August 10th

To whom this may concern...



Mr-Danish-Resident is doing fine, whilst his wife tried to sleep in the midst of all the noise and mayhem next door. They are renovating ALL the apartments in this residence. In Denmark, people act like sheep. Nobody does anything out of line or sorts. If they do, it is only an indication that ALL people will act in this way, or share the same opinion, so the person who appears to take the initiative for a thing, is merely acting as a starting point for the mass movement of the actions required to get a thing moving, or to have an action acted upon. In this case, someone living in the Kommune on this building said "We will have our bathroom and kitchen renovated because it is out of date with Danish fashion, and is not the acceptable thing anymore", so speaking on behalf of the masses who live in the 24 apartments forming this residence, it was taken that ALL kitchens and ALL bathrooms were to be upgraded. I have added the suspects name to my little Black Book.

The problem.



I am African. I can cook anywhere, even under trees, preferrably Bayleaf trees, but I suppose any tree may do. What someone does to my kitchen, is of no concern to me. In the South African Defence Force I ate raw potatoes warmed up in an aluminium pan which made them look like they were cooking, and hence Psychologically, they did not seem as crunchy. The beetroot was another story. We played cricket with it.















(picture of South African dinner, just for effect) I digress, but the point I make is that kitchens can be ripped apart, and I will never care, as long as the fridge does not actually warm up the food, the results of everything else are inconsequential.

However, having come from Africa, and having been to see the animals on the Serengetti at dinner time all gathered warily around the watering holes of the dense African bush, one becomes protective of the supply of water, and indeed the environment. Now, we have a bath and this reminds me of my own little piece of Africa in Denmark, for I can wallow for hours like a hippo (albiet, I am not going to be mistaken for one:-
1 - because I am white (but this is not to be mistaken for racism, for a hippo is neither black nor white)
2 - I am of athletic composition, hence I am slightly slimmer than a hippo bit fatter than a stick insect but I digress.

The Danes don't like baths, they have wetrooms. Now, a wetroom is a bathroom, which has a slightly sloped floor, the slope angled gently towards a drain cover in the corner of the room. It's like a place where an English person would ask their incontinent geriatric relatives to stand during a visit in case they leaked onto the new carpet in the lounge. The Danes shower themselves and feel free to spray water all over the bathroom, somehow miraculously missing the roll of toilet paper with the spray. After their shower they stoop down to squeegee the floor with something similar to that which an English person may use to clear water off a newly washed window with. A sort of hand held car windscreen wiper with a super strong rubber blade.

Not good. To have to clean a whole room, when all one has done was to take a mere shower?

I have no choice, I have to accept that the bath is going to be ripped out and a wetroom-Danish-shower-dammit-thingy is going to be built in it's stead when there was nothing wrong with the old kitchen, or the bathroom. Nothing. Nada. Zulch. NeMnoga. Niks. Niet.

Ah, well perhaps I'll get used to it. The noise is a bit grim... from 07:00 they start into the adjoining wall with a jack hammer. I often wondered why they called it a jack hammer. Tried a little research, which only brought me to www.jackhammer.co.za, not quite the same noise, bit perhaps a mere rearrangement of the composition? Sometimes, our kitchen tiles pop off the wall during this jack-hammering, nice touch. Only in Denmark can they take 6 weeks to renovate a bathroom and a kitchen. There's no place like home.















On the bright side, we procurred a second hand leather and oak lounge suite from www.dba.dk (a sort of non-eBay site ?) for about £45. The seller bought it in 1980 for £1600, so I think we may have bagged a bargain, except for the african animals that had to die in the making thereof, but that's another story for another time. It's comfy.

That's about all my news for now. Got a call from Reading from an Englishman who wants a group of Scandinavians supported... time will tell if I get another interview, so until then, I plod on with emailing (spamming) the world with my CV, and a ridiculous cover letter.

This weekend I am going to replace a CV joint on my car. That will most probably be the topic of my next email, as it should prove to be an interesting excercise, never having changed one in my life. The question is, do we drink Whisky before the job has been completed?

:)

Davey