Wise men approach life with a sense of mystery and wonder. Tom Lethbridge’s discoveries with his long pendulum of a timeless zone beyond death may eventually turn out to be the best theological argument for being mindful with your life. But for the moment life remains the damndest thing. Toni Pinschof once told me that the best neighbours a peasant farmer can have are Jehovah Witnesses. They believe that the Day of Judgement might come at any moment. So they act accordingly and are on red alert in anticipation of his arrival. This, Tony explained, is good for the neighbouring farmers because whenever they need to borrow anything they find it in immaculate condition.

Sixty years ago it would have been impossible to predict that I would be spending my 60th birthday on the island of Ljusterö in the Stockholm Archipelago. Even a month ago I would not have bet on it…although my daughter asked me to thank Alan and Magdalena for taking the pressure off her. You can reasonably expect to know where you will be tomorrow…but ten years from now…twenty five years? The Arrow of Time is strange too. It puzzles physicists.

Time should be symmetrical according to their equations. There should not be an arrow at all. If you know your birthday you should know your deathday. But in practice all you know is that you are one day closer each morning. The present is everything or nothing. The future has yet to come and the past has vanished. The priests try to cut the Gordian Knot by reference to higher authority…a sacred book or a divine being. Take no heed for the morrow, sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof is their best shot…heed our words and your reward will be in the hereafter.

The main argument against suicide is never knowing what the next day brings…which is why suicides increase in the spring. You despair in the winter…but hope for better things. Come spring nothing changes…so hope vanishes. Such macabre concerns were abandoned yesterday afternoon as m/s Waxholm I picked her way between the Hallberg-Rassys…and the restaurant on Skeppsbron that sunk last night…to take me to my birthday party on Ljusterö.

Over to port lay Skeppsholmen where the Af Chapman is moored…the best situated youth hostel in the world. On the far side of the island is Benny Anderson’s studio…unbeknown to the Aussie backpackers. An hour out we docked at Vaxholm…capital of the Stockholm Skärgård. It took two and a half hours from Grand Hotel to Grundvik on Ljusterö as we made our way round the islands stopping at a dozen small jetties for passengers to disembark and be greeted and welcomed to the country homes of friends or family. More than half of Stockholmers have a place in the country.

We were nine to dinner and seven to sing the traditional Swedish birthday song ‘Jåg mår han levar...’ which wishes the Birthday Boy or Girl ‘many happy returns of the day’ but means literally ‘may you live…’ It is sung three times before ending the sentence with ‘…for a hundred years’. It could stop there with the traditional three cheers but there is another verse. ‘Och då ska han skjutas…’ three times…before ‘…i en skottkära fram.’

Swedes find this uproariously funny. Much Swedish humour is Situation Comedy…a good example of this is Fawlty Towers where John Cleese is forever thwarted in his neurotic attempts to control, stay organised and organise others. We have that here with a firing squad and the indignity of it all. But there is also a witty play on words. Skjuta means ‘to shoot’ and ‘to push’...with skjutas the passive ‘to be shot’. Adding the final line changes the meaning from ‘then he’ll be shot’ to ‘then he’ll be pushed…forward in a wheelbarrow’. Our Happy Birthday is tame by comparison.

There were only seven singers because the Birthday Boy does not sing his own praises and 5-week old boys are excused…although Andrew and Elisabet’s son Jonathon joined in anyway. Jennie and Jeremias’ 3-year old daughter Alva would have us singing all evening. But I was volunteered to sing to her at the piano the next day instead. And so I did. Mor’s Lilla Ulla…and a brown björn she befriends in the forest much to the alarm of her mother.

By mid morning a work party was in full flow painting the house so Alan and I persuaded ourselves of the necessity of driving to the building merchants for vital supplies…and the price of scaffolding. On the way back we called in at the local store for worms and snus…a 200-year old tradition introduced by a French Queen. Snus is placed between lip and gum…unlike the worms…which are placed on a hook and fed to passing pike. Allegedly Jeremias caught an 18-inch gädda but ate it before I could verify the fact. So I am unable to vouch for the truth of this fisherman’s tale.