WORLD BOOK DAY

Today is World Book Day in Norway and a host of other countries - not Ireland and the UK, where books are celebrated in early March. Not sure why it's called WORLD Book Day then but as I think every day should be a Book Day, I'm not going to complain.

Coincidentally, yesterday I mentioned in passing to D2’s teacher that I was a member of a Book Club. She thought this was funny as she associates book clubs with people of her mother’s generation. The teacher is maybe three or four years younger than me, and is married with two kids. It seems I’ve just outed myself as an old fogey.
Well I’m out and I’m proud. I love books with almost as much passion as I love my family; that’s a lotta passion. My monthly book club gathering is the highlight of my social life. Really. (I say really, as I realise that this may sound unconvincing - OK sad even - to some.) I can’t imagine trying to sleep at night without reading at least a few pages first. D1 is now the same; she’s currently into a series of books called Horrible Histories.

I’m reading ‘The Welsh Girl’ by Peter Ho Davies. What are you reading?

This makes me want to scream! (U2 sacrilege)

Kurt Nilsen is a Norwegian singer, with a fantastic voice, who won World Pop Idol several years ago. He has teamed up with three other male singers – one of whom looks and sounds about eight years old but isn’t - to make records, television, concert appearances, and money singing cover versions of other artists’ hit songs. Fabulous voices do not fabulous music always make!

Twice this morning I switched on the car radio and had this horrendous balladic, harmony treatment of U2’s ‘With or Without You’ inflicted on me. This isn't one of U2's best songs -IMHO-but it still doesn't deserve this treatment. I’m started to get tetchy with the radio button as a result. I think it’s atrocious. Absolutely atrocious. What d’you think?

Kurt and co - please stop messin' with my heritage!

Here's another clip; this time with expressive eyebrows:

Living dangerously

I learnt some interesting facts about moose from yesterday’s Aftenposten. Gosh I miss The Irish Times. But, anyway.  Page nine, full-page story, headline: ‘Moose threaten the forest’, tells us that in 2007/2008, 2094 moose were killed in traffic (844 were killed by trains). Poor moose. Poor drivers. As the article points out, moose are the largest animals living in the wild in Europe – having seen a few, this is totally credible – so you can imagine that the people who lived to report their moose-collisions probably wrecked their cars and possibly a bone or two. It got me thinking: isn’t living in Norway a little bit more dangerous than living in Ireland?  Consider the following health hazards:

1.     Moose collisions.

2.     Icicles/Ice slides from roofs of buildings (see previous post).

3.     Choking over the prices of lettuce, milk, bread, kids’ shoes, chicken,… this list could merit its own blog, so I’ll stop there.

4.     Stress/loneliness/depression caused by scowling, unfriendly natives – usually abates after several years in situ.

5.     Cardiac arrest brought on by excessive consumption of waffles and hot dogs. However, this is somewhat balanced out by the prohibitive cost of take-aways which in Ireland seems to be a weekly, if not twice-weekly event for many city dwellers. Absence of fish ‘n’ chip shops is also in Norway’s favour. Oh and then there’s the shoe-leather quality of the beef which means one never actually eats red meat. OK, so scrap this one.

6.     Increased risk of skin cancer. I spent five years living in the tropics with a swimming pool in my garden. I never sunbathed, never wore less than SPF 50. After the worst winter in decades, I now understand why so many Norwegian women over 40 have obvious sun-damage on their faces.  It’s now near impossible to resist the temptation to raise one’s face to the sun like a flower seeking sustenance. To hell with wrinkles, to hell with age spots and moles; I’ve survived winter, I deserve to feel the sun on my face (and arms, legs, tummy etc.).  Irish people do of course have the same desire to feel the sun damage their faces but unfortunately (or fortunately perhaps) clouds, rain and generally inclement weather have a mitigating effect on this particular health hazard.

 Anyone got anymore? I can’t have exhausted the list…….

From the Emerald Isle to Africa - in 2 hours

An elephant at Dublin Zoo last tuesday.

Thirteen days ago we left Norway where the temperature was hovering around zero and the landscape was completely white with snow and ice. As I mentioned in my previous post, the sight of grass in Dublin received a rapturous welcome from the children. Yesterday we flew back to Oslo, and as we drove home from the airport, D1 remarked that the landscape looked like Africa. She's never been, but she IS widely read :-) 

I kind of know what she was getting at.  Almost all the snow was gone to reveal brown fields and leafless trees which looked like they'd been through a drought. It was 18 degrees Celsius folks. We arrived back to a very different looking country from the one we had left less than two weeks before. 

Driving around today, my spacial awareness was all over the place. Imagine if someone came along and removed all the walls along the roadsides and between the houses. It's like that. Snow banks totally gone. Everything is dusty with the detritus of winter. Toys long buried under snow are reappearing. It's like being released from an icy prison. It's fantastic. 

Right now, Norway actually feels like home and Ireland is becoming more alien to me. More of that later. For the moment, I'll just say that it's really great to be back.

The green, green grass of home

As we landed in Dublin airport yesterday, both daughters shouted out in delight: 'Oh finally, we get to see grass!' with one of them adding that she felt like it had been five years since she'd last seen any. I know what she meant.

Later, baby boy was absolutely ecstatic to run around in a garden without a jacket on and with soft, carpety stuff beneath his shoes (proper shoes too, not boots or wellies).

But you know what it takes to make grass green, don't you? Yes - rain! Still, I went for a lovely country walk today in the rain, and smiled and waved at every car that passed. This is not lunatic behaviour but common practice around these parts; acknowledging complete strangers because they pass you in their car on a narrow country road. 

At least I think it is. They might just have been laughing at me, saying: look at that loon, walking in the wind and rain, and smiling at the grass.

My tummy - where all good things come from.

D2 has fabulous, long, thick hair. I don't. Neither does her dad (have any). So yesterday I said, 'Where DID you get that lovely hair from?' It was a rhetorical question really; more an expression of wonder and envy than an actual question. 'From your tummy,' she said, deadpan. Wish I could get me some of that. 

In a similar vein of wonderment, I often shake my head, look at my son and think, 'Where did YOU come from?' After two years and four months, I still can't believe this human dynamo is the result of that old chestnut, 'I think it's safe.'  

Of course, in this case, the correct answer is: 'From your tummy.' 

Oh Deer

You know I wouldn't normally tolerate visitors who arrive en masse, help themselves to food without asking and then poop and don't scoop (or wipe) but these guys are so cute, I wished they'd stayed longer.