The Susanne

Words do not exist that can describe what I am exper­i­en­cing here. I am a whole new me. It is as if I was never whole until I came here and took part in this fant­astic lit­er­ary fel­low­ship. I am writ­ing this sit­ting at the open window in my hotel room listen­ing to the chir­rup­ing birds in the wood sur­round­ing the lake and grounds, watch­ing the swal­lows play flying just above the ground and the wag­tails trip­ping about bask­ing in the sunshine.

Check out  the photo gal­lery I posted on Sat­urday for more smash­ing new images. Today has been a day of learn­ing. We have had a guest lec­turer who talked to us for two hours straight (no coffee or toilet break) about a new trend in lit­er­at­ure: Google poetry/ phone book poetry/ [lit­er­ary] file shar­ing. Very inter­est­ing stuff, but I was oh so exhausted after last night’s party in the grounds and after party in our room that I had much trouble under­stand­ing his not very artic­u­lated Danish. Craved coffee and needed the toilet very des­per­ately. But I sur­vived and lived to tell the tale (here)! Two hours till dinner which I am hoping will finally be dairy free. Such a shame having to leave most of the food on my plates (all three of them!) just because almost all the food is either cooked butter, drenched in cream sauce or simply made of milk. The buf­fets how­ever are still fantastic.

Star­ted the day with a bike ride to the sea straight after break­fast. Pro­ceeded to play around in the water for a while, then laid in the sun, read­ing, to let my shorts dry before head­ing back for a buffet lunch. I had mus­sels and caviar. After lunch a bunch of us sat around in the grounds for a few hours read­ing (I’ve never ever before sat at a park bench with five other people all com­pletely quiet and absorbed in read­ing! Amaz­ing.) amidst a ver­it­able sea of dais­ies. In the sun. Drink­ing beer. Then needed to burn off some of the alco­hol so we went for another bike ride before dinner, to the ‘animal park’ (Nor­we­gian for zoo) which was really more like an ‘animal wood’. Pic­ture The Anim­als of Farth­ing Wood. That’s what I did, anyhow.  There was also a stable where we can go on rides in the forest. Must do that before we leave. I’ve not been on a horse since riding on the beach in Sydney. In 2002! Am very excited.

Am excited about our amaz­ing pro­gram here as well. It all com­mences tomor­row after break­fast. Excit­ing lec­tures, visits from the authors of the books we’re read­ing, even­ing parties, excursions… This really must be Heaven.

I want to write about what has been pos­sibly the most bizarre day of my life but am simply too exhausted. Am post­ing photos for now. Am very excited to get into bed soonish.

Will relate the story another time when not quite so out of it.

Grandfather's Sausages

◄ Back

Next ►

Picture 1 of 44

I am suf­fer­ing from reise­fe­ber. I am trying to pack for two weeks of varied and unpre­dict­able weather and no laun­dry facil­it­ies that I know of. I am also plan­ning tonight’s little ‘farewell’ shindig trying to co-​ordinate three lit-​girls and my own ditzy self. I keep going around in circles and I am not get­ting any­thing done! Very frus­trat­ing. I’m hungry. Have some left-​over pista­chio pesto from yes­ter­day, per­haps I should eat it. Need susten­ance. Oh my good­ness the abom­in­able lan­guage of my søppelbok (chick­lit) has infec­ted me. I really should throw it out but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I never throw out books! Oh except for that espe­cially hor­rible one that I read a little while back. No need to plague anyone with specifics.

I am very excited about Copen­ha­gen. I have never spent more than a few hours in that fant­astic city. Hope­fully there will be some time for explor­ing during this two week ‘intensive course’. I am envisaging visits to fant­astic little hole-in-the-wall cafés, treas­ure hunt­ing in vin­tage shops and strolls around Nyhavn and Chris­ti­ania.  I’ve already droned on about the food so I’m not going to repeat myself. Except to say: Wooohooooo!

The only book I am bring­ing except the books listed for the course, is Ulysses. It is my summer pro­ject and as I man­aged to get half way through three years ago I see no trouble in get­ting through it (and loving it!) this year. Also I made a pact with Karoline last night that we will both read it. And I can’t break a pact. (Fun fact, Karoline is named after Car­oline of Monaco as she drunk­enly stumbled and fell into Karo’s dad’s boss’ lap on the night Karo was con­cieved. In Monaco.)  (Karo: I hope you don’t mind my telling your story. I was going to write ‘the night Caroline  was constipated’, but I didn’t. Oh wait, I guess I just did.)