King of the Pancakes...

When I took S into school this morning, I found out that he had actually been crowned Kattekong (King of the Cats) as the first person to smash the wooden barrel containing the sweets for Fastelavn (why is this not a suprise to me?)! As the King he is now the proud owner of this rather fetching crown, and it's a shame he didn't have it to wear this morning to eat these for his birthday breakfast (we might have helped him!)! Yes, we also had pancakes yesterday for Shrove Tuesday, but in our house tradition dictates that you choose your favourite meals for your birthday, so pancakes it was! His teacher told me this afternoon that they have a saying in Denmark that if it's sunny on your birthday you must have been good, and if it's raining, well then it's the opposite! She did say this with a smile on her face, but nevertheless it was raining at the time! I can't believe it's a whole year since he celebrated being three by cutting up sheeps lungs at The Experimentarium (I would like to go back to visit the Body Worlds exhibit that's currently there, but I think I will be going alone as it may well traumatise me let alone two small children!)! We are going to do something to celebrate together properly over the next day or so, as today he was determined to go into school to have a little party with his friends. Definitely no longer a baby, definitely the funniest child I know, happy fourth birthday to my very own King of the Pancakes! xxx

Sunnyside up...

I started writing this at five o.clock this afternoon, when I suddenly noticed it was still light and sunny - spring is definitely in the air, and there are snowdrops in the garden too!!

We got back from the UK earlier, which is in a far more advanced state of spring, albeit noticeably colder than usual! We started off our trip home at my Mum's house, where after a quick welly boot shop for R, she immediately set out to see the "girls" and collect the eggs - there's nothing like a fresh egg for tea!
Then on to investigate the slightly frozen frogspawn in the village pond. Friday meant a trip to my grandparent's house (complete with a real fish and chip lunch - manna from heaven!), a well-needed haircut in the afternoon (thank you Uncle Chris!), and then time to catch up with my sister. Saturday we went back up to London for an important shopping trip for the Big Wedding in June, then on to my Dad's where we caught up with my other sister and gave my uber cute nephew his early birthday presents. Whilst Denmark celebrated Fastelavn yesterday, we rounded up our trip home with a big English sunday roast - perfect!

Today has been quite a long day. We watched the the sun rise at 6am this morning driving to Gatwick, as R and I began to make our way back to Copenhagen - it was beautiful, and made me smile even though I felt a little sad. I hate goodbyes at the best of times, especially protracted ones, and luckily my Dad's not great at them either. It was a case of stop the car, open the door, cases out, a quick hug and before we knew it waving him off into the distance! My emotions always manage to get the better of me as the plane takes off though, and pathetically I usually shed a little tear! It's a strange mixture of feelings, happiness at the time spent with people (but slight guilt about the fact I wasn't able to spend that much time with them this time), and happiness at the thought of going "home" (and seeing the boys who were left behind on this occasion, you should see the state of the house!), but also sadness at what we no longer have close by (family, friends and those wonderful wonderful supermarkets!), and total guilt about the people I didn't have time to see at all this time - sorry, don't hate me! I don't think R noticed my "watery eyes", (or if she did she wasn't that bothered) but I heard her say "bye bye, I love you" to the fields and buildings as they gradually got smaller and smaller beneath us (which naturally resulted in a couple more secret tears from me!)...

I will leave you with a picture of something else I also class as perfect, another type of egg that I managed to smuggle back in my case intact! It is highly doubtful they will last until Easter!

Fastelavnboller

It's not quite that time again yet, but these amazing cakes are now in the shops and what better way to start a Sunday (occasionally!)?

Cakes and cakes....

The past few days have flown past, we have been busy with guests as my brother-in -law and his lovely partner arrived on Saturday to spend a few days with us.

Sunday was Fastelavn here in Denmark, which of course meant we had to partake in one particular aspect of this festivity, the amazing Fastelavn cakes pictured. They were sooo good, we cut them up and all tasted each one. That evening we marked Chinese New Year with lovely homemade spicy Chinese food (something I really miss in Scandinavia, they don't really do spicy), enjoyed sat in front of a roaring fire and washed down with plenty of cold beer! You can't really appreciate wine with food that spicy after all!

Monday was a very special and quite an emotional day for me. My little girl turned five. It snowed on Monday, as it has done for most of this week which made me even more nostalgic as it had snowed the day she was born. I remember being in my hospital bed, clutching this tiny perfect bundle and watching the snow fall lightly over a grey London. I was a bit shell-shocked as I couldn't believe she had actually arrived and that I wasn't just hugely fat after all, I had been pregnant and now I really was a mother. It was a wonderful and slightly overwhelming feeling. So here we are, and those five years have flown by. I am still overwhelmed by my beautiful, funny, creative, and very dramatic little girl. She lights up our lives every day and I am so grateful for her. For her special day she decided she would like to go The Bear Factory. She shares a birthday with her Aunty so we all went to Copenhagen together. The Bear Factory was hilarious and both children thoroughly enjoyed it. Whoever thought of that concept is both very clever and incredibly rich by now for sure! Bizarrely she also chose Sushi for her birthday lunch, which was more than fine with all of the adults and as the snow seemed to have put a lot of customers off, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was wonderful and my little girl looked and felt very grown up! Aunty N enjoyed it too, she had a glass of champagne with hers. Then it was back to watch the Olympics in front of the fire and a big slice of birthday cake. Time to get sorted before more guests arrive on Friday for the next weekend...