Vinterferie -- 4 -- Winter Holidays

     I dag for præcis 6 år siden var det også fredag i vinterferien. Og lige som på den fredag for snart længe siden, spillede vi også Dungeons & Dragons, men i modsætning til den fredag, spiste vi ikke scones. Vi fik en galopkringle, som Skribenten havde bagt. Den smagte godt, Billedet her er ikke det bedste. Brun kage på brunt bræt, men kagen var spist inden Uglemor fik kigget på billederne, og en halvkedelig kage er meget bedre end ingen kage.

-- 🎂🍰🍩 --

Today exactly 6 years ago it was, as today, Friday in the winter holidays. And just like on that long ago Friday we played Dungeons & Dragons, but we did not eat scones with strawberry jam. We had "Galopkringle" (Gallop cake - because it's awful quick to make). The Writer made it, and we ate it before MotherOwl got to look at her photos. They're quite drab, brown cake on a brown board. But well drab cake is better than no cake at all.

Noget farligt indeni

Denne sang blev sunget af Lily Broberg i Cirkusrevyen1976. Teksten er skrevet af Preben Kaas, men den er vist lige så aktuel i dag.

Sorry all nice English spaking people. There's just no way I can do these rambling ironic lyrics justice in translation.

 

Der er så meget man ikke må
Og der er meget at passe på.
Et blødkogt æg om dagen
Er gift som bare fa’en
Fordi der er noget farligt indeni.

Drik aldrig sødmælk, du bli’r til kalk
Kom smør på brødet og ring til Falck!
En enkelt kaffetår
Kan koste dig år
Fordi der er noget farligt indeni.

Altså lige fra morgenmaden
Så er du ude i balladen.

Du har brugt sukker, du har rørt rundt.
Og du har nydt det et svinsk sekund.
Din marmelademad
Den gjorde dig glad
Fordi du ved, den er farlig indeni.

Der er så meget man ikke må
Og frokostbordet skal man la’ stå.
Et stykke steg med svær
Gi’r overlagte tæer
Fordi der er noget farligt indeni.

Ja – det er grufuldt og noget skidt.
At drikke øl til og akvavit.
Hold dig fra røget ål
Lad være at sige ”skål”
Fordi der er noget farligt indeni.

Næ hold fast ved livets glød.
Og hold dig væk fra wienerbrød!
Likør til kaffen gi’r dig et knæk.
Næ tag en cognac Og hæld den væk!
Et stykke fyldt konfekt
kan gøre dig defekt
Fordi det ka’ væ’r farligt indeni.

Der er så meget man ikke må.
Og der er meget at passe på.
Se bort fra middagsmaden
beslut dig til at hade den
Fordi der er noget farligt indeni.

Lad væ’r at ryge, lad væ’r at drik.
Løb lange ture, gør gymnastik.
Og hvis din mand bli’r hed,
lad væ’r at læg dig ned
Fordi der er noget farligt indeni.

Hold dig godt, lad væ’r med noget
Det er den eneste rigtige måde

Husk alt er farligt. Pas på dig selv
Og følg parolen: Ked dig ihjel.
Jeg er en svag natur
Mig kan de ikke lure
Fordi jeg vil være farlig indeni!

Vinterferie -- 3 -- Winter Holidays

     Her er faktisk ikke særligt vinterligt for øjeblikket, ca. 5 grader, overskyet og småfugtigt. Lige den slags vejr, Uglemor ikke kan fordrage. Så er det jo godt at der er en undskyldning for at bage en kage. Valentinsdag.

 -- 💙 💕 💚 --

Although this is our winter holidays, the weather is rather Novemberish. cool, cloudy, windy and moist. Exactly the kind of weather, or lack of weather, that is MotherOwl's lest favourite weather. What a good thing it is Valentine's day today. A good excuse to bake a cake.

Smørkage med hjerteglasur og hjertekonfetti. -- Heart shaped sprinkles on icing hearts.

Words for Wednesday -- 13 February -- Unicorn Farm 22

  The prompts for February are provided by River at Drifting through Life.
 
1. shutdown
2. wreck
3. hairclip
4. marked
5. old school
6. brewery

and/or:

1. release
2. hell-no!
3. cherries
4. insignificant
5. coffee
6. almost


Once again I wrote a small chapter from my magical autobiography, but this time I used the prompts in the order I needed them.

The story continues a bit more than a week later. It's Friday, last day of school before the Winter Holidays (Winter Holidays in Denmark are not the Christmas Holidays, but a week in early February - actually this very week ). 

The shutdown of the old brewery in town was the reason for much gnashing of teeth. Parents went unemployed. Children came late to school, the workers in the shipyard had lost their spirit, in short disorder reigned everywhere.
Susan felt the damp spirit permeating the town as something almost physical. She waited impatiently for release. But of course the teachers were affected by the dismal spirit as well and given them a test. Today when the Winter holidays began! Susan felt almost defiant as she marked the wrong words in the text with ease. These old school test were so easy.

She was going to the Unicorn Farm tonight. She could hardly wait. Her parents had reluctantly allowed her to go alone by train to the Farm, little did they know that Susan had no intention of ever using the train ticket in her purse. She was going to use her portal, of course. Her mind wandered. Heidi and the twins had had something to say about the evil man and the folder from that Belgian tourist resort. But their letter had been short, almost insultingly so. But then, she was going to meet them tonight.
The teacher came in, carrying a mug of steaming coffee. This brought Susan back from her musings. Hurriedly she gathered her stray hairs back in the hairclip, and filled out the missing words in the second half of the test.

Susan felt like a wreck. The school work felt so insignificant compared to the evil man, and the chaos that threatened her magical world. She was lucky that she was good at the ordinary school subjects, else her notes would have suffered this semester, earning her a solid scolding and maybe even a week of grounding, a worse punishment than a solid beating in Susan's opinion.

The teacher rated their test during the long break, and Susan was as usually in the top five of the class. Now she could relax on that account at least.
She said good bye to her class mates, wishing them a happy holiday and ran home. She ate lunch all alone, and packed her gear in a small bag. She did not know if the portal could handle her bike, but did not dare leave it in the old lumber yard for a week in case it could not, so she decided on walking.
Her parents returned home, and Dad bade her go to the grocer's at the end of the street for a crate of beer before she left for Heidi's place. "Might be they closed the brewery in town," Dad said, "but they still make the best beer."
"I'm going to lug a crate of beer all that way," Susan asked.
"Well yes," Dad said, "Those plastic crates are not that heavy. When I was your age the crates were made of wood, and one crate was 50 bottles of beer. Now it's only 30, and you're a big girl, off you go."
Actually Susan did remember the wooden crates, she even remembered carrying one of them for a few steps, they were heavy as lead. They had gotten some empty ones from the beer depot down the street when they went out of use. Susan of course used hers for books and stuff. Linda's were home to an ever expanding collection of horse magazines.
Susan took the money, dressed in her winter clothes, and put her wand in a pocket. She did not want to try and carry one of those heavy buggers all the way without a little bit of magic. She had not forgotten about the DO-NOT rule, but she was not going far, she was not going to use magic on or in front of people. Hell-no! she was not going to ruin her only joy.
At the grocer's she bought the beer, and also some sherbet powder, mostly lemon and strawberry flavoured, and then one of the new ones. It was supposed to taste like cherries. Susan liked the fizzy, popping feel of sherbet powders, but suspected she would not like the cherry variation.
Then she carried the crate a little way from the grocer's. Pausing between two street lamps, she tasted the sherbet powder, confirming her suspicion that cherry sherbet tasted nasty. Then, after a quick look around her, she cast a spell to make the crate lighter to carry.
She took care not to show that she could carry the crate with ease now, but walked as fast as she deemed wise in the thickening darkness. She dumped the crate in the back yard, cancelled the spell, and went inside again.
She carefully placed her wand inside the bag again. then she slung the bag over her shoulder. She went into Linda's room, and gave her the rest of the cherry flavoured sherbet, and said goodbye. She quickly hugged her father. She hugged her mother for a longer time, listened to her admonishing, and promised once again to take care, look closely at the time tables before boarding the trains at the central station, eat her sandwiches, mind her manners at Heidi's place, and not speak to strangers (she was not going to obey this one). And yes, she was totally able to walk all alone to the train station. After all it was not even six o'clock, and she knew the way.
She waved goodbye and headed for the railway station. But when she reached the end of the road and was out of sight, she turned left and doubled back via a parallel street. It was only a short detour on her way to the old lumber yard.

Vinterferie -- 2 -- Winter Holidays -- Opdateret

I dag, tirsdag var himlen ekstra interessant her til morgen.  Jeg har aldrig set skyer, der så sådan ud før, og undrer mig over, hvad der mon får dem til at gøre sådan.

-- 🌤 --

 
The sky looked very interesting this morning. I never saw clouds just like these before, and wonder what caused this.  

     Det var ikke så koldt, som de forrige dage, og solen skinnede. I går købte jeg frø til tidlig salat og radiser, med den skumle bagtanke at få ryddet op i domen og så frøene der. Oprydning i domen er tiltrængt. Der har jeg vist ikke været siden jeg hentede de sidste chilier tilbage i oktober.

-- 🍅🍃 --

It was not as cold as it has been, and it hat stopped being so windy. I hate cold winds and rain. It makes my fingers hurt. The sun was shining and yesterday I bought seeds for early lettuce and radishes. I suspected this could motivate me to clean out the greenhouse. My last visit there was probably in late October, harvesting the very last chillies.

-- o0o --

     Så tog Uglemor en rekordhurtig tur på indkøb. 35 minutter fra hun gik, til hun kom hjem igen. Deri inkluderet gåtur til og fra busstoppestedet, bustur begge veje og indkøb i to forretninger. 💪
     Da indkøbene var på plads, gik Uglemor i krig med domen.  Tomatplanterne var lodne af skimmel, stadig med bløde, lodne frugter her og der. Der var masser af ukrudt, og alle de små haveredskaber lå bare, hvor jeg efterlod dem sidste år.
    Den øverste række er før-billeder. Den nederste er efter.
     Så gik der en sky for solen og Uglemor gik ind til en kop varm the. Måske kommer solen og Uglemor frem i eftermiddag igen. 

-- 🍅🍃 --

MotherOwl went for an ultra quick shopping trip - 35 minutes including walking to and from the bus-stop, bus ride both ways and two shops visited - a record ... maybe 💪
Then it was time for a visit to the dome. The tomato plants were musty; soft, mouldy fruits still hanging here and there, weeds growing wildly, and all garden implements just left where they were used last year.
Top row: Before, bottom row after. Then the sun went behind the clouds. Maybe this afternoon it'll come beck.

Udefra, venstre og højre side af domen. Gravlysene har stået der siden den første nattefrost, hvor de forgæves kæmpede for at holde tomaterne frostfri.

From outside, left and right side. The grave candles were my loosing battle against the frosty nights last autumn.

-- o0o --

     Så blev det søreme solskinsvejr. Domens anden side blev også ryddet. Her er 3. billedserie fra domen. På det midterste billede er alle de underlige ting, der var rundt omkring., blevet sorteret. Det kræver måske et billede for sig selv.
     Såning? Det må vente til i morgen.

-- 🍅🍃 --

The Sun came out this afternoon.  MotherOwl cleaned the dome, and took new photos for a new photo serial. Here's the dome once again. Mission complete. In the middle picture all the crap found in the dome is sorted. It might need a separate explanation.
No sowing was done. It'll wait until tomorrow.

     Al skramlet i fine bunker. Haveredskaber og genbrugelige skilte og vandingsdimser i de firkantede urtepotter. Den grønne flaske er et vandingsprojekt, boble- og anden plast er ligesom lysene til frostsikring. Vandkanden skal naturligvis genbruges, snor og urtepotter ligeså. Den runde potte fuld af hvidmalede træstykker stammer fra et eller andet længst glemt projekt.
     I posen, der hænger på vandbeholderen, er alle de knækkede plastikdimser, nylonsnor osv. samlet. Næste gang Uglemor tager på lyn-indkøb, kommer det med, og bliver smidt ud i en container til plast. Ugemor er lidt sur over, at der kun er genbrugsbøtter til aviser og glas i vores lille landsby. Genbrug skal gøres nemt, ellers virker det ikke.

-- 🍅🍃 --

All the crap nicely sorted. Gardening tools and reusable thingies for watering an marking in the two square pots. The green bottle, some sheets of plastic and the candles are all part of the frost fighting squad. The green bottle is for watering. The watering can is to be reused, and the same goes for the string and the pots.  The white painted pieces of wood in a round pot hail from a long forgotten project, don't ask.
On the water tank hangs a dirty plastic bag. It hides all the broken markers and  watering thingies, broken pots, scrapped nylon strings, in short all things plastic. The next time MotherOwl is going to the record breaking shopping place, she'll bring this bag and dispose of it in a communal recycle bin for plastics, simultaneously grumbling over the fact that she needs to take recyclable plastic for a bus ride. Recycling should be made easy, and even our little village should have bins for plastic and metal as a supplement to the existing paper and glass bins.

Bonusbillede. Så meget ukrudt var der til hønsene i den anden halvdel af domen. De blev glade!

-- 🍅🍃 --

Bonus photo of all the weeds for the chicken, gathered in the right hand half of the dome. The chicken were very pleased.