COMING HOME

I have just come back to Denmark from a week's holiday in the wilds of Scotland. Copenhagen Airport is a much nicer, friendlier, and more efficient place than (say) Stansted; but on this trip, it fell a couple of notches in my estimation. On the way out, it took three attempts to buy a bottle of Christmas schnaps, owing to the complex, and not particularly well signposted, duty rules for flying within and outside the E.U. Tempers were then frayed even more, when I dropped the bottle and smashed it, just before going through passport control. On the way back, the baggage handlers went on strike, which led to long delays in the reclaim area and a fair amount of jostling with the Turkish Airlines passengers from Istanbul, who ended up on the same carousel. As you may well have gathered, I don't like flying very much.

It was cold in Scotland, but has been even colder in Denmark, with a number of nights at minus 15 degrees or more (well, less, really). Our car was like a fridge when we found it in its street parking place, with the windows frozen on both the outside and the inside (thankfully it started first time). The snow that had been on the ground at home when we left was still there when we got back, albeit rather dirtier and harder. When combined with a light drizzle of new snow this evening, our yard was turned into an ice rink. It's a fair bet that I will be snow clearing again tomorrow.

After an 18-hour journey that started in the dark at 2.30 am, I am pretty knackered. So it's going to be a quick game of badminton, one of the last Christmas beers, and then an early night.

Walter Blotscher