A TRIP TO COPENHAGEN

I said in my tweet above that I was off to Copenhagen to pick up my sons. It was supposed to be a pleasant trundle over with a trailer to load up my elder son's stuff. He is going off to Hong Kong for 6 months and then America for 6 months, and so is giving up his room in Copenhagen. We chose to do it today, so we could coordinate with my younger son's arrival from Basel. It turned out to be a bit of a nightmare.

On the other side of the Great Belt bridge the car went dead on the motorway. That meant a call to the breakdown people Falck, but also a wait of two hours by the side of the road in pretty cold weather. When they arrived, my wife also arrived with a borrowed car from home, and we swapped roles. I continued to Copenhagen with the trailer, while she went with her car to the nearest garage (chances are that it will have to be scrapped).

Cold and tired, I then had to go up and down five flights of stairs for two hours with bed, desk, bags, and other packages. It's a tradition that poor students live in garrets, and it is also true for my son.

When everything was finally packed on the trailer, we went off to the airport to pick up my other son. Airport drop-off and arrival areas are not designed for trailers; and this problem was made worse by the system's accepting my credit card to get in, but rejecting it repeatedly when I tried to get out. Having blocked the exit, I had to find a supervisor to get him to open the gate. He turned out to be Swedish, which made communication a bit tricky; though we eventually managed it.

Arriving back home at 8.30pm I was knackered. But at least the family is all here for Christmas.

Walter Blotscher