25 trips around the sun

[oneiriad]

So, it was my birthday this friday, and across the nation there was widespread celebrating. Admittedly, the celebrating was because it was j-day, but a girl takes what she can get... ;-)

So, it was a nice birthday - nice and quiet. Fortunately, my family does not have any cinnamon-traditions, so that's good. And layer cake with chocolate mousse filling turned out to be a tasty idea :-)

The loot was quite good too. I got a little bit of this, a little bit of that, some very pretty pretties from

drbillbongo, a very nice flat screen for my computer and some other stuff. Oh, but the best bit was without a doubt

Admit that it's pretty, even if it's just a replica - but what would I do with a real weapon anyway? I admit, if it had been me doing the actual purchasing, I would probably have picked another. One with more, I dunno - pretty? But I like it. I like it very much. You see, the original was a local product - made at the Kronborg Gun Factory in 1848 and used in the First Schleswig War. Of course, the factory is long since closed and today Hammermøllen (the Hammer Mill) is a very idyllic picnic spot / small museum, of which I have memories of catching tadpoles in the stream and watching as a horseshoe was made, memories from a school trip. So it's nice for that alone.

Still, it got me thinking a bit. You see, in the box there was also a catalogue from the producer (and by the way, this I want - I will need another place to live and some sort of weapon's permit, but at some point I want it) and I noticed how most of the other replicas are, well, pretty. So I looked deeper and noticed, that most of them were duelling pistols or old enough that each gun was an independent work of art. This isn't. This was mass-produced for the common soldier at a sufficiently late point in history for it to be pretty much nothing special. This was a practical tool for shooting the nasty Germans, not a toy. And somehow I like it all the more for that. Although I do want some of the traditionally pretty replicas too.

And just because I'm feeling silly. Did you know that the Danish word for gunsmith is bøssemager, which can be mis-translated into English as "maker of gay men"? Some day I will have to look up the etymology of that word...