Our Aarhus Adventure

I’m more than aware that this is the honeymoon phase and that the weather won’t always be this great. But, today, I took Sarah just a few hundred metres from where we live and I showed her a beach I’d discovered with Kit on our last visit.

The beach is pretty close to paradise and is so silent you can hear the air disturbance made by the flapping wings of overhead seagulls.

I took my first dip in the Baltic, which resembled a lake, it was so calm.

I plopped a couple of tins of Tuborg into the water to cool them off. Then spent some time retrieving them downstream.

Daisy’s made a great start at AAGE and I just wanted to share a photo of her second day at school. She loves it so much she tries to get out of the car before it stops. She just opens the door to school and doesn’t look back. More later...

Everyone in Denmark needs a CPR number to have access to citizen services such as the NHS, etc.

Daisy, in particular, needs her CPR because, without it, her school can’t get funding for her place and I have to pay it instead.

In order to get a CPR you all have to go to a government office with your birth certificate and passport. You also have to prove you can support yourself.

Daisy’s school had very kindly briefed someone at the CPR office so that we were expected, with the objective that we could get a CPR in a day.

When we arrived at the office, after a short wait, we saw someone who asked us for our resident’s permit. This is the form that proves that we’re staying in Denmark for at least a month.

We didn’t have this so we were asked to go to another office to get hold of it. I’d previously spoken to the people at this office from the UK and they assured me we’d get this paperwork pretty much on the spot.

One taxi ride later, we arrived at a very tidy government office in the suburbs. We were seen almost immediately and asked for a physical print out of our bank statement. Which we couldn’t supply without going away - and the office closed within the hour.

More of a problem was that we were told that our permit would take at least a month to supply, even with the bank statements printed out.

At least it was quick. It wasted half a day. It was boring and tiring and Daisy hated every minute of it. But it was quick.

We spent the first day or so on an emotional rollercoaster. The girls loved the house and I was relieved that it lived up to their expectations - in fact it exceeded them.

But we were tired and tearful much of the time. The beach was lovely. A friendly black cat had already adopted us. We were here.

Now, what? It looks like we’re on holiday but now we live here.

Haegvej is silent. You can hear the leaves rustle. You can’t hear the sea because there are no waves.

Daisy loves her tree house and the swing. She can’t decide what she wants to do, there is so much on offer. But she’s very tired and a bit overwhelmed by it all.

I unpacked the cycle trailer and we all went for a bike ride to the marina.

On the first Sunday we had coffee at Emerys in Risskov, just as I promised we would back in England.

Bright and early I retrieved the bikes and we had a quick coffee before hitting the road, with only Bremen and Hamburg in our way before the Danish border.

We had to stop at the services to find out that our cooker still wasn’t sorted at Scotland Road, which added unwelcome stress to our trip.

There were some very efficient German roadworks but the journey was simple and quick.

Ironically, the problems began as we crossed the border into Denmark.

We all cheered as we passed the European flag with ‘Denmark’ in the middle of it. Then we groaned as we got snarled up in a queue of traffic.

This was the first of three accidents and traffic jams before Aarhus. By now it was Friday early closing time so the traffic was predictably bad.

We passed roadside offices with empty car parks. Everyone seemed to be on our road.

Because I knew Aarhus a bit, I decided to go through the city. Which was a bad move as we got directed down to the docks.

Down there, the roads are a bit confusing. So it was a pretty bad time to drive down the wrong side of the road under a railway bridge facing an oncoming container truck, I admit.

Having survived this, we encountered a concrete block across the road near Dokk 1 (a big new building on the waterfront). So it was a u-turn and time to drive uptown and across to Risskov by a rather circuitous route.

Risskov was very familiar to me and there were even bits of town that Sarah and Daisy remembered from their one time there.

Finally, we trundled along the coast road. The sun was shining and the Baltic looked blue and calm.

All the planning was over. Haegvej was under our tyre tracks. This was our new home.

We drove through the fading light through the flatness, with the occasional windmill.

I think the Netherlands has some great cities but we didn’t see any of them. Certainly not through the back of the car because it was full of bags and boxes. It seems like some giant agri experiment. Just fields. No people.

We made good progress through the boredom. Ticking off one bit of motorway after another until we finally reached the German border and decided to call it a day. Well, night, at Rheine.

We pulled into a one-horse town in driving rain, struggling to detect the exit from the autobahn. We saw one woman walking down the high street and asked her for directions to a hotel. Her English wasn’t great but she tried her best.

Through a combination of exhaustion and disorientation we got a little lost within a few hundred metres. But who should pop up but the German woman. This time in her car. She pointed us in the right direction: a rather posh looking hotel.

Apparently, Sarah asked the guy on reception how much a room cost. When he asked her how much she’d like to pay, he offered to find us somewhere. He even made the booking. It was a motel close by.

Getting to this motel proved difficult because it was hidden behind what looked like a convenience store slash garden centre and dwarfed by a huge sign for an amusement arcade. Even the guys at Macdonalds across the road claimed to be unaware of its existence.

Fifteen minutes and a few bits of advanced motoring later, we pitched up in reception. It was actually a truck stop and burly drivers were tucking into beer and sausages, just to keep the stereotype alive. It looked like a dive but the woman behind the counter was delightful and the price was about the same as a Travelodge.

I was worried about the bikes and she wouldn’t let us take them in the room. However, she did offer a great solution to our problems. She gave me a ticket to the truck park around the back of the kitchens and then met me at the door, wheeling our bikes into their private area, inside the building.

The room itself was spotless. Daisy was impressed with the bunk bed, not least because there was a tiny packet of Haribo on each pillow and she claimed two.

It was not an unpopular truck stop, so we had to keep the window closed to avoid annoying Daisy. So, a sweaty night.

The Stena Britannica is one of the world’s biggest car ferries. Bloody huge.

Also, quite difficult to fill quickly. So, when the captain finally piped up to tell us that we’d be setting off an hour and a half later than on the timetable, our hearts sank. All due to some pesky containers that needed to be loaded.

This was like being in a floating shopping centre and food court. And the prospect of spending an hour and a half longer than necessary within it was not a great thought.

However, a man wearing a blue jacket with silver stars all over it with sticky-out teeth told us we’d still arrive on time. “They’ll just put another engine on," he told us.

This maritime expert was non other than the children’ entertainer. Sarah engaged him in conversation, during which she confirmed he was a ‘one week on, one week off’ kinda staff member.

After we finally chugged away, the grey North Sea blended very well with the grey sky.

We gorged ourselves on the picnic we’d almost prepared before setting off: Morrison’s rolls, corned beef and crisps.

A fat Brit sitting nearby in the window seat was irritating many by watching some action film on his phone with the sound turned up.

We met a Dane on board who told us he disliked Denmark and had moved to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which was lovely to hear.

I think that they were the interesting highlights of the trip. Travelling by sea is immensely civilised and un-rushed but it is dull and you need to be prepared to read books or watch boxed sets or something. Not turn up exhausted.

When we docked in Rotterdam and pulled alongside passport control, the handsome guard asked us where we were going. When we said ‘Denmark’ he laughed, looking at the avalanche of boxes and bags that were pushing the back of Sarah’s neck.

“Good luck," he said.

I’m writing this on Monday 31st August after some of the most stressful days I can remember. Paraphrasing it will omit tedious detail.

Moving house is known as one of the most stressful things you can do. And I can confirm that this belief is factually correct.

With days to go, our top-end (second hand) cooker decided to break, so we had to find a replacement quickly. A nice South African man living in Cambourne was the eventual answer. Except that, when the gas fitter eventually turned up to fit the cooker, the door didn’t close properly and we were told we needed new hinges. Amazingly we found someone who could supply and fit the hinges - after we left for Denmark. Which meant that Kit (Daisy’s brother) needed to be on hand. Back comes the gas fitter who then tells us it needs a right angled connection pipe that he doesn’t have. So we contact a fail-safe heating engineer who tells us he won’t fit previously enjoyed devices.

Meanwhile, with the Passat stuffed to the brim with boxes, we suddenly can’t find Daisy’s passport. Which was kind of important.

Thinking it might have been in one of the boxes in the car, I began to unpack it, whilst Sarah held back the tears in the kitchen, which was the only room left to finish off and clean.

After considering all worst-case scenarios, I decided to try looking in the new passport wallets. It was then I discovered that Daisy’s passport was next to Sarah’s.

Once our blood pressure had lowered to an acceptable state, we continued to get ready to go.

Kit very kindly offered to clear our fridge and freezer. Oh, and run a line of gloop around the bath. Sealant, I think they call it.

Then, time to set off. We took our final turn out of the gravel drive and trying to forget our over-crammed shed and door sills that hadn’t been finally painted.

The trip to Harwich was boring but it didn’t take long. Our Premier Inn was five minutes from the port and the girl on the desk was very amenable. I was worried about my three bikes being left on the roof of the car overnight. She told me to take them into the room. On the first floor.

Within half an hour we were toasting our trip with a drink in the bar downstairs, just before closing time. Then it was back to our room to spend the night with the bikes and full tea and coffee making facilities.

Last weekend was gorgeous so we met up with our dear friends Jamie and Erica and their three boys: Archie, Gus and Freddie.

Charlie, our dog, came too and seemed to love every minute.