Street life - We're having a heatwave
It is with good reason that we often call summer the silly season, and here in southern Scandinavia, the effects of warmth and heat have a most dramatic effect upon the inhabitants.It is all too clear that summer is here when I am woken up by an alien...
It is with good reason that we often call summer the silly season, and here in southern Scandinavia, the effects of warmth and heat have a most dramatic effect upon the inhabitants.
It is all too clear that summer is here when I am woken up by an alien strong light at 4 a.m. I squint at the clock and try to go back to sleep but to no avail, it's bright, it's hot and it's calling - come out to play.
By 9 a.m. the day has been raging for some time, and there is no choice other than to step out of the apartment in which I was once so happy, happy because it was so filled with precious winter light, so devoid of curtains, blinds and other southern accoutrements. Now staying indoors is not an option; by midday this room will be a hothouse of wilting roses and shrivelled basil.
At this point in the morning the Scandinavian summer folly is not yet fully apparent. Caught up on the light summer breeze, it is easy to enthuse about breakfast in the shade of a tree at the park, or to envisage lunch at the Amager beach only five kilometres away from the city centre.
But just as you have been carried away, so too have the freaks, the geeks and the birds, both feathered and bare-breasted. The first thing we do is pack up a breakfast of homemade granola, cucumber sandwiches and Colombian coffee, and cycle to the park in Fredriksberg. We arrive at 10 a.m. and already the herons are out, and a crazed peacock is up in a tree screeching, the women are topless in dental floss bottoms and the paranoid schizophrenic has just jumped into the green, bird-dropping infested pond for his morning wash, followed by a few cans of beer drunk by casting the head right back and pouring the beer right down in one great gulp; he scratches and twitches awhile before settling down to lie in the sun... Oh the lovely park, bursting with life, children crying, malcoordinated scientists trying to throw a frisbee, perverts in red shirts loitering behind bushes (surely perverts should camouflage?), anorexic blue-skinned boys with dreadlocks, Parisian picnickers, marathon snoggers, exhausted joggers - where is a girl to sit when she wishes to have her breakfast in peace?
The heatwave spills over to the next day, and so we decide to head to the beach in Amager, this artificial stretch of sand and grass is long enough I think, there'll be plenty of room for us to disappear upon the waves. But alas, the beach is full, full, full of Danish folk and gypsy folk and other folk, it's no different to Mellieha Bay on a Sunday in July - radios blaring, kites flying, drunks laughing, cars racing, tattoos exposed, barbeques galore... a group of very drunk Greenlanders settle down nearby, playing a guitar, singing slurry songs, playing with paper planes, playing violent baseball with one bat that gets hurled across the water from one soused creature to another, shouting at a very drunk woman who puts on her clothes and then takes them all off in a state of confusion, before running into the freezing water laughing in a demented, unnerving fashion.
Across the water is Sweden. The bridge connecting the two countries shines and fades with the changing light; every 60 seconds or so planes come into land at Kastrup airport, the wind turbines spin laconically, the gas plant to the left is busy being extended and developed... it's all come to a head and everyone is smiling and stupidly sunburnt. And I too am smiling, feeling light-headed and silly, watching the world spin all around me, brimming with mirth and melting ice creams and cool beers. It won't last, they tell me, we're just having a heatwave, enjoy it while it lasts.
It is all too clear that summer is here when I am woken up by an alien strong light at 4 a.m. I squint at the clock and try to go back to sleep but to no avail, it's bright, it's hot and it's calling - come out to play.
By 9 a.m. the day has been raging for some time, and there is no choice other than to step out of the apartment in which I was once so happy, happy because it was so filled with precious winter light, so devoid of curtains, blinds and other southern accoutrements. Now staying indoors is not an option; by midday this room will be a hothouse of wilting roses and shrivelled basil.
At this point in the morning the Scandinavian summer folly is not yet fully apparent. Caught up on the light summer breeze, it is easy to enthuse about breakfast in the shade of a tree at the park, or to envisage lunch at the Amager beach only five kilometres away from the city centre.
But just as you have been carried away, so too have the freaks, the geeks and the birds, both feathered and bare-breasted. The first thing we do is pack up a breakfast of homemade granola, cucumber sandwiches and Colombian coffee, and cycle to the park in Fredriksberg. We arrive at 10 a.m. and already the herons are out, and a crazed peacock is up in a tree screeching, the women are topless in dental floss bottoms and the paranoid schizophrenic has just jumped into the green, bird-dropping infested pond for his morning wash, followed by a few cans of beer drunk by casting the head right back and pouring the beer right down in one great gulp; he scratches and twitches awhile before settling down to lie in the sun... Oh the lovely park, bursting with life, children crying, malcoordinated scientists trying to throw a frisbee, perverts in red shirts loitering behind bushes (surely perverts should camouflage?), anorexic blue-skinned boys with dreadlocks, Parisian picnickers, marathon snoggers, exhausted joggers - where is a girl to sit when she wishes to have her breakfast in peace?
The heatwave spills over to the next day, and so we decide to head to the beach in Amager, this artificial stretch of sand and grass is long enough I think, there'll be plenty of room for us to disappear upon the waves. But alas, the beach is full, full, full of Danish folk and gypsy folk and other folk, it's no different to Mellieha Bay on a Sunday in July - radios blaring, kites flying, drunks laughing, cars racing, tattoos exposed, barbeques galore... a group of very drunk Greenlanders settle down nearby, playing a guitar, singing slurry songs, playing with paper planes, playing violent baseball with one bat that gets hurled across the water from one soused creature to another, shouting at a very drunk woman who puts on her clothes and then takes them all off in a state of confusion, before running into the freezing water laughing in a demented, unnerving fashion.
Across the water is Sweden. The bridge connecting the two countries shines and fades with the changing light; every 60 seconds or so planes come into land at Kastrup airport, the wind turbines spin laconically, the gas plant to the left is busy being extended and developed... it's all come to a head and everyone is smiling and stupidly sunburnt. And I too am smiling, feeling light-headed and silly, watching the world spin all around me, brimming with mirth and melting ice creams and cool beers. It won't last, they tell me, we're just having a heatwave, enjoy it while it lasts.