Aqualion's Daily Blues

A little Christmas song especially for you. I have no comments.



Have a... gay merry Christmas.

Going through the thousands and thousands of photos that mysteriously have build up in the memory of this computer, I came upon this picture of my two sons: My step-son Benjamin, on the left, an my biological son, Simon.

Life can sometimes be hard, as I'm sure you know, but once in a while there are beacons of joy. The fact that Benjamin and Simon get along the way they do, like friends and brothers, is one of those beacons. Getting a new brother and becoming a brother at the age of 21 must be a weird feeling. These guys don't seem to mind it, at all. The first day they met - about three years ago - they spend the entire night discussing the profound and important subject of electric guitars. As far as I know they have not fully covered the entire range of this subject yet.

Musicians...

Please notice the sunny weather.

Two days after I took this picture, they were all gone.

Denmark is the country with most leisure and allotment gardeners of all countries compared to the populations.

The tradition for this type of gardening dates back to the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century the aim of the leisure and allotment gardeners was to secure better conditions for the working people and in 1884 the first association of leisure and allotment owners was founded. In 1908 several of the associations of leisure and allotment owners joined in Kolonihaveforbundet for Danmark (The Danish Federation of Leisure and Allotment Gardeners).

In the year 2000 Kolonihaveforbundet for Danmark consisted of 409 associations with a total of more than 40.000 leisure and allotment garden owners.




Allotment gardens are characterised by a concentration in one place of a few or up to several hundreds of land parcels that are assigned to individuals or families. In allotment gardens, the parcels are cultivated individually, contrary to other community garden types where the entire area is tended collectively by a group of people.

The individual size of a parcel ranges between 200 and 400 square meters, and often the plots include a shed for tools and shelter.



The individual gardeners are organised in an allotment association which leases the land from the owner who may be a public, private or ecclesiastical entity, provided that it is only used for gardening (i.e. growing vegetables, fruits and flowers), but not for residential purposes. The gardeners have to pay a small membership fee to the association, and have to abide by the corresponding constitution and by-laws. However, the membership entitles them to certain democratic rights.

Private initiative formed the first Danish allotment association in Aalborg in 1884 and in Copenhagen an association named "Arbejdernes Værn" (lit. "The Worker's Protection") founded the first allotment gardens of the Danish Capital in 1891. Since then allotment gardens has spread to most Danish towns.



In 1904 there were about 20.000 allotment gardens in Denmark. 6.000 of them were in Copenhagen. During the interwar years the number of allotment gardens grew rapidly. In 2001 the number of allotment gardens was estimated to about 62.120.

In 1908 twenty allotment associations in Copenhagen formed the Allotment Garden Union which in 1914 was expanded to cover all of Denmark. The Allotment Garden Federation was founded to negotiate more favourable deals with the state and the municipalities from which the allotments associations rented the land. Today the federation represent roughly 400 allotment associations in 75 municipalities.

The Danish tradition for allotment gardens later spread to the other Scandinavian countries; first Sweden, then Norway and Finland.



Today most allotment gardens are on land owned by the municipality which rents the land to an allotment association. The association in turn gives each member a plot of land. To preserve allotment gardens as something that is available for all kinds of people the membership charge is set significantly below what a market price would be. Since allotments are often placed on attractive plots of land, this has led to huge waiting lists for membership in many allotment associations.

Although the main purpose of the allotment is gardening, most allotment gardens has a pavilion built in them. These pavilions can range in size from an old rebuilt railway car to a small summer house. Many people grow so fond of their allotment gardens that they live there the entire summer. In most cases it is however not allowed to live there the entire year.



In Danish culture the allotment garden has become a symbol of blue-collar culture. Both as a positive image of a more simple life closer to nature, with time to spend with the family and friendly neighbours to have a chat and a beer with, but also as a negative image of intolerant flag-waving whites keeping to themselves inside their small hedged kingdoms. However despite these negative stereotypes the garden idyll of the allotment still attracts people living in the city, regardless of class.



All pictures are from 'Langemark Havekoloni', about one and a half mile from where I live. I often go there. It's such a nice place, as you can see.