normal transmission resumes at …

BARNIKLE

where stories and pictures of the things we do will be posted intermittently at best. Hope to see you there!

The end.

And so, our great Danish adventure comes to an end. After a last rushed day of trading bikes (we decided not to bring them with us, due to freight time and costs, additional tax costs etc etc), last minute packing and cleaning, we made our way to the hotel at the airport to spend our last night, in preparation for our early morning flight on Sunday.

The restaurant in the hotel had Julefrokost (hooray! we all know how much I love that!) AND æbelskiver, so I got to indulge in my favourite Danish foods one last time. After a restless night due to nervousness (30 hours traveling with small children?! WHAT were we thinking?!) and excitement (we are going HOME!!!), we made our way to the terminal and onto the plane. Where we waited nearly two hours for the plane to be de-iced due to the unexpected snowfall.

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It’s our last day … the lake finally froze!

Goodbye Copenhagen, goodbye Østerbro. Thanks for all the memories

snow!

For some time now, Hugo has been talking about how it will snow before we go home … I was a bit dubious, it’s not usual to get that much snow fall in December. However, yet again his dreams were fulfilled and we had quite a snowfall overnight. It’s really lovely to look at, but it’s a bit awkward to get around in. If it’s actually snowing, it’s just painful to ride the bike and have snow blowing in my eyes and face. And after a day or so, the snow compacts into ice and gets slippery. My frustration knew no bounds when, on arriving home *after* the preschool drop off, the snow plow went past our gate, clearing the bike path GRRRR!!! Still, I am so glad we experienced snow once more before we go home.

St Lucia Festival of Lights

St Lucia’s Day is celebrated on 13 December. On Tuesday evening all the children at Hugo’s preschool performed the St Lucia song for parents and grandparents. Actually Hugo told me he didn’t want to go because he didn’t know the song and he didn’t want to sing it so I encouraged him to stay with the other kids even if he didn’t want to sing. As it happened NONE of the children sang, but the teachers did a great job haha.

One of the anomalies of living in Australia is that we have a very “European” idea of Christmas, with snow and reindeer and candles and all those seasonally inappropriate things. It’s actually much easier to understand Christmas from a European experience. To have good food, candles, bright trees, gifts and a festival of light in the midst of long, dark nights and short, dark days is something to celebrate and look forward to.

More Tivoli, and Julefrokost.

Lights at Tivoli, taken at 4pm (by which time, it’s basically dark).

It’s no secret that I’m not that keen on Danish food. Rollmops? Eww. Chocolate sandwiches? Blech. But …. we went to a restaurant in Tivoli which is known for it’s traditional Christmas meal (Julefrokost) and it. was. delicious! I *think* it’s basically roast pork, potatoes and redcabbage which sounds a bit … bleh … actually but to eat OH YUM!! And followed by delicious rice pudding (I am a BIG fan of rice pudding).**

Also, at Christmas time they make the æbelskiver (I think that’s how it’s spelt), it means apple slices. It’s basically a spherical pancake and it is YUMMY! I need to learn how to make these! Hugo in particular is very fond of them, dipped in jam and powdered sugar.

** To add, we subsequently were lucky enough to share in home made Julefrokost with one of Simon’s colleagues and it was even better, so so delicious!

Christmas tree festival!

Hugo’s preschool had a Christmas Tree festival on Thursday. All the parents were invited and the kids decorated the trees and consumed copious amounts of æbelskiver.

I have to say, until now, we really haven’t had much to do with “Santa”. It’s really just never come up in a significant way. However, Santa (or Julemanden, the Danish equivalent) is a huge thing at preschool. Hugo ASSURES me that they met the REAL julemanden at preschool. So at an age when most children are starting to get skeptical, he is suddenly starting to believe it. Sophie just hangs off everything Hugo tells her so she’ll be interested for as long as he is.

Guess what is open for Christmas?

Yes! Tivoli!! Hooray ….

Hugo speaks Danish.

It’s hard for me to get footage of this, because he just won’t speak Danish to me. (”You don’t understand Danish Mummy”). I know he will lose it quickly once we’re home and not using it anymore so I really wanted to get some footage of it.

We went to England for the weekend

We wanted to see Granny and Grandad at least once more before we go back to Australia so we decided to go to England for the weekend. Also, I was really missing ‘normal’ supermarkets so I was very keen to visit a Waitrose  and gaze in awe at the amazing cereal aisle (I *miss* choice in cereal).

We stayed in Cambridge, which was lovely. Hugo was devastated when we got off the plane and realised we weren’t heading to Granny and Grandad’s IMMEDIATELY to play with his electric trains. The flight over was just me and the kids … it was ok, but not great and I’m not too keen to fly on my own with them again any time soon. It *seemed* like a good idea to buy a little lego box for each of them before we got on the plane. Ok … small lego, tiny tray, turbulance - so NOT a good idea. Just in case you’re wondering.

We had a really nice time with Granny and Grandad (and the electric trains) right up until I thought to myself “aww the children are playing so nice and quietly in the next room” and walked in to discover Sophie colouring the carpet in with lipstick ARGH!! We did get it out (thank goodness) but I am reminded yet again that *Quiet Children* is usually a reason to WORRY

On Sunday we filled in a few hours before our plane at Westfields London, and honestly, we could have almost been in Bondi Junction. Westfields is so generic, right down to the Boost Juice bars and hoards of parents pushing bugaboo prams. I reveled in the pre-Christmas unbridled selfish consumerism for a little while (shopping centres like that don’t really exist in Denmark), but it was a bit tiring as well.

River Cams + Bridge = Cambridge.