I went on a roadtrip today. Way, way south of the city to the middle of nowhere.

Once you get about 20 minutes outside Copenhagen, you’re more or less on your own.

You see fewer and fewer cars. The classic 7-storey Copenhagen buildings give way to farmhouses, occasional industrial estates and hamlets which don’t appear to be populated.

It reminded me of the first time I came to Denmark. I arrived at Århus airport and my girlfriend picked me up.

We drove the half an hour or so back to her parents’ house and I don’t think we saw more than five or six cars.

As today’s trip dragged on, I became gradually more introspective. The countryside passed by in a featureless blur. Memories of childhood trips to my grandparents’ holiday home in Norfolk swum to the surface. I saw myself, back pressed against a fir tree, desperately trying to shield myself from the torchbeams in a midnight game of Spotlight.

I looked back at the major events in my life, trying to plot a course to my present.

I could find no pattern; nothing but sequential randomness, cross-veined with conflicting urges, desires, needs and, above all, hopes.

This is how it is, I guess. We grope. Stumble forwards. Try.