Graduating STX grammar school in Denmark

I left school in Scotland in 1985. If truth be told, I didn't particularly want to leave school at that point as, at 17, I felt too young to go off to uni, but being a February baby in Scotland before age deferrals existed meant I had been sent to school at four and had therefore completed all 13 years of education on offer. This is why both of my kids who had the option of deferral (ie who were born after Jan 1 and before Mar 1) were deferred. I felt I spent my whole childhood catching up socially, and I didn't want that for them.

When I left school, I sat my three CSYS exams (Advanced Highers these days) and on the day of the last one, German, I believe, I was told I needed to 'sign out'. Signing out consisted of going to the school office and asking for a form where I was to write my name and the names of my French, German, and Maths teachers. I then visited each of their classes in turn where they signed on the dotted line to say I had completed their course and the corresponding exam. 

My best friend back then was studying CSYS History, English, and Higher German, so we had no classes together and that meant she left school on a different day and we didn't even see each other. In fact, as the only pupil in the school sitting CSYS German, my signing out was quite a depressing and solitary anti-climax to thirteen years in the school system.

I handed my form in to the office and was told I was no longer a pupil and was therefore no longer allowed on school grounds. I remember slowly walking down the school driveway to the exit for the very last time. It felt like a sad and solitary end to that era.

There was no graduation, no prom, no party, nothing.

So, when my two older kids left school in Scotland 30/33 years later, I was pleased to see they now got not only a graduation ceremony in the April before the exams, where they were presented with a certificate, and the teachers and pupils gave uplifting talks that made them feel warm and fuzzy but also a prom at the end of the June term so they could all meet up dressed in all their finery in a fancy hotel in town and touch base a last time after the exams were completed. It felt like they were being celebrated and encouraged to remain in touch rather than simply tossed out into the rain, alone. I secretly wished things had been like that back in my day.

Then we moved to Denmark, which meant that my three youngest would be completing their schooling here rather than there and I hoped things would be as celebratory for them as they had been for their older siblings. I needn't have worried!

My oldest Dane just finished school, and omg, do these people know how to celebrate! I'm actually beginning to think the two oldest were hard done by, and my experience was bordering on abuse! The order and magnitude is different, but here is what his Danish school leaving consists of...

At the beginning of May, a week before exams began, they held their equivalent of prom - 'galla' as it is called. Every kid arranged to be driven to school in a fancy car (or, as it turned out at his school on horseback, on a vintage tractor or in a horse-drawn carriage!) They turned up in their evening gowns, suits or in the case of Léon... well, you can probably guess how he dressed.

That night started at 6pm. They had a fancy three-course meal, and the staff gave speeches. One of the students had been chosen a few weeks earlier to give a talk on behalf of the kids. Three guesses who? Shy, he's not. Despite me asking on several occasions whether he wanted me or Thomas to vet his speech for appropriateness, he kept it under wraps and his reminiscing about their three years together was apparently a great hit with the 150 or so kids, though I am not sure what the staff or headmaster made of it. Especially the point in the speech when he thanked everyone's favourite and most diligent co-student 'Chat-GPT' hahahaha.

Things then became serious for a couple of months. In May, they sat written exams in all their 'A' subjects, and then in June, they sat oral exams in their 'A' subjects and defended their SRPs. The SRP is a thirty-page dissertation written in Danish on two subjects and submitted in the spring of their last year. Each student chooses their own topic and which two of their subjects are to be the main focus and those two teachers plus the ministry examiner then mark it for content. Having not seen their mark, the kids are then taken to an oral to defend the dissertation. 

Léon chose Samfundsfag (Politics) and English, analysing Scottish Independence political speeches and ads for both the Yes and the No sides back in the Scottish Independence referendum from the perspective of populist content. 

A fortnight before the end of June, I heard there was to be a graduation ceremony two days after the final exam, so figured Danish graduation was following the pattern of Scotland. Little did I know that the galla and the graduation were merely the warm-up acts for the main events!

Days before Léon's last exam, a mate asked if he'd been into town to buy his 'white clothes', to which Léon replied 'what white clothes?'. That's when they sat the poor foreign kid down and talked him through his next few weeks. 

Firstly, at his final exam, he was meant to wear his white shirt for the first time. His parents were to take the afternoon off work(!) and turn up with his student hat, Danish flags, and a picnic to greet him as he left his last oral. At oral exams in Denmark you are given your mark on the day. After your 25 minute oral the class teacher and the exam board external discuss your mark then call you back in and tell you it. It's not for the faint-hearted, I can tell you, having sat exams here too! 

And orals aren't like back home. For starters they aren't a language thing, you get orals in everything from PE to Physics, from Maths to Psychology, from History to Ancient Culture, and of course also in languages. Every kid does at least Danish and two other foreign languages to one of the two highest levels. Léon's 'foreign' languages are English and Spanish, others have English and German or English and French, and before you say he's at a bit of an advantage over his classmates having English as a foreign language, remember, unlike them, he's not only doing Danish at advanced Higher level as it is compulsory, but he's also doing his History, Politics, Spanish, and his dissertation in Danish, which more than balances that out, poor bugger.

So, after the oral you come out of school on the red carpet which has been put down for the graduates, where your parents shower you in confetti, hand you bouquets of red roses and place your hat on your head after you tell them your mark. Possible marks are -3, 0, 2, 4, 7, 10 or 12. If you get -3, or 0, you've failed. If you get 2-12 you've passed. 7, 10 and 12 correspond to A (with 12 being like 90-100%, 10 being 80-90%, and 7 being 70-80%) in Scotland, 4 is B, 2 is C. No one had told us about the confetti or the roses, so we stood out as the weirdo foreigners when we only had his hat and flags, though some of his middle-school friends who hadn't gone to grammar school turned up with fireworks, so that kind of distracted people from our faux pas, especially when the headmaster came running out to tell them exams were still going on, so could they maybe cool it just a little😂.

The last exam is completely random, so Léon was more than pleased to draw English out of the hat, so came out to announce he'd got 12! 

The disadvantage to that would unfold later... 

Having had his hat placed on his head, it is now meant to stay there for the whole summer! Everyone knows what the hat means. Different types of institutions have different colours. Dark red means grammar school, but I've also seen light blue, dark blue, purple etc. If you have this on, it means you just passed your final school exams, so the streets are full of kids in these.

We had our family picnic in the school grounds with Amaia, who had been allowed out of school early, Anna who was already on study leave, and the kids' friend from Scotland, Emma. Again, looking around I could see so much Danish culture. Despite being a mere picnic, families had brought along crystal champagne flutes complete with fancy red and white ribbons attached to the stems for the occasion. The most intricate Danish smørrebrød were assembled, and stunning cakes pulled from boxes as champagne corks popped. Tablecloths were unfurled, and glass vases of tiny flowers placed on tables. Everyone's grandparents were in tow too, elegantly clad. Danes are such sticklers for detail when it comes to table dressing and formal occasions. Our tablecloth-less, rose-free bench with plastic cups and baguette sandwiches looked like a pigeon amongst a party of peacocks.

That day Léon and his mates went into town to see the Denmark match, and went on to a club till 5am. Technically, it's a great ruse for getting into a club too. No one IDs a kid in a hat as the youngest you can be is 18, but you're more likely to be 19 or even 20. So, if you're 17 and fancy a clubbing holiday, buy one of these hats and go to Denmark the last week of June!

The following day the other half of his class had their final oral, so again it was out clubbing till sunrise and Thursday was even worse as there was a music festival on in Odense... Funen's answer to Glastonbury. I was in serious doubt that Léon would make the 'white clothes photoshoot' at 8am the next day, and the graduation, but he surprised me by being out and showered by 7am despite coming home after 1am. 

And it seems almost everyone was sober enough to remember the memo about turning up in white! 

We then went along to the graduation ceremony which seemed very un-British to me, or at least very un-Newton Mearnsy. Back home my kids had gone to Mearns Castle High, a state school that prided itself on its consistent place in the top ten in the country. It was a lovely school, caring, and friendly, but also concerned about protecting its image. Speeches at graduation were grandiose, about achievement and the perfect futures the kids would all be able to obtain thanks to their outstanding results etc etc. Not so here, graduation speeches by the head of each of the five main study lines were anecdotal and fun, describing the kids as having arrived in the school as wild beasts who'd needed taming, joking about kids who were less than diligent, whole classes with reputations for doing anything to avoid assignment deadlines. It all seemed more laid-back, and more relatable, given they also praised them for their ultimate success, and the futures awaiting them. There was no covering up the real or less desirable side of things, which was interesting for me as a non-Dane. Those speeches would just never have happened in the school they would have attended had we lived in that parallel universe.

After the ceremony, they disappeared to celebrate again! But given Saturday was to be the biggest day yet, studentervogn day, Léon wasn't too late home. The studentervogn is the thing the majority of the kids had been most looking forward to from the first day three years earlier when they started grammar school. In fact, some kids probably only do the three-year course for this reason, and I am not exaggerating! A studentervogn is a large truck, decked out with banners prepared by the kids, a dance area, drinks etc. Here's a photo of Léon's.

The disadvantage touched upon above is this: If you get 12 in your last exam, you don't get to join the studentervogn till the second stop, having to run behind it all the way, mind you getting the lowest mark in the class is worse as that person apparently has to run in front of it instead, trying not to be run over!

A route is planned stopping at everyone in their main class's house where food, alcohol, and other refreshments are served. Each stop takes around 25 minutes, other than the stops for breakfast, lunch, and dinner which take longer. Between stops the truck is a mobile dance room and the kids party, drink, dance, and sing. With 27 kids in Léon's class and distances of up to 15km between stops, the truck tour was scheduled to take 15.5 hours so had to set out at 7am! They even dropped by their English teacher's house on the way to give a farewell cuddle to Mummy Sussi as they call her. At each person's stop the classmates lined up to welcome the student to their own stop with a beer bong ceremony. I'll include a video of the arrival of the studentervogn, and the beer ceremony. We got it from 5:35 - 6:05. 

Apparently another tradition is to moon at passing cars! Danes love nudity! Given it was Léon's stop he got to moon at the car passing our house, except the car didn't then pass, it stopped and the driver and passengers came up the driveway to congratulate the students as it turned out to be Léon's coworkers driving to the local restaurant for their shift. He had to laugh that his workmates were now in possession of a photo of his bare arse hanging out the back of a truck!

Thomas had set out sandwiches and sangria and they were more than pleased with how exotic (ie un-Danish) that was! We did water the sangria down with a bit of ribena just so they would survive the 15 hours, but no one seemed to notice! We were spontaneously joined by the neighbours too which was lovely!

That night they were determined to earn the right to wear their hats backwards - apparently you do that by staying awake for 24 hours, they were also determined to win the right to draw the symbol of a wave inside their hats by skinny dipping in the sea wearing only their hats, not the most sensible combo, but I did notice his phone pinged at the coast around 2am and he returned home the next day looking like this, complete with wave!

That was 30/6. And since then Léon has rarely been seen! Every night he's at a studentergilde (a graduation party) from 6pm to 6am, always staying at someone else's house. He drops by occasionally for a shower, or to pick up clothes, showing off new symbols in his hat. An ear of corn means you have run the length of a cornfield naked, apart of course for the hat! And so on... He's having the time of his life. 

Graduation isn't a prom, and a ceremony here, it's a prom, a ceremony, a hat, a picnic, a truck and a party a night for over a month. They sure know how to graduate in style. And now I know why most Danes take a gap year before uni... it's to recover from the graduation ceremony and sober up long enough to actually decide what course to take at uni!

I don't think I've missed any details, but I will update if he fills me in on anything else!

U can make all the difference

When I moved to Denmark, I registered as a resident but wasn't issued a residence card because I was an EU citizen. Two years later, thanks to Boris Johnson and his cohort, I was informed by the Styrelsen for International Rekruttering og Integration (SIRI) that I needed to obtain the same kind of card issued to third-country nationals to be allowed to remain in Denmark. 

I was summoned for a meeting, fingerprinted, and photographed, transforming me into a more "alien" type of foreigner. Since then, I’ve had to present this card along with my UK passport every time I enter or leave the Schengen Area. This process means my passport is never stamped, preventing the activation of the restrictive 90-day rule for my nationality. It also gives me the right to work here, rather than just tourist rights.

I realise I shouldn't complain too much; I've heard about the numerous challenges EU citizens in the UK face due to the Home Office’s stubborn refusal to issue any physical proof of their residence status. Each time we arrive in the UK, Thomas’s status is checked on the computer at the border, but he lacks any physical proof of his UK settled status. 

However, having to undergo biometric registration back in 2021 was a wrench. It demoted me from being "one of us" to "one of them," making me a second-class immigrant. Every time I show that card, I’m reminded that my EU citizenship was stripped away against my wishes, setting me apart from my husband and children, as if I am simultaneously part of my family and yet somehow inferior to the others. I became the odd one out, unable to queue with them at the airport, always needing to justify my presence. 

 

Today, I was issued with a new card. At first glance, it looks identical to the old one, save for the issue date and a new, less flattering photo (they insisted I tie my hair back, giving me a tired, fierce look). But, the last word reveals a world of difference to anyone who's good at proofreading. 

The old card labelled my status as "TIDSBEGRÆNSET," while the new one says "TIDSUBEGRÆNSET." What difference does a single 'u' make? It signifies an upgrade from temporary (tidsbegrænset) to permanent (tidsubegrænset) Danish resident. This change means I can no longer be deported if something were to happen to Thomas, which is a comforting thought given his recent health scares. Although it’s not citizenship, this status grants me the same rights as a Dane, other than the right to vote in their General and European Elections. 

After over five years in post-Brexit limbo, this feels like a significant and reassuring milestone. It's as close as I can get to a passport change for now, and has gone a little way to making me feel like I am back in the European fold as a permanent resident. And what better day for it to happen, than the one when I was disenfranchised once again back in my chaotic home country?

Broken democracy - an update

 

What a fucking joke! My ballot paper finally drops through my door at 10:41 on 2/7. Next uplift from the post office in the next town is 7am on 3/7 and it needs to be in East Ren no later than 4/7. I think the chances of that are about as high as they are of Sunak getting a landslide majority… though I guess it depends how many other postal votes have been sabotaged. To make matters even worse, only mine has turned up today. Léon’s still waiting. So much for enjoying his first time voting. Democracy in the UK is completely broken.🤬

And it's not just an East Ren to Denmark issue. Charlotte is registered in Glasgow North and living in Central Madrid and as of lunch time today has not seen hide nor hair of hers yet either.

Just like in 2019, my right to vote in the UK GE is nothing but an empty promise.

Coloured filters on B&W photos

I took this photo of Amaia the other week when we were down in Germany for the afternoon. It's very her; as you can see she becomes quite a walking freckle in the summer months. I suddenly remembered years ago when I still had an SLR camera rather than a DSLR that I used to carry around heavy piles of lens filters wherever I went so I could get the look I wanted in my photos. This was long before post-processing was invented. I'm sure without that heavy camera bag as my constant companion weighing me down through my adolescence I could have been at least 5cm taller! 

Whenever I was using monochrome film, I loved to play with reds and greens to bring out the contours of the clouds, or hide the blemishes people had on their skin.

Of course, these days the same can be done so much easier. So, I decided to see the difference between Amaia using an orange filter to minimise her freckles and a green one to maximise them. The effects were quite different, but fun all the same, especially as compared here side by side. 

The green one feels more authentically her.

The joke that is UK democracy

I could go on about the obvious whole first-past-the-post voting system that according to this interesting graph, published recently in the Financial Times, gives voters the least level of satisfaction in their democracy. Having lived both under the Danish and the UK system, I would say this graph more or less tallies with my lived experience of things. 

In fact I am sure there is a whole list of things about UK politics I could rant about but I'll keep this short and to the point, as I did last GE too.

What is the point in defining the franchise of an election and then not making it possible for those people to vote? You can argue the franchise should be different, if you are so inclined, but currently UK citizens living abroad have the right to vote in the UK General Election. I feel that seems fair given I am not eligible to vote where I actually live, not being a citizen of that country, and on paper there is nothing to stop me to returning permanently to the UK during the next parliamentary period (well apart from my sanity and the kids' schooling perhaps) so I feel I should vote. I moved because the government of my country became intolerable to me and my EU family and therefore would not consider returning unless it reverted to a saner standpoint on its relations with Europe and European people, ie my 6 closest relatives! So, I have the right to vote and I want to vote. Moreover, my son turned 18 last year, so this is first general election. That should be a real right of passage. And he too would like to gently nudge the UK back in a direction he could find more tolerable.

But just like in 2019, when I desperately wanted to vote against that unspeakable buffoon and his desire to destroy the country I once held dear by getting Brexit done, whatever that was meant to mean, I am sitting here at lunchtime on the Monday before the election with no polling card as yet. So, the earliest my polling card can now turn up is tomorrow morning, ie July 2 at 9am. The next uplift from the post office where I live after that is 7am on July 3. And it needs to arrive back in Newton Mearns no later than July 4 to be counted! What are the chances of that then? Zero.

If they are never going to send out polling cards on time to vote, why can't they come up with some other method of voting. Danes living abroad can vote at the consulate, French living abroad can vote online, but I have a choice of postal, when they never send the cards out on time, or proxy, when I know no one who votes in the polling station I used to use back home, so I'd need find a trustworthy friend to inconvenience who already has their own job and vote to fit in that day.

In a way I would feel less offended if they told me I had no right to vote than the current carrot dangling followed by the let down. But whatever the outcome on Friday morning, it looks once again like neither me nor my son will have any say in it. 

Addendum: Any thoughts I had that the late sending problem was unique to East Ren, or that the Danish postal service was to blame have been hit on the head this evening when my older daughter, who is registered to Glasgow North constituency but living in central Madrid, mentioned she too hadn't seen any sign of her UK polling card, though as a French citizen had easily been able to vote yesterday.😡

A health warning

For the past two or three years my husband has been having problems with his back and also some issues with arthritis, so it didn't strike us as particularly odd that he had become so tired he could barely function. As time went by he seemed to be needing more and more rest and sleep, usually going to bed around 10:45pm, wakening at around 7:15, and needing to go to bed for a nap of two to three hours on work days after work, say from 4 or 5-7pm. That seemed excessive but his back problems meant he wasn't getting a good sleep so it didn't ring any major alarm bells.

This year things have been worse. He's barely done anything in the garden, which is usually a great passion of his and we've done nothing on weekends either, no day trips, no sightseeing, no entertaining. He has stopped blogging and given up on all his usual pastimes such as language learning, and other computing tasks. When I went to visit my two older kids in London and Madrid, he stayed home. Whenever our oldest daughter needed picking up from work at 10pm, he said he couldn't do it because he was too exhausted. Any time Léon needed driven home from a party, I would have to go alone as he was unwakeable. Over the past few months I noticed he was finding it harder and harder to waken up. His alarm would go off in the morning but even though he'd sit up in bed, instead of taking in the morning news on his phone as he would have done in the past, he'd sit almost comatose for up to an hour before coming to. He tried various physiotherapists but nothing helped. 

So to be honest the only thing he actually managed over the last six months was work. Even simple things like asking him to help me with my tax return on the computer was too much. And I had to do all the distance driving as he couldn't. But both of us were convinced that the reason behind it all was his disturbed sleep due to back problems. Then, fortunately he developed a constant sore throat. He visited the GP who sent him to a throat specialist as he could feel his thyroid was enlarged. He discussed that issue with the throat specialist who has sent him for biopsies and other tests which we are still waiting for, but he pointed out that an enlarged thyroid should not be giving him the dry, sore throat he was complaining about. He asked if he had any issues with snoring or sleep apnoea.

Thomas has always had what we considered very mild sleep apnoea issues. They run in his family so he knew the signs to looks out for such as bad snoring, difficulty staying awake during activities such as reading, meetings, watching TV, or driving, morning headaches, choking sensations but he suffered none of these, well other than the snoring, but don't all guys snore a bit?! Once awake, he was awake. He never once fell asleep in front of a movie or in a meeting, so figured if he had it at all, it wasn't worth treating. He simply seemed to need more and more sleep to function. I had pointed out nearly twenty years ago that his night-time breathing wasn't even; he often paused for a moment or two but then it would correct itself, so again we both figured that once it got to the stage where he was falling asleep in front of the TV, he would look into it.

The throat specialist thought, given his family history, that he ought to take a sleep machine home one night to measure his breathing and oxygen levels just to rule that out.

I delivered it back to the clinic the next day and before I had even made it back home the specialist had phoned him in a complete panic. Not only did he have sleep apnoea, but it was so severe that he was in real and imminent danger. He stopped breathing altogether more than 50 times an hour, the highest acceptable number is apparently 5 times an hour. His blood oxygen level overnight hovered around 51%. Anything under 90% is dangerous and under 80% is critical.

He was moved on the patient list on our island to the number one spot and called in the following Monday as he was at imminent risk of death, they told him flat out. This was not to mild apnoea that causes you to fall asleep, this is the severe version that starves your brain of oxygen and kills you without warning. The doctor looked at him sternly and told him he was not to underestimate why he was called in urgently before all the other patients on their list. So, of course when we got home we read the leaflets we'd been given and checked some health pages and these are apparently the issues he faced:

• Cardiovascular Problems: Chronic low oxygen levels can cause high blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke. 
• Heart Failure: Prolonged hypoxemia can lead to heart strain and eventually heart failure​.
• Cognitive Impairment Memory Loss: Hypoxia can damage brain cells, leading to memory problems. 
• Dementia: Chronic low oxygen levels can increase the risk of developing dementia and other cognitive impairments​​. 
• Stroke Increased Risk: Severe sleep apnoea significantly raises the risk of stroke due to fluctuating oxygen levels and increased blood pressure​. 
• Diabetes Insulin Resistance: Sleep apnoea can lead to insulin resistance, increasing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes​. 
• Arrhythmias Irregular Heartbeats: Low oxygen levels can cause abnormal heart rhythms, including atrial fibrillation, which can be life-threatening​. 
• Pulmonary Hypertension Lung Complications: Prolonged hypoxia can cause high blood pressure in the lungs' arteries, leading to right-sided heart failure​.
• Metabolic Syndrome Cluster of Conditions: This includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels, raising the risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. 

The bottom line was that untreated severe sleep apnoea with chronic hypoxia significantly increases the risk of premature death​ by 300% and I was lucky not to have woken up one morning beside a dead husband. They insisted he go home that night with a machine to pump oxygen into him constantly and told him he shouldn't even nap without it on as oxygen levels of 50% during sleep were life threatening.

What a fright that gave us both. Life has been tough enough that last few years with my own brushes with cancer, our moving to a place where we have no friends or family close by to support us. The thought that I could have woken up one morning to find him dead is unimaginable. The kids need their daddy and I need my rock, my soulmate. We can probably get through anything life throws at us together, the last few years have shown that, but alone would have been unimaginable. I'm not sure who it would have been worse for: him dead at 52, or me entirely alone in a foreign country without a steady income and three kids to see through to their end of their education. We are truly shaken.

On the positive side, he's now had his machine six nights and I hardly recognise him. He's now only stopping breathing 3-5 times an hour and he's so refreshed in the mornings, he's jumping out of bed at 7am and reading the news before skipping out to the garden. Of course, he's still meant to take it easy as his body has been damaged by the years of oxygen deprivation but it is so nice to see him slowly reverting to the man I knew, rather than the barely conscious and exhausted one he had become. Somehow it was hard to be fully aware quite how ill he had become when it happened as gradually as it did. 

He's already so much better, I'm half scared he'll now need to trade me in for a younger wife as I am suddenly the more tired of the two. But, joking aside, if you are experiencing any of the symptoms above, go an ask your GP. It could be nothing but it could just turn out to be life threatening.

More on the maybe-aunt

Maybe I'm just slow, or naive, or dare I suggest too sweet at heart, but it has taken me a good number of days to realise I may have jumped to some premature assumptions on my grandfathers' front the other day.

When I was mulling over the mystery of the internet stranger who's in her 70s and apparently, according to DNA at least, a direct descendant of one of my grandparents and therefore a younger half sibling to either my mother or father, I naturally assumed one of my grandfathers must have been a naughty boy. That was quite a logical conclusion of course, because in my head the only other option was one of my grandmothers having an affair and giving birth a few years after my mum or dad, then giving the child up for adoption, all without anyone noticing their new addition... sounds fairly unlikely, no? Also given it was pre-DNA-test times, would they not just have kept the sibling and passed it off as a full sibling?

So, once again during my night time musings, it suddenly hit me that there's in fact a third option! What if one of my grandfathers actually wasn't my grandfather!? What if one of my grannies had an affair that resulted in my parent and simply pulled the wool over my grandfather's eyes? Then, none the wiser, the biological father could have gone on to have this maybe-aunt with a different partner; they'd still be a half aunt to me genetically. Bloody hell, my life is turning into an episode of Dallas!

This, of course, means I'm now sitting here with a magnifying glass and some very old and blurred black and white photos trying to ascertain whether my mum looks like gramps or my dad looks like granda. If that turns out to be the case, then my money would now definitely be less on mum's side of the family given rumour had it my maternal granny, how shall I put it, preferred a nice cup of tea to anything in the bedroom department, no comment there. And I could add that mum and gramps are very similar looking, the only dark-eyed, dark-haired members of what had been up to then a very blonde, blue-eyed family.

Sadly, my knowledge of Phyllis Buchanan Senior is quite limited. I was named after her as she died just six days before my birth. This untimely loss left my father orphaned at the tender age of 24, and as a result, discussions about Phyllis were infrequent and emotionally charged throughout dad's life. She, like many who depart prematurely, was revered in our family conversations, her memory enshrined as an almost celestial figure. Consequently, I am left with scant insight into her personal character or potential actions. Might she have been inclined towards indiscretions, could she have passed another man's child off as my granda's? I simply have no idea. I do know dad and granda had a wonderful and loving relationship and that granda was distraught when he lost Phyllis at the age of 50 but is this enough to rule it out? Dad had Phyllis's eye colour and his beard was red like her hair but I think he still looks like granda, a bit at least. 

And given neither of my parents had any siblings, I have no one to compare them to either physically or in personality. Arg! If mum was still about, at least I could have quizzed her about these options, and maybe asked her what her mother-in-law had been like. And I've still not tracked this woman down geographically which would help.

I think on balance last week's grandfather having an affair is still the more likely scenario, but in the meantime I'm not ruling today's option out fully.

I'll stick a pic or two on here to see if anyone else has any theories.

Mum's family: gran, mum, gramps

 

Dad's family: gran, granda, dad

Genealogy tips, anyone?

Thomas got the two of us those genealogy test things for Xmas as he thought it would be fun. He knew his dad was German, his mum Danish, but had always suspected given how swarthy some of his ancestors on his mum's side were that there might be some fun little gems in there too. 

As for me, we kind of figured I'd be entirely boring. I knew my great gran was from Ashton-under-Lyne in England and my great great grandpa was Irish, but other than that to my knowledge I was entirely, boringly 100% Scottish, though like Thomas my family was entirely fair-skinned and blue and green-eyed until my gramps and mum suddenly popped out much darker than expected, and brown-eyed. A born traveller, I secretly hoped against all evidence that I would be more exotic than I realised, even just a wee 2% something else, but I didn't dare get my hopes up too high. 

So, we did the wee swab things, sent them off to Germany and more or less forgot about it after that, till ten days ago when we were in Scotland.

Then the two emails came in...

So, sadly we're still in the dark as to why Thomas has several ancestors with dark eyes and skin, which he didn't inherit himself, as his DNA came back even less exotic than just half German, half Danish; it actually pinpointed that he is half Schwäbisch, half Jutlandic! With a mum from Odder in Jutland and a dad from Stuttgart, I'm not sure that was overly enlightening. Money back time????

I, on the other hand, got much more than I was bargaining for and it more than made up for Thomas's yawn-worthy results! Mine came back only 78% Celtic, which was a shock, but more of a surprise was that I was 15% Scandinavian. Given I thought even my Scandy kids were only 25% Scandinavian until last week, this is a huge surprise for everyone. I did chuckle to myself thinking that even my French kids were part Scandinavian. I'm not sure my ex-husband would approve. He might even accuse me of having had an affair with Thomas five years before I met him! 😂 

So, maybe I was originally Danish and could find some loophole to actually qualify for a Danish passport after all these years here as it is one of the hardest passports to qualify for! Moving further across Europe I'm also apparently 7% Eastern European, probably Polish/Ukrainian! Having booked to meet up with my bigger kids in Gdańsk for a week next month, I might go looking for some long-lost rellies while I'm over there! 😃

So, blown away by this info, I hardly noticed the other info attached to my findings and went off to bed mulling over my new multifacteted, jet-setting background. At 3am however I found myself fully awake, sitting bolt upright...

My subconscious had well and truly kicked in. Wtaf did I read under my ethnicity results? Sleeping in my nephew's bedroom, I searched the floor under his futon with my fingertips till I found both my phone and glasses. Under my ethnicity results was a list of people on their database that I was very distantly related to. Our DNA matched 2%, 1.6%, 0.8%. This wasn't overly interesting, but one person on their long list stood out: a woman. The only info on the database was her name, her age (70-79) and that she is resident in the UK. Our DNA match was over 12.5% and it stated that she could only be one of two relationships: a first cousin or a half aunt. And they indicated with a neat graph that half aunt was much more likely than cousin. 

But here's the Halloween-sized family skeleton! Because both my parents were only children, I knew I definitely didn't have any first cousins. But till last week I didn't think I could have any half aunts either! 70s would make her most likely a half sibling to one of my parents who currently would have been 79 and 80 had they lived. My dad's parents were never apart, not even during the war as granda was an essential munitions worker at Glasgow forge with flat feet into the bargain and though dad was an only child, he was more an only surviving child as his parents had two further kids after him who died at birth of Rhesus disease. I'm not fully ruling out dad's dad having an affair or a drunken one-night stand but it seems highly unlikely. Gramps (mum's dad) however was a different kettle of fish. In the RAF till 1948, stationed around Blackpool, while mum and gran lived in Springburn alone, he spent the majority of the first four years of mum's life leading a very separate life from his wife and child. Later in the 1940s my gran had to move to England (Wolverhampton) to care for her older sister who was dying of cancer, so once again the family was apart for some time.

And here's the most frustrating thing. There's a contact email for this half aunt, so of course I contacted her (extremely tactfully!) to try to work out at least from geography who she's most likely to be related to, but she hasn't replied. Is she in shock? Hasn't she seen it? Has she died since her DNA was analysed? Arg, I'm so frustrated!!!!

I don't know if the surname on her DNA results is her birth name, married name or other. Her first name is a diminutive form too, so is that her real full name or has she shortened it? Anyway, the bottom line is that I have checked the birth records from 69-80 years ago for anyone of that name in Scotland, England and Wales and when that drew a blank, I looked for anyone with that first name to see if she'd married a man of that surname any time between the 60s and now and that drew a blank too! So what now?! Just a hint as to where this woman was born could confirm or negate any of my grandfather suspicions. I don't know where to look now, but the bottom line is that someone covered up something big in my family back in the forties. It's sad to think that if I do manage to do some sleuthing neither mum nor dad is about to find out about their potential long lost half sibling.

Oh the scandal and intrigue!

Mum and her mum

I'm not usually much of an anniversaries kind of person. If someone forgets my wedding anniversary, I'm not devastated. After all it falls on an arbitrary date nearly 3 years after we actually wanted to hold it, decided partly by the date my ex finally gave up his nearly 4-year battle to not let me divorce him and was brought forward when my husband was threatened with redundancy leaving us without the funds to marry when we'd actually planned. Romantic, huh? I always wanted a summer wedding as I love summer. My wedding anniversary is in February🙄

Maybe it runs in the family? As a child I remember asking my granny when she got married, to which she replied 'it was either 6 o'clock on September 7th or 7 o'clock on September 6th. I can't remember...' either that or she didn't want to, she always found my gramps a bit of a handful. 

My own mother, her daughter, was the opposite. Birthdays, anniversaries, Mother's Day etc were big. Expensive cards and flowers marked every occasion and you daren't forget. Long after I had given up sending Christmas cards, for the sake of the planet, honest, I still sent one - to my mother. Dad was a bit more forgetful, often wishing me a happy birthday on my brother's birthday or similar, but he wouldn't have dared forget one of their special couple dates. 

Death anniversaries, well deaths that marked her, mattered too. I once noticed the symbol 'x' on her kitchen wall calendar. The year was 1986 and there seemed to be an 'x' on the 11th of each month, starting in March. I enquired what the 'x' meant and was told each 'x' marked a month on from the day someone had run over her cat, Snoopy. A decade later there were no 'x's on 27, the date of her own father's death. Hmmmm.

I've always found grieving to be more something that can hit you unexpectedly. I can hear a song I associated with my dad, happen upon an old photo, smell mum's perfume or catch a look in my kids' eyes that reminds me of how one of them looked, or I even a glimpse of myself in the mirror first thing in the morning with no makeup and that sets off the pain much more than a simple date on a calendar. 

Maybe I relate less to dates because I have moved time zone in my life. Had I had my boys where I live now, both would have a different birthday to the one they actually have, given both were born in the UK after 11pm, so dates are less set in my head.

Years later, mum's date obsession became an issue for me. My dad died on May 11 2012. Every 11th of the month that year, her usually sad and lost demeanour visibly worsened and she wanted to talk about little other than how awful the 11th made her feel. This broke my heart at first; she had never been without him in her adult life; she, like dad, was only in her 60s; it just wasn't fair but as the months passed I got more agitated. It felt almost like she was deliberately gearing herself up to be extra miserable on the 11th of each month, than she already was and I had a vested interest. Of all 8 of her grandchildren, only one had a birthday that fell on the 11th and she was one of mine. Approaching 3, I didn't want her birthday tied up in the spiral of sadness that the 11th was becoming. And give her her due, she didn't let that one 11th descend into depression just eight months on, but I certainly dreaded it more than I should had dreaded my baby's birthday that year.

So, today my mum has been dead for two years. It feels both like she's been gone for a decade, and simultaneously like she died last week. Growing up, February 26 was always a fun day as it was my gran's birthday. We knew we'd get nice fairy cakes and we'd spend the weeks beforehand saving up to buy her a little something: a cotton hanky with flowers on, a pin cushion, a hairbrush, a vase from a corner shop, something small that would be greeted with great appreciation. Even after she died, I still tended to remember Feb 26 with a smile as it had always been a big deal. It also marked the beginning of a big surge of birthdays in our tiny family. There were only the four of us, two grandfathers and one grandmother and of those all except my brother had their birthdays in the six weeks around Feb 26. To me that date was synonymous with endless cake and the making of cards. And by adulthood one of my best friends also had that birthday so there was always something to celebrate, usually over a shared plate of chips in the Collins canteen.

So now I'm not really sure how I am meant to feel about Feb 26 anymore. There's something rather unnerving about mum dying on her own mum's birthday. 

I really am at a loss.

Animal farm revisited

Yesterday's post left me ruminating on the concept of equality, and its impact struck me more profoundly than I initially realised, beneath the veneer of my flippant tone.

For any immigrant in Denmark, especially during their initial decade of residency, the foremost stressor is often the instability stemming from the lack of either permanent residency or citizenship. Let's juxtapose the journeys of two couples. It starts out along the same path:

• one partner is born in 1968, the other in 1972
• he is a Dane, she is a UK citizen or a dual UK/Aussie citizen
• they meet in the home of the non-Danish partner in the early 2000s
• they have a few kids together and stay married till at least 2024, with no plans to change that

So far so good but things diverge then...

In couple one, they marry and the non-Dane is granted full citizenship on the day of their marriage just four years after their first meeting and less than two years after arriving permanently in Denmark. Hey, the government even rewrites the immigration rules for her and has the Monarch okay the change and it's given the cutesy title 'Mary's law', because after all it only applies to one person, Mary. 

Let's look at the other couple now... 

With only eight weeks preparation they move to Denmark in 2019 unimaginably stressed because of how precarious their predicament has become in the UK, where they had set up home together in 2006, four years after they first met. They are up against the Brexit clock because moving after the UK's exit would have huge repercussions. The date for Brexit keeps changing so they have no idea what they are up against. She has just undergone a full hysterectomy because of two pre-cancerous grapefruit-sized tumours on her ovaries so can barely stand up but be that as it may they have no option but to move before Brexit to be ensured a future as a family. After the magical, yet illusory Brexit date:

• She wouldn't be allowed to own a house in Denmark for the first five years as she would have lost her EU citizenship
• Her rights to stay with her family wouldn't be covered by the UK's EU withdrawal agreement
• Her driving licence wouldn't be valid any more

Thanks Britain, just thanks!

So in a rush, they arrive in Denmark in early 2019. She finds out that to obtain a guaranteed secure future in the country of her husband and children's citizenship, she needs to go through the following steps:

• Live in Denmark continuously for 5 years to apply for permanent residence (it's usually 8 if you're Australian)
• Apply for no money from the Danish state, and therefore remain ineligible for all help in finding employment for the first five years. You're on your own with that task.
• Be fully self-sufficient
• Have no breaks in your residence in Denmark
• Pass a C1 Danish language exam
• Pass the knowledge of Denmark Naturalisation exam
• Have no criminal convictions
• Live in Denmark a further 2+ years after the 5 you needed for your permanent residency card before attempting to get citizenship
• Have a full-time job for at least 3 years and 6 months within the 4 years prior to applying for citizenship*... lose it for 7 months and you're back to square one requiring a further 3.5 years work. Non-EU citizens must earn a minimum of DKK 487,000. (Covid getting you laid off is not a valid excuse, neither is serious illness!) It's like playing a grotesque game of snakes and ladders with your life and future.
• Swear allegiance to the state and the monarch (I guess the two couples converge again here momentarily!)
• Sign up for a naturalisation ceremony
• Pay DKK 3,800

The journey becomes even more stressful with changes in government over the course of that decade often moving the goalposts after years of diligent effort.

Finding and sustaining full-time employment in one's mid to late 50s poses a significant challenge, particularly when seeking further training or assistance from the local job centre would nullify the terms of your residency for the first five years. So far I am no closer to my goal as I can only find freelance jobs, and as I turn 56 next month I suspect the insurmountable 3.5 year rule will be the hurdle at which my ability to ever gain the same citizenship as my husband and children ultimately falls. And with that goal goes all hope of security and a guarantee of a future no state can remove from us at a whim.🙁

Reflecting on the divergent trajectories of these initially parallel paths, I'm compelled to acknowledge that the concept of equality seems to have slipped through the cracks. Fully 22 years after I met my Dane and five years after our move, I am no closer to what she magically achieved in four short years than I have ever been. Her family matters much more than mine; the trauma they would suffer if she was no longer allowed to reside with her husband and kids is considered somehow greater and more important than the trauma my kids and husband would feel in the same situation...  It all feels kinda sucky. 🙁 

I come from a country where even Royal foreigners are made to jump through hideous hoops to be allowed the peace of mind that lets them stay with their partner, married or not, parent of a UK citizen or not. Don't get me wrong, I am not part of the school that adheres to the idea that I had to suffer so you bloody well should too. I am more someone who thinks that this modern situation where parents do not have an automatic right to live in the country where there kids have citizenship or with their partner of many years, without fearing which whim of the current administration will potentially send them into a tailspin of terror is a sad place to be. 

Eighteen years and several kids down the line, ours obviously wasn't a marriage of convenience, so it would be nice if one of our governments saw us as human beings rather than just statistics.

*Education doesn't count towards citizenship, so if like Léon you came here at 13, you can only start to work towards your 3.5 years of work requirement once you finish your uni degree at the age of 25, so in his case citizenship will have taken much more than half his lifetime to achieve: Arriving at 13, working till 28.5 (15.5 years later).  

Queen out, King in

It would appear Denmark has a new monarch. 

Back on New Year's Eve I happened to see the Queen's speech. Normally I don't make a habit of watching it, but I'd been ill all Xmas with some flu-like thing and hadn't been outside so I was lying on the couch when it came on so I just let it roll. It's actually quite a compliment that I bothered given I have never, not even once in my life, seen the UK monarch's Christmas speech! As a good Scottish republican family, I was brought up to know that the one thing you really must never do is sit down to watch old Lizzie address the nation, though I guess it is probably Charlie these days. 

I saw the Danish one the first year after I arrived here as my homework for Danish class was to listen to it to see what I understood. Unlike most Danes the old Queen speaks very slowly and clearly and is positively a delight if you're a foreigner, from a comprehension point of view anyway, even if you have your reservations constitutionally! Most foreigners coming here really struggle to understand spoken Danish more than any other form of the language as Danes mumble, swallow the ends of their words and speak quickly. Given I learnt Danish passively by hearing it over many years, understanding spoken Danish is what I find easiest, even today. It definitely outstripped my ability to speak the language back then for sure, but I followed the teacher's instructions as my first lesson on arrival here was the last one before Xmas, only to find out that when I went back in January that I had been moved into a whole different class with a different teacher and completely different homework!

So, there it was running in the background when two minutes from the end of a fairly long and not overly riveting speech she nonchalantly announced she was going to abdicate in a fortnight. This was a bit of a shocker given no one has abdicated in Denmark for 878 years. Denmark went into meltdown. First there was a half hour of shocked silence where people acted like she'd upped and died during her speech but they all seem to worship her the way bees do their queen, so within half and hour the hive mind had collectively decided that if their beloved Daisy had decided to resign then that must be the most wonderful event ever to befall the Danish people and not only would it be ideal for her to step down but it would also be just perfect to see her son and his wife take over the throne two weeks later and they would turn their love and adoration to him as well/instead. Polls on the day said support for the monarchy was up at 80% 😮 (wtaf!) with only one in five Danes having any reservations about spending their hard-earned tax money on this family's luxurious lifestyle, oops I mean service to the nation. Wow, what an interesting take from a country that professes to prize equality over most things. I guess some really are more equal than others...

So last Sunday was the day. I figured I should get into the spirit of being Danish by buying a cake to celebrate the big event. Unfortunately the whole of Funen had the same idea and my favourite prize-winning bakery had already tweeted this before I woke up!

But when it comes to cake I am not that easily defeated, so off to the big Coop bakery in Søndersø I went instead. It was a ghost town, not to mention almost sold out too. There were maybe two cars in the car park, while the rest of Denmark sat glued to the telly or better still in the courtyard of their parliament building waiting for the new monarch to be presented.

There's nothing quite like a change of the head of state in one's new country to make you feel reeeeally foreign in your adopted home...

There were flags up in people's gardens, kids wearing crowns looking like they'd been on a mass outing to Burger King, folk waving flags galore, weeping pensioners, 90 000 people on parliament square in the freezing cold chanting 'hurrah' in unison with the Prime Minister in some vaguely culty manner! They were even all over TikTok sharing this kind of thing: 

Watching their traditions, for example that the monarch has to ride in some golden horse-drawn carriage presumably without the heated seats and comfortable suspension of the car used to transport the rest of the entourage seemed a bit to me like they'd drawn the short straw. No wonder the old girl decided to resign if it got her out the carriage into the limo! One thing I could never have in Northern Europe is a car without heated seats in the winter!

Nor have I ever been overly comfortable with all the deferential curtsying and bowing. There was King Frederik bowing to his own mother. What?! My kids sure don't so that when I'm around! It's just plain weird. And as she stood up to leave the room she proclaimed 'Gud bevare Kongen!' (God save the King). Again, it's just not something my mother ever said leaving me or my brother to go into another room! It's just all kind of unrelatable! Maybe it's actually monarchies in general rather than specifically this one that I struggle with. 

This is a little country and seems to function more like a clan than a nation. As a foreigner, I could see how they all felt, but I couldn't feel it. I didn't know how to. What makes this family different to any other here? The new King was born the same year as me, has four kids instead of five. Are we really that different? Apparently, so, but I am not sure why! I definitely felt very much an outsider watching this national family party that I felt I just hadn't been invited to, mentally at least! I secretly wonder whether the new Queen herself, a fellow foreigner, felt just a tiny bit on the outside of all this too, or maybe it's easier to feel part of it all when the crowd is going wild for you, the state is filling your bank account and instead of a ten year plus battle for Danish citizenship, you're simply given it as a freebie on your marriage!

Interestingly, when the kids went into school on Monday morning, Léon whose Gymnasium class is in their final year and full of 19-20 year olds, said that to a man they were gushing over the weekend as if a member of their own family had married and thrown the best party ever. Anna whose class is two years younger and still in the first year of Gym were on the whole the same, though a few were more neutral, however Amaia who is in her first year of the 3-year middle school, surrounded by 14 year olds, said no one mentioned it and when the history teacher tried to engage them on the topic of the historical occasion from the day before no one showed the slightest interest in any of it! Come to think of it the kids in the crowd at the actual event were all very much younger than Amaia. Maybe it is cool to rebel at 14, but by 20 you are back securely in the fold of this enormous family.

I suspect this is all very familiar to those who watched Charles' do last year in England but you see I was way too busy washing my hair that day to catch any of the footage. 😉

Anna summed it up on the day for this house succinctly... 

Anna: You see that crowd of people waiting outside in the cold to greet the new king of Denmark, mum?

Me: Yes.

Anna: I can guarantee you one thing... My future husband is not in that crowd!🤣

Flores de Pascua?

I know I know a language or two, but I wouldn't say my Spanish is quite up there at the level of some of the others I've learnt, though I am attempting to get better at it given my daughter seems to have moved there! I could probably write a short blogpost in it, even if I still find it harder to converse with the natives as yet.

When I was over for a week just before Xmas, I noticed the festive decorations in Madrid seemed unlike those I was used to from other countries I have spent Christmas in: Scotland, France, Germany and Denmark. The predominant white and cream lights I was used to were replaced by spring flowers in myriad colours. I asked Lots if this was traditional all over Spain and she admitted she was puzzled. She'd been in Barcelona a week earlier and also in Segovia and their lights were more what she was expecting.

Madrid had daffodils, tulips, fuchsias and snowdrops above the road on the Gran Vía! I happened to remark that it all felt a little more like Easter flowers than Xmas ones. Charlotte started to laugh. Do you think they maybe used a foreign contractor to manufacture and provide this year's lights? she asked. Why? I wondered. 

Well for some strange reason the Spanish word for poinsettias is flores de Pascua, or Easter flowers, so if they had asked for poinsettias, a non-Spanish contractor could easily have thought they meant tulips or daffodils! And once they arrived the mayor would have had the choice of no lights or these unexpectedly fancy ones.

An interesting and amusing theory, but I'm definitely leaning towards it!

Retiro at Xmas

Charlotte and I had an interesting experience the other night...

Madrid is knee-deep in Xmas decor at the moment, so we decided every evening after dark to go for a long walk and discover a different part of town's contribution to the festivities.

On my last night we opted for a trip over to the Retiro park as we were sure it would be a highlight. Being sensible, as always, Lots checked if the park had a closing time and we saw it was 10 pm. We wandered round the lakes, taking pics and finally made our way to the main exit. The park was pretty full as many had had the same idea. I stopped to take one last photo of a pink Xmas tree reflecting in some water, three steps from the gate. As you can see on my last photo, time-stamped at 10pm, there were a number of us.

None of us, however, spied the bloke I have circled in red. The park attendant who was tasked we thought with emptying the park... In fact his job actually seemed to be more specific than that - more locking up the park than emptying it. Despite being less than three steps from Charlotte and within shouting distance of everyone in the picture, do you think the bastard shouted over 'closing time!' or do you think he sneaked some hefty padlocks onto all the gates then disappeared in a puff of smoke?! 

Yup, you got it in one! He didn't utter a peep! So one minute later when we attempted to leave, he was nowhere in sight! A crowd of about ten of us figured we should probably walk to the next entrance/exit, though given the main one was shut, it was a long shot.

The crowd had swelled to about thirty, including some elderly Spaniards who were finding the going quite hard. Needless to say the next exit was also bolted, and the next and the next! By 10:19 I was beginning to wonder if my Iberia flight the next morning could be moved if I was still locked in the park! 

Finally after about 25 minutes of walking the perimeter in the dark, we found one park attendant who let us all out, but I am still puzzled as to why the first guy didn't simply announce it was everyone's last opportunity to escape. I guess he was maybe just in grinch-mode and having some free fun at our expense!