hyggeligere

• 11-15

’t remember what we ate, but knowing my unflappable mother and the short notice she was given, it was most likely leftovers put together in some pretty dishes, laid out on a tablecloth with matching napkins and crockery. When we were all sitting down, with food on our plates and red wine in our glasses, my father raised his glass for the traditional before-we-eat ‘skål’ (cheers). As the British man reached for his glass to join in, he knocked red wine all over the white tablecloth. There was silence. The wife turned to her husband with a look of profound displeasure, when whatever she was about to say was interrupted by my mother. “PYYYYT med det! (Don’t worry about that!) We’ll wash the tablecloth tomorrow,” she exclaimed. The rest of the evening was pure ‘hygge’, and the couple came over for dinner again a couple of days later. The power of ‘pyt’ had changed the atmosphere from potentially bleak to one of relief.

• 11-25