Happy New Year

Ch-ch-changes...

Hejsa!

It's been a weird start to the year.
January 1st I had a migraine and there was another day that first week where I was a bit under the weather. So it felt like the new year didn't properly start until this past Monday, the 8th, when I finally put away the last Christmas stuff and tidied the living room. It didn't take long but it really felt like a fresh start. Like, now 2024 had officially begun.

I finished the Winter Solstice motif in the 2023 Wheel of The Year embroidery. I’m very happy with how it has turned out. I’ll show you the finished embroidery soon. :-)

2023 ended with a bit of a surprise: in her New Year's speech, the Danish Queen announced that she would be abdicating on January 14th, on the 52th anniversary of her accession to the Danish throne. She has previously stated that she'd stay in the job until she passed away. Everyone was very surprised!

Although she has had some health issues which no doubt contributed to the decision.

But I actually think she is being very smart (she *is* a very intelligent person). She gets to have a retirement where she can enjoy doing all the things she's into, and there are a lot of those.

Also, her son can become king, which is undoubtedly a very big change for him, without at the same time trying to cope with the loss of his mother.

And I wonder if the recent change of monarch in the UK may have influenced her decision as well. Queen Margrethe's mother lived to a fairly old age and if Margrethe lived well into her 90s (she’ll be 84 in April), then the new king of Denmark would be in his 60s, or older even. I wonder if she thought it would be better for him to take on the role while he is still...youngish? He's 55 I think. Which is a lot younger than one Charles III...

Who knows.

Anyway. I am not a royalist, in fact I think the whole thing should be abolished. Both in Denmark and in the UK.

But I do have a soft spot for Queen Margrethe. She's a creative, intelligent person who inherited this bizarre job and she's been very good at it. While, as she far as I can tell, she has been able to make room for her own interests and have her own personality.

On Monday evening, to my great surprise, I suddenly got this feeling that I needed to be in Copenhagen to see this singular occasion in Danish history. No Danish monarch has ever abdicated before!

If this were a normal succession, then I don't think I would have gone. It's the fact that we can actually express...I dunno...our appreciation for a job well done. That it will be a celebration, not a day of mourning...

So tomorrow I'm off to Copenhagen for a few days. I am still slightly baffled about my own reaction!

My mum decided that she would join me (my parents live in a different part of Denmark), so we'll have an unexpected couple of days together.

I was going to share a new YouTube video with you but my computer is adamant that it is out of any kind of storage so the video editor keeps crashing. So I think I’ll just shut it down and not even try to sort it out until I’m back from Denmark next week.

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

x Carina

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