Here comes week 42!

 

Today is Friday, week 41.  Yes, those crazy Danes do love their week numbers.  (Remember my post Week Six? Week Sex!)  To be honest, I’ve always found the Danish way confusing and prefer using actual dates.  “Shall we meet up in the week beginning 21 October?”  Instead of “Shall we meet up in week 43?”  But – gasp – I even caught myself asking DDH (Dear-Danish-Husband) if he could “book time off in week 7 ” (the Danish schools’ winter holiday week)! 

But I digress!  Yes, today is Friday in week 41, which means that if you are out and about today you are guaranteed to see hoardes of Danish schoolkids (and many nursery kids) doing all kinds of sport.  It’s “Motionsdag” (National ‘Exercise Day’).  My son’s class (7th grade) are dancing and playing høvdingebold (dodgeball).  My daughter’s class (5th grade) are doing a sponsored run/scooter race down at the beach…

And what comes after week 41?  Why, week 42 – selvfølgelig!  Otherwise known as the Danish schools’ autumn holiday week.  I’ll be taking a nice little break with the kids, so I leave you with a couple of ideas of what to do with the hundreds and thousands of kastanjer (chestnuts or conkers) that you’ll find on your autumn walks in the Danish woods right now.  If you have little ‘uns, you’ll know that they come home every day from nursery, pockets literally bulging with the darn things 😉 

Don’t want to make something crafty with the chestnuts?  Their scent is apparently good at warding off spiders – just pop the chestnuts in a bowl and leave them in the corners of any room…

And, talking of spiders, here are the crafts!

SPIDERS WEBS 

You’ll need:

• chestnuts
• cocktail sticks or matches
• a small implement for making holes (like a screwdriver)
• wool 

Make about 8 holes round the outside of the chestnut. Push in the cocktail sticks or matches – it should look like a wheel.  Take a long piece of wool and weave it in and out of the ‘spokes’ of the wheel.  It doesn’t have to be perfect!  Did I mention this project was great for kids?

Keep winding around and around.  Remember to leave a long piece of wool when you are finished, so that you can hang it up.  You can use different yarns for different effects.  Orange and black?  Hmmm, Halloween anyone?

 

 SNUGGLY SPIDERS

 

You’ll need:

• chestnuts

• pipecleaners

• a small implement for making holes (like a screwdriver)

• something to make eyes (for example, stick-on googly eyes, small round white stickers, glitter glue) 

Make four holes on each side of the chestnut.  We used 2 pipecleaners for each spider.  Cut each pipecleaner into 4 equal lengths, so you’ll end up with 8 in all.  Stick them into the holes you’ve made and voilà, your spider has legs!  Stick on some eyes.  Use what you’ve got to hand. We just used a couple of dabs of glitter glue.

  

Time to run!  (And jump, and skip, and play football…)

Have a fantastic Friday and an exciting efterårsferie!

Diane 🙂