I’m back–again- from Denmark

I flew back to Denmark last Thursday afternoon (landed Friday morning)

It was the “funeral” service for Egon (My mom’s husband) it was a ceremony, as he’ll get cremated and buried later.

We were just 9 people and a female pastor at the church/chapel

Two of my friends from my home town, drove over 2hrs up to be there too and came for coffee and cake afterwards, which was really nice.

We had told them that my mom might be tired after this and might want to nap, but she sat and we chatted for a while and my mom was just relieved everything was over!

Camilla brought these flowers for my mom

Sunday I just hung around and helped clean and do laundry and I hemmed some pants!

Sunday night the plan was for me to drive back to Camilla’s house because the airport I flew into this time is near my home town and I had to fly out early Monday morning, so her husband drove me there.

Sunday morning it started snowing and got really windy

This was later in the afternoon

But around 4pm it stopped and the wind was just by the west coast, and once I got on the road, the highway crosses over and I drove more on the east coast (of Jylland/Jutland- the main peninsula in Denmark) so my drive was smooth.

The reason I had to drive so far back, was that my cousin had offered me a “loaner” car from the car dealer he works at, so the small airport was near there, that was nice of him- and the car has GPS!!

It’s funny to drive in DK though, of course the cars are mostly stick shift and they are all compact cars! I learned to drive stick shift when I learned to drive and my first car in the US was a stick shift, but that was 20 years ago, so last time I went back in January, I had to re-learn it, but I picked it up quickly

I didn’t tell you how my left thigh hurt after the first trip, it wasn’t super painful and sort of on the top of my thigh in the middle, it didn’t go away from rest or even exercise and googling it, it seemed like a blood clot, but not as bad, so I couldn’t figure it out, it wasn’t until my first weekend back that I picked up Gwen and we talked about my first trip, then I was talking about the stick shift and while driving I bent my left foot down to mimic stepping on the clutch and the pain came back in my leg! BINGO!! it was a clutch muscle ha ha, since I drive an automatic now I don’t use my left leg at all when driving. DUH!! anyways, it was kind of funny, I told my mom about it again this time and sure enough I felt it again of course

It was sad to leave my mom, even though she seemed relieved and can now look forward to her own healing (after having colostomy surgery two weeks ago – the same week Egon was in hospice) But nurses/helpers come and visit and help her 4-5 times a day and will for quite a while, and they also make sure she eats and helps with laundry and cleaning some times too and grocery delivery from the local store! I do wonder if my mom will move soon, she’s alone out in the middle of nowhere with no friends around and she can’t drive! Camilla and Dorthe (my friends) offered to help at some point, Camilla is a nurse, such a nice friend and caretaker “type” she said her family goes camping 5 miles away from there starting in March, so she might pop in too and see how my mom is doing! the nurses also has my email and can email me and hopefully WILL email me once in a while too, to keep me posted.

Of course I can call my mom, but she might say that everything is fine, when it’s not, or I won’t understand how bad things are sometimes.

It’s sad to see your parents get old and frail! and with my mom’s crooked back and osteoporosis, that’s hereditary, it really has me freaked out! But I do try to take of my body, I eat pretty healthy and exercise and never smoked! (My mom quite smoking at the hospital but she started at home again)

Saturday night was Danish Melody Grand Prix and there’s 10 songs, then the final one goes to the Euro vision competition in May, I haven’t seen this show since I lived there, so it was nice to watch.

Here’s 2 of the finalists (too bad you can’t see this cute young 17yr girl) this was my favorite but she got 2nd place

but this was the winner and I really think it was a good choice, I was so torn between these two, my mom loved this one and it’s very “Danish Viking”

(you have to go to youtube to view them)

I want to see if I can watch the Eurovision competition here in May!

Now Europe is SO big, with so many countries compared to when I was a child, what I remember the most was before the wall came down, so now there’s a lot more Easter European countries and now also from the south east. we’ll see if I remember.