In the line of fire

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Now, those of you that know me quite well will know that I am sometimes guilty of slight exaggeration. But I swear to you that today I was genuinely chased off a firing range by the Danish army.

As you know, we're not very far into our year off - in fact, today is our first day on foreign soil. We were driving up this beautiful spit of land that runs up the west coast of Denmark and it was all a series of lovely fishing villages, remote churches and sand dunes. We stopped to have a walk along the dunes next to what seemed to be a gloriously deserted beach. I ran down onto the sand to take a picture of Claire up on the dunes when I noticed an army Landrover hurtling down this same gloriously deserted beach toward me. As it drew closer it started frantically beeping its horn – as if maybe I hadn't seen it. It drew up next to me in a flurry of sand and a quite irate soldier with a moustache started shouting at me. In Danish. When I calmly explained that I was English, he explained with some urgency (in very good English as it turns out) that I was on a firing range during a live military manoeuvre and would I like to leave the area with some haste. I don't know if you've ever seen a fairly unfit 14st man scrabbling up a grassy sand dune with the fear of death spurring him on but it's not pretty. Once Claire had stopped laughing and we got back to our van, we suddenly noticed the bright yellow sign of a soldier holding a rifle that we'd parked next to. Albeit a tad too late.

A great introduction to Denmark – which is, I have to say, one of the neatest, cleanest and tidiest countries I have ever visited. Even the countryside itself seems to have been designed by someone with a ruler and a comb. It's like a Disney/Pixar landscape. Tonight we are camped next to Hjarbaek Fjord. It is just incredibly beautiful.

Comments

  1. Adrian23 May 2011 at 13:59

    Brilliant! - So jealous...

    ReplyDelete
  2. gaz23 May 2011 at 21:35

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. gaz24 May 2011 at 23:37

    just remember ye olde danish saying; "Lad den tache se gash"

    ReplyDelete

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