September 2004
September could be characterised by an absence of mice, an abundance of nuts, an abundance of grapes and a super-abundance of blackberries this year. The lack of mice is due to the fact that the farmer did not grow a cereal crop next door to us but grass. The abundance of nuts largely free of worms means that I am not scouring the shops for the brief period when they sell a few fresh hazelnuts. The blackberries are our closely guarded secret and mean that we now have enough jelly to last us the year. Blackberries don’t seem to be very common in Denmark and those that we found were pretty tasteless so our secret supply is doubly valuable as they are of the tasty variety. Unfortunately there won’t be any Chateau Nimtofte this year, we will just have to eat the grapes fresh as Tony has developed an allergy to wine. Some wines are worse than others but it is painful to experiment so wine is not in his letter to Santa this year.
The month started with the annual trip to Legoland on the first fine weekend of the month. This was Gwen’s birthday treat but we thought we had better take advantage of the good weather when it presented itself rather than being sticklers for dates. Within two weeks Tony was back at Legoland and even staying at the Legoland Hotel when he was a speaker at an offshore windmill conference.
It was a clash between this and my meeting in Brighton which led to the girls missing a week of school when I took them with me to the UK and left them with their grandparents until Tony could come over. Brighton turned out to be quite an experience with a hotel, The Malvern, hardly worthy of the name. No reception, no phone, no bins, no breakfast, no fire escape, no public rooms but some interesting décor including stuffed frogs arranged in amusing poses and a boa-surrounded mirror. One of our group also had an interesting view to the men’s showers in the gym at the back. But nobody thought that was worth £75 a night. Sorry guys!
The excuse given for the outrageous price was the Labour Party Conference. We arrived a couple of days before it started and Brighton was awash with security, including police dogs, riot gear, mobile X-ray machines, portable turnstiles and anti-suicide bomber barriers. The Daily Telegraph did a much better job than me of juxtaposing the machine gun-toting policeman and this year’s slogan of ‘A better life for all’ All I managed to get was ‘A better life for families’ with a streetlight in the way so that it reads ‘A better life for fairies’
When we first arrived in Denmark eleven years ago golf hardly figured in the Danish landscape. We happened to be rooming with a British golf instructor at our first address who was lamenting the lack of elitism in the golf club he worked at. Well, as with buses so with golf, because now we don’t have just one new golf course ( http://www.djursgolf.dk/forside) but two. The second golf club (http://www.lubker.com/ ) will be in our road between us and the village and is planned to be some upmarket type of country club emulating those in Spain and Portugal. Yes, really! Strange but true. Even stranger is that the second golf club will abut onto the first one which only opened in August and which otherwise have nothing to do with each other. Tony is all for protesting against the plans in the hope of securing free life membership so that we can use the tennis courts also included in the plans.
August Newsletter
Well you may be thinking about the new school year but we’re already up to our eyes in it and have already attended our first parent’s evening when we were lectured on getting our little darlings to bed on time, feeding them properly and reading with them. Individual interviews are scheduled for November.
August kicked off with a visit from Carl Mitchell and another RSPB man whose mission was to catch Red-necked and Little Grebes. This involves disappearing at 10pm to potter about in boats or wading up to your waist in the pitch black in lakes, shining torches into their victims’ eyes and ringing them while they’re still dazzled. A hole in the catching net lost our valiant team the only bird actually “caught” and the huge bright harvest moon did the rest! Most of the birds had disappeared anyway, so we said goodbye to our bleary-eyed visitors having seen hardly anything of them with no discernible results.
Tony’s Mum arrived soon after to spend a week and a half with us. On Anne’s birthday we went out to dinner and although disappointed not to be shown an outdoor table, the subsequent thunderstorm (ring a bell? Didn’t this happen in the exactly the same restaurant this time last year) meant that we were quite pleased to be indoors after all. Mia got a new bicycle for her birthday, which we had to buy a couple of weeks beforehand in order to secure a good price. On the actual day we went ten pin bowling (ring a bell anyone?) which turned out to be an exceedingly good idea since it rained cats and dogs that day too.
Once more we got an invite to a christening of our friend’s, Jens, second child. It was a lovely day and we had a marvellous time. The event took place at Jens’ in-laws castle with the ceremony in their very own private chapel. At the banquet afterwards, Tony’s Mum was placed by the Duke (Earl, Viscount or however the title translates) and was chatted up by a number of elegant gentlemen from the Danish aristocracy for the duration of the meal, which was presented once more by the cook.
The candles in the chapel were a little wobbly and in danger of setting fire to one of the guest’s hair. Fortunately Tony found some relevant advice in his health and safety handbook on candle safety at work. So just in case you are missing this essential advice:
1.5 Use of candles
In order to prevent fire:
* Candles may only be used in proper candlesticks.
* Candles in Christmas decorations or similar inflammable material may
not be used.
The person who lights the candle /the candles is also responsible for put it
/ them out again before leaving the room/the corner.
Tony’s Mum suffered a very uneventful time, as this period turned out to be a very busy time for all of us, but she claimed she had a fine rest despite being left on her own most days and was extremely pleased to get away from her constantly ringing telephone.
Anne has been drafted in at the last minute to take the last five weeks of a technical English course at a company called Terma, on the outskirts of Aarhus after their last teacher ran screaming from the place. Not the most auspicious way to start but the people are not too over-whelming and she’s gradually getting to grips with the jargon associated with cabling and soldering. As this is a company supplying top secret components to fighter planes, her hand hesitated somewhat when she had to certify that she was not intending to use a new computer for the deployment of weapons of mass destruction when we finally decided to get a new one about 13 years since we bought the last one. This declaration is necessary as the computer is from Dell, an American company.
On the very last day of August, the girls started horse-riding lessons, a much-awaited event. We have yet to see whether interest is sustained but one of the other pupils fell off her horse during the first lesson and there was a thunderstorm and still Gwen and Mia want to go back next week so it seems as though they’re keen.
The answer to last month’s teaser was of course cannabis.
July 2004
Tony has had a couple of fraught journeys in the past month. A quick drive to the Netherlands last week turned into a nightmare when the brakes on the works car locked on. Tony found that his rescue plan was only valid in Denmark and had to join the Dutch equivalent of the AA to ensure prompt service and limited expenses. Even so he still had to pay for parts which left him with little change and no credit from 400 Euros and he was lucky to be able to leave for home promising to send the garage the balance of 50 Euros in the post. Fortunately we had a second credit card to enable him to fill up with petrol.
Returning from a WWT meeting earlier this month, he was taking the inevitable Ryanair flight from Stansted when it was announced that they had to take all the luggage off the hold because a passenger hadn’t arrived. This passenger, a certain Mr Whymes (Why Me?), had disappeared between the gate and the aircraft. Suspicion grew that he may have boarded the neighbouring aircraft by mistake and so the vehicle next door, which was taxiing off, was also stopped and investigated. It turned out that this was a security test and Ryanair, to its credit, noticed the discrepancy and was prepared to delay the flight by an hour to sort out the problem.
But you will no doubt be aware that Ryanair are seeking to cut costs as much as possible by banning hold luggage. The CEO, Mike O’Leary, recommends buying your clothes and hairdryer on arrival at your destination but doesn’t explain what to do with them on the return journey. So, please don’t be surprised if on future visits to the UK (eg next September) we ask to borrow your hairdryer and we were also thinking that we ought to devise some sort of rota for borrowing clothes while we are over. We will, of course, be boarding the aircraft wearing three changes of clothes so please don’t be alarmed by our red faces and corpulence when we arrive.
Wearing our tourist hats for the last two weeks we managed to pack in quite a few experiences including playing tennis, attending an opera gala night, visiting a modern art museum, going to the beach and braving the sea, pony-trekking and getting within 50 yards of Danish royalty at a free pop concert featuring Safri Duo (who?). We also attended the annual Viking Festival and had our first attempt at a Danish car boot sale where we just about broke even after having ensured we adhered to the 22 rules. The girls got their commission as a reward for their patience in lasting the six hours.
A clutch of birthdays are in the offing and if you are stuck for ideas the Amazon wish list is fairly reliable
.
The BBC World War 2 site seems very interesting, for example how about this article ‘The East End in the War’ or ‘Memories of a WW2 evacuee from Slough to Shropshire’. It strikes me that some of the readers of this newsletter could contribute articles of equal or greater interest!
Mia is very excited to be starting real school next week. Last year was just a taster. And so Anne will accompany her to her first school day on Wednesday August 4th which is scheduled to last just over 2 hours. Unfortunately the girls’ holiday was cut a little short as Anne had agreed to teach at another language school during the mornings this past week. The people come for a week as part of their holiday and it was all very enjoyable.
As we start back to work we are aware that many of you will be going on holiday so have a relaxing time and we’ll be in touch later.
