October 2003
The lateness of this newsletter is because we had a visit from friends with 3 boys just in time for Hallowe’en. Repetitive excuses remind me of Reginald Perrin and his litany of reasons why the train was late. Neither family normally does anything special for this but because we were together (and because nothing is happening at this time of year in Denmark) expectations were suddenly raised so the girls were introduced to apple-bobbing and the boys were able to indulge their predilection for horror.
It is not widely known that Gwen has an entrepreneurial streak and this is mainly because we don’t let her put any of her money-spinning ideas into practice but this autumn she really felt the market for apples was there for the taking so she and Mia spent hours setting up a stall at the end of the lane (we did dissuade them from setting up at the garage door) and blow me if they didn’t get £2.50 worth of sales in 4 hours or so of passive selling. That’s after discounting the kroner Tony put in the box to save them the disappointment of making nothing. Oh ye of little faith.
Tony went to a WWT meeting mid-October and we girls joined him a few days later during half term. The girls were very pleased to be able to visit their Grandma even though she was in hospital and were even able to round off the visit (just) by seeing Grandma return home. When not visiting Grandma they were able to help to get rid of the strident orange in her kitchen and dynamite the rock which passes for soil in Grandma’s garden to plant a few bulbs which we hope will give some spring cheer.
With about 3 weeks notice I was asked to give a very short talk to a conference in Australia about my Master’s project but before you start thinking enviously of what the weather was like for me there, it all happened virtually at five in the morning through my computer. I got up an hour too early anyway having miscalculated the time but still did the whole thing in my nightie against Tony’s advice. It can’t have been so bad as I’ve been asked to do another one in December, this time at two in the morning, again in Australia. The wonders of technology but I’d better watch out if I get a web cam!
I maintain that Danes have an obsession with fire. Typical of this is that next Monday the school is taking part in a Nordic wide storytelling event and as part of this all the lights in the school will be turned off and light provided by candles instead. Stand by for the next newsletter which won’t appear before January 2004 to find out if the school is still intact.
September 2003
This month we ‘ave mainly been eating carrots, cucumbers, plums and grapes. Like you, we have had a very warm and sunny September and the grass needs cutting again but I plan to order some wood next week.
Well your children may have come home with offers from the school to learn the recorder, the violin or the piano but Gwen came home with a note about buying a kazoo. The note laid it on thick about how with an educational discount and no VAT this was a snip at £2 and this made me wonder how many people instinctively know how much one pays these days for a quality kazoo. I certainly don’t but have my suspicions that it’s the sort of thing stocked by the ‘Everything for a pound’ emporia.
It all got a bit confusing with birthday presents for Gwen and Mia this year and so our deepest apologies if we have got it wrong. We told both Nick and Greg that their parcels hadn’t arrived when in fact Nick’s had and I had hidden it too well and Greg’s had, only I’d attributed it to Isabelle. So if you got thanked for something you didn’t send or sent something you didn’t get thanked for then let us know. Mia loved the Barbie nightie when she finally got it. I seem to remember she even went to bed early that night.
Gwen is very much in the ‘don’t change a winning formula’ mould so for her birthday we had to have a repeat of Mia’s birthday with bowling followed by MacDonalds with blackberry ice cream at home afterwards which is what Tony had instead of cake for his birthday. We couldn’t even get her to try Ebeltoft bowling instead of Grenaa just in case that turned out to be a disappointment. I have a feeling that Ebeltoft is probably nicer than Grenaa where the bowling alley is essentially tacked on to a bar frequented by ne’er do wells but we’ll never know.
As for me I’m coming to the end of my MA in teaching English as a foreign language, which means that I have to do a project. I considered several ideas but rejected most of them because I can never count on having any students when I need them. In the end I borrowed one of my colleague’s classes for ten weeks and used them to do an online project with a group of Greenlanders. Originally it was going to be with a group of Peruvians so that’s why I started asking my aunt and cousins, who often go to Peru for holidays, for photographs. The whole project has been plagued by technical failures some of them of the most basic sort like no email and no internet but I’m within sight of the end and will only need to write it up before the end of November.
The girls missed Tony very much when he was away for a week and a half, firstly attending an offshore windfarm meeting in Essex then spending a long weekend with his Mum in her new house and rounding off with a conference in Ireland. Tony was very glad of the opportunity to visit his Mum since we are naturally all very concerned about her ill-health and he was able to do a few heavy duty jobs like breaking up a brick barbecue which she had earmarked for destruction.
Tony will be going to the UK again in October when he has a WWT meeting and we will join him for 3 days for a lightening visit to Bracknell. In the meantime we plan to play as much badminton as possible before the clocks change in October and we have dark evenings again and our thoughts turn to Christmas!
July/August 2003
After a two month break the newsletter is back. Since most of the recipients were on holiday at the beginning of August it seemed best to skip a month.
Gwen finally broke the stranglehold of Malta on prizes from BBC Prime by winning a build it yourself camera. Unfortunately she missed her moment of glory, which was probably broadcast when we were in the UK. It was never likely anyway as it would require giving up about six hours of each day watching the channel. We don’t even know which work of art has been rewarded since there was no accompanying letter. But at least she’s proved that you don’t have to live in Malta to get a prize as that is where the majority of prizewinners seem to come from.
We had a great break in the UK early July when Tony had one of his WWT meetings in London. The girls were appalled at us for taking two days in London while we left them with Grandma but ten minutes after we’d gone they seemed prepared to make the best of a bad situation and had a great time being spoiled by their Grandma. Meanwhile we went to museums, crossed the Thames on the new Millennium bridge, admired the London Eye and went to a theatre. I was surprised at how little tempted I was in the shops.
Then we went to Lyme Regis fossil hunting, inevitably buying more than we found but it’s a very attractive area and we stayed in a great B and B, an octagonal thatch with excessively attentive landlords. A lightening visit to John Turner and Janet Kear in Devon enabled us to meet up with yet more people we hadn’t seen for a long time as they gathered quite a group of ex-Slimbridge people for the barbecue. Unfortunately for Gwen, John Turner hadn’t finished reading Harry Potter 5 and so he had to send it in the post to us later anyway!
Barely two weeks after our return to Denmark we were scheduled to receive the Burdetts and Tony’s Mum back here in Denmark but circumstances were against us when it became clear that Doreen would be better off staying in the UK to make sure that all the tests and treatment she needed would not be delayed. We look forward to your visit as soon as it can be re-scheduled but we were rather looking forward to you coming in the summer when we could show you that there is more to Denmark than our snowbound garden.
In one respect the cancellation was just as well because just at the time when the visitors were due we found that we had lice for the first time ever. I’ve waited 47 years for this! As a complete novice in these matters I can’t be certain, but I think it was a mild infestation. (Note the past tense.)
After much anticipation Mia has finally started school. She is one of 5 girls in a class of 18, the biggest class they’ve had for years, apparently. As is traditional in Denmark, I was with her that first day but she didn’t really need me, knowing the school so well already from having collected Gwen with me regularly. On her very first afternoon in the after-school club she got involved in making herself a decorative hairclip so that part of school life also holds no worries for her. Tony has already been roped in to take her class on a bird watching walk later this autumn. It is these timetabled sessions outdoors that have just earned the school some type of green flag in recognition of their use of the environment as a learning location. The mayor was there to present the flag to the whole school on the first day and the headmaster (reluctantly) gave the whole school a green ice-lolly each in celebration. I think Mia was sensible enough to realise that she wasn’t going to get a lolly every day!
Mia wanted to go bowling for her birthday so that’s what we did and as MacDonald’s was just round the corner that’s where we went for her birthday meal. Gwen enjoyed it so much she has decided that we’ll also go bowling on her birthday. To vary things a little we may go to Ebeltoft bowling centre instead of Grenaa. Having been introduced to tennis in the UK the girls progressed to badminton back home after I got a net, racquets and shuttlecocks. Mia was so impressed she wanted to join a badminton club so off we went last week to the next town for her first badminton session but she didn’t think it was as much fun as in the garden so it seems she won’t go back and wants instead to try the table tennis next week.
We have just had a bumper crop of grapes from the greenhouse so Tony is making wine as we speak, the real thing this time so coming visitors may get to endure/taste Chateau Nimtofte if all goes according to plan. We also have cucumbers coming out of our ears (so to speak). More welcome was the good currant crop which was used to make jelly and concentrate. By contrast the strawberry harvest was negligible so plans for covering up the patch with a terrace seem justified.