Veruca Salt & Furniture Shopping...

Another weekend draws to a close. We went to Bakken today. We hadn't actually planned to, but felt like we should as we were nearby and the last time we attempted to go, all the rides were closed. Bakken is slightly less salubrious compared to Tivoli, but I don't actually think you can really compare the two. It's not as manicured, but it's more relaxed in a lot of ways, and certainly less busy (could have been due to the weather though). It's in a beautiful location, and the history of the place is very impressive, the very fact that it's the oldest (intact) theme park in the world impressed me, you can imagine what it was once like...The huge, incredibly old-looking wooden roller coaster isn't getting me anywhere near it though(should we go again)! There is a good choice of restaurants here,and the traditional beer hall looked fun! We had flaeskesteg rolls for lunch, (roast pork with crackling) piled high with gherkins and red cabbage, they were good, and very typical Danish fast food! The children had a great afternoon and went on quite a few rides - very brave when it was quite cold and threatening to rain (funny how they still wanted ice-creams though, doesn't matter what the weather's like for that, and yes, that is a child size ice-cream!!)... ! I am not sure what has happened to spring actually, the weather has decided to rewind itself somewhat recently, we have even had the fire lit again for the past couple of nights.

On Friday afternoon we had an open house at R's school. This time they were to show us some of the gymnastic skills they had been working on over the term. I was "delighted" to note that R was less than enthusiastic about this display, so when some other mothers told me that they would be taking leotards for their daughters to change into, I thought it might cheer mine up if I did the same! I arrived a few minutes before the display with her ballet kit in hand as a surprise. She is so like me in many respects (the sport hating gene is definitely one of my mine), but amazingly (and very unlike me) she is actually very graceful (yes, even if I do say so myself!!) and her ballet skills are good, but as I have yet to find an English speaking ballet class here, she hasn't actually worn her outfit for several months...She certainly loved the surprise and quickly got changed into her leotard like her class mates! All was going swimmingly, until she found her ballet shoes at the bottom of the bag. Why on earth I hadn't remembered them and taken them out is just beyond me, of course they weren't going to fit her after all these months. Thus followed what could have been a scene from Cinderella, they just weren't going to fit, no-matter how hard she tried to squeeze her feet into them. Then without warning, my tiny, excited and almost enthusiastic daughter, transformed into a furious Veruca Salt banshee type creature... It took quite a while to placate her, but afterwards she explained to me that although she loved the surprise, it was actually a horrible surprise that her shoes didn't fit anymore, and she was quite sure that they would have made all the difference to her scissor jump! As I am sure I have said before, we do indeed live and learn as parents! However, she performed as planned! The display was very sweet, and all the children did very well. Meanwhile, S had a great time jumping like a mad thing on a huge crashmat at the back of the room, while the show was taking place.

Inspired by the poor weather, on Saturday we decided that the search for a new sofa really did need to start. We outgrew our two seater sofa almost five years after we bought it (ten years ago from that awful UK chain DFS). We weren't married then and lived in a typical London (very old and very badly sound-proofed) conversion flat a couple of stories up. I remember that we ordered the sofa, the delivery men arrived to install it and then it just wouldn't go up the stairs! A quick trip back to the shop confirmed that once you had ordered and paid for the sofa, they didn't care how you got it into your property,or whether you used it as garden furniture - it was no longer their problem! Not one to give up, my engineer husband found a way for it to be hoisted up through the sash window using a large rope, where it came back down the same way a couple of years later when we moved out! Anyway, as we currently have two more family members, who have helped trash it, it's more than time to buy a new one... It was refreshing to note that IKEA in Scandinavia is as hellish as it is in the UK on a Saturday! We bid a hasty retreat to the less hectic world of ILVA where we both fell in love... with different pieces of furniture. I am yet to convince him that my sofa is the best, as he is to convince me that his is the best. I bet I give in first just to get a new one...

I made Delia's twice baked Goat's cheese souffle's last night (did I mention the weather was bad) . They turned out very nicely (note they are supposed to sink back down, the second time you bake them they puff up beautifully) and I would have really enjoyed them had I not really burned myself taking them out of the oven. An excellent fool-proof recipe though, I highly recommend making them!

A short week ahead, we have another holiday on Thursday which means no school on Friday either...

Speak soon.

Emma