After a two week heatwave in Vejle, mostly remaining horizontal on Albuen beach, I’ve woken up to a Danish downpour. The skies look a little confused and angry. Strobes of bright morning light are trying deperately to break through the fuzzy grey curtains that have fallen before them.
The seagulls aren’t singing quite so loudly today. All I can hear is the raindrops. They’re pitter-pattering down onto my neighbours’ rooftops, tickling treetops in the woodland I can see from my living room window and scurrying down the steep street of Jagtvej, down towards the city.
The rain of the Dane falls mainly on the plane
It bodes well that the one thing I didn’t pack into my suitcase when I left the British isle was a distinct inability to tolerate the weather. In fact, I’d go as far to say that one of my pet hates is that pet hate – a very unnecessary disdain for drizzle.
According to a quick Google search, it rains 170 days per year in Denmark, but despite that, it still ranks as one of the world’s most happiest countries.
People here seem to just embrace it. They don’t go into panic mode, call in sick, take the kids out of school and halt all underground operations for fear somebody might slip. There aren’t yellow warning signs on every shop floor, rudely questionning the IQ of every shopper.
Instead, people crack on. They promenade the streets in ponchos, dangling oversized umbrellas over their heads. Kids are chauffeured to school in little roofed trailers on the back of their parents’ bikes. Everybody walks fast to get to where they need to go. Cars are aware of pedestrians and bicycles.
I just really love the way the approach life here. Maybe it’s the Viking spirit that still lives on within; there just seems to be a whole lot of common sense and contentment in these Danish craniums. And, I guess despite my aversion to dressing appropraitely in any given situation, I couldn’t agree more with what we and our Norwegian neighbours say:
“There’s not such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes”.