James Bond and Barrack Obama are all over the Danish television at the moment but mind you, we’re writing poems and some of us are even writing NaNoWriMo as well. No time for a lot of blog reading in November for sure.

Only we launched a notice board here on InOurBooks last week and we’re so glad that Amanda from Brisbane, Australia, used it to promote her blog. Amanda is a member of the Scandinavian club there and she also reads a lot of books and so do so many other members of this extraordinary club. I’m not sure whether they read that much poetry but here I’ll let Amanda correct me if I’m wrong. Still, there is this club where people can meet and have new friends, having delicious meals and having so much fun with their children.

I’m a teacher at the local island school – today   was “a theme day” and the theme was English.I asked Marilyn Braendeholm or MiskMask for a good recipe for a “four o’clock tea” last week and she sent me two recipes of how to create the best sandwiches the English like. I also studied websites about how to tie a tie.

So today it was. The students appeared wearing ties and were pretty excited. An English day? In the first lesson we studied the recipes in English but we also learned how to use Google Translate and in the second lesson we studied how to tie a double Windsor knot and this work went on, off and on. And that was great because I was to fetch 3 packets of black Tiger prawns and other ingredients which were scheduled to come by the ferry at around 9.00 and yes, everything was there.

And the sandwiches? Marilyn, here I was among people who love “fuldskaver” which is a Sejer Island specialty I can’t explain, but something completely different compared with these sophisticated English sandwiches.
They loved them, Marilyn, and they also loved the tea, and we did heat the milk. We were supposed to speak English, only English, for almost four hours and we did the first two of them but when we created that delicious “four o’clock tea” experiment, the words switched to Danish all the time. Now here I sit and smile thinking about all these good things that come out of poetry.
And poetry! Poetic Asides! I have so much trouble posting at Poetic Asides. It says I’m posting too quickly and I don’t understand. I went through lots of trial and errors but whatever I do it says that I’m posting too quickly. Too quickly? I live on one of the slowest internet connection places in the entire Denmark.

So I began posting my poems on our notice board and what a wonderful surprise!
Claudette responded. Linda Hofke responded. Janet Martin responded. Ina. And there I sat. “Thank you” written all over my face. And here I am to say thank you. You make me so glad.

The worst part is that I’m not sure I know how to reply directly on our notice board yet – I only figured out how to paste so far but I will find out, hopefully. And now Vivienne Blake. Thank you and especially for your expression: “He would flip his lid.”

Now, let’s enjoy our Monday coffee, only mind you, I might suggest some real English tea some day with heated milk – shaken, not stirred.

Do you take the blue cup or the red cup of coffee at 7-Eleven?
You might need a Danish to go along, I’d say – especially because “blue” means “right wing” and “red” means “left wing” here in Denmark so I would be pretty confused if I needed a cup of coffee in a 7-Eleven in the US for the time being.

Well, in fact I’d feel pretty odd to order a Danish.

Only for the time being we’re thinking of Sandy and we follow this huge giant, to be honest no one thinks of politics today here. We might drink our coffee, sort of color blind, and we don’t write any poems and we think of Pearl and all the other 400,000 people who had to be evacuated. In fact we think of all the millions of people who are right there.

For the next six hours we hold our breath and wish that people from the New York area (and the rest of the North and East Coast) can drink all the coffees they want, blue or red, tomorrow and have them enjoying all the good wishes from all around the world.