June 2004
This newsletter may be more rushed than usual because I suddenly have great difficulty in nabbing the computer. This is a process which started just after Christmas but has now got really serious The girls have discovered SIMs! For those who don’t know, this is a computer game which, well, imitates life. They have to make a family, build and furnish a house within their budget, get the adults jobs so that money keeps flowing in, pay the bills on time and keep people fresh by making sure they are clean, fed and get enough sleep. Sound familiar? For me, it’s too much like being a parent to be interesting but for them they love the power. People can stay up all night, eat 45 meals a day, watch TV all day but then Gwen and Mia wonder why their people lose their jobs and get depressed. Disconcerting things happen sometimes in the game. The girls couldn’t resist making a family called Tony, Anne, Gwen and Mia but then ‘Mia’ ran away, never to be seen again and we had no idea why. After four days of intensive play though, I detect a dropping of interest.
I’m as bad though in that I am watching Wimbledon fairly intensively so it has suited me fine that the girls are engrossed in Sims. And Tony of course is getting his fill of football with Euro 2004 though he’s having difficulty knowing who to support now that Germany, Denmark, France, England, Italy and Sweden are all out.
We have had a few visitors. The month started with Nick, Jan, Katie and Adam and some great weather. It was especially difficult for Mia to see them go.
Then we had a surprise visit from Steve and Martina, based in the Czech Republic but who were on their way home from a meeting in Sweden.
It was a strange visit for them since I was away in Germany when they arrived and Tony left the day after I returned, to go to the UK for a meeting. I had given my first ever conference talk in Cologne but spent most of the weekend in my hotel bed as I wasn’t feeling at all well. Fortunately I was feeling better for the ten-hour train journey home.
We foolishly thought that we should book tickets in advance when Gwen wanted to see the new Harry Potter film but the cinema was less than half full so that was a waste of a booking fee. Another non-event were the European elections where Gwen doubled the number of visitors to the polling station when she accompanied me to see democracy in action. A third damp squib was the annual mid-summer celebration which occurred, as usual, on a very wet day and even fewer people (about 15) than normal turned up to the witch burning, singing and political speeches in Nimtofte.
An ill-advised decision to pay off the loan on one of the cars plus extensive repairs to said car means that we are low on resources and have decided to stay home during the school holidays which end on August 2nd. We’ll take days out instead. I was asked to do a week’s teaching at another institution, Kålø Sproghøjskole, at the end of July so that might fill the coffers a little. I have worked there 2 or 3 times before so it should be quite routine. It is at the bottom of the hill from where Tony works.
May 2004
As I write this Tony and the girls are doing the rounds of the garden finding this year’s young in the nest boxes in order to ring them. Tony has only been back from Svalbard for two days but already has been involved in some heavy garden work as we prepare for a visit from Nick, Jan, Katie and Adam. Trees have had to be chopped, blackberry bushes pruned back and the lawn mown.
During his two weeks in Svalbard Tony and Ian Francis were paying attention to pink-footed geese, the ones in fact which Tony helped ring in March. Seven of them were given satellite transmitters and the spooky thing was that Tony met up with one of those geese up in Svalbard. He had snow and sub-zero temperatures while we were basking in the sunshine but, once more, no polar bears.
I began the month in Remagen, Germany, a town on the Rhine missing its bridge (think Dam Busters). This is the fourth time I am meeting with these people and the second time since funding for the projects started and still we were talking about procedures. But even though we all agreed that it would be a good idea to have a to-do list, clearly showing the “whom” and “when”, I felt we still hadn’t really started. So I’ve decided to pester them by email and things are starting to move slowly but I expect everything will stop in July when the summer holiday period starts washing over Europe (Denmark and Sweden first).
While I was in Remagen I heard that Tony’s Mum could come and see us as she had a pause in her chemo-therapy so a couple of days after my return we were finally able to receive the visit postponed from last July. We weren’t able to do much except enjoy the spring weather and it was over all too soon and Tony had to be away a couple of days as he was examining a PhD in the Netherlands.
Meanwhile the girls went off on their summer camp on the same day as Tony’s Mum returned home and Tony left for Svalbard so I was left alone at home for two nights. The summer camp was at the same place as Gwen went to last year. It seemed to go well apart from a disagreement over whether you could get three sleeping in a space designed for two between Mia and her friends. Mia has also collected yet another certificate, this time her dagger certificate. In Danish the word for knife and dagger is the same so this meant that she had proved that she could use a knife safely for whittling wood and peeling vegetables and other outdoor necessities.
To round off, May has been a month for pushing boundaries. Mia decided that she wanted to try the roller coaster in the local theme park. I was sure she didn’t want to really but she hadn’t expressed any doubts by the time we got to the front of the queue so off we went. We both agreed that it was terrifying and that we wouldn’t do it again in the near future. Gwen also tried a new slide and went by herself while me and Mia went together. Gwen was also terrified and wants to do it again only if she can go in a pair. She also has her name down to try the roller coaster with Tony. We’ll keep you posted but I don’t think she’s going to like it AT ALL!
April 2004
We started the month with an act of faith when we ‘planted’ some sea monkeys in a jug of water. After two weeks the water was just looking murky and I was about to throw out the contents when I noticed some purposeful movement as against the usual random swaying of murky lumps. The little commas were the infamous sea monkeys. They have grown and grown so that you can now see them with the naked eye and they are now pairing up. It’s so romantic!
The week before Easter Tony went to a conference in Edinburgh which went very well but there are inevitably one or two dull moments. He whiled those away by counting the number of ‘erms’ uttered by one speaker. That particular speaker was so boring that counting his ‘erms’ spread like wildfire as a way of passing the time and dinner was spent arguing the finer points of when one ‘erm’ finished and the next one started.
To cover for Tony’s absence I took the girls to the Danish equivalent of Centre Parks a degenerate world of pool, bowling, play station games and air hockey. The main attraction was the pool full of interesting slides, the only free activity in the place. It rained most of the time but we didn’t really notice.
On Easter Monday we had the grand finale of the drawing competition. In case you missed it (and most of you did) Katie won the animal and birdlife competition with a magnificient curlew and Dad won the ballet dancer. Sorry Greg and Adam. Thanks for all the entries. What’s that I hear about nepotism?
Grandma and Grandpa came to visit and arrived with cardamom seeds, enough Rolos to see us through the next six months and two packets of clarkia seeds, unaccountably not available in Denmark but the only flower I can remember having grown successfully. However they left with our front door squeak, a primitive but effective security measure enabling us to know when people were coming into the house. Hands up all those of you who were annoyed by that squeak and are glad to hear of its demise! On Day 2 they were whisked off to a horse gala as it was called, performed in a royal horsey place south of Aarhus. A strange mix of medieval jousting, roman chariots, pretend bull fighting, circus type acts and musical numbers. There is very little information on the website but one or two pictures give the flavour at http://www.Levade.nu.
On Friday April 30 I take the night train to Cologne for another weeklong project meeting. Tony has a quick dash into the Netherlands a couple of days to be examiner for a Masters student after I come back and then goes off to Svalbard for two weeks returning just a couple of days before Nick and Jan arrive for a few days at the beginning of June. Let’s hope his polar bear shooting skills have not gone rusty in the year since he was last there. The girls will be going for their summer trip with the after-school club just as Tony leaves for Svalbard so mother will be left all on her own for two nights and serve her right too.
If your thoughts are turning to the summer holidays may we recommend Molvania. Learn more about this little known eastern European country at http://www.molvania.com/ and don’t forget to remember the date.