Berit & Chris's weblog

Touring Guernsey I

We spent most of the afternoon driving around Guernsey. Paul and Linda showed us some amazing views along Guernsey's South coast, particular in the area of La Gouffre. This part of the island is blessed with some of the finest cliff top walks on the island and has beautiful views over the sea. On clear days, like it was today, it is possible to see the island of Jersey. After walking Tara and stopping for hot drinks, we continued to Fort Grey, a Martello Tower built in 1804 to defend Guernsey's West coast. Fort Grey overlooks much of the West coast, including Plainmont and a distinctive looking German observation tower from 1942.

Maison Hauteville

Today, the weather was lovely (see opposite), so we drove to St. Peter Port to search for the home of Victor Hugo, Hauteville House. Hugo lived in exile in Guernsey between 1855 and 1870 and whilst he was here, he finished his most famous piece of work, Les Miserables. Since this is one of my favourite plays, we thought we should take a look. Unfortunately, Sod’s Law deemed it closed, but it was still fun finding it!

Cafe Heaven

We’re in Guernsey now; the trip wasn’t the most enjoyable but never mind. Dad was working on Saturday so we spent the day shopping in St Peter Port. I managed to drag everyone to my favourite café, Christies, to enjoy their benchmark club sandwich. I was even more surprised that there was an open wi-fi spot spilling out from the hotel opposite (I think), not the best connection but good enough to make it worth an entry :-)

Danish Christmas

We spent a lovely Christmas Eve and a First Christmas Day in Denmark, relaxing and eating far too much. In Denmark, Christmas is celebrated on the eve of the 24th with pork roast or duck, potatoes and red cabbage. For dessert, we have rice pudding with hot cherry sauce. A surprise almond is hidden in the pudding, and the person who finds it can lay claim to a present. Later, we open our presents and indulge in cakes, biscuits, marzipan, oranges and glögg. On the 25th, we continue eating – the traditional Christmas Day lunch is quite elaborate and intended to fill you up for days!

Christmas in Tivoli

Today, while I met with my thesis partner, Chris went shopping with John in central Copenhagen and realised poor shopping ability runs in the family!

Later in the afternoon, Chris and I joined the long queue in front of Tivoli. Christmas in Tivoli is celebrating its tenth season, and it seemed like the perfect place to get into the Christmas spirit. Thousands of white lights lit up the trees inside the garden and paths were lined with specialist shops selling handmade ‘nisser’ (pixies), traditional Danish Christmas decorations, glögg (mulled wine), cakes and other delicacies. And there was a lovely smell of roasted almonds and burning coal.

Bike Fishing

Whilst visiting Copenhagen on numerous shopping visits this week I came up with probably the not too original idea of Bike Fishing. If you carefully look at the picture here, you’ll see the vague outline of one of the many thousands of bikes in Copenhagen. Unlike most of the others, this one, along with about three others that I could see, resides underwater!

If I can find a grappling hook, I might have a go at rescuing one :-)

Xmas shopping

We survived the shopping! Click on pics to see some shots of Copenhagen by night at Christmas time.

Xmas in Copenhagen

After a long days travelling, including Auntie Joy coming to the rescue by supplying safe sanctuary for the mini whilst we are away, we arrived in Copenhagen late last night to start our Christmas hols. The flight was excellent, partially because the plane turned out to be one of SAS’s Airbus A321-200’s and it was Berit’s first flight on an Airbus (just in-case anyone should be wondering why this is significant I actually work for Airbus so it’s not all down to sad plane spotting :-)

Copenhagen Airport is quite impressive, with artwork like the one in the pic here to greet you as well as the ‘to be expected in Denmark’ designer chairs. It all has a very modern, clean and well organised feel to it, so it's a good airport to arrive at.

We’re spending Christmas in Kokkedal with Berit’s mum, Lis, and brother, John, and then on to Guernsey on Boxing Day to celebrate the new year with mum and dad. We’re off into Hørsholm and Copenhagen today, Xmas shopping of course!

Pre-Christmas Madness

Saturday morning, we arrived at Nan's for a lovely, relaxing pre-Christmas weekend. The weekend family gathering was arranged as an opportunity for us to swap presents before Christmas because we are all spending Christmas elsewhere. Paul, Linda, and Tara had arrived late Friday, minutes before Claire and Henrik, so the house was already full of people and dogs when we got there. After lunch, Robyn showed up with the two little ones, Imogen and Timothy.....and the madness began!

Before heading over to Michael and Selas Saturday evening, there were Christmas trees to cut, presents to wrap, cards to write, dogs to walk, lots of delicious food to prepare, and children to look after. After just a few hours, even the dogs seemed stressed; Tara got caught in an electrical wire while trying to escape from the living room knocking down a radio, which landed on Chris' laptop on which my thesis is stored - made me seriously consider doing a back-up!