July in retrospect; an objective lesson in humility.

How do you express in mere words when everything you believe in is being tested?

When I had to say yes or no to stopping my father's medication, I knew what his own wishes were and I knew perfectly well what my own position on the matter was. My Father was not going to be left like a vegetable, incapable of conscious response or whilst indifferent people moved about him as if he weren't there.

As a teenager I too contemplated those weighty issues which young adults take so seriously. I adopted a series of social and political beliefs based on what I thought was my unique understanding of the world about me. In later years those illusions were stripped from me, one by one until I reached the point where I came to understand that they weren't really my beliefs at all. They were the product of my environment which I had adopted as if they were mine own. It took forty years, but I finally came to understand what wisdom is. I'm not saying I've grown wise, only that I've finally come to realise that when I founded most of my morals, I was operating under false assumptions.

Ironically, I still hold to some of my cherished belief's. I still believe over population is the biggest problem facing the human race and so it is an act of near immorality to have more than two children.

Facing the prospect of aborting our third child, or accepting responsibility for letting my father die has put my beliefs to the test. When the time came, I found it impossible to contemplate killing our child and I found it almost impossible to say yes to stopping my Fathers medication. July 2010 has taught me some very interesting lessons about self deception. In both instances I chose what I thought was the best option and I hope I was right, but I think I'm kidding myself if I think I had any real say in the matter or if I think my convictions rest upon anything but wishful thinking.



Carry forth as a guardian to Kingdom Come
With your daggers of the spirit
Let the dagger run
With the Fist of Fire
Be the master now
As the darkness of ages past

Riches silver and gold
In the liquid sea
Cast a net can you catch
So you can't see me

As in death you can climb
Higher through the sky
Show your wings
Surely you can fly

Fly away past the guardian to Kingdom Come
See the miracle of life
Disappear it's gone

2 x Go carry your silver ships of light
3 x Go carry your silver ships of life

Keep the fire in your hand
It won't let you drown
As you fly with your wings
Won't come falling down

See the flower of youth
Disappear on high
As you gather your true wings
About to fly

To be ready
To be strong
Make it run

This righteous
This wrong
This right
This love

This is how nature controls
The way of all things
this is how the angels sing
Not afraid
No, not afraid
Not afraid of this or that
Not afraid

Carry forth as a guardian to Kingdom Come
With the ghost
And the spirit
Let the fire run

Through the darkest age
We can surely fly
Through the darkest age
With the Fist Of Fire
Through the darkest age
With the Fist of Fire

Magne Sejr Kjølby Kristensen

Here he is at last. Our little son, Magne (pronounced mauna) Sejr (pronounced sire). Magne was one of the sons of Thor, and Sejr is the Danish word for victory, similar as to the English name Victor. He was born last night (8Feb) and weighed 3.88 kg and measured 55cm long. The top picture was taken roughly an hour after he was born and the one below about five hours after. He looks much like Freja, but has very different fingers, which he curls and flexes constantly, as if they were baby octopii.

39 years old today

Boom! Boom! BOOM!

And thus with the help of Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture, I begin the last year of 'youth' before the big four oh finally pries my fingers from their failing hold on childhood, the twentieth century and all the memories there of. Thirty eight proved to be a horrible age, as the first year anniversary of my mothers death on monday will testify. It was not all bad though. Freja turned three (they say human beings are never cuter than when they are three) and Mette is pregnant again (only 2½ months to go now). By rights I should post something written by my most illustrious ancestor, Fanny Mendelessohn (sister to Felix and a composer in her own right) from whom my maternal granmother's family is descended (or so I was led to believe), for yesterday was Fanny Mendelssohn's birthday. She was born on November 14th, 1805, at the height of the war which Tchaikovsky's overture would later commemorate so magnificently. She would be 203 years old today. May she rest in eternal peace and harmony.

I shall endeavour to look forwards with bright eyes and a bushy tail, for as I always say to my friend Mehmet, you have to enjoy life whilst you've got it! Mehmet agrees with this as he is a philosophical and good natured man and even if we have very little in common but for our mutual friendliness we can readily agree on such fundamentals. If only all people could be as open hearted as Mehmet, perhaps the world would be a friendlier, though potentially duller, place. Freja likes Mehmet too, though mostly because he always gives her a bit of chocolate when she comes into the shop.

Its on a day like this, looking back, feeling nostalgic with the sun making the dust motes dance in front of the window, that I get to sentimental ponderings upon the nature of friendship, life and death. We're all going to die as a matter of course, and love and friendship are almost the only things that make life worth living. I say almost because as the dust motes illustrate, beauty is its own reward and the passing beauty of bright sunlight through an unwashed window is evocative of our own lives as it brings back so many memories from the decades past. How wonderful it is that something as mundane as dust can be so beautiful when illuminated by the sun?

We beings of light and dust, so wound up with our trivial hubris, our ideologies and politics. How easy it is to lose sight of what is most important. Thankfully I have friends and family and I know who I am and where I belong. Each meeting with my family confirms the love that binds me to this life. Each meeting with my friends likewise. Thursday evenings for example, when Oleg and the others come over and we play role playing games, table top skirmish battles or just watch a film. So small and trivial a thing it seems and yet so important that its gives context to every day life. Conversation, eating together, talking and laughing, what Danes call 'hygge', and Americans call... 'hanging'(?), possibly not quite the same thing, though both similar and of equal importance.

Is there anything of more importance than love? I can't think of anything. At least not from my mortal perspective (and I don't have an immortal perspective). Tonight Mette and I will go and see a film in the cinema together (Quantum of Solace). Its been so long since we went to the cinema together and I shall enjoy the pleasure all the greater for its rarity. There was once a time when the two of us were alone in the UK, and we went to the cinema every friday night. Can you imagine what a pleasure that was? I find it hard to even remember the full happiness of that time, so obscured by time and my present happiness it has become. We were like two souls alone together in a strange and indifferent place, finding happiness against adversity from each others company. Sometimes I long for that again but it can never be. Like childhood, the age of youth has passed and now is the age of parenthood. May it last long and bring an equal measure of pleasure.

By the way, if any one wants to hear a longer, better version of the 1812 overture, go here and enjoy. Part two is here.

Moifling Nr 2

Yesterday we went to the hospital for Mette's first ultra sound scan, only to find, to our surprise that she is a whole month further ahead than we realised. This means the baby will be born in the first half of February. Currently the new moifling is about 16cm long. The ultra sound scan revealed a little hand with four stubby fingers waving at us, but alas, the picture we got as a print was less charming. Gender was not established, mostly because the nurses were understaffed (due to illness in the dept) and because they were all worked up about the wrong date. It seems that it is to late to establish certain facts regarding the health of the baby, and they cannot tell if it has Downs Syndrome or not and this is of great concern apparently. It doesn't really matter to us because we wouldn't terminate a child just because it had Downs Syndrome. That would be horrible.

Hopefully, moifling nr 2 is a healthy little sprog though. It certainly looked lively (and big). The nurses called in another woman, but whether she was a doctor, another nurse, a tecnician or just a curious passer by was never explained. This new woman took a good long look and declared the baby looked good as far as she could make out. Quite how they can make out anything in that mass of grainy shadows is beyond me, but they seemed happy. They made all the usual female signs of satisfaction, so I took heart from that.

Still not got any good idea as to a male name yet. We can't agree on any at all. Mette likes Biblical names, though she isn't religious at all, where as I prefer Nordic names.