The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell Page A

of homes have this. And then finally, well, I’d probably go for some Royal Copenhagen dining plates,’ she adds. I look over at our off-white Ikea crockery in a pile next to the dishwasher and see that we have work to do.
    â€˜Right,’ I reply brightly, resolving to un-Ikea our home. ‘And all this great design really makes Danes happy?’ I ask. Lego Man already has an arm in a coat and is searching for the car keys to begin his retail therapy.
    â€˜I think so, yes,’ says Charlotte. ‘When we surround ourselves with quality design, it influences our mood. If our surroundings are nice, we feel cosy and safe. It makes us happier.’
    I ask if she’s happy herself. ‘Oh yes, I’d say a nine out of ten – there’s always a little room for something more.’
    â€˜Like what?’ I can’t help asking.
    â€˜That’s personal,’ she replies. I worry I’ve offended her by prying but she soon relents and reveals all. ‘I’d like to live by the ocean and I’d like my boyfriend to propose. Then I’d be a ten.’
    I thank Charlotte and say goodbye. Then I look at my husband, now wrestling a boot onto a foot, silhouetted against a panoramic view of a picture-perfect, dusky pink seascape. Maybe I should start my happiness project by trying to be more grateful for what I’ve got , I think, fondly. Then Lego Man writes ‘HURRY UP!!!’ on a Post-It and sticks it to my forehead. The bubble bursts and I swiftly dismiss the idea of spending the next twelve months cherishing his every wet-towels-on-the-bed and inability-to-locate-the-laundry-basket foible. Instead, I grab my coat and go.
    We Shop. With a capital ‘S’. In spite of Allan with two ‘l’s from the bank. Lego Man is already happier once his new purchases are installed, and over the next few days our house starts to look more like a home. I try to think positively, too, but my own Pollyanna project suffers some setbacks.
    I make my first Danish faux pas by putting paper into the wrong recycling bin. This leads to my inaugural interaction with our new neighbours, when two bearded gents call round at eight o’clock on Monday morning. I’m not yet dressed and haven’t even had a chance to turn on the coffee machine, meaning I’m in no state to receive visitors. But Mr & Mr Beard aren’t going anywhere. They ring the doorbell insistently until, living in a glass house where there’s nowhere to hide, I have no choice but to answer. Huddled in anoraks and blinking behind surprisingly non-Scandi milk-bottle glasses, they start to speak in Danish before I explain that I haven’t yet learned their fine tongue. Eventually they relent. Mr Beard I tells me in halting English that ‘the neighbours’ (collective) have noticed that the recycling bin has been more full than usual and so have been through the rubbish to discover the culprit. Mr Beard II holds aloft a tea-stained utilities bill addressed to Lego Man as evidence. Once I get over the weirdness of the fact that my new neighbours have been going through our bin (or their bin, as it turns out), I politely ask where it is they’d like me to deposit my waste paper. They point to an identical bin to the one I had been using, only a few feet further to the left.
    Chastened, I promise to do better next time and get a free lesson in waste separation. The Danes, it turns out, are admirably obsessive about recycling. Almost 90 per cent of packaging is recycled and paper, cans, bottles, food and organic waste all have separate recycling homes. Sorting out what goes where is an art form I have yet to master, but I do work out that the Tardis-type booth at the local supermarket is for bottles. We pop one in on the off-chance one afternoon and marvel at the ad hoc laser show that commences. The bottle is scanned for its reuse value before the magical machine spits out a voucher, paying us