WINTER HOBBIES

During the winter I play badminton on Monday nights and bridge on Tuesday nights. Both of these hobbies have just stopped, and won't start up again for another five months.

Both bridge and badminton are played indoors, so there is in principle no reason why we shouldn't play both throughout the summer. However, in Denmark, that is not done. Winter hobbies are strictly for cold, wet winter evenings, on Mondays to Thursdays; not Fridays, not at the weekends. They stop around the end of March, Easter at the latest. Then they start up again in the autumn, around 1 September or just before.

When I ask my fellow participants why this should be so, they merely shrug their shoulders and say "sådan er det bare" (that's just how it is). Very Danish.

Walter Blotscher