these sublime days

The new girl on the Lego block

2012-02-19T14:55:00.001+01:00

Fresh back from Legoworld (the 4 day Lego extravaganza at Copenhagen's Bella Center) and let me introduce our new 'friend', Olivia.... This young lady is one of a range making up Lego's new line of figures, Friends, (that come packaged together with the lifestyle accoutrements of a dream house, wardrobe, ice cream parlours, shops, tree houses etc etc) due to hit the shelves here in Denmark later this month. Well, they're making quite an entrance, these little girls, in their pink and purple boxes.

Angry parents are calling upon Lego, amongst others, to 'Stop Gender Based Marketing'. A petition no less to exert pressure on Lego not to 'reinforce gender stereotypes'. Steady on.....

As a mother of both a boy and a girl, I have a couple of years of experience at observing play and seeing the different paths of development that each of my children is following. My son, a long time before he could say the word Lego, developed a fascination with cars, trucks, trains, police vehicles, fire engines and the like. I don't think that I ever steered him in this direction and the fact that my daughter, born into a playroom full of vehicles and train tracks but sometimes preferring to carry my handbag and dress up in my clothes, leads me to conclude that nature rather than nurture plays an important role.

For my son, and his love of all vehicles, Lego was the obvious choice of toy so he could build and rebuild his own selection of transportation. Incidental to all this, he enjoys creative and independent play, hones fine motor skills and learns about concentration. Until he started school last year, he was not at all keen to sit down with a pen or a paint brush. He naturally leaned towards construction. I think this is different for girls. My daughter is not yet two years old and yet she already likes (and can confidently hold) pens and pencils. My amateur opinion is that the skills that my son is developing through Lego, his sister may develop through arts and crafts: different but parallel paths of development. Obviously, these are not set in stone and each child finds their own way.

So, why is Lego being raked over the coals? The 'problem' appears to have started with the Lego kits for trucks, trains, rockets, aeroplanes and emergency rescue vehicles etc, which have created a world of creative play for boys from the age of 4ish; now known as the 'Lego phase'. These kits don't appeal to girls because, as research apparently shows, while the boys are playing with their plastic colourful bricks, the girls of the same age are into the 'princess phase'. For them, its still about the imagination and building a fantasy world but one inhabited by different people (princesses rather than firemen etc) and with a different colour palette. It took four years of research but Lego has discovered that girls today do like construction but in a different way to boys. Lego's answer? The 'Friends' range in its pink and purple hues.

As an aside, I'm slightly sceptical about the supposed colour palette of play. A visit to the Lego play area at Louisiana Museum for Modern Art (just north of Copenhagen) where all the bricks are yellow takes care of that theory. Both girls and boys enjoy creative play when the toy is stripped down to its most basic.

The real problem lies in what is going on in the lives of today's little girls - how did they find themselves in the pink and fluffy 'princess phase'? The above Lego campaign comes from 1981 - there's only a hint of gender based marketing but it is far from stereotypical and speaks volumes about what has happened over the last 31 years. The multicoloured creation the little red head girl holds is what I remember about playing with Lego in my own childhood. I didn't need Lego bricks to be pink or mini figures to be little girls to recreate the world of my imagination. Lego didn't create the 'princess phase' so can we really blame them for simply responding to it?

The 'friends' figures are fully compatible with the other Lego ranges. Can't the Lego phase and the princess phase co-exist in harmony? Ultimately, if it is agreed that Lego is good for children then isn't it better that both girls and boys have an opportunity to enjoy it?

If girls are missing out on developmental skills because they don't want to play with Lego trucks, dragons and ninjas, here's a clever way to make it attractive to them: princess meets astronaut. Perhaps then the minds of little girls will entertain dreams of space travel? Who knows?

For my part, I'm looking forward to showing Olivia around the neighbourhood. Good luck Lego!

On being 40

2012-01-26T17:00:00.004+01:00

When I was 10, I thought I knew everything

When I was 20, I thought I could do everything

When I was 30, I looked for someone with whom to share everything

Now I am 40, I'm learning to seek out the truth in everything, the good in everyone and the sublime in every day.

Many hands make sunshine

2012-01-22T21:20:00.002+01:00

I'm writing this after saying good bye to my sister following a wonderful weekend visit. There is no other way to put this: she is good for me. We have had a lovely 48 hours (not long enough :( ) together. I didn't get enough sleep as our conversations meandered into the small hours and the children were, as they are every weekend, full of energy and raring to go in the mornings...

I moved to Copenhagen nearly a year ago (our first anniversary is next week!!!) and in that time my sister has made four visits from London - say no more - she is my best friend and I miss her terribly. This was her first trip to the Danish capital when the sun wasn't shining. She came during the last winter with its sub-zero temperatures but she reminded me that the skies were blue and it was a crisp and fresh kind of cold. This trip was a weekend of grey skies, snow showers and damp.

And as we ventured out only to Panduro Hobby and Agnes Cupcakes at Torvehallerne yesterday to get supplies and for lunch at our local Laundramat today, we were indoors and drowning in a sea of Lego for most of the visit as my 4 year built and rebuilt fire engines, hospitals, police stations and helicopters...

For a break from the Lego we decided to paint a canvas and given the gloomy weather I thought we could create a bright sun using our handprints. We had lots of fun and now have a momento from the time we shared together. There is something very therapeutic about covering your hands in paint and more so when someone else paints your palm and it tickles. Much to my son's delight. The child in me was very reluctant to wash up when it was all over. And, notwithstanding the t-shirts that are soaking in a Vanish solution this evening, the burst of colour was uplifting.

Well, here's hoping our crafty efforts will encourage some clearer skies in the days to come.

Danish life: swapping Streetcar for Moveabout

2012-01-15T17:41:00.002+01:00

As I have mentioned before, we are a biking family. We cycle everywhere and we don't own a car. This was not a conscious decision on our part when we moved to Copenhagen; we have never owned a car. Back in London, we cycled to work and I used to take my son on the back of my bike, when the weather permitted.

In the last year of our time in London we joined a car club. There were a couple of these new car sharing schemes beginning in the city and we were fortunate enough to live fairly centrally and by chance there were car club cars parked very close to us. When I went on maternity leave as my daughter was born, the car club became a great way for us to get around as we had no way of transporting a new born in or on a bike.

We were members of 'Streetcar', a scheme whereby one pays an annual fee and then you can book a car online and pay by the hour/day/weekend, depending on your needs. The hourly rates included insurance, congestion charges and petrol costs. In our neighbourhood there were a couple of BMWs and VW Golfs at our disposal and when we were organised we would book them for jaunts to friends who lived off the tube map, trips to IKEA and, when the move to Copenhagen loomed on the horizon, they were incredibly useful for transporting bags of donations to charity shops.

Since we've arrived in Denmark we have been on the look out for a car club to join. There are a couple available and they operate on the same principle as the ones in the UK - an annual fee and then hourly charges for car use. Unfortunately, the car club cars were not located close enough to our flat to make joining them convenient. When you have small children and you need to factor in the time it takes to cart car seats around, its easier just to use the cargo bike!!

That was until about a month ago when the car club called Moveabout upgraded its fleet. Around the corner from us are two charging points for electric cars owned by Moveabout and available to members. These cars were two seaters, again not so useful when we are a family of four. Recently, Citroen C-zero cars (four seaters) have been added and, yippee, our family is back in the car share business again.

We joined Moveabout this week and it is slightly different from other clubs in that there is no annual membership fee but instead a minimum charge per month. Insurance and other runnings costs are all included within the hourly rates, which are between 49 DKK and 99 DKK per hour. We booked a car for today and this morning I set off with car seats for our first electric car outing.

Of course, the first limitation of using a car club car rather than your own vehicle is the time limit and I found that, as in London, I was always watching the clock. Although I had learned from my earlier experience that on the first outing its best to be conservative in your travel plans and generous in the time slot booked. It takes time to get to know a new car and to fit car seats etc.

Booking an electric car comes with a further limitation - the distance you can travel before needing to recharge. When booking online I was curious to see that we were asked how far we planned to drive and then when I booked the car, I received an email from Moveabout telling us about the cars limitations - we could only go 60 km on a full charge. Fortunately, we were only planning a local trip. It was still slightly disconcerting seeing the gauge on the dashboard start to drop as we drove. Its not like running on low fuel in a petrol car - there are no electric charging points at gas stations!

Leaving aside the fact that it took me ages to figure out that the engine was on even though I couldn't hear it (there's no comforting sound of petrol ignition) and getting my head around the Danish instructions for starting and stopping the car and disabling the immobiliser, which had kicked in when we were trying to fit the car seats, it wasn't a bad first foray.

One of the things that I think will take a long time to get used to, however, is driving around in a vehicle that has IKEA and World Wildlife Fund markings on it. This attracted a lot of attention and made for very self conscious driving. Even when we parked the car in Klampenborg and went for a walk on the beach, I noticed people standing around it and having a closer look.

Goodbye Christmas trees, hello fireworks...

2012-01-01T15:04:00.000+01:00

We returned from our Christmas break in the UK to find the Christmas trees of Copenhagen abandoned to the rubbish collectors...

And it was only the 28th December!! Something felt wrong about the sight of so many trees discarded and there was a part of me saddened by the discovery of this local custom. Back in the UK, trees are kept in the home until Twelfth Night (6 January), the day that marks the visit of the wise men to the stable in Bethlehem. When I was growing up, we went one step further and kept our tree decorated and lit for a further 24 hours as we celebrated the Egyptian Coptic christmas on January 7th. It was an affront to all my festive sensibilities to see the rejected pine in our back yard so soon.

There was another surprise when I saw that the pop-up christmas tree sellers that were dotted around our neighbourhood had been transformed into pop-up firework stalls. The signs were everywhere and people were lining up to buy all manner of explosives. I did try to buy fireworks back in November for Guy Fawkes night but I was told that in Denmark the sale of fireworks is only legal during December and so my search was fruitless. Over the last week, however, the city has turned into a hive of frenzied firework sales. Bike shops become firework shops, supermarkets set up firework stalls....they know no limits.

Everybody warned me that on New Year's Eve the sky would be lit up for hours but nothing prepared me for what I witnessed last night. We were lucky enough to be invited to two parties; one in Frederiksberg which started in the late afternoon and where we were not alone setting off an early evening pyrotechnic display - already there were gardens full of festive explosions. By the time we got to Hellerup at 8 pm for the second gathering, the pace was hotting up. While the roads were empty, we cycled along the bike lanes dodging the fireworks going off (literally) in our tracks. We wondered if we were being foolhardy as there was no-one else around save for kids and explosives!!

By the time midnight rolled around, we were in what I imagine a war zone might sound and look like. (Although, only a friendly war between neighbours vying for pyrotechnic supremacy!) The sky over the city was indeed on fire with the sound of cracking rockets and the continuing bursts of bright and colourful shooting stars. We chorussed our oohs and aahhs and chuckled into our glasses of fizz as some of the older boys called out 'beat that' to whoever might be listening(!).

When did it all stop? I have no idea. We wrapped our sleeping children into snowsuits, scarves and blankets and tucked them up in the bike. Cycled home through the streets of Copenhagen at about 2 am and still there were explosions around us. We pedalled through a carpet of empty firework batteries, the trail of debris from hours of celebrating...

I'm not sure whether it was 2011 going out or 2012 coming in but there were bangs aplenty. Happy New Year to all!!

The day before Christmas

2011-12-24T23:43:00.000+01:00

It was the day before Christmas

And all around the house

We were getting a bit restless

And needed to get out

So we ventured to Redcar

to the beach we were bound

It was windy and blustery

there was no one around

But windy and blustery

it was the perfect day

to clear out the head

and blow the cobwebs away

Fresh air aplenty

and space to run around

with energy to burn

we enjoyed the sounds

Of waves and of wind

of sea and of laughter

of spinning and throwing

and chasing after

And so we returned home

with our appetites renewed

for the days of festivity

the indulgence and food

And tonight we are ready

for Santa to call

the apple pie and the carrot

and stockings and all

And so the advent will soon

be over for another year

Its been fun to blog through it

and share it here

Merry Christmas to all

and the season's warmest greeting

thanks for stopping by and

thanks for reading

These wonderful photos were taken by my very talented sister-in-law and photographer Kate, just one of the perks of having a Christmas family gathering ; )

Out of action

2011-12-23T22:34:00.001+01:00

Kitty B is out of action. After a few days of sniffling, today I admitted defeat in my battle with a sinus infection and am taking a day off...sniff...sniff....

Going back

2011-12-22T22:09:00.000+01:00

And so, here we are in Middlesbrough for Christmas with my family. The journey here was a long one and I was dreading doing it on my own with the two children but, as is so often the case, they rose to the challenge and were angels.

This is the first time I have brought both children to the home where I grew up. Last night they slept in the room that was my bedroom from the age of 10! My son slept in my bed and my daughter in a travel cot where my dressing table used to be. I never would have imagined it and the impact of seeing them lying in my bed ready for story time caught me unawares. These two young children have lived in more homes in their short lives than I did during the whole time I spent growing up and until I left home to go to university. And for them the world is much smaller than it ever was for me, I wonder if they will have a 'family home' to go back to with their own children.

Apart from having the children sleep in my old bedroom, I am also enjoying sharing with them many of the toys from my childhood. My parents appear to have kept (perhaps for times such as these) many of the relics that were at one time favourites but I would have been hard pressed to recollect now. Amongst them are Lego sets (originals from the 1970s) and books. Bedtime stories tonight included a second reading of an old Ladybird edition of The Elves and The Shoemaker - they loved it and so did I. What a lovely story, a beautiful lesson for them to learn and a Christmas tale to share. There is something very grounding about going back to a childhood home.

Telling it like it was

2011-12-21T04:00:00.000+01:00

I've hummed and hawed about whether to write about this but in the end, well, here it is... A couple of weeks ago I had a morning to myself and ventured over to Frederiksberg to Creative Space to paint pottery. I was pretty excited as taking paintbrush to crockery is something I spent many a happy hour doing in London. The truth is, it didn't all go as planned.

It wasn't the space, that was beautiful, and everything was so tidily set out and there was lots of inspiration. There was a good range of pottery to paint, plenty of materials (brushes, sponges etc) - it could have been a pottery painting paradise.

Ah, but when I excitedly ventured into the studio (which was empty - it was a Thursday morning), my enthusiasm waned. Having chosen a plate that I wanted to paint and having shared with the owner my pottery painting tales from London, I asked if I could take some pictures so I could blog about her fabulous space. This is when things started to go down hill, 'They all say they're bloggers', she retorted and then told me that she had 'brought the idea of a pottery cafe to Denmark' and 'the copy cats were coming'. I could only assume that she thought I was one such 'copy cat', posing as a blogger. Well, I hope that if she is reading this, and perhaps this is why I feel compelled to write, she will see that I had no ulterior motive. I simply wanted to spread the joy, as it were...

With these comments lingering in the air, I took myself to the small table allocated to me and began to paint. After a couple of hours, I went to order a warm drink. I continued to paint and paint, chose a second piece to paint and painted it and the drink never came.

Given how quiet the shop was on that morning, I was surprised that as I went to pay for my pottery and the long forgotten drink order was remembered, the reason given was that another customer had distracted her.

I let it pass. Drink or no drink, I had painted a plate and a cute gingerbread man to hang on the Christmas tree. We all have bad days and so I thought I'd come back a week later to collect my fired pots and all would be well.

I was so disappointed when I went back this weekend and the gingerbread man, like the drink order, had been forgotten. He never made it to the kiln.

What can I say? I don't write this to suggest that you shouldn't give Creative Space a try - even poor customer service cannot detract from the joy of creativity - ultimately, that is the prerogative of the artist at work and not the third party who merely facilitates the process. Consider this 'customer feedback'. I think any business would be wrong to ignore it.

Run run as fast as you can

2011-12-20T04:00:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year when there is the smell of gingerbread in the air. It's one of those warm and delicious smells that, layered with spices, is comforting and leads me to aspirations of home baking. Last year, when as a family we were wading through the preparations of a house move and relocation to Denmark, from somewhere I did indeed find time to make some gingerbread men, or at least their close relations, gingerbread angels.

The Danes take gingerbread to the next level and in many bakeries there are beautiful houses and hearts made from gingerbread and honnigbrød setting the festive scene.

My favourite though, by a long stretch, is the army of gingerbread men that have invaded the bookshop.

They fill the windows, peeking out from amongst the books and staring out at passers by...

They look cheeky and as food and books don't usually mix there is an audacity about their proximity to the beautiful Christmas books so carefully displayed. They truly look defiant in their occupation!!

The gingerbread men are the fruits of a very dedicated and creative labour from a fellow blogger over at Scandineighbour. She toiled long and hard to produce 50 of these beauties and an urban legend has it that, when night falls upon the streets of Hellerup, the gingerbread men get up to untold mischief (as if it isn't written on their faces in the icing!!).

Perhaps my daughter recognises them from their frolics as she spent quite some time admiring (and perhaps envying) their prized seats amongst the forbidden window displays. If only she could join them...

An ode to a life well spent

2011-12-19T08:23:00.000+01:00

I'm not the first to say it

a woman's work is never done

it seems that after a day well spent

I'm back where I began

Picking up, wiping, putting away

everything in its place

its enough to drive one mad sometimes

trying to keep a tidy space

Its unfair to blame the children

I suspect I'd be just as bad on my own

For me a house is a place to be lived in

not a shrine or a museum, but a home

Yet how I love to see clean surfaces

all clutter tidied away

no piles of stuff or errant toys

lying around at the end of the day

But the truth is

when life is full, its impossible

to live the minimalist dream

kids and hobbies, the comings and goings

all leave a messy trail

So now when I'm picking up

for the hundredth time, when all is done

I remember that the strewn debris

is just the proof of a day of fun

And in the words of another

a motto to keep in sight

'A perfectly kept house

is the sign of a misspent life'

Popcorn wreath

2011-12-17T17:13:00.002+01:00

I'm feeling a bit worse for wear today as I'm battling a coldy bug (yuck!). But as yesterday was the end of term and school finished early, we settled down for an afternoon indoors. Whilst my daughter slept and my son sat drawing, I threaded popcorn onto string and made a wreath for our door. Living in a flat means that hanging on our front door the wreath won't be exposed to the elements but adds a friendly greeting to seasonal visitors!

The end of term for all!

2011-12-15T22:58:00.000+01:00

I'm just back from my end of term Danish test - det var svært men jeg håbe det var ok - and tomorrow is the last day of my little boy's first term of big school. And what a term it has been. My sister taught reception class children in England for a number of years and we used to talk about how important those first impressions of school are and what a big step it is for the children entering into the world of daily routine outside the home that will likely continue for the rest of their lives. Here in Denmark most children begin daycare at a much younger age (many are in the nurseries when parents return to work at the tender age of about 3 months) but formal education doesn't start til the age of 6.

And there is much to be said in the debate about whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for children to start learning and to be encouraged to develop their skills at 4, 5 or 6 or whether they should be left to play until natural inquisitiveness and the curiosity to learn takes over.

When I talk to my Danish neighbours about what my son has been learning in school this term, they are astounded. Not so much by his progress (although this has been a source of immense pride for me and I am thrilled that he loves his letters and numbers and is embracing the reading challenge) but their astonishment is more at the fact that he is having formal education at all. One neighbour has twin boys aged 2 and every day she takes them to the nursery, where a bus collects them and they are driven out to the forest for a day of play and natural exploration. Every day!! Every day the focus is on instinctive curiosity, learning through play and developing socialisation skills. There's no numeracy and literacy and there won't be until the age of 6. This, their mother tells me, is earlier than it used to be. She, like many Danes, is against putting pressure upon children too early and I do wonder why the English education system starts at 4. Its not as if Denmark is a country of illiteracy. In fact, not only do they read and write, I have only met a couple of Danes who aren't fully bilingual.

Interesting debate to one side, we had our own reasons for sending our son to the international school rather than through the Danish system but, I am pleased to say, I think he has thrived in the learning environment he has experienced over the last few months. He is, of course, exhausted, as the term draws to a close and after tomorrow we are all looking forward to a break from the school drill but I think we will look back on the first term with fondness.

And with the end of term comes the school play etc and the reception class equivalent was a coffee morning this week when the children all sang together a few familiar seasonal songs and shared with us some of the things that are special to them about this time of year. We were proud parents gathered in the classroom and watching our little ones singing together. They said their lines so well and they beaming, knowing that to stand up in front of everyone took so much courage. The wonderful teachers should be proud too - they've done an excellent job and its a happy bunch of tired children who are heading home for the holidays.

Merry Christmas Rygaards reception class and well done on your first term at big school!

Ikke nogen god tid at skrive

2011-12-14T14:17:00.003+01:00

Jeg vil have en teste på dansk i morgen og vi har alt for meget danskhjemmearbejde. Jeg har desværre ikke nogen god tid at skrive om min blog. I sted af laver mange forskellige tinger som jeg elsker, skal jeg studere. Vente til mig...

Sparkle and pop

2011-12-13T13:27:00.000+01:00

Its blowing a storm out there today and the weather forecast says the winds are up to 50 mph (makes for fun bike riding!!). There's not a snowflake in sight and so some of the winter wonderland feel of Christmas is yet to arrive here in Denmark but our tree has a light covering of popcorn that gives it the desired look.

I've never been a fan of tinsel but a Christmas tree without garlands can sometimes look bare. When my husband and I set up home together and started what is likely to be a life long accumulation of decorations, before there were any small people around to bring home festive 'creations' from nursery, I relished the opportunity to pick and choose my favourite hanging ornaments and lights. We have a dark blue and silver theme which is now accented with red - I love it and the rich spruce we have this year sets them off beautifully.

All those years ago, when our first tree was like a blank canvas, I made garlands of popcorn and they survive to this day. They're the most simple things to make and they subtly add an extra layer of texture. Make a big batch of popcorn, wait till it cools down then thread the popped kernels onto sewing cotton - I didn't spray them with anything and they have stayed as good as new.

And as I write this, I wonder if making popcorn garlands might be a good indoor activity for this rainy afternoon when the small people are back from school. Mmmm, I can feel a popcorn wreath making session coming on.... I'll keep you posted!

Triple chocolate brownies and a school band

2011-12-12T04:00:00.000+01:00

I've blogged before about the English bookshop in Hellerup, Books & Company, which caught my eye when we first arrived in Copenhagen in February. Well, as anticipated, this has become the meeting place of choice amongst the lovely group of expat mummy friends that I have got to know. And so, during the week and most particularly after drop off and before pick up there will be someone from school in the bookstore... However, we rarely go there on the weekend - I guess it isn't part of the routine. Yesterday was different though as my son's classroom assistant from school was reading an extract from her second book...

Miss Deborah (as she is known to us!) is a Canadian who has been in Denmark for about 7 years and besides working as a classroom assistant for the reception class and having her own family, she writes children's books. I know, where does she find the time?! Her first book, The Triple Chocolate Brownie Genius, was published in Canada in 2007 and is the story of how a lazy and unmotivated but popular pupil becomes a 'know-it-all and brainiac' after eating a pan of his mother's triple chocolate brownies.

Deborah's second book, The Bedmas Conspiracy, chronicles the adventures of a school band called Sick on Snow Day and its lead Adam. The stories are aimed at the 8-13 age group and so a little beyond my four year old son but it was nevertheless a real treat to join the families that gathered yesterday morning for the special opening of the bookstore and the cosy reading.

And so we were catapulted into the world of Sick on Snow Day as they prepared to perform a song called Detention Blues at a talent show and the lead singer suffered an attack of stage fright.... It was a great story of how they triumphed over the adversity that was a youngster's 'vocal chords being paralysed with fear'!!

Things I love about winter: my reindeer slippers

2011-12-11T22:37:00.001+01:00

If this were a blog about fashion, then my winter slippers wouldn't get a look in! They don't flatter my feet (they swamp them) and they make a kind of shuffling noise on the floorboards as I walk around the flat. There's nothing couture about the simple design or the earthy tone of their green colour but my slippers and I go back a long time and when the cold weather comes a calling, I turn to them to keep me warm.

My father bought the slippers for me on a trip to Helsinki in 1998 and shipped them out to Canada where I was experiencing my first winter of sub-zero temperatures. Since then, they have followed me from home to home and I have now brought them back to Scandinavia and they continue to serve me well.

Perhaps the best travelled slippers in the world - my toes are snug and toasty!

Things I love about winter: hygge!

2011-12-10T16:00:00.001+01:00

Yes, its been less than a year and I've already adopted a local term. Anyone who has lived here will know why. Before I moved to Denmark I read and heard about the concept of 'hygge', which doesn't have a direct translation to English but it means something like 'cosy' but can also mean 'fun'. It conjured up for me an image of candles burning on winter nights and the warmth and 'cosiness' of indoors while Jack frost snaps at the door. Apparently its more than just the setting as it includes the contentment and happiness that is felt when surrounded by loved ones.

A bit like parenthood, however, it wasn't a concept I really grasped until I experienced it for myself. As the days are now reduced to a bare minimum of daylight hours and the darkness descends at 4 pm, its the most natural thing to want to do to go home and light candles and if you have your family and friends around you to share the warmth, its a bonus. So after a cold bike ride home and triumphant in the battle against the elements, I have now introduced my children to the idea of 'cosy time' where we curl up on the couch under a warm blanket and read stories together. Hyggelit, indeed!

There IS such a thing as a free lunch (or cake!)

2011-12-09T13:24:00.001+01:00

It's one of Denmark's best kept secrets that if you spend 1000 DKK at Lagkagehuset (and keep the receipts to prove it) then you get a free cake! That's what a French friend living here in Copenhagen told me and I thought there must be a catch - a free cake, in Denmark?! I figured it's a pretty safe bet on their part - who would spend 1000 DKK in a coffee shop?

But then the time came to pass when I was publicly shamed into sorting out my wallet. It all began with an embarrassing incident in a bookshop last week when I was meeting with mummy friends for a coffee and my daughter was playing with my wallet. She promptly emptied the contents all over the bookshop floor and, mortified, I gathered up the carpet of receipts and stuffed them back into my bag vowing to have a clear out as soon as I got home.

And when I did get around to clearing out my wallet and handbag, would you believe it, there was the paper trail of over 1000 DKK spent in a coffee shop?! I might as well have found a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory - the excitement I neatly folded the receipts and placed them back in my bag.

The lovely lady serving at Lagkagehuset was only too pleased to take possession of the receipts and place my order for a free cake. This morning I collected the lovely white cake box and as I write I am tucking into a slice of buttery heaven - yum, yum yum. Thanks, Lagkagehuset, for adding a silver lining to the cloud of shame for stuffing my wallet with receipts!

Time out to go potty!

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000+01:00

Yes, today is a day I have been looking forward to for a long time now. When we lived in London one of my favourite things to do when I needed a bit of creative indulgence was to go to the Art 4 Fun pottery cafe in West Hampstead where I would while away the hours painting. Soon after we arrived in Copenhagen I heard that a similar place had opened in Frederiksberg called Creative Space!!! I've been itching to try it out...(especially since a jug that I painted a couple of years ago didn't survive the move).

I can hardly wait. A babysitter is booked and I'm heading off for a morning of me-time. An extra indulgence you might think, given the season!! What to paint? A mug, a platter, a tile? Colours? Textures? Themes? My mind is a buzzing!

And so, after some considerable time spent 'browsing for inspiration' on pinterest, I'm going potty - literally...

What's going on at Rygaards...?

2011-12-07T06:00:00.000+01:00

So I figure that if my days are busy and there's too much to do so that my blog slips down the list - then I best blog about all those other things that I'm doing!!!

For the last couple of days, I've been at the end of a paint brush preparing signs for a very special julemarked. At Rygaards school in Hellerup the excitement has been mounting for weeks as we look forward to the international Christmas Market on Thursday. The volunteer parents in the organising committee have worked very hard to put together a great programme of festivities to raise money for the school. The focus of the event will be the..

The perfect opportunity to do Christmas shopping and to buy unique and individual gifts, with proceeds going to Rygaards. There'll be jewellery, accessories, fine wines, English books, gift wrapping... With a special kids shopping area dedicated to the discerning customer on a pocket money budget...

Of course, it wouldn't be an authentic julemarked without a ...

Somewhere to catch up with friends over a glass of glögg! But its not just about shopping and pitstopping, there'll be festive crafts and things to do and make in the...

And when its time to take a break, there'll be a movie playing in the (appropriately named!)...

Oh, and there's lots and lots more - Santa has promised to stop by, there'll be a silent auction of themed gift baskets put together by each of the classes in the international department, a bottle tombola and a fabulous raffle with prizes donated from some very generous local businesses. Find out more from the Rygaards website or visit the Rygaards facebook page or just come along on Thursday (8 Dec) from 4 - 8 pm!

When Christmas was invented...

2011-12-06T22:37:00.001+01:00

When Christmas was invented

Did someone really think

It would be fun

To run around

Being driven to the brink?

That we'd enjoy ourselves

burning the midnight oil

and the candle at both ends

with the presents that we have to buy

and the list of cards to be sent?

Add to this the parties

and late nights,

the missed sleep and the tired kids

Of course there's always a bug

going around and, despite best efforts,

will be impossible to miss.

And every year

I promise myself

that next year will be fun

But maybe the truth is

I'm happiest being a busy Christmas elf

when all is said and done ; )

A train ride to Humlebæk

2011-12-05T06:00:00.000+01:00

A busy weekend and a cold day at the Aarstiderne Christmas market in Humlebæk on Sunday but lovely moments of hygge enjoyed courtesy of Charlie's bakery...

Things I love about winter: buying a Christmas tree

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000+01:00

The tradition over here in Denmark is to take a horse and carriage (or a steam train) to a forest, choose the perfect festive tree and then drink glögg and eat æbleskiver whilst the tree is chopped down for you. I had romantic visions along these lines but when the day came to get the tree and the winds howled, the heavens opened so it rained non-stop and I looked out of our window and saw a Christmas tree seller had set up his stall in the square outside our flat....

I didn't take much persuading that the forest adventure would have to wait til next year and today we took the easy route. It might have been a less auspicious or authentic beginning but the truth remains: the smell of pine in the house rekindles childhood memories and the comforting pleasure of seeing tree lights and decorations greet one in the morning.

Things I love about winter: knitting

2011-12-03T06:00:00.000+01:00

There are some things that are just better done in winter. Knitting is one of them. Its cosy and, with a knitting project on your lap, you're bound to stay warm.

Having said that, I'm still trying to figure out how the Danes manage to knit when they seem to spend their evenings in the glow of candlelight... But people will knit in all kinds of circumstances. One of my favourite knitting websites, Stitch Divas, has been posting a series of photos on their Facebook page of people knitting and crocheting. Of all the pictures, I wanted to share these two:

This is a German woman knitting in the ruins of Berlin in 1945. When I look at the picture, I wonder about the story behind it. What was she knitting? Who was it for? Why did she sit there to knit, was she waiting for someone? And, in contrast, below is the very lovely Audrey Hepburn knitting on the set of Unforgiven. Clearly before the days of mobile phones, who of us now when on a break from work would pick up a pair of needles (that just happened to be in our handbag!!)?

Good fun that's not so funny...

2011-12-02T04:00:00.000+01:00

Anyone who knows the wonderful Dr Seuss book, 'The Cat in the Hat', will know the grand entrance the cat makes on that rainy day as he declares,

"I know it is wet

And the sun is not sunny.

But we can have

Lots of good fun that is funny!"

I did this painting of the cat when I was pregnant with my daughter in the first couple of days of my maternity leave when I knew that it would be a while before I would have time to myself again. It now hangs in our playroom and on those 'cold, cold wet days' (of which there are a few here in Denmark), I remind myself that it does not have to be sunny for us to have fun. Sometimes though I make a silent wish that I'll hear a thump on the door and in will stroll an entertaining and mischievous cat that will let my children make the mess that we mothers are so afraid of and then efficiently tidy it all up again after!! (There must be a small business idea in there somewhere!!)

My daughter is very proud of herself for recognising the framed cat on the playroom wall as the fellow on the front of the book and she proudly totters into the room, pointing to the picture and back to the book. Today, however, she took her understanding to a new level and engaged in what can only be described as 'good fun that is funny' of the Dr Seuss kind that left me shaking in my shoes...

As I was getting ready in our bedroom and momentarily took my eyes off her, all went quiet. When she came into the room with her hands covered in orange ink, I became suspicious. She took me by the hand and led me out into the corridor - it was a bit like a scene from a suspenseful thriller: I felt compelled to look but didn't necessarily want to see.

'Where's the pen?', I asked.... She led me forward. 'Show mummy the pen!', I repeated, my voice quivering. 'There!' she said excitedly, pointing to the white walls and the white door of the bathroom. 'There', she exclaimed leading me into her bedroom and showing me the white armchair and the white window sill....

The orange scribblings left a trail of the fun she had had and so obviously thought I would be thrilled to see!! But like the cat in the hat, its difficult to be angry with one so adorable.

When I were a lass....

2011-12-01T04:00:00.000+01:00

I hope I'm not sounding too old when I say this but advent calendars certainly aren't what they used to be - or maybe I had a deprived childhood. Where was I during the commercial metamorphosis of what was a very simple concept of a perforated paper window on a calendar with a nativity scene to open each morning into windows the size of small boxes hiding exciting and brightly packaged daily offerings of chocolate/sweets/toys... More than some children might receive on THE big day itself.

I'm not taking any moral high ground here and count myself amongst those whose joy at seeing their children's excitement means that I find it hard to reign in the purse strings and keep things modest. Three years ago in the lead up to my son's first Christmas as a little person (at 18 months it was the first time he noticed the tree, toddled up to the presents and had some kind of comprehension that something out of the ordinary was going on), I bought a wooden advent calendar in the form of a train.

Driven by a snowman(!), the carriages on the train have numbered doors and behind each one is a surprise delivered by the Christmas fairy. From those early days when the doors hid fruit(!), this year I found myself shopping for miniature toys and bitesize sweets and chocolates. Thanks to Netto and Søstrene Grenes for stuffing the aisles with ideal mini-treats and thanks too to Lego for the mini-figure series - what fun I've had. If only the children knew what lay ahead, they'd be as giddy with excitement as I am!!! Happy first day of advent everyone...

Waving not drowning...

2011-11-29T13:29:00.001+01:00

I looked up and its nearly a month since I last published a post on my blog. How did that happen? Well, I would be lying if I said that the grey skies, short days and long nights that are our daily fayre have not put an itsy bitsy dampener on my inspiration. Rather than run around outside with my camera, I'm running home to warm up, light candles and bunker down against the cold. The truth is, I've been doing fun stuff but I haven't been sharing it with you.

The quilt that I'm making for my daughter for Christmas is practically done (just a little bit more binding to do!), the Christmas cards are made and I've got a couple of creative dates with felt and pottery lined up. I'm also taking part in what promises to be a very interesting project with some amazing people that will hopefully let me develop my writing skills and keep the creative flame ablaze. Its all hush hush at the moment but a wonderful adventure might be around the corner...

Add to this that my four year old son has, over the last couple of weeks, developed an obsession with drawing. Hours have been spent at his little table where buses, police vans, fire engines are intricately reproduced in felt tip pen, with labels and running commentary. Meanwhile his little sister passes the time fascinated with the modern day gadget that is a brightly coloured messy pen and its plastic lid - on it goes, off it goes, on it goes, off it goes... This all requires close monitoring!!

And there is my blog - which I think of every day and which I know needs my attention. I hope I haven't reached some kind of blogging mid-life crisis as I'm wondering about giving it a bit of a makeover... maybe I'll do something new for 2012. To make up for my neglect, I am going to make my blog an advent calendar for the run up to Christmas. For each day there will be a photo of a Christmas gnome and a number - Scroll down and I will share a 'snippet of the sublime'. Enjoy ....

Trois jolies filles et un weekend dans Paris

2011-11-07T23:37:00.001+01:00

I can't believe its already a week since my petit sojourn in Paris with my two dear friends from London. How time flies. How unrelenting is the routine of daily life: school, laundry, cooking, cleaning, ferrying, playing, shopping, hosting visitors - there isn't a hour goes by that we don't have to be somewhere, doing something. This was exactly the reason that my friends and I planned a weekend together - we wanted some time out to catch up and without the distractions of our busy lives clawing at our clothes for attention....

And so, we chose Paris as a halfway point between Copenhagen and London and where better to indulge in some serious family-free shopping, eating and exploring with a continuous uninterrupted dialogue of chit-chat as we caught up on each others' lives?

There are lots of little coincidences that brought the three of us together many years ago so that our lives have become intertwined like the threads of a rich tapestry. They are both Canadian and I was working in Canada when I met one of them, the other I met in London and then got to know on a fabulous holiday in Portugal. One introduced me to my husband and it turned out that I knew the man whom she later married from my university days. We're all lawyers and our outlooks on life are similar though there's a spectrum of opinion that keeps discussions interesting. After I introduced these two girls to each other, there was a time when they were both working at the same law firm. We've gone through lots of life's 'stuff' together; relationships, parenting, health scares, redundancies. We would meet up with our families but for me the best times were when we had 'girl' time together, its like tonic for the soul.

Of course, I miss them here in Copenhagen, but the reality is that as we've acquired husbands and children and the miles have grown between our homes, we didn't actually see each that often. We lived in different parts of the city, had busy lives and so most of our contact was by email, telephone, Facebook and the occasional (cherished) dinner out. For our 48 hours in Paris, we got to 'hang out' and be girls together again. It was wonderful. So, what did we get up to....?

We stayed in a lovely boutique hotel on the edge of the Marais called Jardins du Marais. I love the Marais and my husband and I used to go to Paris a couple of times a year and staying in the gay, edgy arrondisement always meant good shopping and a great street vibe. It has, over the years, become somewhat gentrified, even the cobble stones along the Rue de Rosiers look like they've been re-laid but it is still wonderful to wander the streets and there is always lots to see.

Maybe it was because cycling is such a huge part of my life now since we moved to Copenhagen and in comparison to the Danish capital, Paris felt like a mega-metropolis, we decided that the best way to get around was by bike. The city has a public cycling scheme called Vélib and it is incredibly easy to use. With just a credit card and sufficient short term memory to store a 4-digit pin code, you can purchase a vélib pass for 1 or 7 days and then the first 30 minutes of cycling are free. In the city centre, there are vélib rental locations on nearly every street corner and so we simply paid 1,57 Euros for a daily pass and then cycled from sight to sight returning and re-renting bikes as we went along. If you ensure that each rental is less than 30 mins then you basically use the bikes for a pittance. We cycled from the Marais to the Eiffel Tower, to the Musee Rodin to Notre Dame and to St-Germain des Pres.

Shopping was my priority and given that I rarely have a chance to enter a clothes shop without a buggy or toddler in tow, it was a real treat to head out on Saturday morning as the shops were opening and to be free to stop and browse and, I had forgotten that you could still do this, try things on before buying!!! Of course, the fact that I was spending Euros rather than Danish Kroner also helped. And I had a very successful day of it. Thanks to my friends who I know were not so starved of their retail therapy for their patience and when my appetite was satiated, we jumped on the bikes and were happy to move on...

The thing about Paris is that you can set off with a destination in mind but getting there is always a challenge. We made plans to go to the Musée Rodin and to see the beautiful garden of sculptures and we got there, but we'd been so distracted en route that with only 30 mins left until closing time, we turned around and headed back. It'll always be there, I guess...

And it didn't take much to distract me: a beautiful wrought iron knocker on an old wooden door, a skull made of feathers, a hole cast into a wall, Banksy style graffiti at the Musée d'Orsay or the cover girls of a bygone era smiling from the newsstands on the banks of the Seine. I couldn't help myself.

The decision about where to go for dinner on Saturday night would not have been misplaced amongst the tasks of Hercules. We wanted to go somewhere fun, with good food and an 'atmosphere'. In the weeks leading up to the trip we scoured the internet, asked friends for recommendations and read Trip Advisor reviews in our quest for the right place. There's a long story behind how we finally ended up having a fabulous meal at Café Charlot - its not one for this particular blog - but suffice it to say... how many lawyers does it take to choose a restaurant for dinner?!!

It might not seem obvious why we voted for burgers and fries when in Paris but those who have been to Café Charlot will understand. In those few hours spent in the retro decor, with its corner aspect looking onto the streets of the Marais, it wasn't just the great food and wine that made it an enjoyable experience. There was a wonderful buzz from its eclectic mix of clientele from the glamourous and the beautiful (apparently its a good place for celebrity spotting) to the three generations of a French family protectively gathered around an elderly matriarch at the table next to us.

On Sunday morning we headed out on the bikes again. Our best intentions had been to rise early and cover some serious miles on the bikes: sunrise over the Seine etc. Alas, it was all we could do to make the best possible use of the extra hour as the clocks went back to get more sleep.

We may not have made it to one of the big galleries but strolling through Village St Paul, which is a neighbourhood of the Marais cluttered with small boutiques and galleries, an American foodstore (called 'Thanksgiving') and an English bookshop, we stumbled upon Galerie Federic Got (66 rue Saint Louie en L'île, 75004). These fabulous paintings were my favourites; the Klimt-esque figures in rich colours were by an artist called Brulet and the single figure below with the sunshine picking out the detail on the loose strands of hair by Andre Zadorane.

It was by chance that when we crossed the Pont St Louis, overlooked by the Notre Dame, and saw the padlocks, thousands of them, locked to the sides of the bridge, the people we turned to for an explanation were Italians. If you've read Tre metri supra il cielo or 'Three metres above the sky', you'll know that in the teenage love story (written by Italian author Federico Moccia) a lover is locked to a bridge in Rome and the key thrown into the river. Apparently on bridges all over the world there are now padlocks in imitation of the famous Italian original of teenage melodrama .... (its not entirely clear to me, either!)

As we headed back to the hotel, our weekend nearly done, gigantic bubbles blew in front of the Hôtel de Ville. Floating past they made me think of my children, almost instinctively I turned to point them out - they would have loved the bubbles and probably burst them in their enthusiasm.

Yes, dare I say it, I missed my family. It was my first time away from my daughter and complain though I might about the routine and the mundane that fills so much of my days, in a very short time I had had my fill of freedom and distraction. The highlight was, of course, the time with my friends, but when I had said goodbye and braved the train ride out to Charles de Gaulle (Oh, how I wish the Eurostar went to Copenhagen), I couldn't get home soon enough. And so, au revoir Paris, à bientôt...

Sew far, sew good...

2011-10-23T22:03:00.002+02:00

A couple of months ago I spent a Sunday morning at my favourite loppemarked in Charlottenlund station. I picked up some fabulous bargains: toys are always good value when they're cared for and still in good working condition and likewise one can save a lot on children's clothes. However, on this particular Sunday there was a lady selling leftover quilting fabric...

Didn't patchwork quilting itself begin as a way to use up leftover scraps of fabric? Wouldn't it therefore be the ultimate act of thrift to make a quilt from the leftover scraps of a quilter? I couldn't resist! Having been on the lookout for inspiration for a blanket for my daughter for some time, this seemed like an ideal project.

I chose some colourful fabric rolls with red-ish and blue-ish tones and paid pennies for them. I added a couple of other cream and brown fabric strips with owl motifs that I had been saving and then stockpiled them and waited for some freetime when I could set to.... With Danish language classes taking up two of my evenings every week and the course homework taking up two more, that freetime to indulge in patchwork creativity was strangely elusive.

But this week was half term (or efterårsferie) and so my precious evenings were free again. I found a very simple beginners' quilt pattern and, armed with my rotary cutter, I embarked upon the first and reportedly most difficult part of quilting - the cutting. I had been warned about the importance of cutting the fabric pieces the exact size and also the trickiness of using the rotary cutter and getting it right.

I'm not one for gadgets and I soon decided that I could just as easily use an iron to press the fabric and then cut straight lines with my fabric scissors. This seemed to work perfectly well and after a couple of hours I had a neat stack of patchwork pieces ready to be sewn together.

Deciding how to place the patchwork rectangles together was more of a challenge than I had anticipated. Should they be symmetric? Should they look random? How do I 'make' them look random?! I played around with a couple of arrangements and settled for a mixture of order and chaos - brown tones on one side and blues on the other with reds, pinks and cream in between.

As the holiday draws to a close, it is still a work in progress. I have sewn together the horizontal strips and it is incredibly satisfying to see the whole emerging from the individual pieces. I'm pleased with the way the fabrics sit together and, so far, the sizing is going to plan.

If I can find a few more free evenings before Christmas then the quilt might make it amongst my daughter's presents under the tree! Before then, though, I will have to decide what fabric to use for the backing: cotton or a soft snuggly fleece?

Wheelie fun!!

2011-10-16T22:38:00.000+02:00

When I was out for a walk with my neighbour last week she took me to the new skateboarding park in Fælledparken. Today when we were looking for a late afternoon destination for a quick excursion before dinner, I took my family (including my four year old and his scooter) to try it out! Despite the chilly autumn weather and the fact that this weekend is the start of efterårsferie (autumn half term) when many have left the city for a short break, the new skateboarding park was packed with skateboarders of all ages, rollerbladers, scooters, bikers. It was the place to be for wheeling fun...

It was a bit like walking upon a concrete canyon with sleek sloping pits and mounds. I could have stayed much longer to watch the pros in action with the luring hum of skateboard wheels in the still crisp autumn air and their daring jumps and tricks.

We struggled to hold my son back from trying out some of the steeper slopes and instead distracted him with the idea of building up speed on his scooter and attempting the smaller mounds in an area designed for the younger participants. Of course, I am now off to buy him some knee pads and gloves so that I don't have to hold my breath every time he darts towards the equivalent of a concrete mogul!

The adrenalin rush and thrill of the skateboard park is palpable. Older more experienced boarders are perfecting their moves, taking the occasional falls and scuffs in their stride but at the same time proud. The youngsters watch in awe but this isn't just a place for spectators and even the four year olds on their three wheel scooters are tolerated and given space to practise.

I don't doubt that we'll be back. However, I'm not so sure how long I'll be able to fight the urge to join in....

At bage på dansk

2011-10-09T21:55:00.002+02:00

I read somewhere that one of the best ways to practise a new language is to do something you love 'in' that language. For example, if you like football, watch the game with the appropriate foreign language commentary. For me, I decided that it was time to tackle some Danish baking and a BageLiv recipe booklet (it came free with BoligLiv) promising fantastiske kager seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Besides trying out my language skills, I hoped that it would prove easier to cook a recipe where the ingredients are those available locally. No self-raising flour or caster sugar required!! There were two occasions calling for some homemade treats this weekend: yesterday was my husband and my wedding anniversary - he bought me a beautiful bunch of cream long stem roses and so I felt the least I could do was acknowledge the day with something chocolatey and chose a fransk chokoladekage.

The second call for homebaking was today's coffee date with my Danish neighbour. Maybe its the Brit in me that heard 'hot beverage in the afternoon' and thought 'cake'!! For this and because it is autumn and a recent visit to a garden in Frederiksberg where the branches of the fruit trees hung heavy with ripe apples and pears, reminding me how much I like apple cake, I chose æblekage med vaniljesirup

I think it is safe to say that I can now understand 'kitchen Danish'. I managed the recipes and all transpired without a hitch although there was a nervous moment when I saw the word mel next to a measurement of 1½ dl. Thinking fluid and my brain being in foreign language mode, I very nearly added 150 ml of honey to the mixture. Just in time I realised it was flour that the cake needed...

The blip - when sublimity is lacking...

2011-10-07T13:36:00.000+02:00

The recent (very) late summer-like weather inspired a couple of ritualistic purges. There's nothing like sunlight streaming in through the windows to turn me into a spring cleaning, duster brandishing whirling dervish. I've cleared out some of the children's old clothes, some old boxes of papers and turned to my blog and to the folder of posts that I have written but never published. The italicised text below is one of them and on reflection I have decided that I do want to share it with you. It might ring true with others - I would wager that there aren't many expats out there who don't recognise 'the blip'. So here goes...this was written two weeks after we arrived in Copenhagen, in February 2011, with its cold days and long nights:

"Before we moved to Denmark, I wrote a letter to my pre-school son. I was very conscious that although we were talking about the move to Copenhagen and preparing for it in very practical ways (visiting the city to find accomodation etc), he probably didn't (and couldn't) fully understand what was happening. My fear was that the move would be too much for him. In writing the post, I also articulated some of my own fears and apprehensions.

Ending my letter, I sought to reassure him by saying that one day we would look back upon the time it would take us to settle into our new life as a mere 'blip'. In the bigger picture I know that this settling in phase has to happen and it will end. But here we are, in the 'blip'...

I have travelled and lived abroad before and being of a mixed cultural background, I am not naive to the challenges of being in a foreign land. Doing it with little children is a different story and this blip is proving to be a long haul - like childbirth and marathon running, it takes stamina.

It is at the same time both exhilarating and exhausting to be plunged into a new environment. These days, I find myself tired by the sheer hard work it takes to do the simplest things: Supermarket shopping requires a new level of concentration. Things are laid out differently, labelled in a foreign language and with two children and strange groceries vying for my attention, buying food has become a Herculean task. Trying to make meals that taste vaguely recognisable so that meal times do not descend into barely disguised rounds of bribery and negotiation - its enough to make me weep sometimes.

My son is being brave, I know he is. He misses his friends terribly - for a while the first thing he would ask when he woke up in the morning would be, 'am I going to make any friends?'. Of course, I reassure him and I am doing my best to get together with the other expat mums and to arrange trips to the playgrounds for him to look forward to. Deep down, I know that his fear is mine too. Whereas he used to be happy to walk everywhere, he now complains and whines as he has never done before. It is colder and I guess he, like me, is tired by the novelty of everything and he misses the familiarity that we all took for granted.

Only now am I learning what this 'blip' is all about; its a time of transition and it is unrelenting. There is no rest from the challenge. Now, I've started to talk about this time of 'change' with my son. We talk about food being 'different from England but its still yummy!'. I'm finding the patience not to expect too much too soon. And I remind myself that this too will pass."

And it did, it does.... Day by day and month by month things are falling into place. I no longer feel like we are living 'abroad' - this is our home now. Although things are different to before, I am learning to adjust my expectations to better suit my environment. Friendly faces and warm smiles abound and my son is settling into a new school and embracing the daily adventures inside and outside the classroom.

And looking back and reading that old post, I can't help but think it was only two weeks into the move - such early days! For anybody else out there and in the 'blip', have courage - it does get easier.

Painting with light

2011-10-02T21:22:00.001+02:00

A couple of months ago I did a photo challenge and on day 16 the theme was 'long exposure'. I didn't really know what a long exposure picture was and read up a little on the internet but I struggled to capture anything worthwhile. I had wanted to use the photo challenge to explore and use my camera in new ways and I felt as though the long exposure day was an opportunity missed. The day passed and it niggled at me.

Then, last night our children were in the bath playing with some brightly coloured neon light sticks in the dark and apart from the fun and the giggles, I wondered what would happen if I tried to take long exposure pictures...

And it worked!! My little artists waved their light sticks around whilst I snapped away - experimenting with the shutter speed settings on my camera. I'm thrilled with the pictures and glad to have discovered a new photography technique.

I can't take any credit for the colours or the composition of these pictures; though they may look abstract to an outsider observer in them I see playtime and the interaction between my children at one of their favourite times of the day. I can see my baby girl bending a blue neon light stick around her wrist to make a bracelet, a light hearted squabble over the pink and yellow sticks and my son conducting an imaginary orchestra with a bright neon yellow baton. Bathtime memories painted in light.

Taking my camera for a walk in Christiania

2011-09-23T18:07:00.002+02:00

I have mentioned before the photowalks run by LINK and the September photowalk was not one to be missed. The destination being Christiania this was an opportunity to stroll through a very special part of Copenhagen and to have a closer look behind the scenes in an 'edgier' part of town.

Tell anybody in this city that you are going to take pictures in Christiania and they will rightly tell you that 'you're not allowed to take photos'. And it's true that along 'Pusher street', the main drag (pardon the pun), next to the stalls openly offering cannabis for sale there are signs banning cameras. Heather (the leader of our photowalk) instructed us not only to put our cameras away but to make sure they were out of sight. This wasn't, as I understood it, at risk of being mugged, but rather an act of deference to the people of Christiania and their request for privacy.

Because we had to put our cameras away for part of the walk, the great thing about the visit to Christiania was the challenge to capture the essence of the place in not just the pictures but through the experience of it too. Far too often new places are only seen through a camera lens!

I had heard about Christiania before we moved to Copenhagen. When we were looking for a place to live we had found a couple of contenders in nearby Christianshavn. Looking at the map and seeing the 'freetown', I wondered whether it was a hippie type place full of artists and free spirits or a more threatening neighbourhood of drug pushing and crime. As an outsider I simply didn't know. One Danish friend did say that with young children we would have nothing to worry about but once the children grew to be teenagers it might be of more concern!

In any event, we moved to the north of the city centre but Christiania continued to intrigue and I was eager to find out more when the chance to visit presented itself. It turns out that the freetown turns 40 this year and during the last four decades it has caused a good deal of controversy.

In summary, it started out as an area of military barracks (including some sites where the executions of world war II collaborators took place) that became home to squatters. The cannabis trade that ensued was tolerated until the beginning of this century. Since then battles have been raging in the courts to normalise the legal status of the 'freetown' and, as I understand it, negotiations have gone back and forth and they continue.

Learning of its history and walking through its heart, I saw in Christiania what I had expected for the most part: an eclectic mix of colours, textures and smells. It was not too dissimilar to walking through parts of Camden in London (except much quieter and, being car free, more 'chilled'). What I hadn't expected was the beauty of the residential areas. Each home seemed to be an expression of individual style and I found myself envying the idyllic settings of the waterfront properties. There was also an attention to detail that caught my eye: colourful timbers, painted murals, bright pitchers on the front porch and flowers in the windows.

It was a wonderful morning and my daughter and I enjoyed the stroll (it turned out to be the perfect space for a toddler to explore - no cars and lots to look at) and, when she napped in the buggy, I had the chance to take photos. That's one of the great things about photowalks - they are all about time dedicated to taking pictures, which is so difficult in the busy-ness of everyday life. If you're interested, Heather is leading a Copenhagen photowalk on Saturday 1 October as part of a Worldwide Photowalk organised by American photographer Scott Kelby. This is open to all and places are available on a first come, first served basis. For more information and to sign up, click here. Maybe see you there...

Baklava for the beauty of it

2011-09-11T21:07:00.000+02:00

If you don't count the calories (and I don't) then baklava is one of the desserts nearest to perfection. The wonderful flavours and sticky sweet texture are mirrored in the aesthetic pleasure of its preparation. Growing up, Middle Eastern sweets were regular visitors to our dining table. My father often made baklava's close relative konafa (known sometimes as kataifi). When we were in Egypt and the fresh hair-like pastry was readily available, he would love to make it for the family and I have memories of keeping him company as he sat at the table patiently separating the delicate strands before painstakingly coating them in melted butter.

Since we arrived in Denmark I've been on the lookout for filo pastry in the supermarkets. It has taken more than six months but I recently found some frozen pastry and so this week I decided to make a tray of the pastries for my family. If I'm honest, there isn't nearly enough chocolate in baklava for my husband and my son picks out the nuts and leaves the pastry in a sticky mess and my eighteen month old daughter is probably a bit young just now for the sugar overload. Yes, the truth is, I wanted to make a tray just for the sheer beauty and pleasure of it!!! I sometimes wonder if such motivations are just heavily disguised pangs of homesickness - who knows...

My recipe for baklava is from Claudia Roden's brilliant Book of Middle Eastern Food. I have the 1986 edition and it is nearly as dog-eared and marked up as the original 1968 edition that lives amongst my parents' cookery books. It's not your usual recipe book - there are no photographs or pictures of the food - but there are pencil sketches that illustrate some of the stories and local folklore that are behind the many authentic recipes and these are set out in some length.

One of the things that does make me laugh about Ms Roden's recipes but is so typical of the way cooking is done in the Middle East (or at least so far as I have experienced it amongst the Egyptians), the quantities of the food are large and there is no concept of a particular recipe serving a given number of people eg 'serves 4' or 'makes 8 helpings'. Each recipe will make enough of a dish to feed a large family with plenty left over for a couple of days. That's the wonderful thing about the Egyptians - they live to eat and not the other way around.

Getting back to the baklava, Ms Roden's introduction to the recipe makes reference to a tale from the time of the Ottoman Empire when such pastries first began to appear in ancient writings. She then goes on to describe the role that baklava and konafa play in Middle Eastern life (it is eaten at weddings and celebrations but also amongst friends with a glass of hot tea) and describes the pastries as easy and cheap to prepare at home.

Of course, nothing in Denmark is cheap and I am afraid I could not find pistachios except in little packets of 55g each costing over £2. The recipe calls for 375g and so this was never going to be a 'cheap' dessert! As I have already mentioned, I was the only one likely to eat the pastry, so I decided to scale down the quantities.

Some people reading this might wonder why I haven't inherited a recipe for baklava from my Egyptian grandmother or my aunts and cousins. Unfortunately, my grandmother Samira died before I had a chance to ask her about this and many other things. When I spent my summers in Egypt with my cousins, I was up to mischief and for the most part tried to keep out of her way. I had no idea then of the things that I might have asked her to teach me. Such is the ignorance of youth and I hope that, if she was watching down on me this week, my efforts didn't disappoint her too badly.

For her part, Ms Roden swears that the secret to a good baklava is to make sure that the syrup is very cold when it is poured over the freshly baked and still hot pastry. For this reason, I have always made the syrup the night before I plan to do the baking. I leave the syrup in the fridge overnight and then pour it over the pastry as it comes out of the oven. So far, it has always worked a treat.

If you are reading this post hoping for a recipe then I am sorry to disappoint you - it would be unfair to reproduce Ms Roden's recipe without the lengthy narrative that gives the dessert its context. I can however hazard a guess at how my grandmother would have explained it to me if I had asked her: Make the syrup but be careful not to let it turn to toffee. Chop the nuts, add some sugar and sprinkle with orange blossom water. Melt the butter. 'How much?', I would ask her, 'About this much' she would say taking an unquantified dollop of ghee from the big tin in the kitchen. 'Or maybe more'. Then I can imagine her laying each sheet of filo pastry in the sanaaya (a round shallow metallic baking dish) brushing each one with the melted butter, adding the chopped nuts mixture and layering the rest on top. If I asked how long it should bake for, I imagine the answer would be, 'Until its ready'. She wouldn't have had a timer or watched the clock but she would know what a baklava looked like when it was ready. Baking these pastries wasn't something that my grandmother and other Egyptian women (especially of her generation) had to learn from a book, it was in their blood.

Ten years ago today I agreed to meet a man I didn't know...

2011-09-08T13:07:00.001+02:00

I was on the way home from work, on the bus, when my mobile phone rang and I knew it was the guy that my friend had been telling me about. She hadn't met him but she knew his sister and they both thought that we should be set up - a blind date.

I was a newly qualified barrister, living the twenty-somthing life in London and working too hard. My career was everything to me and I got up early to start work and worked late. I worked at the weekends and on public holidays. This guy was also working hard. He was a banker and spent long hours in front of screens, taking a break only to go to the gym. We had one thing in common, we both needed a distraction.

I don't remember much from that first phone call but, of course, we made plans to meet and then I do remember that he stalled hanging up and asked me about my day. How lovely of him to show an interest.

On Saturday 8 September 2001, we met for the first time. He had been sent photos of me and I was told he was dark haired and would probably be wearing dark clothing (these were his words!). It was a lovely first date: lunch at Giraffe in Hampstead and a walk on the heath. I was on the way home, on the bus, when he called to ask to see me again.

It was my first (and will likely be my only!) blind date and ten years, four homes, one wedding, two kids, two countries, many laughs (and a few tears) later, here we are. The career that was my most pressing priority is on hold and now I have very different routines filling my days. It feels like we have been through so much together and yet I hope there is much more to come.

If anyone had shown me then a snapshot of our life now, I would have struggled to believe it. So today, as I think back over our time together, I wonder where the next 10 years will take us. Wherever we go, I hope we go together. That dark stranger has become my best friend and that day back in 2001 was the beginning of something very special.

Torvehallerne - a mecca for foodies

2011-09-03T21:51:00.000+02:00

According to Berlingske, Toverhallerne has been 14 years in the making. The covered food market, which covers an area of 2400m², is the work of architect Hans Peter Hagens and the doors were finally opened to the food loving masses of Copenhagen on Friday morning. Israels Plads was buzzing with excitement (and packed with bikes) when I got off the bus after only a very short ride from our home in Østerbro.

Between the two massive (and there really is no other word) food halls, there is something for everyone: baked goods, fruit and vegetables, meat, fish, chocolate, oils, teas, breads, flowers...

I had arrived with a shopping list hoping to pick up everything I needed for the weekend but I soon realised this would be a hopeless endeavour. Abandoning my list, I fished out my camera and together with my daughter we trailed around stall after stall of culinary delights...

Everywhere we turned there were smells, colours and textures that caught our attention and we stopped to take a closer look. Overwhelming? It would have been if I had tried to form any kind of agenda. Instead, we simply let our senses guide us through and distraction was the order of the day. These pictures are our souvenirs.

We didn't even make it to the second hall, it was, relatively speaking, a flying visit. When we had both reached sensory overload, we left, and almost empty handed too - this was only because with a 17 month old baby in tow, I didn't have enough hands to manage her and my camera and the exchange of money. However, we will be back and at the very least because there is the promise of Torvehallerne being open for business on Sundays from 10 am to 3 pm!!! Hooray!

Danish life: Its the campaign season

2011-08-28T22:21:00.000+02:00

My Danish language lessons have started up again and I'm back at the grindstone. The introduction stage is over and now there is no mercy - the teacher speaks only Danish and we're even expected to ask questions in Danish. Needless to say, class is much quieter now.

On Friday morning I decided that to improve my Danish listening I would watch 15 minutes of television every day. Real television, not the Jeremy Kyle show with sub-titles. After all, I'm finding the Elle magazine in Danish much easier to understand than the chit-chat with parents I meet at the play ground. I made this decision at 10.50 on Friday morning, found the remote control and sat down with a steely determination to conquer the unfathomable mumbo-jumbo. The timing would not have been so important if I had not then switched on the television to find all the Danish channels ablaze with the 'breaking news' that the Prime Minister was to make an important announcement at 11.00 am.

Sure enough, 10 minutes later, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, statsminister and leader of the Venstre party, appeared and called a national election on 15 September 2011. Now, I have to confess that I have not been following Danish politics and until that point would not have known the name of the prime minister, that there is a coalition government (between Venstre and the Conservative People's Party) in power or that an election had to be called by 12 November 2011 (being 4 years after the last election).

And so, by happy coincidence, it was a very profitable 15 minutes of TV viewing: I practised my Danish listening and managed to learn about national politics. Its going to be a feverish few weeks of campaigning I expect. By the time I left the flat on Friday afternoon to go and collect my son from school, the faces of the various election candidates were already beaming down from every lamp post, tree trunk and railing.

The economy is at the heart of the election as Denmark has, apparently, fared worse than its Scandinavian neighbours in the global recession. I'm a loooong way from knowing the manifestoes or the party positions on the main issues but one of things that has struck me from all the posters is the number of female candidates. The leader of the opposition party (the Social Democrats) is the very formidable looking Helle Thorning-Schmidt. If she wins, she will be Denmark's first female prime minister.

In the meantime there is another poster campaign vying for attention. Its the start of another school year and so there are many more children cycling in the bike lanes and crossing the major roads. These posters are a reminder to roadusers to look out, literally, for the 'small people' in the traffic.

Let's hope that drivers and cyclists will keep their eyes on the road and not be distracted by the charming smiles of the election hopefuls...

Red shoes on a rainy day...

2011-08-27T18:38:00.000+02:00

I saw this couple from my balcony as I watched people in the street running for cover in the rain. Her red flowers and red shoes caught my eye - maybe they had just come from a wedding in the nearby church. Wish I'd had a pair of red shoes to wear today. I got caught in two downpours. Second time around, I did remember my red rain poncho and added my own splash of colour to an otherwise dreary and grey day.

The writing on the wall (...and the fence..and the postbox)

2011-08-21T23:08:00.000+02:00

One of the first things I noticed about Copenhagen was the graffiti. My first impression of the city was that there appeared to be no 'nice' neighbourhoods as nowhere seemed immune from the mark of a can of spraypaint.

This weekend I took my children to one of our local playgrounds (I should add that we do live in a very nice part of town!) but maybe the light was different or I was being particularly observant as I again noticed the graffiti and was reminded of those first impressions. I think that over the time we've been here I have become 'de-sensitised' to its prevalence.

I returned to the questions that first seeing this 'street art' had raised: why is there more graffiti here than in London? Is it legal or is there at least a greater tolerance? Is this a sign of a more liberal approach to the freedom of expression? Are there less funds set aside for graffiti removal? Or are there more people with spray paint, spare time and something to say?

I'm afraid I am no closer to finding the answers. When I ask around, no-one seems to know. I've always understood graffiti to be either a form of art lacking a socially acceptable medium of expression, an act of social rebellion, a mark of territory or a combination of all three. The Danes seem to be a nation who take seriously all things aesthetic - for the most part, they dress well, have beautiful homes and are renowned for their contribution to the world of design. I cannot therefore imagine that taking a can of spray paint to property (public or private) is socially acceptable. However, I stand to be corrected and if anyone reading this knows otherwise, please let me know...

I notice, in the above picture for example, the white letters appear to have been sprayed over darker marks that are perhaps the evidence of an attempt to remove or cover earlier graffiti. Of course, in London Banksy has made graffiti a satirical art form and here in Copenhagen too there are examples of street painting that catch the eye for the right reasons; they are striking and artistic. I saw this on a fence in Christiania (a free state within Copenhagen).

Not only do I fail to understand the motivation behind graffiti or why it might be tolerated, being in a country where I don't yet speak the language, means that any message in the street art completely passes me by. I must add that I cannot yet swear in Danish either and so if any of the pictures I have posted contain offensive language, I apologise, I had no idea! Maybe this one was done for the likes of me:

And so I'm left none the wiser but occasionally struck by the obvious talent being wasted.

Six months in Denmark...

2011-08-14T21:27:00.000+02:00

June and July were slow months for me on the blogging front. It turns out that neither photo challenges nor the school summer holidays are conducive to thoughtful reflection let alone formulating thoughts that are worthy of sharing. I could have written about how we made it through a long week of non-stop rain in July with all the indoor play areas 'closed for the summer' or how my trip to IKEA armed with two children and a klippekort panned out. As the title of a very helpful book about blogging rightly states, 'No one cares what you had for lunch!'.

And all this to say that I have been quiet lately but now there is light at the end of the tunnel. A new school year dawns, my thoughts will soon be my own again and I hope to turn them to the pursuit of the sublime. Now that I have paused and looked up from the craziness that is a summer of children at home, overseas travel and the aftermath of trans-atlantic induced jet lag, I realise that we have been living our new life in Denmark for six whole months. Wow, how did that happen?

It seems like only yesterday that we were unpacking boxes, grappling with the plug adaptor situation and finding light fittings. We've faced so many changes over our time here and there have been challenges a plenty but we've also made great strides in adapting to our new surroundings. Its funny how quickly one can become accustomed to a different landscape; when we were in London recently, it seemed incredibly busy, much more so than I remembered it from my 18 years living there! I've simply become used to there being less people around, less queues and more space.

It was while we were travelling that I noticed small changes in my outlook too that have been born of our relatively short time seeing things done the Danish way. Things that I have, subconsciously in some cases, adopted as my own. For example, I was walking through the streets of Ottawa with my children in a double stroller I had borrowed from relatives and caught myself parking the stroller outside a shop fully intending to venture inside unencumbered (by either the oversize stroller or its passengers)!! I remembered in time and checked myself, 'This isn't Denmark'.

There are some things that six months ago seemed foreign but that I now accept as the norm. Whilst we're already on a theme of 'sixes', here is my numbered list:
(1) Riding my bike in a skirt and heels
Everybody does it (well, mainly Danish women) and riding in style is a big part of the cycling culture. And so, I've exchanged my fluorescent waterproof cycling jacket for a very stylish red hooded waterproof poncho and on the few occasions that I have ventured out for cocktails at Rubys, I've ridden my bike in a skirt and heels.

(2) Shopping at a loppedmarked
The loppedmarked is very popular here. The word translates as 'flea market' but it is more than that and encompasses jumble sale, yard sale and car boot sale too. Selling things that you no longer want or need is a national past time and there are many bargains to be had. At the weekends, children stand on street corners selling their old toys, dealers set up stalls of antiques and nick-nacks at more organised sales and many ex pat families take a pitch to sell their purged belongings before moving on. I love stumbling upon a loppedmarked and have bought some great things (mainly second hand toys and English children's books). It would seem that I have acquired the Danish talent for rummaging!

(3) Candlelight
Walking around our neighbourhood in the evening, there are always candles burning in the windows. This is all part of the Danish concept of hygge, which translates as 'cosiness' but is, as I understand it, the warm and fuzzy feeling you have when you are spending time with loved ones over a shared meal in the home. These occasions are usually candlelit and the glowing flames symbolise the warmth. Our use of candles came about in rather more practical circumstances (when we moved into our flat, there were no light fittings) but we do still have a tray of white church candles that we light from time to time for cosiness.

(4) Letting my son play out in the shared courtyard unaccompanied
When we moved here we swapped our garden flat for a third floor apartment and sacrificed our private outdoor space. This was a conscious decision as we thought that living downtown would be less isolating. Rather than a private garden we have access to a shared courtyard with a common play area. This is proving to be a wonderful space to meet our Danish neighbours and their children. And the day came to pass during the recent school summer holidays when my son (who just turned 4) could hear his friends playing downstairs and asked me if he could go out to join them in the courtyard. I took a deep breath, weighed up the risks and decided that I could give him a small taste of independence. I watched from the kitchen window on the third floor as he and his friends rode around on their bikes. I can't imagine the same scenario back in London and I think this has more to do with the access to outdoor space being different. Having said that if anyone had told me that I would be letting my son play out on his own at this age, I would have struggled to believe it!

(5) Having my hair blow dried and straightened with straighteners to within an inch of its life before it's cut
Yes, this is the way it is done here. On that first trip to the hairdressers it puzzled me and I did wonder if perhaps when I had made the appointment I had been booked for a wash and style but when every kink and curl had been obliterated, the scissors finally came out. I have been happy with the results and now I know the procedure, I know not to panic when the straighteners appear!

(6) The weather
Now, coming from an English girl, you might think it sounds a little rich that I have had to acclimatise to the Danish weather. I don't really have an issue with it and for the most part it is what I expected but what took some getting used to was the fact that at any time on any given day it can change (sometimes quite dramatically) without much warning. One minute you might be sitting on the beach feeling pleasantly warmed by the sun and perhaps even contemplating a dip in the sea - the next minute the wind will have picked up, the clouds gathered and its a race to get home before the rain sets in. At least I've learned never to give up hope on the weather - when I wake up in the morning and the sky is grey, I always remind myself that by the end of the day the sun might be shining!

Whilst these are some of the things that I am getting used to, there are many things that I continue to struggle with. I still can't get my head around not saying 'please' before I ask for something in a shop and I am also still to learn not to offer an older Danish lady my seat on the bus; on the couple of occasions I have tried this, it has only provoked enraged looks, tutting and a heated rant channelled in my direction. The Danish mindset is very much one of 'can do'.

My photos in this post are from the various crafts on display at this weekend's Kunsthåndværkermarkedet. It was Scandinavia's largest collection of crafters and designers from the Danish Arts and Crafts Association. The beautiful work included textiles, jewellery, ceramics and glass. For further information on the fair visit www.craftsfair.dk

Cucumber slices and carrot sticks

2011-08-05T22:11:00.000+02:00

Here we are again

home from our summer of fun

two weeks, three cities

four flights, one tram ride

lots of smiles in the sun

Kids, you were great

and took all we threw at you

in your stride

Missed naps, long flights

and jet lag

Barely complaining

rather you enjoyed the ride

London, it was good to see you

however brief was our stay

you're still crazy and busy

I guess you'll always be that way

How lovely it was

to see old faces

and hear familiar voices

These are things I miss

the most, they made me homesick

questioning our choices

But the clock didn't stop

only time for quick hellos

and catching up with news

Telling stories, having hugs

How the precious

short days flew

All too soon

it was goodbye again

and we were back in the air

The stopover making way

for the adventure

that awaited way over there

A long flight to Ottawa

but the kids were fine

I even managed

to watch TV and read

the paper

to unwind

Landing in

sweltering heat and

a body clock that

was all askew

We rested and

wallowed in warm hospitality

good food, good wine

and 'what's new?'

A walking tour

to see the sights

and the landmarks

of Ottawa's history

In the midday sun

what mad dogs and Englishmen

we had become

Lakes and beaches

were our refuge

keeping the stifling heat at bay

We picnicked

on gourmet bread

hams and cheeses,

while the little ones

played and played

Cousins got to

know each other

Giggling and laughing

and up to their tricks

Snacking and munching

on cucumber slices

and crunchy carrot sticks

The water is its own

playground

and each took their turn

to enjoy

Splashing and kicking

bobbing and swimming

as we let our

tired minds uncoil

Two boys together

turned four

Just a couple of days apart

Living so far away

shared days are scarce

A highlight to warm the heart

Playing Jedi warriors

and sword fights a plenty

Their imaginations

on fire

light sabres held high

and Spiderman pyjamas

while the big sister of six stood by

But the attention was hers

a tooth started to wobble

Wiggled and jiggled

til it hung loose

'Co-ol' said the boys

and all were in awe

when it popped out, 'You brave, Sally Goose'!

These days too

came to an end

and the journey

beckoned us on

A final stopover

cool and hip:

Porter airlines to the Island

and the Chocolate Factory loft

on Queen Street W to end our trip

More quick hellos

and fleeting visits

to old haunts and favourite places

And for a four year old

a tram ride for a treat

Toronto, I hardly recognise your new faces

A long plane ride home

and back to where we started

Summer, you are fading again

we will soon be waving good bye

A new school year is upon us

more change, a new chapter,

A long sigh......

Danish life: Is this why cycling works?

2011-07-16T10:52:00.000+02:00

It was during the London tube strikes a couple of years ago that my husband first started cycling to work. We lived in Swiss Cottage and he worked at Canary Wharf so it was quite an effort to add the 35 minutes of hard pedalling (70 mins for a return journey!) to his weekly workout schedule. Then he gave up his annual tube pass and cycling became his preferred means of commuting. I was already a cyclist but this was how we became a biking family. When we moved to Copenhagen, maintaining our cycling lifestyle was effortless but we upgraded our wheels with two major purchases: first we invested in a cargo bike, which is used for school runs and whenever we need to transport both the children, and then my husband bought a very stylish road bike (see pics). If you also take into account our little boy's first bike with stabilisers, we're now a 13-wheel family!

Cycling here in Copenhagen is so easy. Looking back, the London commute was a death wish. Here there are cycle lanes on most roads and at junctions there are usually separate traffic signals for cyclists. There are different rules from London too: for example, you signal to slow down and when you want to turn across traffic you have to cross with pedestrians not the cars (ie you continue across a junction and then wait for the signal to change and cross again). But it isn't just the cycling rules and etiquette that makes it a very agreeable way to travel, there is a different attitude between the road users of Denmark and their English counterparts. It is an attitude of mutual respect. I have encountered only one incident of 'cycle rage' and that was a woman who swore at me when I was cycling along and eating ice cream with a fellow mum-friend in slow moving mid-afternoon traffic. She stood out like a sore thumb from the otherwise very pleasant biking masses.

I'm not alone in my awe for the Copenhagen cycling culture, it is renowned across the world and the Danes should be proud that in their capital city 55% of inhabitants commute by bike every day. This statistical tidbit comes from the Monocle's 'Quality of Life' survey that places Copenhagen at No 3 amongst the world's most liveable cities. An article discussing what liveability means to urban planners quotes one architect as saying that liveability means 'joy, leisure, health, communication and interaction, and not just fulfilling basic needs'. So far as urban transportation is concerned, this must mean that a city should provide not just a means of getting people to work but it must be an enjoyable and healthy experience. Ask anyone who has ever travelled on the Northern Line in London between 7 and 9 am and I would hazard a guess that being pressed up against the arm pit of a stranger does not fit the bill and neither does cycling to work when it means sharing a traffic lane with anything from a milk float to a concrete mixer.

It is no secret that owning a car in Denmark is expensive; the sales tax on a car is 180% and so this might explain one of the incentives for sticking to two wheels. However, this week I learned of another very important reason why the bike is a safe as well as a cheaper option. When my husband set off for his 30 km commute from Copenhagen to Hillerød on Wednesday morning on the beautiful road bike with vintage parts that I have been known to refer to as 'the other woman' in his life, he was hit by a car that came out of a side road and didn't stop. When he walked through the door as I was having breakfast with the children, carrying his beloved white beauty over his shoulder with its crumpled Campagnola back wheel, of course I was relieved that he was safe, that he had been wearing his helmet and that his injuries were only superficial. Obviously the damage to the impossible-to-source Campagnola bits and the inconvenience of this happening in July - the month when the city has shut up shop and retreated to the summer houses - was nagging but the personal injury lawyer in me couldn't help but wonder who was to blame.

Then I learned about the hierarchy of road users that protects the most vulnerable. Apparently, the road traffic law of Denmark provides that when a car hits a bike, the most vulnerable road user is protected and there is a presumption that the motorist is to blame. Likewise, if a cyclist hits a pedestrian, there is a presumption that the cyclist is to blame. Compared to the position in England where the Highway Code applies equally to all road users, the Danish approach has a ring of common sense to it. It might also explain why cyclists stop to allow pedestrians to board or alight from buses and why I can still not come to terms with the fact that I can be a couple of bike lengths away from a junction and with the lights green a car in the lane next to me will wait for me to pass before turning right.

I read a debate in the English press recently about whether or not it should be a legal requirement to wear cycle helmets. Naturally, if you're in an accident, wearing a cycle helmet might reduce the extent of the injury but I can't help wondering if it would be better to legislate to reduce the likelihood of road traffic accidents occurring. Do you think the motorists of London would drive differently if, in the event that they hit a cyclist, there was a presumption that they were to blame? Its just a thought.

P.S. I can't imagine that anyone would use this blog as an advice on Danish road traffic law but, just in case, here is my disclaimer: this blog post is written for the purposes of comment and discussion only. It is not a statement of the law or how it might apply to any particular set of accident circumstances and should not be relied upon as such.

Sew addictive

2011-07-10T16:05:00.000+02:00

This time last week I was bemoaning the fact that with the photo challenge over and me being on a summer break from my Danish language classes, life as a stay at home mum was becoming a bit intense. Looking after children over the summer holidays is definitely fun and there's lots of opportunity for creativity but I do like to have my own little project going on on the side - something I do just for me. Then I read a couple of blogs by talented mums who make children's clothes and suddenly I was inspired and off to the shops I went to buy a sewing machine...

Last week I was feeling an absence of sublimity, this week my children are wearing pants that I made for them!! Inspired by a blog called MADE and the cute 'pants' (or trousers if you're reading this in England!) pattern that I was assured would be an ideal beginner project, I picked up some fabrics (cherries on blue for my daughter and stripey denim for my son) and set to work.

I'm not a complete novice at handling a sewing machine as my mother made all of our clothes when we were growing up; I know how to make up a spool and thread a machine and I also have some experience of using the foot pedal. However, prior to this week I had never tried to do any of these things with an excited 3 (nearly 4) year old sitting on my knee and keen to be my 'assistant'.

However, it turns out that he was indeed a very helpful assistant and he patiently watched and waited for his turn in the star role as 'pusher of the reverse sewing button'!! We worked together to make his little sister's cherry pants and I had to try hard to suppress my proud smile as she tried them on.

When the novelty had worn off and both children were sleeping, I spent more time getting to know the nuances of my new machine and took the plunge and made some pants for my son with the added feature of...... pockets!!

It was great fun to see the pants taking shape as I sewed and very satisfying to try on the finished article this morning. The patterns from MADE worked perfectly and her tutorials were very clear and easy to follow. How my week turned around and now I'm thinking about what to make next and scouring the internet for more funky patterns.

Arne Jacobsen by the side of the road

2011-07-03T22:27:00.001+02:00

The summer is here and what a beautiful summer it is turning out to be. Blue skies and sunshine are the order of the day but there is also the feeling that at any moment, the wind will pick up, the clouds gather and a spectacular thunderstorm will pass through the city. Maybe this is why the Danes make the most of every moment of sunny weather. From the minute spring arrived, the covers on the cargo bikes have been peeled back, skin is on show and the parks and beaches are now full. The school year is over and for many this marks the retreat from the city to the summer houses. Those of us remaining in Copenhagen are left with a seemingly endless choice of grassy and sandy picnic spots; indeed, we are spoilt by the number of beaches on our doorstep. Living in Østerbro, when the temperature rises, we jump on the bikes and head off for Klampenborg, Hellerup, Charlottenlund or Swanemøllen. It was on one of our rides up to Klampenborg that I met Arne Jacobsen by the side of the road.

I say 'met' but in truth it was his beautiful petrol station that caught my attention. I had read about it and its iconic mushroom shape but the bright white washed building glistening in the sunshine was something else in reality. Cycling along Strandvejen, the beachside architecture is a constant distraction and as the Klampenborg bay comes into view, there is a sense that one has cycled back in time and I always expect to find the beach awash with 1930s beauties in halter neck polka dot bikinis and sipping 'shakes' and 'sodas'. The whole beachfront vista has a pre-war retro feel to it with the white flat roofed single and two storey buildings that lead to the Bellevue Teatret (also Arne Jacobsen).

The petrol station is like a gateway to this retro world and thank goodness it is now a listed building protected from destruction and redevelopment. Of course, Danish design and architecture are renowned worldwide but it wasn't until I read a little more about Mr Jacobsen that I realised I had already (unknowingly) fallen in love with his work.

For a number of years I attended a law conference at St Catherine's College, Oxford. We stayed in the college accommodation and I always enjoyed the simplicity of the college building; two long rectangular blocks of student rooms rising to only three storeys in height with two perpendicular blocks of functional rooms - including the JCR and SCR sitting rooms, the dining room, library and lecture hall. In the interior there is a reflection of the building's outer simple and clean form. The lines of the flat roofed box like buildings compliment rather than dominate the beautiful green surroundings. I always thought it must have been a wonderful setting for student life and it turns out that it too was the work of Arne Jacobsen back in 1964. In fact, he won the RIBA bronze medal for it!

As his biographer, Jørgen Kastholm, noted, it must have been a bold move for the master of St Catherine's College to choose a Danish architect and in 1968 he wrote of the college that 'the buildings will age with dignity and thereby create exactly the frame around youth and education which Arne Jacobsen planned'. As a visitor to the college some 40 years later I can say that for me, the college has aged with both dignity and grace. Well into the 'noughties', it appealed to me as a calm but inspirational environment for learning.

And the same can be said for the Skovshoved petrol station completed in the 1930s. Its clean lines and the unique shape of the canopy over the forecourt have made it an icon of the architectural era that it represents. It stands now as a shrine to Arne Jacobsen whose early works dominate the beachfront a little further up the coast. I am thrilled to have stumbled across these two fabulous examples of Danish architecture which appealed to me aesthetically in very distinct and unconnected circumstances. I wonder where I will next bump into Mr Jacobsen now that I'm here in his homeland and my appetite is whetted?

Childhood memories

2011-06-15T21:46:00.000+02:00

This month I am taking part in a 30 day photo challenge. Each day has a theme and some have proved to be lots of fun but others are indeed a 'challenge'! On Friday the theme was 'childhood memory' and, as I noted when I posted my pictures, my life here in Copenhagen is so far removed from my childhood in Middlesbrough, I struggled to find any reminders of my early years.

In the end, I had to 'create' my memories - I bought figs to make a salad and was reminded of fig trees that grew in the garden of a summer house in Egypt where we stayed as children. The butterfly cakes that I baked for friends who came to lunch on Friday were me retracing my mother's footsteps when she had baked the same cakes for many a children's party or school cake sale. Food often does take us to places and stir up memories buried deep in our past. When I was young my father would make an Egyptian dish called 'ful' made from slow cooked beans and eaten with pita bread - the smell of the same dish when I found it in a London humus bar many years later transported me straight back to my childhood. Often though these are the memories that we seek out and the flashback can sometimes feel 'staged'. More striking are the memories that take us by surprise and catch us unaware - this is what happened to me last weekend.

On Saturday I went to a school loppemarked (a 'flea market') and as this is a great place to pick up children's books in English at bargain prices, I found myself rummaging through boxes of once loved story books. My heart stopped when I stumbled upon Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever (emphasis added!).

This is the storybook that I devoured as a child and although my children do have many Richard Scarry books on their shelves, nothing compares to this collection of stories, nursery rhymes, poems and pages and pages of pictures of the beloved animal characters of my childhood: the Cat family, lowly worm, the polite elephant and others.

In the middle of the school car park as I leafed through the pages of this beautiful story treasury, the world around me stopped and for a couple of minutes I was a little girl again lost in the world of those familiar words and drawings. I recognised each page and the fondness of these early reading memories has stayed with me for days. Some of the humour that had passed me by as a child made my grown up self chuckle, for example, the story of 'Couscous the Algerian detective'!!

This book is a mighty tome of 288 pages and includes much more than just stories and rhymes to engage the young reader and feed their inquisitive minds. I hope I don't sound too old when I can't help but say that 'they don't make story books like this any more'. I don't know of another similar single volume for children where you can turn through pages and pages about colours, the alphabet, numbers, the flowers in the garden, the instruments of an orchestra, the seasons, airplanes, boats, trucks or where a child can learn about the different jobs that people do all day, about manners and being polite, about Rome, Paris and London (and a Castle in Denmark!!) and about animals and the parts of the body. Its like a paper edition of the world wide web for little people!

I'm thrilled to have this book back in my life again - it is exactly as I remembered it and not only do I keep finding my own childhood memories within its pages, I can now enjoy sharing them with my children and hopefully pass them on so they can make the memories theirs.

Danish life: Open all hours? Nej

2011-06-05T23:19:00.001+02:00

One of the biggest adjustments we have made to our family life since arriving in Denmark is our shopping habits both generally and, more specifically, shopping at the weekends. Things here are expensive (this has been said before) and so we don't consume as much as we did in London but our old home city was also one with a 24/7 culture. It was an open all hours culture that was as natural as night following day. Growing up I remember the shops being closed on Sundays but then gradually the trading laws changed and within a couple of decades it wasn't unheard of to go supermarket shopping on the way home from the cinema on a Saturday night. Eventually, Sunday became like any other trading day so that at any time the streets were busy with shoppers.

Here in Copenhagen things are very different and the reduced shop opening hours which were at first slightly frustrating are now much appreciated for the organisation and increased family time that they have foisted upon us. There are three local shopping hour customs that we have had to learn: first, on Saturdays the shops are only open til around 1 pm (3pm at the latest). This means that there is a greater degree of planning that now goes into how Saturday mornings unfold.

Whereas in London we could pick up groceries or do errands late into the afternoon, we now have a lunchtime curfew on getting those jobs done. In the early days a state of panic would set in around noon on Saturday when, after a couple of hours of spontaneous unpacking, we would venture out into the world and find everyone else on their way home and the shops closing. As we've settled in we are adjusting and when the Saturday morning jobs are taken care of, its great to have the rest of the day to do fun things.

The second custom is in relation to Sunday shopping. On Sunday the shops are closed except for supermarkets, which are open on the first and last Sunday of the month. Again, this means a bit of weekend planning is involved and most of the time we try to do a weekend food shop on Saturday morning. There have been many a Sunday afternoon when I have breathed a sigh of relief as I've discovered that a vital ingredient for the evening meal is missing but then realised that its 'one of those Sundays when I can pop to the shop'!!

Finally, the shops are closed on public holidays and at this time of year there are lots of public holidays. This morning we set out for a beach picnic with friends and we planned to buy some of our supplies en route. Today is the first Sunday in June and so we shouldn't have been caught out - except that Thursday was Ascension Day and today is the corresponding public holiday! And so, even our best laid plans....

Aside from remembering these three rules of thumb in order to plan and organise, the reduced shop opening hours change the landscape of the neighbourhood at weekends. Back in the great metropolis that is London I would rarely see a high street that wasn't bustling with trade. It may be stating the obvious but with the shops closed there is less shopping to be done. Instead, at weekends you will find the Danes out in the parks and at the beaches, the playgrounds and the cycle lanes are full. The reality is that reduced shopping means more leisure time - not least for the people working in the retail business!

We've just had a four day weekend and our family outings included a trip to the Frilandsmuseet near Lyngby. These photos are all from this fascinating open air museum, one of the largest and oldest in the world, which has farms, mills and smallholdings dating from 1650 to 1940 and recreates daily life and working processes from old times.

Danish life: jeg kan forstå lidt dansk!

2011-05-29T22:19:00.001+02:00

Jeg kan ikke tale dansk men nu jeg kan forstå lidt.

This week I started my Danish language classes and it was quite intense; each lesson lasts nearly three hours and with two evening lessons a week, its not for the faint hearted. But it has been incredibly enjoyable and I have learned lots. I feel a bit like Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady when the poor flower girl turned linguistic experiment is taken out in public for the first time under strict instructions to stick to the weather and her health: I can tell you in almost comprehensible Danish where I and the members of my family come from, what languages we speak, I can count to a hundred and spell my name. Ask me anything else and I'm stuck.

I deliberately chose this Danish course because it is aimed at students who already have some foreign language ability. I did study French, German and Latin at school and although I barely use any of what I learned, I figured that having some experience at language acquisition must help. And then I met the other fifteen members of my class...

For a start, only three of us have English as our mother tongue. This means that the great majority of the class are learning Danish in their second or third language. Maybe it is for this reason that the teacher announced on the first evening that going forward she would only be speaking Danish. This soon became a very frightening prospect but, on reflection, this approach is likely to be the most effective; if the learning process in our brains operates in a 'language' then how does a teacher set about to teach a foreign language to a room full of people all processing what they are learning differently? Some are 'thinking' in German, some in Italian, Hindi, Chinese. The only guaranteed common denominator between us is therefore Danish, the new language we are learning.

And so we are each coming into this exercise from different perspectives. For those with experience and knowledge of germanic languages, there are apparently many similarities with Danish grammar. One of our class is from Germany and he is picking up familiar quirks of sentence structure that are passing the rest of us by. For the student from France, the strange Danish numbers strike a cord. Unfortunately, having English as a mother tongue is considered a potential hindrance to learning Danish phonetics. One of the other Brits in the class apparently had to sit a spoken English test so that his pronunciation could be assessed.

What fun those phonetics are proving to be. To begin with the Danish alphabet has three extra letters: æ, ø and å. Then there are many letters with multiple pronunciations, can be silent or can sound like a different letter entirely. So far as I can tell there appears to be little correlation between how many of the words are written and how they are pronounced. Some words are practically swallowed whole; for example, the very useful word selvfølgelig which means 'of course', six of the twelve letters are silent so that all you hear is seføli (which also happens be the texting equivalent of the word - maybe I should just have signed up for a course on how to text in Danish instead!!).

If you also bear in mind that, like with many languages, there are differences between geographical dialects and between generations; apparently older people pronounce things differently to the young as the muscles in the mouth weaken with age, I wonder if I will ever be able to understand the man on the Copenhagen omnibus.

We have so far been encouraged to lytte og huske (listen (repeat) and remember). I fondly recall the hours spent in the language labs at school where the voices in the heavy and ill fitting headphones would instruct us to écoute et répète and here I am again, nearly 30 years later (dare I say it) trying to grasp how to intone and place emphasis in simple sentences; jeg kommer fra England men jeg er halvt englander og halvt egypter translates as 'I come from england but I am half english and half egyptian' (underlining shows the emphasis). At least this time around I can see the sense of learning how a language sounds and now that I am very slowly starting to develop an ear for the rhythm and lilt of Danish, it isn't quite as alien.

Of course, coming to a new language at an 'older' age is quite daunting. Unlike when I was at school, my days are no longer filled with learning and study (at least, not at a conscious level) but I must now have an overwhelming advantage given that I am actually living in the country whose language I am striving to master.

Without confirming my spot amongst the oldies, I would also like to note that the advances in modern technology since I was at school are a wonder and an asset too. I can download recordings of alphabet pronunciation and play them on my iPod at my leisure, I no longer have to rely on the old language lab. However, I might be seen looking slightly distracted whilst cycling around as I try to contort my mouth into the shapes of the words on street signs and bill board advertising.

Well, the first tentative steps have been fascinating but I'm not naive and I know that there is a hard slog ahead if I am ever to fulfil my dream of one day writing a whole blog post in Danish.

I have again taken the liberty of sharing pictures that are slightly tangential to the subject of the post. These photos were taken at the flea market in Kongens Nytorv this weekend. This has to be one of the markets more popular with tourists than with the locals given its location so close to Nyhavn but I passed through on Saturday and picked through some of the wares - the language might take a while but it hasn't taken long for me to acquire the Danish love of rummaging!!

Copenhagen Marathon: the agony and the humility

2011-05-22T22:17:00.000+02:00

This weekend one event dominated our neighbourhood - the 2011 Copenhagen Marathon. On Saturday the children ran a 'mini marathon' and were seen all around Fælledparken with their sporting medals dazzling in the spring sunshine. This morning the road blocks were put in place, the politi stood at the junctions re-directing the traffic and when I took my toddler out for our Sunday morning pastry 'run' (perhaps, given the day, I exaggerate slightly), there was an air of excitement and anticipation as spectators began to gather.

We decided to stop and watch the first of the athletes as they crossed from Strandboulevarden along to Østerbrogade. I completely misread the route map that had been handed to me and thought that the runners looked a little worse for wear after only having run 8 km. Didn't want to sound too judgmental but many of them didn't look like they were going to make it. Then I realised, we were actually standing at the 33 km mark. Oops - looking good...

I recently read a blog of a girl who ran the London marathon and she talked about how she enjoyed the cheers of people in the crowd who called out her name, which she must have had on her race number or her t-shirt. With this in mind and because the anticipation and the race atmosphere before a big run is so infectious, I decided to stay at the sidelines and do some cheering on. But first, I stood by in awe as some of the elite runners sprinted past. I'm not exaggerating when I say that at 33 km, they looked like they were out for a walk in the park - it was humbling indeed.

Maybe because they made it look so easy, it didn't look like they needed our cheers. They were clearly 'in the zone' and simply clocking up the miles. I'm ashamed to say that my son's hunger and the fact that the weather turned, it started to rain and we were totally unprepared for a downpour meant that we headed back indoors for lunch. I clearly wasn't committed to the cause and the pangs of guilt gave me indigestion. These runners had trained hard for months, were pushing their bodies to physical limits and I had bailed at the first drops of a spring rain shower. An hour later, I headed back out (without toddler) to cheer on the runners that I anticipated would need it most - the masses...

I started to reflect on what this day of running might mean to them. What was it that had driven these people to spend months in training, putting miles and miles on their legs preparing them for a day of yet more mileage pounding the streets. When you watch a marathon on the TV you see the highlights; the enthusiastic start line, interviews with spirited and determined individuals and then the raised arms and collapsed bodies at the finish. Watching the highlights doesn't give a clue as to what the reality must be like - the agonising mile after mile of hard slog.

Is the challenge of a marathon keeping going for 40 km when, quite frankly, although its race day and there's a buzz in the air, no-one is really looking? Is it about taking your body to the edge and waiting to see what will 'break down' first; the hips, the knees, the shins or the feet? Or is the challenge of a marathon more about what it takes to have the self belief and discipline to make it to the start line? As I watched, I was humbled and to all the runners who are soaking in baths (hot or cold!) tonight, I salute you.

From the old...

... to the young (yes, that is a pregnant lady with 'løb baby' written on her belly!)

...those 'running' together and the guy who thought running shoes are for wimps (!)...

... well done! And by the way, nobody did have their name on their t-shirt or race number - that must be a London marathon thing.

'Psssst...a word in your ear, Tiger Mother'

2011-05-15T23:39:00.000+02:00

I try very hard not to judge the parenting styles of others. Someone I respect once said that when you see a parent acting in a disapproving way, before you react, remember that you don't know what they've been through to get there. Sometimes, battle weary, we pick our fights and no judgment should be made when you don't know the whole story. In keeping with this, I will try not to unleash the full extent of my spitting fury upon reading 'Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother' by Amy Chua.

For those who don't know, Ms Chua is a Yale law professor and a second generation Chinese immigrant. She has two daughters and her book is about how she parented them from birth to their tender teenage years focussing mainly on how she turned them into musical virtuosi on their respective instruments, the piano and the violin, by employing the strict Chinese parenting methods of her ancestors. To describe her as driven is an understatement, she is, putting it politely, 'a mother possessed'. Ms Chua demonises the laissez faire parenting of the West and hails (herself) as the Chinese mother who knows best and who alone can raise her children to their full potential (her husband, the girls' father, barely features). The catch is that her daughters' full potential has to be musical excellence that will take them to Carnegie Hall and top grade school marks - there is no allowance or opportunity for achievement in anything else. The following now famous extract from the book appeared in the Wall Street Journal and summarises how the Chinese way of parenting looks to Western outsiders as Ms Chua describes:

'Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

- attend a sleepover
- have a playdate
- be in a school play
- complain about not being in a school play
- watch TV or play computer games
- choose their own extracurricular activities
- get any grade less than an A
- not be the no 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
- play any instrument other than the piano or violin
- not play the piano or violin'

The detail, however, is much more extreme and the chapters of Ms Chua's book unfold into episode upon episode of the Tiger Mother in battle.

There is no doubt it is very provocative and a compelling read for it. However, for the most part, reading it was not an enjoyable experience. I faced the same dilemma as when watching a pivotal but disturbingly gruesome scene in a horror film - I feel compelled to watch but can only peek through squinting eyes from behind my hands held up to my face. It was a stressful read and I do pity the family for having its dirty laundry hung out in public.

I am left asking three main questions: Why did Ms Chua have children? What did she really hope to achieve by parenting them in 'the Chinese way'? Why did she write the book?

Her life's work, in having children, appears to have been to protect them from the inevitable decline of the third immigrant generation and to that end, I assume, she prized above all else academic and musical excellence. She seems to have been determined to take the hardest route possible to get her children there - whatever it took - nothing would be spared. If anything, the more that was sacrificed, the better. Ms Chua's parenting method seemed to depend upon her ability to reach the limits of her daughters' capacity for hard work and then push them even further, employing all manner of coercion along the way.

Within this unrelenting pursuit, there were glaring hypocrisies: for example, she accepted to keep her girls awake through the night to practise their musical instruments through tears and heartache but then scorned Western mothers for allowing children to have sleepovers because it meant letting them stay up late so that they were tired the next day!

From the outset she drew her battle lines: the Chinese mother vs the Western one. She fought apparently believing that any way but the Western way was the right way. Why I wonder were these labels so important? Why could she not define what it is that characterises a 'Chinese mother'; what does she believe in rather than what does she do? I wonder if Ms Chua ever appreciated the higher goal that she was trying to achieve in adopting the parenting style that she did? It doesn't appear so or, if she did, this isn't made clear. Ultimately, her first daughter, Sophia, was both musically gifted and compliant and her rise to excellence comes across as effortless. Yes, she practised for long hours but I can't help but wonder if she would have risen to the same dizzy heights without the extra hours but complied simply to keep her mother happy.

Louisa (or 'Lulu') on the other hand would be politely described as a 'spirited child'. She fought her mother every step of the way and how the sparks flew; threats, bribes, the lot. The Tiger Mother had to use her full arsenal of trickery seemingly on a daily basis until her daughter reached the age of 13 and declared enough to be enough.

The most surprising twist of it all is that when Louisa calls time on the Chinese mother's battle regime, the Tiger mother surrenders, admits defeat and the game is over. Did the Chinese method of parenting not have a gameplan for a 'spirited child'? Is it in fact accurate to call it 'parenting' at all?
One thing is consistent and that is Ms Chua's need for public recognition. It was important for her that her children could win public prizes on their musical instruments and the Chinese way bestows the glory for good performance upon the parents. Their public performances were lavish affairs with no expense spared and long guest lists. Was it not all in the end, an exercise in vanity?

Finally, why write a book about it all? Did she set out to write a parenting manual? But her own daughter at 13 years old stood up for herself and everything unravelled so that the Tiger Mother was left looking like a kitten playing with a ball of wool. Did Ms Chua simply want to write a memoir? But, as I hinted above, is it really fair to make public mockery of those you hold dear? Although the book has sparked debate in the US where it is reported that Asian American children, coached in the Chinese way à la Ms Chua, are snapping up coveted places in the Ivy League institutions (see Caitlin Flannagan in The Atlantic Monthly), in the UK the book is described as 'blissfully funny' (India Knight quoted on the cover!).

But there is something about the Tiger Mother that rings true for me:

I too am the daughter of an immigrant. My father moved to England from Egypt in the 60s to study for his PhD and eventually settle with his English wife. He left his country and family and sacrificed a lot so that his children could have a good education and opportunities that weren't available to his generation. My father worked hard and was frugal, we were brought up with strict discipline and academic and musical achievement were prized. My father set us homework before it was given to us at school. I was top of my class in maths and I remember asking my teacher for a new workbook one Friday morning and being told, 'No, your father will only make you fill it over the weekend'!

Like Ms Chua's daughters, my sister and I are different; she is musically gifted and practised when she was supposed to and is an accomplished cellist. I, on the other hand, am not and I hated practising and had to be coerced to play my violin. Again, like Ms Chua, I studied law and I reaped the rewards of my father's sacrifice and his hard work pushing me to do well.

Now a parent myself, I face the same dilemma as Ms Chua. How do I want my children to grow up in the privileged life that they have been born into? I am not as frugal as my parents and my children will have many opportunities that I didn't. But nothing rattles my cage more than a child with a sense of entitlement.

I hope to give my children a good work ethic and to teach them the value of money so that they take nothing for granted. I too want them to grow up believing in themselves and to reach their full potential. Yes, like the Tiger Mother, I believe in respect for authority but I don't want my children to obey me out of fear or because of bribery or threats. Ultimately, I want my children to do what I ask of them because I hope never to ask of them anything that I have not asked of myself.

Ms Chua, I must ask, isn't it both our burden and our privilege to be parents to the third immigrant generation? Can't we take the best of the two worlds that we have known: the experiences of our childhood and our pushy parents but also the opportunities of the contrasting world we find ourselves enjoying as adults? Carving out your own path as a parent is not a betrayal of your heritage - its evolution. Shouldn't we embrace progress and hope that one day our own children will too?

Going away to go home

2011-05-09T22:52:00.000+02:00

This weekend we went on our first trip back to the UK since arriving in Copenhagen 3 months ago. We had a wonderful time but I couldn't help feeling a bit 'displaced'. We spent four days in Edinburgh celebrating my brother's wedding and if seeing your youngest sibling getting married isn't enough to make things feel a little surreal then being in a country that was at once familiar and yet foreign sealed it.

When preparing for the trip, I was so excited to be seeing my parents and family again and to be going shopping in my favourite shops (oh, how I have missed the Gap) that I overlooked how it would feel to be 'abroad in the UK'. From the moment we landed at Edinburgh airport, things started to feel different.

For a start, everyone spoke English (or at least a version of it!!). For the last 3 months, I have been wandering around Copenhagen in a language vacuum. I have no comprehension of what is being said around me and tune out. Sometimes I might pick up on intonation or volume of speech but I have enjoyed being immune to the detail of other people's conversations, especially those on the mobile phone of the person next to me on the bus or train.

Back in Blighty I found it (quite frankly!) intrusive to be amongst English-speakers again so that walking through the streets of a busy city, my thoughts were interrupted by snippets of stranger's conversations.

It was like seeing an old friend again when I stumbled across a Prêt-à-Manger and decided to take a pit stop for a cappuccino and an almond croissant. That was a regular part of my morning routine when I worked in London and I relished every minute of it. As I sat in the window watching Edinburgh open up for the day, I still had a niggling feeling that something fundamental in the landscape was amiss.

And then it dawned on me - there were no cycle lanes and hardly a bicycle in sight. In 3 short months, I have become accustomed to the whirring and clanking of the Copenhagen bike culture. The cyclists of my newly adopted city are the third dimension of its traffic scene that give it a very unique vibe. Its not just the fact that people are on their bikes, its their sheer number, their stylish bikes and cycling attire and the mutual respect between the different road users. I have to admit though that the topography of Edinburgh does not necessarily lend itself to two wheeled ambling.

On any view, Edinburgh is a beautiful city and the hilly walks up the cobbled streets led to spectacular views up to the castle and back to the surrounding lowlands.

By the end of the trip, when I had celebrated with my family and had my fill of shopping, I was looking forward to coming 'home'. Obviously, it was hard to say good bye to loved ones and I had the slightly unnerving feeling that we weren't going 'home' but rather we were going away again. In any event, I needn't have worried, a very sunny and clear Copenhagen evening welcomed us and, give or take a few pangs of homesickness, we're back on our bikes.

But what does all this have to do with pictures of a tea cup, saucer and side plate? Well, these beautiful and delicate pieces of antique china were the 'favours' given to the lady guests at this weekend's wedding. My new sister-in-law sourced probably close to fifty of these unique sets and placed the bundles of sugared almonds in the tea cups. Apparently she collaborated with my mother to choose this set for me and I think it is one of the most original and beautiful personal touches I have seen at a wedding. It was inspired and I hope these photos do it some justice...

The company of books...

2011-04-28T22:38:00.000+02:00

I love books and when I get time to myself I love reading. One of the joys of living in London was the number of independent bookshops and we were lucky enough to live near a couple of the best: Daunt and England’s Lane Books. They were more than bookshops, they were shrines to the written word with beautiful books temptingly displayed. Even my toddler son appreciated the pleasure of stopping by to browse on our way home from nursery or shopping.

When we moved to Copenhagen, I wondered where I would wander to find reading inspiration. Scouring the English section of the big Danish bookstores didn’t compare to losing oneself in a nook or cranny of a small independent bookshop. I was therefore curious to hear about the English bookstore in Hellerup, Books & Company.

It was while we were still deliberating over school options for my son that I first called by at Books & Company for the Tuesday morning story telling session. My son loved it and I bought a coffee and browsed the bookshelves with my baby daughter. It was everything I looked for in a bookshop and immediately felt like a home away from home: the familiarity of English book covers, the company of the other expat mums, the taste of a warm cappuccino on a winter’s morning and the welcoming smile of the storeowner, Isabella.

In those initial weeks in Denmark when I was still in shock from the ‘foreignness’ of it all and weary from the daily onslaught of the unfathomable language, the bookshop was like a refuge giving respite from the battles of settling into life in an alien land. I was intrigued by the store and arranged to meet with Isabella to find out more.

No strangers to expat life themselves, Isabella and her husband lived in Holland, New York, Hong Kong and San Francisco before returning to Denmark to settle with their young family. It was her experience of overseas bookshops that made her consider starting up a bookstore business. She was a lawyer specialising in human rights and refugee law with no retail, commerce or accounting experience but a vision and a desire to recreate something that she had enjoyed abroad; an environment where people could meet, linger and browse and relish the experience of buying books.

Back in Denmark, Isabella missed the sense of community that a bookshop (usually incorporating a cafe) can inspire. Her time abroad had shown her that book shopping was different in Denmark. As books here are expensive, the Danes don’t tend to go into a bookshop and browse or buy on impulse. Instead they are more specific in their shopping - have a book in mind, locate it and buy it. Isabella set about to offer expats something more familiar.

Nearly two years ago, at the height of the financial crisis, Books & Company opened its doors in Hellerup. Picking the right location was crucial and the leafy suburb north of Copenhagen is the city’s largest English-speaking expat neighbourhood and home to most of the international schools. It is also a wealthy suburb and the rent of retail space doesn’t come cheap.

Notwithstanding this daunting beginning, the bookstore has gone from strength to strength. It now has a full calendar of events (weekly story telling for pre-schoolers, book launches, workshops, book club meetings, talks by authors), a Facebook page, a mailing list of 700+ and as Isabella and I sat in the window chatting and sipping coffee, the bell above the door rang with a busy stream of customers and passers by calling in to ‘say hello’ and wish Isabella and her staff a Happy Easter.

There is no doubt that Isabella’s dream is now a reality and there is no better testament to that than the ladies of Hellerup who call the store ‘the living room’. While the focus of the shop is the sale of books, and to this end there is a careful selection of titles and their presentation on dark wooden tables and shelves is immaculate, the piece de la resistance is the comfortable seating area by large windows at the back of the store and the fact that customers are encouraged to linger by the lure of competitively priced coffee.

To get here Isabella has worked incredibly hard. With no prior relevant work experience but combining a new business and motherhood, she has risen to every challenge - from the first draft of the business plan when a McKinsey consultant friend asked pointedly, ‘Is this going to be a hobby or a business?’, to the tricky task of how to price an English paperback novel so as to trigger the all important impulse buy and the thorny question of whether she could or should be competing with Amazon (Isabella decided from the outset that she couldn’t and that dedicated Amazon customers may not help her pay the rent through book sales but might still stop to browse and buy her coffee!).

She has been both creative and resourceful, for example the mural painting of Eloise in the children’s section is by an American expat friend and when she needed a long list of titles on which to build up her stock, she emailed 60 of her friends asking for their lists of favourite authors and must-reads. Involving the people around her from the start was all part of building the community and the environment that would be the essence of the bookshop.

The irony of this story is that it is not the expats but the Danes who now make up the majority of Isabella’s customers. The reason for this is simple: more English books are printed and therefore they are cheaper than the limited number of titles that are translated into Danish. But the Danes are well travelled and they like to read in English and so, it turns out, they are prepared to buy the original rather than wait for the translation. This is something that Isabella admits she underestimated. However, it can only be a good thing for her that the natives too are making Books & Company their own.

And I’m lucky that Copenhagen’s one English bookstore is on my bike ride to school so that I can call by for a coffee, a book browse and inspiration, whenever the mood catches me.

Taking my camera for a walk in Klampenborg

2011-04-21T22:52:00.000+02:00

Expat women in Copenhagen have at their disposal a fantastic social network: LINK. Standing for Ladies International Network Københaven, LINK is an organisation of volunteers that brings together women of all nationalities. There are lots of regular events; mum and toddler groups, music groups, cookery evenings, book club, tours of Copenhagen's landmarks, children's parties etc etc. and no matter what your interest, there is something for everyone. In my short time here I have met so many other women who have, like me, followed their husbands to Denmark.

One of the lovely friends I have met through the LINK mother and toddler group is Heather Davidson-Meyn, a professional photographer from Canada who specialises in art portraiture. Heather leads the LINK monthly photowalk where keen amateurs meet up and spend a couple of hours exploring a corner of Copenhagen, taking photos and chatting along the way. This photowalk is just what I've needed for a long time - an opportunity to get to know my camera!

On the morning that we arrived at Klampenborg station on the coastline known as the Danish Riviera, there was a blanket of white cloud. The sea landscape looked washed out and monochrome. As it was a Monday morning, the beach was empty and had an eerie quietness about it.

I tried to capture the washed out landscape in my photos - although the pictures are in colour, I tried to use the silhouettes to black and white effect. The jetty leading into the water seemed particularly haunting. In the pictures, I love how the steps from the jetty lead nowhere as the sea is over exposed from pointing the camera into the light. So often, I only take pictures when the sun is shining but now I've learned to experiment even when the weather seems dull.

Heather encouraged us to use the photowalk to try something different and as I love to take close up pictures this time I concentrated on taking landscape shots. After some time on the beach we wandered further inland to the deer park. I didn't have a powerful enough zoom to take photos of the deer but as we wandered through the woodland I was struck by the beauty of the trees.

I experimented with different angles and soon saw the patterns made by the trees trunks, branches and roots. It was a truly enjoyable morning and a treat to take a couple of hours to go exploring and snap away.

Cupcakes, cupcakes everywhere...

2011-04-14T22:39:00.000+02:00

This has been the week (or two!) of the cupcake. It all began with my daughter's birthday and what better way to introduce a little one to the concept of a birthday cake and the ritual of blowing out a candle, than with a single cupcake?! She loved it but of course no one ever makes just one cupcake, they're baked in batches of 12 and so there were lots for the adults to enjoy too.

These were made with a very simple classic sponge recipe although I have struggled to find self-raising flour over here and so I'm becoming quite adept at adding baking powder to plain flour. Of course, for these I also added cocoa powder and, having run out when it came to the icing, I used melted chocolate drops, butter and icing sugar. Yum!

Last weekend we went to a children's easter party and as we were asked to take along something sweet, I couldn't resist making another batch of cupcakes. This time they were baby cupcakes and to avoid making them too fiddly for little fingers, I used my mini silicone muffin moulds rather than paper cases. So as not to incur the wrath of the other mothers, I restricted the icing to a single butter icing rosette. Topped off with a bright coloured chocolate button. Festive and fun, the perfect recipe for a party in the April sunshine.

And then I got the email about International Cake Day!! This was an event put on by UN House here in Copenhagen to raise money for the Japan Emergency Relief Fund. I couldn't resist making more cupcakes and going along to taste the fruits of other labours all for a good cause.

I've never made anything for public consumption before and I have to admit being quite nervous as I baked and iced late into Tuesday evening. The creative process was both tiring and enjoyable but there was immense pleasure in seeing people tasting the cupcakes and clearly happy with the results. The cake day was a huge success and there was an incredible turnout, lots of cake consumed and money raised for a very worthy cause.

It's always fun to get together with people who share one's passions and I was truly inspired by the other cakes on display. I was like a child in a sweet shop - literally!!

Danish life: swapping the Guardian for Politiken

2011-04-08T12:04:00.001+02:00

Thirteen years ago I was awarded a scholarship to live and work in Toronto, Canada, for a year. I had just qualified for the English bar and it was a great chance to take time away from the hard slog that would be pupillage and finding tenancy as a barrister. It was also an amazing opportunity to experience another culture. I still have wonderful friends from that chapter of my life and Toronto will always have a special place in my heart. Notwithstanding all that was positive about being so far away from home, there were two things that I missed deeply; BBC Radio 4 and the Guardian newspaper.

Of course, those were the days before everyone had internet access at home and before the BBC's wonderful iPlayer. iPlayer is a lifesaver for expats and the licence fee that BBC viewers in the UK pay is money well spent. You never know where in the world you might end up and when you might need to hear the familiar voices of John Humphreys, James Naughtie, Sue MacGregor and Libby Purves. I now listen to Woman's Hour as I potter in my Danish kitchen.

Since becoming a mother, one of my Saturday morning rituals in London was to make a coffee and steal 5 minutes to myself with the Family section of the Guardian. It's my favourite weekend supplement. On our first weekend in Copenhagen, the lack of rumpled newsprint on the breakfast table almost made me weep. I jumped on my bike and cycled to Østerport station (near the British, US and Canadian embassies) and found, buried amongst the weekend Sport and Business, my beloved Family section!!!!

Like everything else, the newspapers here are expensive. The International edition of the Guardian cost me a princely 35 DKK (£4.12). Since that first weekend and because my husband has a train journey to work and for a myriad of other reasons, we have bought an iPad. Its not the paper edition and the romance of holding newsprint (and the inky finger tips!) has been traded in, but at least my indulgence has been restored.

The Guardian has a fantastic website that is, in my opinion, second to none for up to date news and analysis and so living abroad this time I can still keep abreast of world affairs and follow my favourite writers. The last 3 months haven't exactly been without incident on the global stage either: revolution in Egypt, earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Nato action over Libya.

But what of local news? Unsurprisingly, the Guardian doesn't report much about Denmark, its internal affairs or the Danish position on global issues.

The only newspaper published entirely in English is the Copenhagen Post. This is aimed at the expat community, published weekly and although it is sold at the newstands it is free at the airport and some hotel lobbies. There is an online version too and whilst it does not really give depth or breadth in its news reporting there is an interesting comment column which provides analysis of some expat issues. It also comes with a good guide to what is going on in Copenhagen.

Of the Danish press, there are three main daily broadsheets: Politiken (daily circulation 369,000), Jyllands-Posten (the newspaper of the notorious offending cartoon incident with a daily circulation of 120,000) and the Berlingske (daily circulation of 103,00). All have online editions but only Politiken has its own section which publishes the news in English. Jyllands-Posten posts English articles from the Copenhagen Post.

Having arrived only a couple of months ago, my Danish language skills, whilst they will help me find a tin of chopped tomatoes in the supermarket, do not extend to reading the newspaper. I have however sat down with the Politiken and a Danish-English dictionary and tried to understand the headlines. For example, I did learn that taxes and rising fuel prices are putting pressure on Danish households, plus ça change!

I was interested to see the front page of Politiken (both the main section and the culture section) reporting on Tony Blair's visit to Copenhagen this week - no doubt promoting his biography and giving air to his views on events in Libya. Unsurprisingly, this news didn't make it to the Guardian. I am due to start Danish language classes soon and I hope that I will become proficient enough to start reading the Danish press. Like the Guardian, Politiken has won many press awards and I am excited to hopefully one day enjoy its writing and analysis.

Until then, I will share with you one story that has gripped Denmark recently (in both the Danish and English news) and apparently had the most hits online. For anyone reading this from afar it may not have made it to a broadsheet near you although I think it has been picked up by some parenting websites.

The little boy in this picture is 3 year old toddler Holger Kragh. One day last week he went out walking with his family but had a bit of a tantrum because he didn't want to wear his coat. His mother put his coat on back to front and zipped it up so that little Holger couldn't take it off. Then Holger went off crying and wandering on his own into some woodland. I don't know but I imagine it might have been one of those stand-offs that all parents have with toddlers at some point only this time Holger called his parents' bluff. Unable to find Holger and as the day drew to a close, he was reported missing.

The police were called in and police dogs, helicopters and locals joined the search. During the night the temperature dropped to freezing. Holger was nowhere to be found until the next day when he was spotted - still wandering around and still wearing his coat zipped up back to front! I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from a story like that - except for a huge sigh of relief.

Its in times like these when global news is dominated by stories of loss and devastation, warfare and destruction that we look for good news and this week it was the tale of how a mother's discipline probably saved a little boy's life!

Celebrating my daughter on her first birthday

2011-04-01T10:43:00.000+02:00

Today we celebrate your first birthday and the first wonderful year of your life. Your birth was everything I dreamed it would be - a miracle and so precious. The birth itself was a joy and from that first day you have been too. You sleep so well and because of you I have rested well in these early days. I've been able to do so much because you have let me; even a triathlon when you were only a couple of months old. Thank you for being such a good baby.

And here you are, a year old. How did that happen? I know its a cliché but the last 12 months have flown by - it truly has felt like the blink of an eye. At times I have been so busy with house moves and the relocation abroad that I barely noticed you - happy and content in the background; you were getting on with getting bigger and thriving. Like me, you're a happy eater - you love your food - and are happy in your own company. You engross yourself in your toys keeping a watchful eye on what is happening around you. Happy to watch but social too.

Right now its all about those little feet and being mobile. I'm fascinated to watch you crawling and cruising. Its the first step towards independence and I love to see the choices you make; you love to hang out in your brother's bedroom when he is at school as if you miss him and I like to think that you sometimes miss me too when you come crawling into the kitchen when I'm cooking.

You are an excellent communicator - efficient with the noises you make and using your hands to say goodbye, to ask 'where is it?' and to clap and your arms to hug. I take it as a sign that you are generally contented so that when you do holler, I know it means something and you want me to sit up and listen. I respect that!

Out of all of us you have most easily embraced the massive changes of the last 6 months. At only a year old you are now sleeping in your third bedroom. This ability to adapt will serve you well in life.

I know that you adore your brother and your little face lights up when he comes into your bedroom first thing in the morning. The way you watch him and listen to his (long) stories - laughing when he does and always concerned when you hear him cry. Already you care for him so deeply.

Although you can barely walk - you practically run to your daddy when he comes home from work in the evening. Your excitement is so raw, physical and contagious. I love it.

I was doing some housework when I caught you 'trying on' one of my tops - it made me laugh so hard I nearly cried. You're so clever to know that the cloth you were holding was an item of clothing and to try to put it on. Sometimes, when I watch you I get the feeling that you just 'get it'.

Embrace life, enjoy it and rise to its challenges. This is my wish for you, my darling, on your first birthday. It is a privilege to be your mother.

Danish life: swapping Waitrose for Netto

2011-03-27T09:00:00.005+02:00

Back in London, my local supermarket was Waitrose: the branch located on the Finchley Road in the former John Barnes department store. It was like a good friend: familiar, consistent and reliable in my hours of need (frantic food shopping with the children in tow). The layout was second nature - I knew where everything was located and could efficiently whizz through my supermarket shopping. Fruit and vegetables were near the entrance, then bread and the bakery with its lovely cupcakes and pastries, the meat counter, the fish counter and so on... It was reliable and for the most part the same groceries were in the same location week to week and month to month. The selection of groceries was also pretty consistent and I could plan my weekly menus pretty confident that the ingredients would be available.

Now I'm in Copenhagen my local supermarket is Netto. In my limited experience (it has only been a couple of months) there is little point in taking a shopping list to Netto as the selection of groceries on offer varies from day to day. One day a staple item will be available and the next day, its not. There's no sign saying, 'Temporarily unavailable'. Instead another grocery will have taken up residence where whatever it was I was looking for used to be. Its very disconcerting and this randomness extends beyond food to other items that pop up in unexpected places - this week I spotted Converse trainers for sale alongside the chocolate bars!

To the uninitiated it feels very much as if Netto sells whatever is unloaded from the big container ships in the nearby docks. When something is in stock, it fills the shelves. One week there are boxes and boxes of Kleenex tissues stacked up high, the next week there are no Kleenex tissues, just mountains of precariously balanced jars of coffee. Hence food shopping at Netto is a lot like foraging and menu planning goes out the window.

Its not just the ever-changing selection of groceries. The other supermarket culture shock I am still coming to terms with is the speed of the checkouts. Isn't it customary to exchange pleasantries with the person working on the checkout? And don't they usually wait for you to pack your groceries before asking you to pay? There's nothing inconvenient to either party in this ritual as the groceries are scanned at a reasonable pace and there's ample time for them to be packed into bags.

Not so here in Copenhagen. The routine here is quite different; for a start eye contact is rarely made before groceries are scanned and hurled down the conveyor belt so that if you're lucky you might just get to the other end and manage to open a bag, catch the groceries and bag them before the bill is rung up. Then the expectation is that if you have been slow and not completed your packing by the time the cashier has called out the total, you have to abandon your groceries and go and pay. There is little time to familiarise yourself with the coinage (this is probably supposed to be done on your time, not the cashier's) before your change is not handed to you but dropped into the coin tray. By the time you hear the coins dropping, the cashier is scanning the next customer's groceries and hurling them down the conveyor belt.

The number of times I have had to retrieve my groceries and half filled shopping bags from the end of the packing area whilst also trying to keep out of the way of the next customer... its embarrassing and I obviously need more practise. Maybe I should enlist the help of my husband and ask him to stand at one end of the kitchen and throw groceries at me so I can master the art of speed-bagging!

Fortunately, although it is my nearest, Netto is not my only option for supermarket shopping. Here in Østerbro I also have SuperBest, Føtex and Irma. SuperBest is probably the closest to my Waitrose experiences and the layout and selection of groceries is familiar. The only difference is the prices. I know everyone is always complaining about it but things here are more expensive. Just for fun I thought I would do a quick comparison of Waitrose, SuperBest and Netto prices on some of the groceries I regularly buy. I've tried to compare like for like and all prices were taken this week. I've used an exchange rate of 8.5 DKK for £1. I haven't included any fruit comparisons because here apples, oranges, bananas, plums etc are all sold per piece unlike back home where it is by weight.

	Netto	SuperBest	Waitrose
1L 1.5% Milk (semi-skimmed)	6.95 DKK £0.82	6.95 DKK £0.82	£0.86 (2 pints) £0.76 (1 L equiv)
Eggs (half dozen)	Not available	22.95 DKK £2.70	£1.58
Wholemeal sliced bread	17.95 DKK £2.11	18.25 DKK £2.15	£0.89
150g fruit yoghurt	Not available	4.95 DKK £0.58	£0.51
500 ml Fairy washing up liquid	Not available (Alternative brand 8.50 DKK £1.00)	16.95 DKK £1.99	£1.00 (433 ml) £1.15 (500 ml equiv)
250g Lurpak butter (unsalted)	Not available	18.50 DKK £2.18	£1.50
6 x 330 ml Coca cola Zero	Not available	46.95 DKK £5.52	£2.85
6 x 1L San Pelligrino sparkling water	Not available	79.95 DKK £9.40	£5.91
2 kg potatoes	16 DKK £1.88	25 DKK £2.94	£1.29 (2 kg) £1.61 (2.5 kg equiv)
60 Active Fit nappies	Not available (Alternative brand equiv 117 DKK £13.76)	99.95 DKK £11.76	£9.99
Converse trainers	279 DKK £32.82	Not available	Not available

Perhaps it isn't surprising that some things cost more here but Lurpak butter?! That's Danish!!

Supermarket shopping here is not all bleak; the fresh fish counter is something else and we always stop by to say hello to the lobsters...

Something sweet for new friends: Kartoffelkage

2011-03-21T21:55:00.001+01:00

Since arriving in Copenhagen in February, I have had the pleasure of meeting lots of new people - mainly other ex pat mums also living in Denmark with their little ones while husbands take up work here. We've all got our stories to tell and hints and tips to share - passing around the benefits of our individual experiences.

This weekend I met up with two of my new mummy friends for a girls night - no children, no husbands just the three of us, some delicious food and a bottle of wine (or two!). My contribution was to take along something sweet and I chose another recipe from Trina Hahnemann's Scandinavian Cookbook.

Kartoffelkage literally means potato cake but there is in fact no potato involved. The name apparently comes from the fact that the pastries look like potatoes!! Not sure that's a selling point.... These are essentially the Scandinavian variation on what the English would call an eclair and a more refined version would be a French profiterole.

And thus I was introduced to the art and joy of making choux pastry. Now, Ms Hahnemann does warn that making the kartoffelkage is something that takes time and my husband very obligingly took the children off my hands for a couple of hours so that I could lose myself in the kitchen without distraction.

How my arms ached from beating the flour into the boiling butter and water and then, in turn and bit by bit, adding the eggs. Watching the clock on the cooker and waiting for the dough to cool felt like an eternity - I'm a choux pastry novice and I wanted to move on to the piping...

It was my chance to use a gadget that has been in its unopened box in my cupboards since I went to a Pampered Chef party in London a few months ago. This piping bottle for cake icing is really simple to use (it concertinas to force the icing out of the nozzle) and makes less mess than piping bags.

The finished pastries did rather resemble potatoes but it didn't matter, I was thrilled, the dough rose beautifully. The filling is a vanilla custard cream, light and delicate, that required constant stirring and a watchful eye - hence the lack of photographs! Topped with a piece of marzipan and then dusted with cocoa powder, compared to eclairs and profiteroles, these are a lighter pastry - the flavours are more subtle.

I had a wonderful evening with my new friends and the kartoffelkages made it in one piece despite being carried in a bag dangling from the handlebars of my bike as I rode across town....

Danish life: Børnehave or the international pre-school

2011-03-13T22:16:00.001+01:00

My son is going to turn 4 in July. He has been at a montessori nursery in England since he was about 2 years old and when we left in January, he was happy in the routine of spending the mornings and a couple of full days at school. For the last 6 weeks since we've moved to Copenhagen, he's been at home with me whilst we tackle the question of whether he should go to a Danish børnehave (kindergarden) or the international pre-school. Tomorrow he starts school...

Before we moved here there was no doubt in my mind that the international pre-school was the answer. I figured that with all the change that was going on, he needed to be in an English speaking environment and putting him through the Danish system would only set him up for frustration and isolation. The international school followed the British key stage 1 and so if we returned to the UK, his education would not suffer.

However, since we've moved here I have given the matter further thought. By English standards, the Danish education system could be considered 'slow'. Danish children start school at the age of 6 and until then there is no formal teaching in literacy (reading or writing) or numeracy. The focus is on developing curiosity through play, allowing children to have a childhood and to learn the skills of socialisation (a feature at the heart of Danish culture).

The Danes also prize time spent playing outdoors and in every børnehave there is a playground and a good part of the day is spent in the fresh air. I have even heard of some where children are taken to the countryside all day to play in the forests and explore nature. These are all things that seem very attractive and valuable for children but for us there is still the language problem.

It was difficult to work out whether the attraction of the Danish system was a romantic dream or whether we wanted the børnehave to be part of our Danish adventure. I have spoken to so many other ex pat mothers about the decisions they've made and I've visited the børnehave to see for myself the learning through play. After much deliberation and heartache, we've made a decision and tomorrow a new chapter begins.

I actually don't believe that there is a right or wrong answer to the dilemma but isn't this true of most decisions we make as parents? Aren't there always benefits and sacrifices? We'll see. In the meantime, I know that I am going to miss him like crazy and in these pictures I am posting, I am sharing some of the wonderful highlights of the last 6 weeks.

Don't get me wrong, having a pre-schooler at home full time is hard work and there have been lots of tears and tantrums (and I'm not just referring to the kids!!). One of the other paradoxes of motherhood is the absolute love and absolute terror that children can instil. I love being a mother and I love my children. I don't know if I've made the right decision about school but I'm 100% certain that after getting up early tomorrow morning, cajoling him into his clothes, the bathroom and then downstairs into the bike, cycling for 25 minutes to get him there on time with his running commentary on the road, finding his peg and hanging up his new school bag, kissing and waving him goodbye, I'm going to miss my munchkin...

Cinnamon rolls - Kanelsnegl

2011-03-10T22:51:00.001+01:00

This week has been tough: hard work and unrelenting. I've been desperately seeking sublimity. And I found it hiding within the pages of my new Scandinavian cookbook and in the experience of baking my first batch of authentic cinnamon rolls.

Everyone knows that cinnamon rolls are at the heart of the Danish pastry scene. What is less widely known is that in Danish they are called kanelsnegl (cinnamon snails, commonly abbreviated to just snegl when ordering across the counter!!) and the cinnamon is in the filling, not the pastry dough (the dough contains ground cardamon).

I made cinnamon 'buns' at Christmas time using a recipe from my favourite food blog 101 cookbooks. However, that one was for 'buns' not 'rolls'(!) and called for dry active yeast, whereas this time I used the real thing!!

Some of my earliest memories of going food shopping with my mother included going to the 'deli' counter in our local supermarket (in my hometown of Middlesbrough in the north east of England!) and her asking for fresh yeast. It didn't come pre-packaged and couldn't be found in the big refrigerators, she had to go to the counter and ask for it and it was measured out for her. Apart from those early memories, I have never seen fresh yeast in the stores (I did once try to buy it at my local Waitrose in London, without any luck).

Here in Copenhagen, breadmaking seems to be a regular pastime. I will write more about this one day but my initial observations are that (i) every supermarket has a wide selection of breadmaking flours, (ii) nearly every basket at the checkout contains a bag of breadmaking flour and (iii) fresh yeast is for sale in 50g packets in the refrigerators next to the butter!!

Just buying the fresh yeast made this baking experience feel more authentic and immediately took me back to memories of my mother's baking, in itself a wonderful tonic. The recipe was from The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann and they worked a treat. The dough is proved twice and so this isn't a recipe to be rushed but in fact it was perfect for me: I love recipes that mean I can take breaks to give the two small children tugging at my apron strings some of my undivided attention. Dissolving fresh yeast in warm milk, mixing soft butter with cinnamon and sugar and painting the rolls with glaze - each step so beautiful and comforting.

Sublimity has been restored. I now have home made pastries for breakfast tomorrow and I have even managed to freeze some uncooked rolls for those mornings when I need a little something to go with my morning coffee.

By the way, HUGE thanks to my photography mentor over at Myriad Me for her hot tips on making up photo collages. Oh what fun...