Memory Monday:

Fishing, ponds and streams.

Where my paternal grandmother and her husband lived there was a small stream in the backyard. And across the street there was a fairly large pond, and there were a lot of ducks and swans living there. Also there were a lot of fish. So my cousins, my sister and I spend a lot of time fishing. Or running around in the stream. The only time I recall us ever catching anything in the stream it wasn’t even on purpose. My sister was just fetching some water in a bucket and she caught an eel.




But there were a lot of fish in the pond. Unfortunately they weren’t that easy to catch. But we tried. Every now and then we would bring our fishing poles and stand around the pond, each at our favorite spot, and wait for the fish to bite. I don’t remember ever catching any fish, but I do remember that one of my cousins won a fishing contest that was held at the pond once. And my sister won second or third place.





Another thing I remember was the time I fell in the pond.

And I’m pretty sure it was right after the fishing contest. My dad and my uncles and all of us children were on our way home to my grandparent’s house. I was racing my cousin and she said something to me, so naturally I turned and looked at her. Unfortunately that was when the pond took a turn too, so I ran into it instead of around it. It wasn’t very deep. But I was embarrassed and the water was cold, and the ducks and the swans were swimming towards me (I guess they thought I brought bread by special delivery…), so I really didn’t feel like swimming around in there. And the swans were pretty big to a 10 year old.




After that it took a while before I ran my way around the pond again. I preferred walking :-)

Sapphic Sunday:

She has played a number of roles. Like Gwen DeMarco, Dana Barrett, Ripley...

I am talking about Sigourney Weaver.








Need I say more?

Aliens (the second movie)



Galaxy Quest

____________________________________


Last night Ghostbusters was on television. I always liked Ghostbusters 2 the best. But that was mostly because of this scene:

Ghostbusters II (Statue of Liberty scene)


Enjoy your Sunday :-)

Just for fun: Yes more Otalia

Okay. This is original...and funny :-)



And the music... :-)
Anyone remember Benny Hill?

Midsummer: We still burn witches….

It’s the annual celebration of midsummer or solstice. In Danish: Skt. Hans aften.

Every year on June 23rd we gather around a huge bonfire….and burn a witch.
She may not be an actual woman (but one made of straw) but none the less we celebrate Skt. Hans aften by burning of a witch. And we do that to send her of to Bloksbjerg (which is the German mountain Blocksberg or Brocken).



The tradition however is not connected to the actual witch burnings we had between the 15th and the 17th century. Initially we made bonfires to scare off the witches and evil spirits but the tradition with a witch on the fire was brought to us from some German workers who came to Denmark in the 1860s.
But we have celebrated midsummer at least since the days of the Vikings. At that time this night was believed to be magical and filled with magical powers – both good and evil. Also the herbs and the springs were believed to be especially magical this night.


When I was a kid, we used to celebrate Skt. Hans at my (paternal) grandparents’ house. We started in the afternoon by making a witch out of straw and/or newspapers (and some of my grandmother’s old clothes…). And sometimes there were firecrackers inside the witch as well, so she would really make some noise when she flew off for Bloksbjerg.
After dinner we gathered around the bonfire, where we kids ran around playing. And the evening usually ended with us making snobrød* over the fire.
After my grandmother died in 1988 the tradition ended (because the land we used to build the bonfire on was sold).



Nowadays we usually go to a public bonfire. We listen to speeches made by a public figure from the community, we sing the Midsummer Hymn (there are two versions: the original and the the more modern one) and then we drink beer, eat hotdogs (or similar) and hang out with friends and family. And celebrate that the days will be longer and the nights will be brighter.





*Snobrød are just small breads on a stick that are baked over the fire.

Memory Monday:

Childhood games.

We played a lot of the games at school (between classes – and sometimes during).

I had 2 favorites:

Rundbold and Antonius


Now rundbold is similar to baseball or softball – and yet totally different I guess.

Equipment:

Here are the rules for rundbold
There’s only one thing I’d like to add. We did have someone to throw or bounce the ball for us when we were to hit it.

Like this:

I think I liked this game so much because I was pretty good at it. It was one of those games where I was actually in the top half of the class when teams were made. And it was not because I was a very good runner. But I could hit the ball far out of the field and I could throw it pretty far as well. And I was a fairly decent catcher too.
__________


Antonius is also a game that calls for ‘throwers’ and ‘catchers’. Mostly it’s played around a house - or something similar.

All you need is one of these - and a house:

There are two teams. The teams stand on each side of the house.
How to play:
Team A has the ball, and someone from the team throws the ball across the roof while the rest of the team yells “Antonius”.
The other team attempts to catch the ball before it hits ground. If caught it means point for the team. Team B throws the ball back. Same procedure. When a team’s got 3 points they are allowed to sneak around the building and when they yell “Antonius” the members of the opposite team have to maintain whatever spot they are in.
The person that caught the ball last, can after have taken three steps (and after having spat at the ground and going to wherever that landed….) try and hit one from the other team with the ball and if succeeded that person will have to join the other team. And the game continues.





But those were not the only games we played. And we didn’t just play games at school. More about that later.
I have been sick, so today’s post is rather short. There was more, but it will be posted later.
Have a great first day of the week.

Sapphic Sunday:

From another great show with a catchy theme (although you might know this version better), which has expanded into spin-offs, novels, comics and video games I give you...
The lovely ladies of CSI (Las Vegas) - well some of them:

Marg Helgenberger

Jorja Fox

Louise Lombard

Liz Vassey

She also plays Nikki in Nikki and Nora. That's a show I would have liked to see more of. A parody called Lady Cops was made in 3way starring Liz Vassey as Mikki.

Lauren Lee Smith

And just because I think she's done a pretty amazing job as Lady Heather

Melinda Clarke:

She also plays Julie Cooper in O.C.


Enjoy your Sunday :-)

Sometimes English can be tricky....

Sometimes it's a matter of grammar. Or spelling.

Sometimes it's because you use words or expressions in your native language that you simply translate into what you think it should be in English (...and Danes do that a lot...

You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid (Information to the guests at a Danish Hotel - pretty sure they meant something different...like 'ask the chambermaid for help'...)

Dane in an English pub: "Can I borrow the toilet?" (the word for 'borrow' and 'use' is the same in Danish: 'låne' - at least in this case)

The prick over the I (said by Jytte Hilden - she meant the 'dot over the i', but dot is 'prik' in Danish)

Screw down your expectations (Richard Møller Nielsen, former coach of the Danish national soccer team to the world press - he meant 'tone down' or 'lower' but the Danish word is 'skru' eller 'skrue') )

And sometimes it's just a matter of typos.

But they can give the words a total different meaning than intended:

New style

It's amazing what you can buy...

Just in case...

There are more pictures at Engrish.com
It's nice to know that the Danes are not the only ones having problems with the English language :o)

I'm back again

I've been having a lot of trouble with my Internet connection lately.

But it finally seems that it will get fixed - at some point this week - so I should be back in business.

It hasn't only messed with my blog posts.

It's also giving me problems with my schoolwork, so now that it's up and running (at least for now) I was trying to find some music to help me get in the mood for writing.

I did find some songs.

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody


Scott McKenzie - San Francisco


Hermes House Band - I Will Survive (Live)


ABBA - Mamma Mia


Rollo og King - I'll Never Ever Let You Go

I still prefer the Danish version.

But I didn't get much writing done... I was too busy singing :o)

Anyway.

Hope you have a great day :o)

Memory Monday:

Toys I used to play with as a kid.

Most of them were simple, didn't require any batteries or other source of power - only a great deal of imagination :o)

Like:

The Slinky

As I recall it only came in two versions.
The plain

And the rainbow

The Footbag or the Hacky Sack

The yo-yo

There were a lot of tricks to those.
We used hours and hours to perfect the tricks, and only by watching and learning from each other.
Today you can learn all the cool tricks by watching a video

The Frisbee

The Roller skates - quad skates, not inliners.

The Rubik’s cube

And the Rubik’s snake

And finally the Hula hoop

I never could swirl more than 3 at a time.

But some are much more talented.





Many of these seem to have had their revivals. Some more than once.

The only difference between now and then seems to be the layouts.

Sapphic Sunday:

I appreciate strong female characters in books/movies/series…..
And I especially like strong female detectives/cops/PI’s/investigators/reporters…erhm…whoever solves the crime…

Some books turn into great television series or movies. Others don’t and should probably just stay as books *cough* Camilla Läckberg *cough*.

Somehow when I read James Patterson’s books about Lindsay Boxer I could easily imagine Angie Harmon in the leading role.

I like the character of Lindsay Boxer, but I also like that the books (and the show) are about all the women in the Womens Murder Club.

I haven’t watched more than 3 episode of the first (and only) season, but so far I like it.












But this wasn’t the first time I adored Angie Harmon as a detective. I sure didn’t watch Baywatch Nights because of David Hasselhoff…





And finally: Here picture from Allure Magazine May 2008

Enjoy your Sunday :o)