Nana & Pop Pop in Værløse

As I wrote in the previous post, the weather leading up to Nana and Pop Pop’s visit was beastly.

So is the first part of this post.

The week prior to their arrival in Denmark was sort of crazy: the weather boomeranged from cool but sunny and beautiful to warm but gloomy and rainy, with intermittent periods of cool and rainy — and, for maybe a few hours at a stretch on a couple of days, both warm and sunny.

Beginning with our beastly theme, here’s Didi proving her hunting bonafides during a romp at the “old golf course,” sauntering by a wild bird that was pecking merrily away at something without giving the nearby dog a thought.

On the other hand, a day or two later, we’re walking along the hills overlooking Søndersø when she suddenly freezes and points: see what she noticed?

It took me a moment to find it myself, so I zoomed in for my next picture:

Not all critters blend into their surroundings so readily.

I’m still astonished to live somewhere where I can take such pictures within a few minutes’ walk of my front door.

Scenes from everyday life: Trine reviewing some schoolwork with Maddie.

May 11 was Didi’s third birthday.  Maddie and I decided to run out to the butcher and get her a big old bloody birthday present.  Not sure what animal it came from: it seems small for a cow, but huge for a sheep or a goat, and would be terrifying if it came from a chicken.  But watch Didi go through the four stages of OMG It’s Just What I Always Wanted:

1. Impatient Anticipation.

2. Showy Gratitude.

3. Assumption of Ownership.

4. Deliciousness.

Maddie and Didi at Puppy Lake:

Spring arriving at last in Hareskov:

Finally!  May sprinkler pictures!

And we can wrap up the beastly start to this post with a surprise encounter on Gyvelvej (the next street over):

That smear in the middle of the street is a deer, making a crossing so leisurely as to be almost taunting.  Didi was transfixed.

Finally the weather began to turn permanently spring-like.  At last we were able to enjoy our first outdoor meal of the year.

Maddie made cards for both Hannah and Morfar on their joint birthday.  Her message to Hannah struck me as especially poignant:

“You’re growing fast.  Good luck.”  I can think of one other eight-year-old who might have offered such a birthday greeting — and she was the recipient of this card (and a dozen years beyond eight.).

By now the weather forecast for the duration of Nana and Pop Pop’s visit was in.  I switched my app to Fahrenheit to share it with them.

I was surprised to find that what I considered “summer like bliss” in Celsius turned out, in Fahrenheit, to be what back in the states I would have considered “a mild spring” or “a pleasant autumn.”

But we’re Vikings.  We dine al fresco happily even in the low sixties!  (By “we” I mean Maddie and myself.  Molli had started Furesø Cup, and Trine was at her work’s summer party.)

Finally, finally, finally Nana and Pop Pop arrived the next morning, a gorgeous sunny Saturday morning so beautiful it might just as easily been a peak summer day in July.

They were allowed a brief rest before being whisked off to one of Molli’s games at the tournament.

This was an interesting tournament: Molli had just transitioned from the 12-and-unders (U12) to the 14-and-unders (U14), so had gone — along with all her U12 teammates — from first to second team.  But not only that: at the U14 level, the handball clubs of Værløse and Farum (the two cities of Furesø kommune) combine into a single Furesø handball club, so suddenly (and I think I mentioned all this in the previous post) a lot of their previous rivals were their new teammates.  This was their first tournament, and they actually did very well.  Molli put on a great show for her grandparents.

And for intermission, they got the Danish equivalent of a Blue Angels fly-by!

(Okay, it was just the annual air-show at the old airfield across the lake.)

Beastly diversion: while Nana and Pop Pop napped, or tried to nap, to shake off their jet lag between Molli’s games, I walked Didi and during our stroll we came across this fellow:

I half expected Didi to eat Mr. Toad, or Mr. Frog, — more likely Herre Frø, given his habitat — but she just sort of sniffed at him superficially before moving along.  Snails, slugs, small birds, and frogs: the only creatures that arouse no interest from Didi.

Second game of the day!

And finally the end of the first day.

… And, after a good night’s sleep, we were off to Maddie’s choir performance at Ordrup Museum.  She didn’t seem at all happy to have us all there.

How wonderful that our second outdoor meal of the year could include Nana and Pop Pop!

That Sunday was, by the way, the very day we finally had our new blinds installed in our bedroom windows, which had prior to this point (since the installation of the new windows) been “blinded” with old sheets thumb-tacked up to the walls.

Nana and Pop Pop took turns reading Nancy Drew to Maddie at bedtime every night of their visit.

And throughout the visit, Maddie took “turns” of her own.

I love this next shot of Didi just waiting (with infinite patience) for one of these new humans to make a mistake in the Place Where Food Is Sometimes Dropped.

…but the “new humans” made no mistakes.  A baked Alaska was turned out without any floor droppings.

The warmth being so novel to us, the girls insisted one evening on a run down to the old swimmin’ hole:

I ought to mention that for three days of this visit, the girls were in school and Trine and I had to work.  Nevertheless, Trine and I managed to get home early enough Wednesday afternoon that Nana and Pop Pop were kind enough to take us out to lunch — a very delicious traditional Danish lunch at the Værløse Bio Café.

We passed the time one lovely evening with a game of kongespil, playing by rules we only sort of hazily remembered.  (Molli knows the rules, but she was at handball practice.)

(It only dawned on me afterwards that despite our having spent at least half an hour throwing sticks back and forth across the lawn, Didi never interfered at all thanks to her obsession with the birthday bone.)

Mormor and Jørgen had us down for a lunch Thursday afternoon.

And although it was the chilliest day of the week, it wasn’t chilly enough to keep us out of the pool!

To everything, turn, turn, turn,
there is a season, turn, turn, turn, 
and a reason for every handstand, cartwheel, and flip
under the sun. . .

Someone on Facebook posted a class picture from Bell School’s second grade in 1972 or ’73 (in either case, two years before I would joined them in fourth grade).  Of course I knew nearly everyone in it, but I loved the shot of Mike so much I had to grab the photo for myself.  Totally out of place, but a fun one to hold onto for the permanent record.

Friday was our most eventful day of the visit.  We began with a visit to the Go-Kart track.  Trine and the girls had given me a gift certificate for my birthday back in March: half an hour of the track entirely to the four of us!

It was Maddie’s first time behind the wheel of an actual motor vehicle.  (Hers was a little smaller, but management assured us it was capable of the same speed as the others.)

“Fun” seems like an understatement.  We had a total blast, and it will not be our last family outing to the Ballerup Go-Kart Track.

Oh, and also: I won.  So there.

From the Go-Kart track we went straight to what is, possibly, the best place on earth.

As far as I’m concerned, the whole trip was worth it if only for the following series of pictures, none of which need any explanation.

After a day like that we were all utterly exhausted: I think we were all in bed within a couple of hours of getting home, and the following morning was just a leisurely breakfast and then, much too soon, a trip to the airport.

It was only in preparing this blog that I noticed the girls didn’t seem to be simply waving goodbye as I pulled out of the carport.  What were they doing with their hands?

Goodbye and V?  Goodbye and L?  What the hell?

I asked Trine.

“It’s seven,” she said.  She said it as though it were a satisfactory explanation.  As if she were surprised I would even have to ask.

“Seven what?”

“Seven weeks.  Instead of saying goodbye, Nana said, ‘See you in seven weeks!’  So Maddie was shouting, ‘Seven weeks!  Seven weeks!'”

Alrighty then.

That was last weekend, so I guess by now…

Six weeks!