Jan 2016 — We are not Great Danes

This year, January is brought to you by the letter A.

I begin by confessing that TLG and I were appalling at Danishness this month. On the morning after Twelfth Night, I was surprised to see Christmas trees outside our house (see photo). Look…

Feb 2015 — Prologue

On a dark, cold evening last February I was walking my two terriers (see photo) along the beach at Emsworth in Hampshire (UK) after a hard day revising navigation skills for my upcoming day skipper sailing course, when I received an unexpected email. It was from the European Commission:

Dec 2015 — ATOMS, Austria and Æbleskiver

Copenhagen continues to be wonderful not least because Christmas starts with a bang — full blast and twinkling — here. Everything is very pretty which goes some way to ameliorating the dampening effect of walking The Terrible Terriers in the dark at either…

Oct 2015 — MUS, MUN and moose

It was a bit strange to spend most of my second month living in Denmark travelling to other places. The first week I was actually in Copenhagen. It was taken up with administration, including preparing for and having my first “Medarbejderudviklingssamtal,” known as a MUS…

Nov 2015 — Dansk er dejlige og dårlig

(Danish is delightful and dreadful)

This month felt more settled because I wasn’t travelling away from Copenhagen much but this was somewhat undermined by the turmoil of beginning an intensive Danish course. Previous experience of the…

Sep 2015 — Setting the sails

Our first big event at the CTR was the annual boot camp, which included sailing two Viking ships in Roskilde under expert tuition (see photo of our skipper with me at the tiller). We rowed out into the bay (surprisingly easy) and then voyaged afar (well, to the other side of…

Aug 2015 — Riding the right road

I arrived in Copenhagen to venture along a new road in life in August 2015 with a few essentials: a house to live in (details to follow), some random Danish words (more on this later too) and a bicycle — The Trusty Steed (see photo). I rode the nine-minute commute to the…