Lois er blevet lidt af et rod, for at sige mildt, med sengelamp, ornamenter, og stabler af bøger og magasiner og den slags. Du godeste!

Lois’ natbord: et nyligt billede (den 7. oktober)

22:00 Vi går i seng – zzzzzzzz!!!!