That was never 11 days we had just then

Why yes, that was rather a long gap between posts. Mainly it was because of marketing: selling stories linked to events and dates, and though the ones I've been fully occupied writing about are marking the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic a whole month from now, and Anzac Day even further away on April 25, there's been a bit of a rush to do it because I've got some travelling coming up. On Sunday I'm being whisked off to Buenos Aires on LAN's lovely business class, and thence to Iguazu Falls, Lima (again) and then, most excitingly, Easter Island. I once reviewed a book that was set there - rather unimaginatively titled 'Easter Island' - by Jennifer Vanderbes, who had clearly done a great deal of research into ancient angiosperms that she didn't want to waste, so by the end of the book I was quite the expert (temporarily) on fossilised pollen. Never heard the term 'palynology' before? Now you have.

Then after I've been home for less than a fortnight, I'm away again, for an incredible 6 weeks this time, to Europe: partly private but mostly work, and it's going to be very busy. Fun and interesting, but busy, and tiring. It doesn't help that there are three very old animals in this house, who miss me when I'm gone, and who so far have always been here when I've got back from a trip but, one day...

So anyway, the Titanic. I keep bumping into it, so to speak - of course, in Ireland last year, when we went to Cobh which was the ship's last port of call before setting off across the Atlantic, and where there was a really good exhibition in the old railway station there. Then there was an astonishingly, not to say anally, comprehensive travelling exhibition that I came across while I was in Copenhagen, that absorbed me for the best part of two hours while rampaging Hamburg football fans laid waste to the city outside (well, almost). We'll be going to a new one at Greenwich Maritime Museum while we're in London; there are, I discovered, others in Southampton, Liverpool and Cherbourg, all Titanic sister cities that I've been to; and several in Halifax, Nova Scotia where I haven't been, but have been increasingly hankering to go to over the last few years. Lots of the recovered bodies were buried there, including one J. Dawson, who was actually James, a boiler-room hand, but that doesn't stop a steady stream of fans of Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack going there to leave red roses on the gravestone:

Catching up

I've been MIA all week because of a new laptop and the unconscionable effort it's taken to get it set up and transfer all my files. Worst of all was migrating my old emails which took an entire weekend of Googling and wrestling with nerd-speak, getting familiar with esoteric things like .dbx files and trying over and over and over to shift files from Outlook Express via Windows Live to Outlook (for which I'm going to have to pay actual money to use). Thanks a lot, Microsoft. But it's done. Yay.

So what has passed me by in the meantime? Australian soldiers on leave getting drunk in the Middle East - sign of the times that that was a news story, but they were in Dubai, where the official relationship with alcohol is uneasy and it's a behind-closed-doors, consenting-adults sort of activity. Westerners who live there - and there are very many - have to get a licence to buy wine from a few special shops and then have to transport it straight home. You can only drink in hotel restaurants, and even then you're meant to behave yourself. (They frown on PDAs too, public displays of affection between the sexes, though it's all on for women and men to hold hands with their same-sex friends: it's rather sweet to see a couple of swarthy young Arab men in robes striding along with their pinkies linked.)

A dinner-table conversation about an upcoming fancy-schmancy family wedding at Hampton Court House (presumably near the actual HC) led to a mention of Blenheim Palace, which was followed, according to the law of coincidence, by a TV documentary that night about that amazing place, with some fantastic photography. It's a private home, always has been, but it's truly called a palace, and it's awesomely beautiful. And then there are the Churchill stars: handsome John, the first Duke of Marlborough, and Winston of course. Unmissable.

And yesterday a cruise liner inexplicably did a Titanic off the coast of Italy, with shameful losses of life. I wonder if it will give pause to those people who have booked for that trip in April to follow the course of the actual Titanic? The last place their ship will call at before crossing the Atlantic is Cobh, in southern Ireland, where we went last year and were happily absorbed by the excellent exhibition in the old railway station there. They've got a lot of artefacts (though not as many as in the travelling exhibition I saw in Copenhagen, which will be back in Barcelona by now) including a letter in a bottle that was thrown overboard as the Titanic sailed and was delivered to the writer's mother after his death in the sinking. And then I imagine the tourists will call in at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where many of the recovered bodies were taken and buried. I'd like to go there one day. I wonder if I will?

Ahhhh, pine!

The tree went up yesterday, possibly the latest ever in our personal history: delayed by the flit down south to walk the Hollyford. "It doesn't feel like Christmas," wailed the Baby when we got back, and then sat and Grinched while we decorated it, hanging up all the old friends that it's always a pleasure to unwrap from the tissue every year. The little red glass Austrian post-horn, the English red phone box, the heavy glass New York orb, the Australian kookaburra, the fat pig from Leavenworth, WA, the Mickey Mouse bell from Disneyland - all reminders of end-of-year trips, when everyone is building up to Christmas and wherever you go looks especially pretty.

I think it's a great time to travel, even if it means early winter in the northern hemisphere: no such thing as bad weather, remember, just the wrong clothes. There's a buzz in the air, the locals as pleased and eager as the tourists, a satisfying synchronicity that you don't get at non-festival times of the year; also, it's interesting to see, amongst so much that's the same, what is different about foreign Christmases. Like the candles lit on family graves in Salzburg, or the cute little huts set up along Nyhavn in Copenhagen where, had we been just a few days later, we could have bought mulled wine and cinnamon biscuits and lovely crafts and gifts. Or special (and especially fattening) flavoured coffees at Starbucks in Seattle, or the Rockefeller Centre ice rink in New York, or the sprigs of holly on the uniform overcoats worn by sweating cast members at Disneyland in sunny LA...

This year's new tree decoration is a Saint Nicholas from Copenhagen in fetching curly-toed boots, which makes a nice connection with the Arabian Nights slippers I saw in the souqs in Dubai, where I stopped off both going and returning from Denmark and where I would have found it rather harder, I'm guessing, to find much that was Christmassy at all.

Before the event

Another of my Downton Abbey stories is out today in the Christmas issue of Next magazine; and in the travel section is a story by another writer about Copenhagen, with the photos showing all of the things I saw, except in a rather better light. The weather was the main disappointment of our visit there - that, and the timing, just a week too early for the Christmas markets, sob - and it would have been lovely to have had some blue sky and sunshine to bring out all the colours. It was lucky, at least, that our first afternoon had a decent gleam of sunlight; and the last morning was getting better again.

Photographing the Little Mermaid against even a watery sun wasn't as easy as I would have liked, though. She's been decapitated twice, poor thing, and has a noticeable scar around her neck. She's got about a bit though: she was in Shanghai last year for the Expo, and I was there too, just before it began, when the city reeked of wet concrete and there were traffic barriers, cranes and big machinery all over the place as they rushed to get ready. It was the same in Delhi when I visited just before the Commonwealth Games - and no doubt it's how London is going to be next year when we go there a few months before the Olympics. It's getting to be a theme.

Back to Copenhagen: despite the whingeing, above, there is still something to be said for misty, moody days, and the view from the hotel across the harbour was positively Turner-esque when the sun rose:

Happy socket...

... is happy. Though I'm a bit sorry to leave Copenhagen today, now that the sun is gleaming through the clouds again, and I had such excellent fun this morning cycling along beside the harbour to the Little Mermaid. The cobbles rattled every tooth in my head, but I really enjoyed it, even feeling a little Danish - though they whip along MUCH faster than I did.

And now I'm waiting to board the plane taking me back to Dubai and its 35 degree heat. It's never dull, eh?

Riches

Hmm, I see on the way to coming here that this blog has had a visitor from Hanover - which is a coincidence because Copenhagen is full of rampaging Hanover football fans decked out in green and white scarves. They were marching about in groups, carrying crates of beer and singing randomly, though cheerfully. Something happened while I was in a museum however, nosing happily through an excellent, if unexpected Titanic exhibition - I could hear lots of sirens despite the headphones of my audio guide - and when I walked back to my hotel, the big square at the end of Nyhavn, though empty of fans, was awash with an appalling tide of litter, crushed beer cans and broken bottles. I hope the Danish police, many of whom get about on bikes wearing endearingly unflattering black and reflector-strip shorts, were able to cope with the Germans.

Today was grey and cold again, alas, so the autumn colours went to waste, and when I explored the Rosenborg Castle it was hard to appreciate the treasures within because the lighting was so dim in all the rooms. That was a shame because there was no surface not covered with fine glass or china, old tapestries, portraits big and small, or carved wooden panelling - however, it did speed up the inspection process. I lingered in the basement treasury, though, where the crown jewels (Denmark has the oldest monarchy in the world) were gleaming in their cases and I felt sorry - well, not really - for the woman who had to bear up bravely with a monster ruby the size of a goose egg hanging from her neck.

At lunch I sat in the rooftop restaurant of the old Post Office and had a little feast of Danish specialties, including a crispy fried plaice fillet, smoked salmon with cream cheese and a small beef steak with mushrooms. It was all very tasty and I enjoyed it, but it was filling and I'm still not feeling empty enough to be looking forward to dinner tonight, which is in a restaurant that's impressed the apologetic young man at reception here (he's called, inappropriately, Raphael). And it's just tragic that I haven't had room at any time during my stay to indulge in any street food: not the hot roasted and/or candied nuts, not the crepes with nutella and banana, not the organic hot dogs, and not - sob - the sweet breads and pastries that make such gloriously-smelling use of sugar and cinnamon.

Better by design

Sadly we had a leaden sky all day with not even a glimmer of sun, so my toiling up the Round Tower was a bit of a wasted effort as far as the view over the rooftops was concerned; though the tower itself is worth the visit. It was completed in 1642 and is remarkable for the spiral road to the top inside it. Peter the Great rode up there on a horse, a car has made the journey, and there have been lots of bike races in it; but what surprised me most today was that no-one seems to have been tempted to set loose one of the big round pumpkins sitting in the window recesses as Halloween decorations. Such a well-behaved people.

There's an observatory at the top, but it was closed - and there wasn't much to observe either, as fog came down and rubbed out the tops of all the towers, unfortunately. So today was about interiors: of warm and inviting Baroque churches where music was being played; the Lego shop with its lolly-bins of brightly-coloured bits; the Royal Cafe where we had Smushi for lunch - beautifully-presented open-faced little sandwiches, a cross between traditional smorrebrod and suchi; the Design Centre, which took its form follows function philosophy seriously and was not just hands-on but bums-on in its display of stylish Danish inventions, from egg-cups to chairs. They're nothing if not practical, the Danes: proudly included were also colostomy bags and hernia knickers.

It's a good city for walking around, though the cobbles are punishing; but it was a shame there was no sunshine to bring out the colours of the autumn trees and the painted buildings. Perhaps tomorrow.

Onsdag morgen

Creamy pumpkin soup and delicate brill for dinner last night at cosy organic restaurant Cap Horn along the quay, where hardy souls - not all of them smokers - sat outside in the chill, wrapped in the rugs that were draped over the backs of the chairs. Along the edge of the water is a row of little kit-set huts being assembled for the Christmas market that begins next week, so we'll miss it unfortunately. They were busy yesterday slotting the huts together and stringing spruce garlands across the cobbles and around the windows, and fixing up the lights. It's going to be very pretty.

The waitress last night started speaking to us in Danish and then apologised sincerely when we looked nonplussed - as if it was unreasonable of her to have done that, here in Denmark and all. Of course, like everyone else we've spoken to, her English was perfect, even down to the regional accent, which was appealing. When I encounter a Dane speaking Brummy, I'll be enchanted.

This morning is dull and overcast, so I'm glad we did the canal tour yesterday even though we were rumpled and tired after our travel. For a moment there, we were thinking - madness! - that this was a holiday.

Wonderful!

It's lovely to be back in Copenhagen after, cough, 30 years, and this bit doesn't seem to have changed at all. Nyhavn is still a short canal lined by 4 and 5-storey houses painted strong colours - one of them, number 67, once lived in by Hans Christian Andersen, rather sweetly known here as HC Andersen - between narrow cobblestone roads, with lots of old wooden sailing ships moored along the wharf. Our hotel is right at the end, where the canal meets the harbour, and I have a lovely view of the Best Restaurant in the World, straight across the water: Noma, in a tall brick warehouse. We're not to eat there, unfortunately, though I'm sure we'll do just fine at the places Wonderful Copenhagen has picked out for us.

We took a canal cruise this afternoon, in bright sunshine and a sharpish breeze, scraping under low bridges and delighted by the towers and spires, bikes and boats, brick and stucco in the low sunshine. Back at the hotel, the nice young man at reception was amazed that we should have come all the way from New Zealand to see Copenhagen. "It's not Paris, you know," he said apologetically. But it's lovely, and I know we're going to enjoy exploring it over the next few days - and staying in this cosy old hotel, 71 Nyhavn, with its beams and odd corners and shapes.

It took six hours to get here from Dubai, by the way - a daylight flight this time, and I looked out at just the right time to see a gigantic snow-clad mountain spread out below, surrounded by brown arid land. According to the airshow, it was halfway between Van and Tblisi, and Google suggests tonight that it was Mount Ararat, in Turkey. I do wish they'd put proper maps in airline magazines the way they used to

Happy birthday to me

And what better way to spend it than poking a cannula into my skinny old cat and pouring electrolytes into him? "Oh dear, I think he's only got one more visit here in him," said the vet yesterday, showing me how to put the needle into a flap of some of the loose skin he now has so much of. Yet he's still cheerful enough, if tired, and though he doesn't do much more than lick at his food, he enjoys a wander round the garden and a roll on the path in the sun, and always seeks me out to lie against me at least, if his auld enemy the laptop has stolen yet again the prime position.

So it's a bit of a worry that I'm going away on Sunday for a week. That's a long time for him, especially now, and I'll be anxious that he won't be here when I come home. I'm doing another crazy flit up to the northern hemisphere, via a day in Dubai each way, for just three nights in Copenhagen. I was last there in 1980, so I'll see some changes - and also lots of things the same, since the city has such a lot of historic buildings. I do remember that my overwhelming impression last time was that I'd never before seen so many beautiful things I couldn't afford (same for Stockholm and Oslo - they know a few things about style, do those Scandinavians).

It's autumn there of course, and about 9 degrees, which considering it's 20 here and 33 in Dubai, is going to be something of a shock to the system, especially considering the fierce air-conditioning I'm going to encounter. Although not on the desert sunset safari - that'll be the one with the camels...