Saturdays in the studenty district of Berlin where I am living have been infested with a gobbling string of raucous hens’ parties. You’ll see a dozen young or not so young women all wearing matching headpieces – bunny ears, airline-hostess hats, fascinators, halos on headbands – and maybe pink t-shirts with a slogan, or beauty […]

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen. I just love it here. Invited by some new friends, in fact someone I’d met once, to spend ten days roosting in the writing cabin in their garden. We got talking at the airport last time I was here. We liked each other so much. I was shy about coming to stay, […]

Stopped for an orange juice at a stall where the man squeezes oranges one at a time, by hand, for one euro per glass. Chivalrously he added a straw to mine, not to my male companion’s, though I have not worn nor owned a lipstick since 1996. While we were drinking our juices a string […]

Tomorrow I take the train back to Berlin, traversing again this ancestral landscape. What a beautiful week it’s been, I’m so thankful. A girl in a sunstruck cafe told me that Denmark is the happiest nation on earth. “Our third year running!” Every time I remember our conversation I mishear it as “friendliest” and have […]