The Little Café in Copenhagen: Fall in love and escape the winter blues with this wonderfully heartwarming and feelgood novel

‘You don’t even know me.’

‘I know the paper, the kind of features the lifestyle section has run before. This isn’t a product placement sell.’

‘Ah, so there is a product.’

I paused.

‘Ha! I knew it.’

‘It’s a new department store but it’s a concept.’

‘A concept, that sounds a bit wanky to me.’

I winced. When you put it into words, it did. When Lars spoke about it, it all made perfect sense.

‘It’s called Hjem. It will be opening later in the year, but the owners want to take a small select group to Copenhagen to explore the idea of hygge in more depth.’

‘Candles and blankets. Been done to death.’

‘That’s exactly it. You see you’ve dismissed it without understanding what it entails.’

‘I don’t need to understand anything. I’m not interested. Not now. Not ever.’

‘And you don’t think that attitude isn’t perhaps a tad narrow-minded.’

‘No, it’s called knowing your own mind and not being influenced.’

‘Could I at least email you some more information and a copy of the itinerary?’

‘Nope.’

‘You won’t even look at one little email?’

‘Do you know how many emails I get every day from PR people?’ He spat the P out and groaned the R.

‘You’re really grumpy aren’t you?’

‘Yes, because I get bloody people like you pestering me constantly.’

‘I think you could do with a trip to Denmark; you might learn a thing or two.’

There was a pause and I waited, bracing myself for him to slam the phone down on me again. Instead I heard grudging amusement in his voice as he said, ‘Do you ever give up?’

‘Not if it’s something I believe in,’ I said playing semantics with the truth. I believed in Lars’ vision and what he wanted to achieve. But if I were being totally honest I’d probably side with him in the ‘when did a blanket and candle combo solve a problem’ camp.

‘Sorry, I’m still not biting, but nice to talk to you, Kate, whatever your name is. You’ve enlivened an otherwise dull afternoon.’

‘Glad to be of service,’ I said crisply, looking down at the stop watch app on my phone. ‘And this time you gave me two minutes and four seconds of your time. You might want to rethink the five second strategy.’

He began to laugh. ‘For a PR, Kate Sinclair, you’ve grown on me.’

‘Shame it’s not mutual,’ I said sweetly, putting down the phone.

I crossed him off the list and decided to try the other journalists on our list, hoping they’d be more receptive to a trip to Copenhagen than Benedict ‘Mad Fox’ Johnson. ‘Sounds lovely darling,’ said the lifestyle editor on the Courier, ‘but I’ve been offered a press trip to Doncaster. Who’d have thought Doncaster or Denmark?’

‘Surely I can persuade you to come to Copenhagen.’

‘Sadly sweetie, you could persuade me all too easily. Problem is the person you have to persuade is She Who Must Be Obeyed, the old harridan in charge of advertising revenue. A man with lots of cash and a whopping advertising budget is paying for the press trip up north. Unless you can promise her that your client has an ad spend, I’m destined for the frozen north.’

Luckily after many, many emails, back and forth, Fiona Hanning a lifestyle blogger, Avril Baines-Hamilton from This Morning and David Ruddings of the Evening Standard all said yes, much to my relief. Conrad Fletcher somewhat to my surprise, being a cynical old devil, and a very old school glossy interiors magazine journalist said, ‘Why not? Haven’t been to Copenhagen in an age and the old expense budget could do with an outing. Christ, you wouldn’t believe how tight they are these days.’

‘That’s probably because you keep ordering three hundred pound bottles of wine at lunch on expenses,’ I teased. He referred to the rather fabulously over the top restaurant very near to the magazine offices where he worked, as his HQ. I’d enjoyed several lunches there with him. He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I found him good company and his knowledge of the interiors industry was encyclopaedic as was his endless fund of gossipy stories about many of the people in the field.

‘You know me so well, Kate dear.’

I saved Sophie from CityZen for last, confident she’d be an easy nut to crack. She was a friend of Connie’s from university and I’d met her a couple of times and liked her a lot. I gave my watch a quick glance as I picked up the phone. Just enough time before I had to dash home and get ready for the awards do this evening. Now I was going on my own it was imperative Josh knew what he was missing.

‘Hi Sophie, its Kate Sinclair, I’m looking for a journalist who might be interested in coming along on a press trip to Copenhagen.’

‘Ooooh, pick me, pick me.’

‘Oh, alright then.’

There was a stunned silence.

‘Really? You’re inviting me?’

‘Yup. A week in wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.’

Sophie made a funny sort of noise, an office friendly suppressed squeal before saying, ‘Hmm, I’ll have to think about that … for about a nano second.’ There was another funny squeak. ‘Eek. Yes. Yes. I’m in! How lovely. It will be so great.’ Her words bubbled out.

‘I haven’t even sent you an itinerary yet.’ I laughed. ‘What if it’s a tour of the local coal mine, steel works and plastics factory?’

‘Who cares? There’ll be food. That’s all I need. Oh, how exciting.’

‘I’ll email you some more details.’

‘I can’t wait. I’ve never been to Scandinavia. I’m going to have to buy one of those duvet padded coats, like they all wear. With white fur round the hood. And some thermal gloves.’

‘Er Sophie, the trip’s at the end of April, it’s going to be a bit warmer then. I think you can put Barbie’s arctic exploration outfit back in the wardrobe.

‘Talking of which, I need to go and nick a dress out of Connie’s wardrobe.’

‘How is she and where are you off to?’

‘She’s fine. Still knee deep in children at work. And I’m off to the National Newspaper Circulation Awards.’

‘That sounds deadly, apart from free booze.’