Berit & Chris's weblog

Getting Older!

Since Berit's over in Denmark finishing off her thesis right now we decided to use it as an excuse to celebrate my Birthday over here. Denmark is currently experiencing a proper winter, snow and all, which is providing a good distraction when one is trying to forget the fact that there's only one more year in the twenty's bracket for me!

Berit's brother John has just bought a new flat in 'the city of tomorrow', as mentioned in one of our last entries, and one of the first things we did was to go and have a look. It's a fantastic flat and I'm extremely jealous, I only wish the same value and quality flats were available in Bristol. The city of tomorrow is now known as Västra Hamnen (West Harbour) and John’s flat is on the Sundspromenaden (Quayside Promenade). If you download the .exe below you’ll see a 180 degree view of the whole area. Look carefully on the left hand side and you’ll just be able to see the ‘Turning Torso’ (see separate pic), which should be a pretty impressive place to have a flat when it’s finished. One thing that caught my eye are these polished black rocks which are dotted around the waterfront. They turned out to be one of the many interesting sculptures dotted around the place.

Download file

We went the boat show in Copenhagen yesterday, which pleasantly surprised me. It was pretty big and included much the same as the London boat show, just in smaller amounts. It was a very pleasant experience viewing the boats here too since you could get on every boat straight away. What I did note was that we viewed pretty much the same boats as we saw at the London show but came away with a completely different opinion, both on price and quality. Looking at 35-40ft blue water cruiser types, instead of the Dufor/Gibsea looking like very good value for money with good layouts, as in London, the Jeanneau's seem to top the tables here. Proves that if I was ever actually in the market for a boat it would be worth doing the rounds at a few European shows before making a decision :-)

Malmö, Sweden

Valentine’s Day is less exciting when your boyfriend is 600 miles away…but I made the most of it and went shopping in Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city. Malmö is one of my favourite cities; it is small – with a population of roughly 250,000, which is half that of Bristol – friendly, and packed with cafés, art galleries, beautiful parks, and lots of shopping opportunities. Swedish and Scandinavian design shops dominate the city centre, and give Malmö a real cosmopolitan feel. And everything seems to be within walking distance, including a two kilometre long beach overlooking the Øresundsbron – the bridge between Sweden and Denmark – the longest cable-stayed bridge in the world for both motorway and railway.

I returned home to find a beautiful rose waiting for me…

City of Tomorrow

John picked me up from Copenhagen airport yesterday morning. Twenty minutes later, we had crossed the suspension bridge to Sweden, and were driving around Malmö in desperate search of an IKEA (should be pretty straightforward in Sweden, you’d think!). John has recently bought a flat in north Malmö, in a newly established architectural development, close to the sea and central Malmö, and desperately needed…well, everything! We located IKEA and went on a shopping frenzy!

A couple of hours later, it was time to have a proper look at this Scandinavian architectural gem, John had decided to call ‘home’. The development started out as a housing exposition in 2001 called BO01 – “living 2001” - constructed with the intention to exhibit ideas in sustainability, intelligently utilised information technology, urban form, and landscape architecture, and then to assume its life as the core of a new community for the city of Malmö. This city of tomorrow is a loose grid of structures built around courtyards, canals, private and public gardens. And the focus on sustainability is ever present; local renewable energy sources include wind, solar power, and biogas that will heat and power the development. Surface water is drained off visibly in open gutters and miniature canals before reaching the saltwater canal or the sea. The beauty of the area is accentuated by a 220 meter long esplanade along the seashore which connects a large piazza at one end and a marina at the other.

Birdhouse capers

I dropped off Berit this morning at Bristol Airport at a truly incorrect time of the morning. Berit's gone back to Denmark for the next month to complete her thesis so when I returned to the flat I didn't know quite what to do with myself. Tried shooting people on the playstation but that didn't keep me interested for too long so I decided to be a little creative and finally get around to building an ingenious (if I do say so myself) bamboo support for the birdhouse.

For many a month now we've been filling up a lonely little peanut holder, waiting a few weeks then emptying the somewhat mouldy peanuts, and religiously running through the whole silly ritual again in the vain hope that a robin or some other bird life may visit us for some free food.

Currently the only visitors to our little garden are a number of cats who have adopted it as the local litter tray and a black bird, who ignores the peanuts and digs around for worms, flicking the woodchip all over the path just to wind me up. Hopefully the birdhouse will attract some other welcome feathered friends and give something for the cats to look at whilst they relieve themselves :-)