School supplies

I thought I'd take a photo of the local supermarket's 'back to school' aisle tonight to give you all a laugh. That is it in its entirety! No commercial hype here then...

On further inspection, however, I found something that would go down a treat at home and I have never seen there.

Reusable stretch covers for jotters. I know so many teachers and parents who'd love these back home!

Music reinstated

My kids did music back home. Léon is starting his 7th year old violin and was a member of East Ren youth orchestra and East Ren folk band. Anna was about to go into her 3rd year of guitar and Amaia had just finished year one of viola. They had group lessons that lasted half an hour a week. Léon had taken it for granted he would continue here as he has a real ear for music and loves everything about it. Both girls, despite having asked to play, seemed fairly indifferent to their lessons at home. They would have continued out of habit, but given the choice of starting somewhere new, they might just have likely opted out here. Thomas decided to let them try for a term before deciding so signed them up here on arrival. Here the lessons are individual, so it wouldn't be so much a chat to your music mates thing as a serious music thing.

Music lessons started back yesterday. Both girls looked fairly aghast when they were told they were to meet alone with a Danish music teacher and started tentatively trying to wriggle out - I'm not sure music is really for me. I can't go, I don't know the names of the notes in Danish etc etc

We dragged Anna in like a dog at the vets and went back after half an hour to a very changed opinion! She came out leaping and squealing with joy: Kristian is the coolest guy I ever met, Mum, he is a music teacher but he turned up in a string vest and shorts and a cap and has tattoos and piercings and this cool electric guitar and he says he'll teach me Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber and everything! I never want to give up music ever. I want to be a singer when I grow up!

Half an hour later Amaia, who had entered 'Agata's' room staring at her feet like a little mouse, bounced back to the car too: Agata is from Poland and she can speak Danish and English and German and she's going to teach me real songs unlike the boring stuff Rachel did at home. And she's so funny and sweet and helpful and she wants me to go with her on a music trip to Norway. When can I go mum, when? She's the best teacher I have ever had in anything!!!

Well that was a success! When it came Léon's turn to have Agata too, he had been signed up by the end of the hour to her lessons, her classical orchestra, her folk group, for a starring role in her musical, to a trip to Norway and to her talented musicians programme. And he spent the whole trip home wondering if he should become a music teacher when he grows up!

Well, I wasn't expecting that.

Home-owner once again

Looks like we've bought ourselves a wee house 😀 It comes with its own spare field (for the campers amongst you - though Thomas is muttering something about having always wanted his own vineyard!) and mature orchard and is 2km from the girls' school and 3km from Léon's.

Here's the schedule: https://www.edc.dk/alle-boliger/veflinge/5474/rug%C3%A5rdsvej-821/?sagsnr=54702033
And a video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M9KgFK1B5Q4

At the moment it has a big garage (75m2) but given it also has a couple of barns in the back field we can use for things like bikes, tools, BBQs chest freezers and similar, we're going to stick three more rooms in there so were have plenty visitor space for all the family and friends we and our kids have invited over 😊

And it is all just in time - we found out when we were signing the paperwork that in Denmark you need to be resident for over five years to buy property unless you are an EU citizen - another perk we're losing - but I might just have got in there by the skin of my teeth.

I'll be boring you all with photos as soon as we get the keys. How about that turret though - I've always wanted my own turret!😂

Oh this is interesting: I knew it was originally a farmhouse that had been converted by the builder who currently owns it, but I didn't think I'd manage to find a photo of it in its original state on the Internet. How sweet... it was so tiny, with a thatched roof no less - awwwwh.

Back to school - where is all the stuff?

I'm sitting here listening to Virgin radio's breakfast show as I do every day after the school run... apparently according to this morning's 8am news the 'back to school' market in the UK represents the third biggest peak in shopping in the UK after Xmas and Black Friday with parents spending an estimated £1.2 billion on all the things kids need for going back to school.

That is very interesting from my position here in my mainland Europe 'brexile'! I was saying to Thomas last night that when I was getting the kids ready for going back to school today, I was amazed (and relieved) at how little it cost me compared to back home (I bought two bags at a tenner each). There is the obvious no uniform or PE kit so nothing to buy there but it struck me yesterday, I haven't actually seen anything much in the shops encouraging parents to bankrupt themselves... there are no more school bags, pencil cases, lunchboxes in the shops than there have been any other day since I first visited back in April. There is no more stationery than ever there is. I have seen a total of one 'Back to School' sign hanging in a shop (in Deichmann's in Odense Rosengårdcentret - basically the equivalent of Braehead - above the trainers(!), just like home, not!)

The hype and hysteria I associate with Back to School is just missing altogether. There isn't any great pressure to throw out last year's bag or pencil case and replace it with a new one, unless it is worn or broken. There are no queues round the block outside the hairdresser's! It all feels much less stressful as if sense rather than commercial pressure is driving the back to school period.

Back to school 2019

It's been the weirdest back-to-school period in all my 17 years of parenting... I keep wakening up in a cold sweat wondering when it'll come to me what I've forgotten, because, surely I must have forgotten something? Especially as it has cost me next to nothing! Seriously😲

Back in June I ordered two new school bags as Anna's and Amaia's were a bit past their best, Léon had recently got a sporty one so didn't need one. Unlike in previous years, no lunch boxes were ordered because they don't use those here. So, I have ordered no shirts, no trousers, no pinafores, no skirts, no ties, no jumpers or cardies, no long grey socks, and no long white ones. I have not had to drag them to Giffnock to buy hoodies with logos, sports tops, or PE kits. Blazers have neither been ordered in a larger size, nor dry-cleaned. No overpriced braiding to denote their school year or achievements has been added either. I have not walked the full length of Silverburn and Braehead with a sulking daughter in tow refusing every pair of black school shoes on sale. I have not been compelled to force my daughters into these shoes that are so hopeless against the Scottish climate. I have not cried in frustration when the only two styles of skirt acceptable at the high school are too loose or too long when tried on in shop after shop all over Glasgow and beyond. Nor have I had to fill my basket with drab Scottish-climate-grey clothing that adds to the further depressing monotones of a November morning. The tiny p1s here (who are 6 to 7, not 4 or 5) won't have to fight tiny shirt buttons over and over all term long. I've not had to order primary rain coats and winter coats that they'll refuse to wear on weekends, so are surplus to necessity. I won't even need to dread waiting for Léon to come out with his usual twice or three times a year favourite phrase 'I was playing football at lunch time and the sole came off my (black, Italian dress) shoes so, can we go buy another pair (10 miles away at a minimum cost or £35) preferably before tomorrow as I'm not allowed to wear anything else'... I'm sure didn't need that extra £100 a year for anything anyway. 😐

The Real Madrid strip Amaia has worn all summer will be her PE kit. Anna is more grown up so has chosen to wear her leggings and a t-shirt of her choice. They will wear their cheap jeans on the colder days with any t-shirt or hoodie they choose. When it is hot, they'll wear shorts, crop tops, vest tops. When it rains they'll put on a waterproof anorak, when it snows they can wear a hoodie, a woolly jumper or a snowsuit should it please them. I've even seen the smaller kids here turn up on wet days (of which there have been very few 😀) in outdoor onesies made of waterproof material. How sensible!

I remember teachers at home always saying they hated 'dress as you please' days because the kids couldn't concentrate in their own clothes... of course, that was because their own clothes were a novelty, which made the day exciting and different. There was also the stress and pressure of what to wear to be accepted, conform, not stand out or stand out the way you wanted to... but again these stresses just don't exist when it's an everyday event and all you know. It is every day and mundane and in the same way Charlotte doesn't stress every day about what to wear to uni, she simply sticks on her jeans and a top from New Look or similar, the kids have already started finding it normal to dress as they would on a weekend. After three weeks at school last term, they had already ascertained there was no peer pressure to wear specific brands or styles here, they all dressed completely boringly in shorts, jeans or leggings with a t-shirt or jumper.

Amaia is obsessed with llamas at the moment so wants to express her personality through t-shirts with llamas on, or Inca patterns. Anna likes short pretty-coloured t-shirts so that will be her theme this year. Léon will probably use his t-shirts sporting various geographical locations - he has a Honolulu, an Oslo, a California, a Vancouver etc. That says something about who he is. He has his bright purple Fiorentina football top too that he might wear when the fancy takes him and has asked for a Scotland football strip for his birthday so no one will ever be in any doubt as to where he's from. They are becoming individuals in the own way and that pleases me.

To be able to wear sandals on a hot day and not feel uncomfortable all day made them practically purr every morning in June. To wear waterproof jackets with hoods in the rain was a welcome change for Léon after two years in a very heavy when wet woolly blazer. I know technically their high school allowed winter jackets as long as they were removed at the front door and stored in lockers but because removing and storing was a hassle, almost no one could be bothered. I'd say less than 5% of the kids wore anything other than the blazer. So on the worst and wettest winter days, kids were seen climbing the hill in a hoody and blazer, soaked through and miserable looking, and presumably took a long time to dry off.

At school the girls will each be given a tablet to do their work on and Léon will receive a laptop as standard issue from his, so there will be no status wars there either - they are all on an equal footing here, no matter their background, which is lovely.

I know uniform is divisive - many love it, especially those who grew up with it. I don't think I ever questioned it till I taught in France. And I'm sure many will complain they just don't look smart like they did (pictured here last year) at home and yes, being in strict schools in East Ren, mine did look very smart, but although I adored their schools, both academically and for their warmth and nurturing atmosphere, I was never a great fan of the uniform, especially after the primary scrapped the poloshirts and sweatshirts in favour of old-fashioned shirts and ties seven years ago.

I always felt:

• They didn't look comfortable and even complained they felt the shirts were choking them.
• They weren't waterproof or adapted to the Scottish climate and often turned up home with shoes so full of rain they needed to be emptied out!
• Blazers - wool or otherwise - in Scotland, need I say more?
• They didn't look like children, more like little grey or black cloned business men.
• Their shoes weren't conducive to running about like kids should.
• Ties? Seriously? For either gender.
• None of their personality could shine through... I could tell nothing about them and their friends, their likes or dislikes.

So today, for the first time since Marcel left nursery in 2002, my kids will start school fully as themselves. Let's see where this adventure takes them.

How to make yourself a popular parent

Having Danish nephews and nieces at school over the last decade or more, I know that the two sets of school holidays almost always coincide exactly. They might have an extra day at one end of a week off, us at the beginning. Very occasionally October is off by a week and they always go back sooner in January but in general there's nothing shocking... until this summer. I noticed at the beginning of the holidays that because of the way the days fall this year in August, our schools back in Scotland have opted for 19/8, probably the latest back-to-school I've ever seen in 17 years, and Denmark had opted for 12/8, possibly the earliest ever. As the kids, for now, would still prefer to be returning to the schools they know and love back home, I thought this was going to be a hard sell, so had to start dropping my bomb as early as possible.

For six weeks, I've been drilling in the Danish date but passing as quickly as possible over the Scottish one, complete with fake coughing and distraction techniques where possible - oh look, a squirrel!

Last night I warned tonight would be an early night (School starts at 8-10am here). I even woke them up early so they'd be very tired tonight. Then I thought I had better log on to both schools' parents' intranet sites just to double-check the procedure - this is our first back to school here after all, so I didn't want the kids looking daft if I forgot something. There was a lovely message from each of the main class teachers welcoming them to the new term. Amaia's told her to bring school bag, pencil case, PE kit, food, water, her headphones for computer work and all the good humour she could muster... when classes resumed at 8-10am on Tuesday... Wait, Tuesday?! I checked the other two, it said the same date. So apparently when the webpage said they were on holiday till 12/8, it meant 'inclusive'. Oops! I was so close to dumping them all in different towns tomorrow at 8am then buggering off till between 2-10pm and 3-30pm! Shit! The positive is that the kids were so psyched up for tomorrow being D-day, they are now super excited by their one-day holiday extension, and haven't even noticed their mates back home have their feet up for an extra four days. 

Result! (albeit, accidental)

Training for a change

At the age of eighteen I put on my first rucksack and it didn't come off again till I was 31! And even then it gave up on me rather than the other way round. With Marcel in a papoose on the front and my trusty friend on my back, I set out for Frankfurt main airport one winter's day and although Marcel and I ended up in London, the trusty friend ended up in Osaka of all places (it was better travelled than me!), and by the time it was repatriated, it was in several pieces - thanks British Airways!

I was young in the pre-Ryanair era. I wanted to see Europe but I was a student with no money so that meant two things - Interrail or Eurolines! I never went any further than Metz (via London, Amiens and Paris - 1000 miles) on Eurolines - 1000 miles was my knees' bus limit! Anything over 1000 miles was train material. And, of course, there was no Channel tunnel either so I spent many an overnight lying on the floor of the Ostend or Dieppe ferry fighting to retain my dinner despite the best efforts of the winter waves. My ferry to Dieppe once broke down within sight of the French coast but in such bad weather that they were forced to leave us spinning out of control for about four hours before the weather calmed down enough to tether us and drag us in. I think I was the only one that night who successfully kept down all their food. Many ferry hours had taught me that lying on the floor gave you the best chance of winning against sea sickness! By the time I reached Paris that night, my connection was long gone and another night was spent on a station bench alone - all 1m60 of me, lying on top of my rucksack to keep it safe, dodging flashers in the night!

Taking trains alone all over Europe as an 18 year old when you are my size taught me loads of life lessons. I learned how to protect myself from unwanted male attention. It isn't a lesson I particularly wanted to have to learn but it is a lesson that served me well in life. The first time I got on a train alone (the Glasgow to London at the age of 15) I woke up after dozing off to come face to face, or more correctly face to genitalia with an unwelcome morning alarm call. Seriously, you need to be sad to sit masturbating in a train carriage beside a child. By 18 I had learned not to choose a compartment alone, to board the train not an hour before departure when you could easily get a seat, but six or seven minutes before when there were still seats but also plenty of protective witnesses. That way you could choose who to sit beside rather than having them decide because you were on first. I learned to latch on to other women, or family groups. I learned on many train journeys to Italy that if you looked a wee bit wee and vulnerable and skinny, some huge mamma or nonna would take you under her wing and force-feed you from the bag of cold pizza, pasta and salad they always had in tow!

Apart from that, training through Europe taught me some useful strategies for coping with the unexpected. When a train didn't stop where you expected to change (I once ended up in Rome at 6am when the train sped through my change in Florence in the middle of the night), you had to come up with a new route, new tickets, you had to charm controllers into allowing you to use your original ticket where possible, you had to find a different point in your journey to eat, you had to jump out and find a call box to phone ahead if you were being picked up. Those life skills were all infinitely useful for adult life. You learned when to play the dumb foreigner, and when being fluent in their language worked better.

But more than that, you met interesting people, you watched the landscape change - I still vividly remember Lyon is the point in Europe where the ground turns from green to brown any time after June. I know Avignon is about the limit for natural olive plantations and I know there is nothing more majestic than the first time you train down Italy looking out at sunflower field after sunflower field.

You see places you'd never have seen. I went by train from Konstanz to Venice (via Switzerland, Milan and Verona) in my early 20s with my still great friend Gillian. Had we flown, we'd have had a lovely week together in Venice. As it was, we took the train, so when we passed through Lugano, we looked at each other, said - look at that beautiful place, jumped off the train and found a hostel and extended our trip by four whole days!

So last month when Charlotte had a 12 day gap between two au pairing jobs in Madrid, I was secretly pleased when she decided to get a cheap ticket to cross part of Europe by train, alone. Lots is a plane baby - she had family abroad so was on a plane by twelve weeks old, long before she ever saw the inside of a bus or train. She flew from Madrid to London, visited Marcel and Milly, then hopped on the Eurostar - another experience none of my kids has ever had. That is weird to me. I went on Eurostar the first week it opened, when they were still handing passengers sparkling wine to celebrate. I didn't have anywhere specific to go, I just fancied trying it as I'd done ferries and planes to death!

Charlotte went through England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany over the course of fourteen hours. She had to deal with a train arriving too late in Hannover for her connection. (Unlike me at that age, Charlotte is a Spanish speaker, not a German speaker so that added another layer of complexity). She then had to deal with missing the Hamburg-Flensburg direct train so having to work out Neumünster was a reasonable next stop to look for a train to Flensburg. She arrived at 10pm so learned how it felt as the train thinned out as darkness fell and she got to see all of Germany.

When I picked her up in Flensburg, to save her the final 90 minute train to Funen, she had grown up a little more.

As an addendum to this post which I wrote, other than the last few lines, a couple of weeks ago, but then got distracted... This sadly comes the day after the UK decided that going forward Interrail wasn't worth preserving for the youth of today, after nearly fifty years. I truly hate the insular, sad, angry little country the UK is becoming. It is as if they looked at my life and picked it apart. Interrailing isn't ok, marrying EU nationals isn't ok, living with them in the UK isn't ok, being a dual national kid makes you inferior, and god forbid you should bring your family up bilingually when monolingual is an option.

Home is no longer home. Home no longer exists.😢

-----STOP PRESS-----

I hear that almost as soon as I hit publish, the Interrail ban got reversed - didn't know I was so powerful, lol - good news for the kids though.

Bazar Fyn

We quickly discovered Bazar Fyn in Odense on arrival here the first time back in April. The vast majority of the people shopping in it seem to be of middle eastern descent, some speaking Danish but many speaking more exotic and exciting languages. It is a wonderful market; it's Denmark's biggest ethnic minority market and definitely the place to go for the freshest veg and best quality meat around.

They even have yellow watermelons!

There are so many different spice stalls, we'll need to order very little from eBay going forward (the only two missing staples I've noticed so far are Kashmiri chilli powder and chipotle flakes.) It has every type of biryani kit that my Pakistani friends back home have recommended to me and more and the most comprehensive nut stall I've ever seen.

There is a middle section full of restaurants with the most outrageously large portions of all things Persian, Turkish and more.

I had to laugh at their categorizing of me on my first visit. I bagged up some fresh chillis for making a curry at home and went to the counter. The little Turkish man on the till told me I couldn't have them! I asked why and he tried to explain in a mix of hand gestures and broken Danish that they were too strong for people like me! I explained back that I wasn't Danish, but Scottish and that in Scotland we happily eat loads of Scotch bonnets and birds-eyes. He looked almost paternally proud and then conceded that if I actually knew what I was letting myself in for he'd happily sell me my wee bag of chillis, he had just been worried I was some naive chilli amateur who could have been killed by the after-effects of eating this wee bag full 😂 I think we are going to become his best customers, going forward.

Tanking the economy

As far as I can see, the majority of people who voted for Brexit in England did so because they had reached breaking point on the back of years of austerity and they wanted their lives to get better (not logical in the slightest, I know, but they genuinely believed things had hit rock bottom and Brexit offered a new and better future.) The EU was a great scapegoat, but killing off the scapegoat rarely improves your situation. That is why, if Boris goes through with his version of Brexit, he better also be investing in the space program, as he's going to need a one-way ticket to Mars, when the angry hoards come after him when things get even worse.

Watching from abroad, you get a much clearer view of what's going on back home, and the most striking for us this week has been the transfer of our house sale funds from the UK. The house sale went through on 19/7, but it took until 25/7 for the cheque to clear and be available to move out of the UK. We authorised the transfer of the money exactly 24 hours after Boris came to power (trying to minimise any damage his loose-cannon talk might cause), we locked in an exchange rate (thank god), but by the following Tuesday it still hadn't showed up in our bank account here. Thomas rang the banking transfer company to ask what the hell was going on and we were told it was taking much longer than usual as 'people trying to remove cash from the UK at the end of last week had hit an unprecedented level'.

Fortunately for us the money turned up on Wednesday. Interestingly, we checked exchange rates and had we not locked in a rate the previous Thursday, we would have lost fully £5000 in the space of five days. That's not loose change - that's a second-hand car!

Going forward, paying for the Charlotte's room in Glasgow, hiring a car or letting the kids buy their clothes on trips home is going to be easier, but this is not good. Everything imported into the UK will get dearer (and let's face it, the UK imports everything, more or less). Holidays for the rest of my family will become prohibitive. Affording to buy in necessities such as medicine will become harder. The hostile environment has already put off the majority of healthcare workers and similar applying to come to the UK, the rest will be put off by the exchange rate. Working abroad is much less attractive if you can no longer afford to go home on a holiday.

I'm desperately worried for my country, at least in the short term. I cling to the hope that when they come to their senses, they will come there big time and things may turn round forever, but in the meantime, I have kids back home, and a mother and brother with a family, I have dear friends. Watching the madness unfold with the clarity of distance, in a country where things are just turning over normally, is almost harder than being in the midst of it all.

Garden benches for Nordic peoples

I'd have loved one of these back in Scotland. Lots of the public benches and picnic tables here in Funen have wee wind-breaker walls incorporated around them and then they are placed against the most common wind direction, so you can happily have an outdoor picnic without your hair blowing off even on less sunny days than we have been having recently. What a good idea.

CPH

I love these new murals they have put in in Copenhagen airport. They made me smile on arrival a couple of weeks ago.

Danish numbers in 'mixed marriages'

A trip to the local supermarket just made me smile...

I've been to the supermarket three times today (why don't Danes sell milk in decent-sized cartons?!) So this time, as Thomas was along too, I said I'd wait in the car. Sitting with all the windows open as the weather is nice, I observed a couple approaching the Danish car parked next to mine. He was carrying a three year old boy who was wriggling and kicking, she was carrying a one year old boy who was alternating between floppy and rigid in that annoying way babies do when they are on the wind-up. Between them they were also carrying shopping bags and obviously reaching the end of their collective tether. He was ranting at her in Danish, she was looking grumpy. She waited for him to shut up the said in a Slavic accent, in English, - I told you I can't understand Danish numbers! He ranted some more, again in Danish and the last words he said were fire og tredive. She snapped... English, Oliver, English - Just tell me in fucking English! He swore in Danish, looked stressed and harassed, stopped said fire og tredive to himself slowly while tracing his finger in the air, from right to left, then turned to her and sighed deeply... forty three, he said finally. See, that wasn't so hard, she said condescendingly as she keyed 43 into her phone.

Snigger!

Time to learn to crochet?

As a small child I spent my Friday nights at my granny's. Granny knitted all her own cardies so I learned to knit. I don't knit much these days, but occasionally it's my de-stress mechanism - between Brexit and emigrating, I might soon have a blanket for each of my kids!

My mum always crocheted blankets, but I never learned to crochet. I know these days with YouTube it is easy to pick up but I've never really got round to it. I checked it out at one point a couple of years ago but it seemed so much slower than knitting, I quickly lost interest.

Denmark is much more artsy and craftsy than home - in so much as wool is available in every high street and supermarkets. There's even a wool shop that specialises in crochet patterns on Bogense main street. I must admit these patterns for VW camper vans are so cute, I might find myself back on YouTube for a tutorial or two in the near future. (And dare I ask - is that maybe a Chuggy pattern top left?!?!?)

Fastfood phonetics

I was in McDonald's last week... well, there's a phrase you don't hear me say often (it was 1am and I was driving from Copenhagen to Funen so the options were few and far between). It's an occurrence so seldom, in fact, that my nearly-12-year-old daughter was shaking with excitement at the prospect of tasting her first 'big mac' ever - child cruelty, I know but I have standards to keep up!

Anyway - it turned out to be more educational than I had expected. They had various options on the menu that they felt the need to explain the pronunciation of, and as an English native (who has both French and Italian), I have to say their suggestions raised an eyebrow or two! If this is how I need to pronounce these words here in Denmark to be understood, I may have a difficult hill to climb ahead of me.

Hollyhocks

When Thomas and I bought our first house with a garden (12 years ago), the first thing he wanted to plant was hollyhocks. I'd had a garden before and knew the word hollyhock but to be honest I couldn't have picked one out at an identity parade had my life depended on it. I think I vaguely thought they were probably some berry-based plants that looked like holly bushes!

I first noticed them here in 2016 on a wander round Aarhus. They were in the more built up residential areas sticking out of pavements. Now I'm on Funen, I realise they are everywhere. Danes love these tall, straggly beasts standing guard over their city houses and farm courtyards.

I had better pick a lot of seeds from my garden in Scotland to take out on my final farewell when I empty the house there so I can plant them all round my future home.

Den fynske Landsby

Everything on Funen is Hans Christian Andersen. He was born in Odense, so he's everywhere. I use the statues of him to navigate my way home from Odense - I already know which one to turn right or left at...

So, yesterday I discovered they had preserved a whole village within the city boundary of Odense(!) from HCA's time! This isn't a small place - it is a full-sized village. I thought it might make a nice wee day out. There are farm houses, smokeries, a manse, a fully-working windmill, a watermill, and much more. Even the pigsty is thatched! OMG - it is the cutest place I have ever been in Denmark! After a few hours inside, I marched up to the reception and asked for an annual membership. I fully intend to take every single person who visits me here on a day trip there! 😁

How to make kids attend on the last day of term

For the seven years the kids were at primary school, getting them in on the last day of term was never an issue, though it did seem fairly pointless. They'd watch a Disney movie or play a board game, then return home early, cheering loudly as they left the building. The biggies attended a high school with over 1200 kids. As soon as they started there, it became clear that attending on the last day of term was not the cool thing to do, by any stretch of the imagination. Already by the last week you needed thumb screws to get them out of bed as they claimed they were doing nothing of any use and instead of the usual huge traffic jam up Waterfoot road, there would be fewer than 20 cars on the hill. The last day often took a serious amount of blackmail. I made them go in, much to their disgust, and they would be corralled into a class with the other four or five kids from their 250+ year with parents as evil as me, once again to watch the first 50 minutes of a movie in each class before the bell rang! I never fully worked out whether the teachers and council would prefer us just to throw in the towel and give up altogether, or persevere. I was also often amazed that if I did manage to get them in (as one of about 10% of the kids who showed up), the school office would phone angrily if they dared to leave just twenty minutes before the end of the day, even if it was during the lunch break. All in all, the last day of the high school term was a complete washout and best forgotten.

Last week was the last day of the summer term here. I fully expected at least Léon's school class to have no interest in attending but I was very wrong. The last few days of term were spent intently beavering away on some communal secret plans. It turned out they were coming up with a menu - last time I saw it, it listed bacon, chicken bacon, hamburgers, pancakes, digestives, fruit juice, freshly-baked rolls, jam, grapes, watermelon, chocolate milk, eggs, etc and a list of activities. They turned up at 8am as usual - the entire class(!), each with an item or two from the list and spent the entire morning having a banquet with their main class. At lunchtime, they weren't hungry any more so the kids and their teachers walked over to the outdoor swimming pool (5 minutes from school), with the swimming costumes they'd agreed to bring along and spent the afternoon in the pool, finally drying off, lying in the park listening to music on a large speaker one of the kids had borrowed from his older brother. Finally around 2pm, the summer holidays were ready to begin.

Now Léon can't wait for the last day of every term in Danish school - he's already imagining Gløgg, Xmas cakes and cookies in December.

How our Danish schools do birthdays

Back at our Scottish school, I used to find birthdays a bit of a burden. I had five kids (granted I only ever had three at primary at the one time, so let's work on that premise...) Each of the kids had between 30 and 33 kids in their class so when Léon was in primary 7, the classes were made up of 33+33+30 kids minus my 3 own kids which gave me a calculation of 93 kids a year who could potentially have parties. In p1 and 2 the whole class was generally invited, by the later years we were probably down to one gender, so half the class. So I was averaging somewhere in the region of 45 parties a year. The standard outlay was between £10 and £20 per present. I tried to stay at the £10 end except for besties but could see that the average was closer to the other end. So attending other kids' parties cost a minimum of £450 a year, and was probably nearer to £600. With this outlay for others, ironically, I was left without enough to throw parties for my own kids as that would have set me back a minimum £200 a head too. They had at most two or three close friends home for dinner every other year and felt distinctly like second-class citizens.

On Amaia's very first day at Veflinge primary an invite was ominously waiting on her desk addressed simply 'New girl'. We opened it to find she'd been invited bowling with the girls in her class for someone's birthday today - a fairly standard party we would have at home too. Here we go again... or not as the case may be!

Having joined the class Facebook group this week, we messaged the group admin to find out what kind of gift of what value was expected so as not to make our kids seem even odder than they must already seem. The format was then explained to us. Each child in the class is assigned another child in the class - the one whose birthday is closest to their own. A month before their birthday, you ask that child for a wish list and choose something to a value of max £22 to give that child from the class as a whole. That is the only gift the child receives from the class, while the kids still get the nice bowling trip, chips and ice cream and cake at school on the day. This system makes it affordable for all and means every kid gets a present from the class to the same value. I often found back home that the kids with the most invited the most kids and got even more while those with the least had to forego parties and presents of their own. And another positive is that when you come home you don't have 30+ gifts to have to fit into your kid's bedroom and an overwhelmed child in a meltdown!

Maybe this way I'll even be able to afford to throw my kids a class party at last!

Things... #3

...you don't see on the school run in Newton Mearns.

A garden with a traditional windmill on the driveway up to their house!

Things... #2

...you don't see on the school run in Newton Mearns.

A wee 'gingerbread' cottage by a lake. (Appearances are deceptive - it may be in a village but it's 20 minutes from Odense city and 8 minutes from the main Danish east west and north south motorway!)

This one is even more interesting as it is for sale at the moment. See this link. Unlike in Scotland where we sell at 'offers over' a specific price, Danish houses around here seem to be listed at a fixed price and you are meant to bid under but close to it! This is a three bedroom with a living surface area 15% bigger than my mum's roughcast 70s house in Newton Mearns (which retails around £230K). It is on the market in a country where salaries are much higher than at home for a fixed price of about £88K! And my goodness, isn't is cute as hell?!