Helen Russell - The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country

The Year of Living

DANISHLY

The Year of Living

DANISHLY

uncovering the secrets
of the worlds
happiest country

Helen Russell

Published in the UK in 2015 by
Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre,
3941 North Road, London N7 9DP
email:
www.iconbooks.com

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia
by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House,
7477 Great Russell Street,
London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia
by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road,
Frating Green, Colchester CO7 7DW

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand
by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd,
PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street,
Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in South Africa by
Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District,
41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925

Distributed in India by Penguin Books India,
7th Floor, Infinity Tower C, DLF Cyber City,
Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

ISBN: 978-184831-812-0

Text copyright 2015 Helen Russell

The author has asserted her moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset in Filosofia by Marie Doherty

Printed and bound in the UK
by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For Little Red, Lego Man and the woman in the salopettes-n-beret combo.

Prologue

Making Changes The Happiness Project

It all started simply enough. After a few days off work my husband and I were suffering from post-holiday blues and struggling to get back into the swing of things. A grey drizzle had descended on London and the city looked grubby and felt somehow worn out as did I. There has to be more to life than this was the taunt that ran through my head as I took the tube to the office every day, then navigated my way home through chicken bone-strewn streets twelve hours later, before putting in a couple of hours of extra work or going to events for my job. As a journalist on a glossy magazine, I felt like a fraud. I spent my days writing about how readers could have it all: a healthy work-life balance, success, sanity, sobriety all while sporting the latest styles and a radiant glow. In reality, I was still paying off student loans, relying on industrial quantities of caffeine to get through the day and self-medicating with Sauvignon Blanc to get myself to sleep.

Sunday evenings had become characterised by a familiar tightening in my chest at the prospect of the week ahead, and it was getting harder and harder to keep from hitting the snooze button several times each morning. I had a job Id worked hard for in an industry Id been toiling in for more than a decade. But once I got the role Id been striving towards, I realised I wasnt actually any happier just busier. What I aspired to had become a moving target. Even when I reached it, thered be something else I thought was missing. The list of things I thought I wanted, or needed, or should be doing, was inexhaustible. I, on the other hand, was permanently exhausted. Life felt scattered and fragmented. I was always trying to do too many things at once and always felt as though I was falling behind.

I was 33 the same age Jesus got to, only by this point hed supposedly walked on water, cured lepers and resurrected the dead. At the very least hed inspired a few followers, cursed a fig tree, and done something pretty whizzy with wine at a wedding. But me? I had a job. And a flat. And a husband and nice friends. And a new dog a mutt of indeterminate breeding that wed hoped might bring a bucolic balance to our hectic urban lives. So life was OK. Well, apart from the headaches, the intermittent insomnia, the on/off tonsillitis that hadnt shifted despite months of antibiotics and the colds I seemed to come down with every other week. But that was normal, right?

Id thrived on the adrenaline of city life in the past, and the bright, buzzy team I worked with meant that there was never a dull moment. I had a full social calendar and a support network of friends I loved dearly, and I lived in one of the most exciting places in the world. But after twelve years at full pelt in the countrys capital and the second stabbing in my North London neighbourhood in as many months, I suddenly felt broken.

There was something else, too. For two years, I had been poked, prodded and injected with hormones daily only to have my heart broken each month. Wed been trying for a baby, but it just wasnt working. Now, my stomach churned every time a card and a collection went round the office for some colleague or other off on maternity leave. There are only so many Baby Gap romper suits you can coo over when its all youve wanted for years all your thrice-weekly hospital appointments have been aiming for. People had started to joke that I should hurry up, that I wasnt that young any more and didnt want to miss the boat. I would smile so hard that my jaw would ache, while trying to resist the urge to punch them in the face and shout: Bugger off! Id resigned myself to a future of IVF appointments fitted in around work, then working even more in what spare time I had to keep up. I had to keep going, to stop myself from thinking too much and to maintain the lifestyle I thought I wanted. That I thought we needed. My other half was also feeling the strain and would come home furious with the world most nights. Hed rant about bad drivers or the rush-hour traffic hed endured on his 90-minute commute to and from work, before collapsing on the sofa and falling into a Top Gear/trash TV coma until bed.

My husband is a serious-looking blond chap with a hint of the physics teacher about him who once auditioned to be the Milky Bar kid. He didnt have a TV growing up so wasnt entirely sure what a Milky Bar was, but his parents had seen an ad in the Guardian and thought it sounded wholesome. Another albino-esque child got the part in the end, but he remembers the day fondly as the first time he got to play with a handheld Nintendo that another hopeful had brought along. He also got to eat as much chocolate as he liked something else not normally allowed. His parents eschewed many such new-fangled gadgets and foodstuffs, bestowing on him instead a childhood of classical music, museum visits and long, bracing walks. I can only begin to imagine their disappointment when, aged eight, he announced that his favourite book was the Argos catalogue; a weighty tome that he would sit with happily for hours on end, circling various consumer electronics and Lego sets he wanted. This should have been an early indicator of what was in store.

He came along at a time in my life when I had just about given up hope. 2008, to be exact. My previous boyfriend had dumped me at a wedding (really), and the last date Id been on was with a man whod invited me round for dinner before getting caught up watching football on TV and so forgetting to buy any food. He said hed order me a Dominos pizza instead. I told him not to bother. So when I met my husband-to-be and he offered to cook, I wasnt expecting much. But supper went surprisingly well. He was clever and funny and kind and there were ramekins involved. My mother, when I informed her of this last fact, was very impressed. Thats the sign of a very well brought up young man, she told me, to own a set of ramekins. Let alone to know what to do with them!

I married him three years later. Mostly because he made me laugh, ate my experimental cooking and didnt complain when I mineswept the house for sweets. He could also be incredibly irritating losing keys, wallet, phone or all of the above on a daily basis, and having an apparent inability to arrive anywhere on time and an infuriating habit of spending half an hour in the loo (are you