Our Aarhus Adventure

Today we all went to Spanien, which is a municipal swimming pool and spa, right in the centre of town. The building is art deco and has hardly been altered. The pool is huge and overlooked by an enormous clock with hands the size of scaffold planks.

We had a quick splash before it was our allotted slot in the wellness centre - or Merchant Bath as it is sometimes called. This was on the top floor. Outside we could see snow-covered apartment blocks and parks. Inside was an immaculately clean, white tiled room, complete with steam rooms, saunas and plunge pools. They only let a certain number of people in at a particular time, so there was plenty of space to relax.

The amazing thing is that Daisy was allowed to use all the facilities. This is odd because in the UK she can’t use a jacuzzi until she’s eighteen.

At the end of our ninety minute slot, just after the girls went to get changed, I was joined in the sauna by just about everyone in the spa. Then a fitness instructor came in with a bucked full of ice. I don’t know what he was saying but he poured three glasses of ice onto the furnace, each pushing out a particular aroma, which he wafted throughout the room with a towel. Then he ladled ice onto our backs, one at a time. Very odd.

Outside, it was about minus three, which closed our pores pretty quickly.

All our guests have gone and this week saw the return of school. It was torture getting up with the 0625 alarm clock and venturing out into the streets with the wind chill making it feel like minus six. But on the first day I did it with Martha, Daisy’s elder sister.

The photograph below seems to capture the relationship between the two girls. Daisy loves having Martha around and she’s behaved so well. But she was quickly reminded that, as well as being spoiled by her elder, she’d be ‘guided’ to do things. In other words - pretty much her own words, actually - it was like having another parent.

On the bus we past a few remains of the firework party. Boxes full of cigar shaped holes from which multiple grenades had been launched. And even the odd, real, soggy cigar in the gutter.

Some of the streets still looked like a bomb had hit them and there were plenty of Christmas trees dumped by the bins. But, every now and then, a bin lorry would emerge or a conscientious resident, and the mess would be reduced a little.

January is a bad month for me and Sarah because we both leave it too late to file our accounts, with our personal tax payments needing to clear by the 31st. So the apartment has been awash with printed-out bank statements and invoices. In the background there’s always the tapping of calculator buttons.

After this week, normal business should resume.

It’s beginning to snow, with more forecast, so we’re going to get a proper winter out here.

It was great to have all the family together.

Kit was only over for one day due to work commitments. And Paddy left on 31st December to return to Berlin.

So, house full of girls again.

I’m not complaining.

New Year’s Eve is not a day I look forward to. All that organised fun, augmented by Jools Holland and sporadic updates of the impressive fireworks in Sydney.

This year, we didn’t know what to expect.

We’d heard the Danes like fireworks. This was confirmed when one exploded outside our apartment mid afternoon, turning the room orange and possibly changing the colour of underwear. It was probably lobbed from a car.

When our heart rates had settled, we watched an elderly couple taking it in turns to light rockets with their cigarettes, seeming to take no pleasure in it at all. By four o’clock, thousands of fireworks had been set off.

After dinner, we put on our coats and ventured down towards the city centre. We crossed the road and went down towards the beach. In the distance, the skies glowed red and orange.

As we got closer to town we decided to stop at one of the main intersections near the docks. A group of young men were clustered outside a 7/11 smoking cigars, drinking Champagne. All wearing dinner suits. Then some more party goers turned up and, every so often, placed what looked like a crate in the middle of the road. These were similar to grenades. Occasionally, a yellow bus would appear through the smoke. It was like Beirut on a bad day. There were fireworks coming out of every orifice.

We were offered Champagne from glass flutes and there was much shaking of hands.

What we saw was difficult to put into words. It was as if the Danes had allowed themselves to go crazy for one day. But it was all so good natured. No tottering teenage girls throwing up in a bus shelter. No bad behaviour of any kind that we could see.

After a good hour and a half of this onslaught, we walk back up the hill towards home. As we reached the high street we saw the remains of thousands of rockets and Catherine Wheels. The crowds were still there and a young guy was playing a saxophone. It was total carnage.

The best New Year ever.

We celebrated our first Christmas in Denmark with our good friends and old neighbours from Cambridge - Tara, Russell and their son Joss. They flew into Copenhagen and took the train to Aarhus on Christmas Eve. Our apartment was too small to fit them in so we found them an Air B&B apartment across the street. It felt good to be with familiar company. To be honest, it would have been strange to have been alone in a foreign country at this time of year.

Christmas Eve is the day of celebration in Denmark, with dinner being served at 6pm. So, when we met our friends at the station late in the afternoon, there was tumbleweed blowing through the streets and we were three of the only people on the bus. The city was totally deserted. All shops closed. Just Christmas lights and the odd whiff of roasted nuts seeping out from the closed-up street food stalls.

That evening was spent eating, drinking and catching up. Finding out what was happening on our old street.

Christmas Day started not too early. We opened our presents, had a great smoked salmon and poached egg breakfast, then went for a walk on the beach.

Dinner was typically Danish: pork, from the butcher down the road.

It was a great relief (for me) to not have to wear paper hats or watch the DFS Sale commercials.

I should say that the blog is a bit thin at the moment because I’m extra busy with guests.

Paddy, Martha and Kit arrive just as Tara, Russell and Joss leave.

The pic shows Daisy at the top of the steps of our local supermarket, where we just went to collect her parcel from Uncle Simon (Sarah’s brother).

En route, we stopped by the butcher on our street to pick up our joint of pork for Christmas lunch. What a fantastic little place. Well, it would be if they made proper sausages. But they do have turntable playing seventies music, in compensation.

Things have slowed down a little. I put up the remainder of our venetian blinds. Took a call from an Irish client who makes high-absorption iron tablets. Now I’m cooking a Boxing Day lunch with the leftover turkey that we won’t be having but have substituted with chicken.

Even the bus conductor police are wishing people God Yule.

I met a man called Esben who made the benches for our kitchen at the office. Here are the ones he recently made for our apartment. They’re made from scaffolding board.

Last evening at my office (SJAK27) threw a little party for all those who worked there and their families. It was called a ‘Juleklip’. Literal meaning: Christmas clipping. An opportunity to make Christmas decorations.

We arrived at the office to be greeted by the smell of Glogg, which is a kind of mulled wine the Danes have at this time of year. Sander, the landlord, was stirring a cauldron of the stuff as the kids climbed the stairs into what is usually the meeting room.

All the kids were girls and the age range wasn’t too wide. After an initial period of sussing out, they began to get together. Within half an hour they were limbo dancing downstairs in the kitchen, while the adults struggled with paper folding.

A tray of cakes came into the room, all nicely warmed up. A kind of mini profiterole shaped doughnut you dunk into strawberry jam and icing sugar.

Things moved on and we eventually went out to get Mexican food, which we all ate together whilst watching Danish television.

At just before 9pm, a full five and a half hours after arriving, we went our separate ways. The girls had all made new friends and Sarah had been welcomed by all at my office.

While I was in the UK, Sarah tracked down a sofa on DBA - the Danish eBay. We went to look at it this morning in a place called Lystrup, which is just a few kilometres north of town. It was made by Bolia, a very high-end Danish brand and, although not perfect, was in great condition. So we came home, measured up and decided to buy it.

Time to bring the Passat out of retirement again.

It went in, just about, with the boot lid tied down.

It came out alright, too, with Sarah’s assistance. But it was far too heavy for us to get upstairs.

So we enlisted the assistance of a couple of young lads who were in the street.

Together, with a couple of sticking points on the way, we negotiated the four flights of stairs to the second floor.

It completes our home, which we’ve made from scratch in a little over three weeks.