This is a rather uncomfortable revelation – the idea that cultural isolation makes you more content. How’s a girl supposed to integrate and get in on the ‘happy Dane’ deal if she’s not really wanted as an ‘outsider’? The answer seems too dark to contemplate. But Niels’ point about Denmark being ‘like a family’ does make sense – and sounds a little more palatable. In all but the most dysfunctional Dynasty-meets-Jerry Springer style families, people do look out for each other. And if the whole of Denmark is essentially related, it’s no wonder that living here can occasionally feel like an extended episode of The Waltons (if the Waltons wore cooler glasses and did their darning in designer chairs. Less Amish chic, more minimalist Zen).
A study from the University of Warwick into happy Danes also found that the greater a nation’s genetic distance from Denmark, the lower the reported well-being of their inhabitants. So Danes are so damned happy that the more closely related your country’s population is to them, the jollier you’ll be? I marvel. This is incredible!
There’s another humdinger, too. Niels tells me that studies have shown that there may be a specific ‘happy gene’.
‘It’s called the 5-HTT, or the “serotonin-transporter gene”, and it’s a major target of many drugs aimed at mood regulation. The 5-HTT gene affects how your brain handles neurotransmitters and there have been huge population studies showing the relation between your mood and whether you have the long form of this 5-HTT gene. And if you look at the frequency of long-form 5-HTT worldwide, Denmark comes out on top. The Danish population as a whole has been shown to have higher levels of the gene – we score in the top percentages in the world along with Holland.’
Hang about, so an elongated 5-HTT gene will make you happier than the average Joe and most Danes have just got it? This is amazing. But where does it leave the rest of us? Those not fortunate enough to have been born with the white cross of the Dannebrog going through us like a stick of rock? Does this mean I’ve been trying to live Danishly, all in vain? Niels reminds me that the genetic effect only accounts for 50 per cent.
‘So there’s still a 50 per cent chance that I can get happy, Danish-style?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK…’ I cling on to this and ask Niels if he thinks that he’s ‘genetically happy’. He tells me: ‘I’m sure of it. I’m a very happy person. I’d say I’m an eight or nine out of ten. It’s a privilege to be Danish, I feel lucky to have been born here. We are a good nation with great culture and wealth. If we lose to the Swedes in soccer or get depressed for five seconds, it’s nothing.’
I’m pleased for him. Really, I am (can’t you tell?). But I hang up the phone with a sigh, resigning myself to the fact that I’ve only got a 50 per cent chance of nailing this Danish happiness thing. I attempt to console myself by walking the dog, in the hope that the exercise will release feel-good endorphins. On the way home, I pick up 50 per cent of my new weekly snegle quota, in the hope that the stodge will release feel-good serotonin. Health and happiness Danish-style is, I decide, all about balance.
With Lego Man away for another week, I get roped in to attending October’s major event solo. This is the highlight of the Jutland calendar: the closing of Legoland for winter. To understand quite the impact that this has on the local community, you just need to look around at all the harassed-looking parents of small children, now desperately wondering how on earth they’re going to fill their weekends and entertain their little darlings during the long winter ahead. American Mom is already frantically trying to arrange playdates and stockpiling Dora the Explorer DVDs.
As a final hoorah before the region goes into a state of mourning for the much-treasured theme park, there’s a closing party to mark the end of the season. I’m hoping for a Dirty Dancing-esque end-of-season bash, complete with singing, choreographed dance routines and Patrick Swayze. So it’s a disappointment to find that the reality is rather less glamorous and involves far fewer rippling torsos.
Wearing wellies and Lego Man’s parka, the only coat that now fits me, I stand holding a bottle of fizzy water in one hand and clutching a sparkler in the other. Rain threatens to put out the latter at any moment, as though even the sky is sad that Legoland is closing. I hasten to write my name in air with the cascade of spitting fire before it’s extinguished by drizzle. Fortunately my name is fairly short. A Danish girl called ‘Karen-Margrethe’ standing next to me is, frankly, buggered.
The rides are all open for a final adrenaline rush, but from the ‘Polar Express’ to the teacups, not one of them allows pregnant women on them. I’m stuck holding the coats and the hands of small children as the rest of the grownups get giddy and gently sozzled on Carlsberg. In Denmark, walking around a children’s theme park with a Danish beer in hand is seen as patriotic, rather than provocation for an ASBO.
It’s getting cold now. My cheeks are burning, my fingers are tingling and my hair follicles are standing to attention, Hellraiser-style. So I’m relieved when Private School Dad spots me, waves, and tells me we’re on the move.
‘Come on, they’re lighting the rockets,’ he says, wobbling towards me with roller coaster sea legs. He downs his bottle of Carlsberg and puts it into his toddler’s nappy bag to recycle later on. Living the Danish dream, I think. We follow the crowd, now shuffling towards the open space at the end of the theme park, to marvel at the display. Or at least try to. In the rain. When only half of them will light.
‘Oooooh!’ We make the sounds expected of us as I inhale the aroma of charcoal and sulphur.
‘Ahhhh!’ A fountain of gold spills from the inky black sky and specks of rain (or are they pieces of firework detritus?) fall into our eyes. A few children start crying, either from the noise or the optical assault, and are bundled up and edged out. Catherine Wheels whizz, signifying that the pyrotechnics are coming to an end, and there is clapping and whooping before all is dark and still once more. The season is over. Legoland, the sole attraction in my particular corner of Denmark, is done for another year. All around me, parents are packing up their shivering children, ready to ship out.
‘Even the penguins leave for winter,’ Private School Dad tells me, blowing on his hands to try to keep warm.
‘Are you joking?’ I ask hopefully.
‘No, really – it gets that cold.’
I don’t want a fight on my hands but I can’t help pointing out that penguins are from the Antarctic. ‘Surely it gets a bit nippier there than in Denmark?’
Private School Dad looks at me, tilting his head to one side quizzically. ‘This is your first full winter here, isn’t it?’
‘Yes…?’
He shakes his head and gives a slightly menacing chuckle: ‘Good luck!’
I wonder what’s in store, and how on earth I’m going to get through it without wine.
* * *
Things I’ve learned this month:
Vikings are tougher than penguins when it comes to surviving the Danish winter
Healthcare in Denmark is high tech
…but that doesn’t mean Danes are terribly healthy
…instead, they reserve the right to abuse their own bodies in any way they see fit, safe in the knowledge that the state will pick up the pieces
Midwifery in Denmark is Old School
My mother gave me a distinct advantage in life when it comes to sparkler spelling. Bad luck all you triple-plus-syllabled lot…
11. November
‘Here comes the Snow/Sleet/Soul-destroying Darkness…’
It’s extraordinary how quickly it has happened. The air turned black, a cold wind shook what was left of autumn’s leaves off the trees and huge, icy raindrops fell from the sky, unannounced.
Suddenly, the outside world has become menacing: brimming with weather that seems as though it’s out to get you from the moment you open your front door.
The country has been dunked, mercilessly, into the new season and we’re on course to experience our first full Nordic winter in its endurance-test entirety. I
t is bitter out there. The kind of brutal cold that makes your forehead freeze with the effects of nature’s Botox and your eyes scrunch up to shield your irises from the chill. Driving home from the supermarket one afternoon, I wonder whether the thermometer on my car has broken as the needle droops despondently to the left and hovers around the minus twenty mark. I give the dial a tap (the universally accepted method of ‘fixing’ any mechanical item, along with ‘hitting it’ and ‘turning it on and off again’), but it does not move. As I drive along the harbour, I see children who look as though they’ve been inflated in puffed-up padded onesies taking tentative steps off the pontoon and onto the sea. One boy is a good twenty yards out, standing and waving from the middle of the fjord. I blink, in case the cold’s playing tricks on me or I really am witnessing the second coming of the Messiah in an Adidas snowsuit. Then I notice the cloudy, opaquely swirled surface of the sea. Could it be? Is it now so damn cold that the sea has frozen over?
We’re not in NW6 any more, Toto, I think and find myself feeling nostalgic for the insulating smog of London in winter. As if to rub it in, the Danish public radio station starts playing Billy Idol’s Hot in the City.
‘Is this some sort of sick joke?” I wail to no one as I follow the snow plough, careful not to stray from its tracks. I couldn’t leave the house this morning until the tractor had been round to clear the roads, my red mobility tomato being ill-equipped to tackle two-foot-high powdery drifts, despite the winter tyres. Fortunately, there was plenty to occupy me until then, since all residents in Denmark are legally obliged to shovel snow from the area in front of their house in case someone slips over. Friendly Neighbour was kind enough to inform us of this fact before she sped off to Copenhagen to sit out the worst of the weather and asked whether we’d mind doing hers as well. Danes must clear the entire property-width of their pavement and keep it snow-free from 7am until 10pm (on Sundays you’re allowed a lie-in and can wait until 8am to start shovelling). This, apparently, is a non-negotiable civic duty and the newspapers run daily pictures of the Danish prime minister doing hers – the implication being that if she can run the country and still manage to shovel snow, the rest of us have no excuse. Face burning, nose dripping, and ‘helped’ by the dog, wearing a full white beard of snow as he attempted to eat his way through the drifts, I finally got our drive clear while Lego Man tackled Friendly Neighbour’s. But no sooner was the snow cleared than a white blanket started to settle again.
By the time I get home, it’s a winter wonderland once more.
It’s also dark.
Again.
Once I’ve made it inside and thawed out sufficiently, I peer out into the thick black nothingness for five minutes and estimate that it is now ‘evening’.
‘OK dog, this means it’s probably dinner time … right?’
The dog nods and starts to dribble before prancing around, whinnying slightly and lashing his tail with glee as though he’s pulled the wool over my eyes in some way. Weirdo.
I reason that I might as well start supper too and stare blankly into the fridge for inspiration before retrieving a raw chicken. I’m just holding its chilly pink carcass in my hands, frowning at the controls on the Danish oven, when Lego Man arrives home.
‘What are you doing?’ (It’s not his fault: he didn’t have a TV growing up. He hasn’t watched enough US sitcoms to know that ‘Honey, I’m home! How was your day?’ is a more conventional matrimonial greeting.)
‘“Hello” to you, too. I’m making dinner.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘You do know it’s only 4pm?’
‘Oh.’ I did not know this. I should really start wearing a watch. The bird gets a reprieve and we decide to walk the dog instead. Not as easy as it sounds when your dog is black, the sky is black, and you live in an area untroubled by streetlamps or defined paths. Add in a skewed centre of gravity from being eight months pregnant, some precariously icy undergrowth and a total disconnect with feet you haven’t seen for weeks, and dog walking gets ramped up from ‘gentle activity’ to ‘extreme sport’. One wrong step could send me tumbling into woodland/mud/sand/dog mess left by previous walkers. Torches don’t really cut it against the all-absorbing darkness so we spend most of the time swinging them about, pretending we’re Mulder and Scully in The X-Files or holding them underneath our chins and doing ghost impressions.
Our neighbours are nowhere to be seen (we establish this before any juvenile flashlight shenanigans) and the legion of retirees who spent the summer pruning rose bushes and swigging from bottles of beer in socks and sandals have now retreated to their homes following a flurry of activity where they all raked autumn leaves into trailers and drove them around, for days, or so it seemed. Now, we don’t pass a single soul, and conclude that we are living in a ghost town once again. It’s a little eerie.
The dog’s confused, too. He has a wee and it freezes instantly. We get home and he trots obediently to his bed, assuming it’s time to sleep. This is unheard of. I try to coax him back out and he takes a few steps before slumping down in the hallway with an audible ‘harrumph’.
‘Do you think the dog’s OK?’ I ask.
‘Yes, why?’
‘He’s just been acting strangely lately.’ I think for a moment. ‘Do you think maybe the dog’s suffering from seasonal affective disorder?’ I ask.
‘Do dogs suffer from seasonal affective disorder?’
Neither of us has a clue, so I turn to Google and find ‘Do dogs get SAD?’ brings up 1,020,000 results.
Stanley Coren, dog psychology expert from the University of British Columbia, is first up, saying that 40 per cent of dog owners see a downturn in their pet’s moods during winter due to melatonin and serotonin levels. ‘Melatonin, secreted when it’s dark, makes you lethargic and serotonin affects appetite and mood,’ I tell Lego Man. ‘It says you need sunlight to make serotonin … or Prozac.’
‘We’re not giving the dog Prozac.’
I shrug as if to say: ‘OK then, it’s your dog’s welfare you’re messing with…’
‘It’s not as though the rest of Denmark isn’t high on happy pills to get through winter,’ I mutter, then read on. ‘Apparently, dogs sleep longer and want to eat more in winter. So he might be comfort eating. To cheer himself up…’
‘Good grief…’
‘He brought home half a pizza yesterday. And he’s started gorging on acorns.’
‘Do dogs eat acorns? Isn’t that Piglet from Winnie the Pooh?’
I’m not sure about this so I click on another link.
‘Dogs with SAD can also suffer from depression and social withdrawal.’
‘“Social withdrawal”? He’s a dog! Does this mean he hasn’t been attempting to sniff as many bottoms as usual?’
I have a think. ‘He did give that Alsatian a wide berth yesterday…’
‘Oh, well then, he’s practically a canine recluse.’
Choosing to ignore Lego Man’s mockery, I read on: ‘It’s all related to light levels, which are particularly crap in Scandinavia in winter.’
‘Does it say that?’
‘I paraphrase. This site says that in Florida, where it’s sunny all the time, only about 2 per cent of animals get SAD.’ I’m just imagining all these giddy Florida dogs, tails wagging, wearing muumuus and ‘I Heart Orlando’ visors, having the time of their lives, when our dog comes and sits at my feet. He stares up at me from beneath long, cow-like lashes and I picture a thought bubble rising from his woolly head: ‘Don’t s’pose a trip to Disneyland is on the cards?’
‘Fortunately, there’s also some advice to “help dogs battle the winter blues”.’
‘Oh good, I can’t wait to hear it.’
I sense a tone of sarcasm but plough on: ‘We should leave lights on for him when we’re out. And the radio.’
‘But he doesn’t speak Danish.’
We think about this before logging on to internet radio and selecting him an English language station.
We wonder whether he’s more of a Radio 2 or a Radio 4 sort of chap. I’m erring towards Radio 2 when Lego Man raises a crucial objection: ‘But what about Ken Bruce? Pop Master might be enough to push him over the edge…’
‘Good point.’
We decide to stick with Radio 4 (‘everyone loves Jane Garvey…’) and resolve to leave it on whenever he’s in on his own. We’re just rewarding ourselves for having solved the problem with a cup of tea and a biscuit, followed by a Danish that’s been lurking in the fridge and some crisps that were left open, when I look again at the SAD symptoms listed on my laptop. ‘Increased appetite, craving for comfort foods…’
‘Do you think,’ I start tentatively, ‘we might have it too?’ Lego Man isn’t listening: instead he has his head wedged in the fridge, inspecting the designated cheese compartment. ‘Seasonal affective disorder, I mean?’ He emerges with a matchbox-sized slab of cheddar distorting his left cheek.
‘Whaa?’
‘We went to bed at 8pm last night. And we turned down a drinks invitation in to stay in and watch Orange is the New Black.’
‘It’s “must-watch” TV…’ he protests through his mouthful. ‘That’s why they call it that. We’re powerless in its grasp…’
The Year of Living Danishly Page 24
