Glædelig jul: Merry X-mas

Santa. Photo: Mick. 2014.

I wish all my readers a merry x-mas and a happy new year.

This time last year, we celebrated a true Danish jul together with my siblings and their families, managing to serve up our own version of the x-masses we remember from our childhood home, complete with pork roast, ris-a-la-mande, live candles on the newly felled pine tree and Santa who delighted most, but terrified one five-year old. On x-mas day we walked through a bright morning with sparkling snow in beautiful, cold sunshine. All up we were 17 people together, ranging in ages from five months to 72 years.

Introducing: A Dual Danish-Australian citizen

Dual citizenship will let me celebrate my whole identity, both Danish and Australian. Photo by Mick 2014.

And again there is reason to celebrate: On the eve of my return to Australia, I have regained my birthright and am again a Danish citizen.

Those of you who have followed my blog will know that I have longed for being recognised again as Danish, after losing my Danish citizenship when I became an Australian.

Reflections on the gap

Mind the gap. Photo: Lone. 2015.

Normally, the gap year is reserved for the young, fresh out of high school, ready to conquer the world. But like youth, the gap year really is wasted on the young.

For starters, at that age you have very limited means. This means you have to work a shitty job in a shitty café – or worse – to fund your fun year out. At 48, I have accumulated a certain amount of wealth from many years of working really hard and living quite frugally, as well as an amount of long service leave I could use sensibly for the purpose. I compare this with the time when I as a 16 year old also took a gap year to attend an English language course at Cardiff University for three months. I really had very limited means and no steady income. I am sure Cardiff would have been much more fun with dosh.

Infinite obliteration

Yayoi Kusama: Dots Obsession (2009), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Lone. 2015.

I first met Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929, Japan) in the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art 2011 exhibition Look Now, See Forever. I don’t mean met her in person, but I met her art. I recall best the dots. She must be the best dotter I have ever come across. I recall standing in the red dots obsession room feeling overjoyed at the audacity that this could be art. Kusama’s work provided an aesthetic affective experience and was surprising and delightful. Could art really be this much fun? At the time I admit I did not immerse myself in the Kusama’s story and her amazing feats as a female Japanese artist in a white men’s art world. I simply took in the colour and brightness as I lost myself in the immersive works, watched the video installations with amusement and was delighted by the enormous flowers that bloom at midnight.

Life imitates art

Image credit: REUTERS/Nilufer Demir/DHA

When the image of the drowned boy on a Turkish beach first came onto my screen I thought it was an art work. An artist highlighting the tragedy playing out in the mediterranean with thousands and thousands of ‘boat people’ crossing the waters away from chaos and conflict in search of asylum and peace in Europe. The porcelain coloured skin against the absurdly bright red t-shirt, the soles of his shoes and that pasty colour of his ear seemed to me surreal, artistic, not real life. I did not pay a great deal of attention at first.

Paddock of Apples – part II

The clouds were never far away as we cycled through the landscape. Photo: Mick. 2015.

It was not the best weather for a week in a summer house at Boeslem Strand, Ebeltoft, Mols. We spent some time calculating the best opportunity to mount the bikes and ride into the natural beauty of this place. Huge tracts of the area is incorporated into Mols Bjerge National Park, protected since 2009. Greedily, we rode both the tandem bike and a couple of town bikes to get around when the weather smiled upon us. Sometimes we did get caught in the rain, but unperturbed on we rode.

Paddocks of Apples – part I

Ebeltoft means Paddock of Apples, and happy couples who marry at the old town hall receive a glass apple. Photo: Mick. 2015.

It is advised to savour the journey, not the destination. In our time here in Denmark, we may have a base on Nørrebro in Copenhagen, but we have been busily journeying from there.

Last week we travelled to a great little summer cottage at Boeslum beach on the east coast of Hasnæs, Mols. We had borrowed this gem of a holiday house from friends of my family. Unfortunately, August suddenly decided to turn from sunny and warm to unstable, rainy and cold. Yet we made the best of it, getting around on the tandem or the ordinary town bikes in between the rain.

Cycles and summer

When the Danish summer is good, it really is very, very good. Many Danes go south for their summer holidays, to be sure to see the sun. This year July was cold and rainy, but just as people went back to work and school, August teased out the sun. We have had plenty of warm days with bright blue skies and lovely mild sunshine, perfect for a cycling trip.

Cycling in Copenhagen is not as much about fitness as it is about transport. Transport of almost anything. Photo: Mick. 2015.

Images of the aquarium

Large pike live in the Lakes in Copenhagen. This pike did not live to tell the tale of the water it swims in. Photo: Mick. 2015.

It is said that it is always hardest for the fish to describe the aquarium it swims in. Whether that is so, being at a distance away from Australia, I am able to see my adopted country through different eyes. In northern Europe, the image of Australia is typically one of dangerous wildlife and the foolhardy larrikins who laugh in the face of such danger, pop open another beer can and throw another shrimp on the barbie. It may be one of bronzed, muscular surfers on white sandy beaches and it may involve red dirt and Aboriginal people living in harmony with country. It is a happy-go-lucky place where people speak English, the climate is warm and nature is stunning.

Going on a holiday

Surf Life Savers were not too busy – the rain and temperatures below 20 degrees celsius kept swimmers away. Photo: Mick. 2015.

I have been on holidays. Even people on sabbatical need a holiday. With my siblings and their families, we went to The Skaw – Skagen – the tip of the Jutland peninsula and home to Denmark’s most northerly point.

Some swimmers braved the cold! Photo: Lone. 2015.