Brad & Camilla

So last night we plodded down the icy hill, good shoes in hand, to a party at the Barnehage. Yes, there is a real danger here that I might be getting a social life; I've spoken more Norwegian in the past week than in the previous two years put together. One kind man, nicely remarked that I had an accent, and where was I from. 

Being the 'foreigners' of course we arrived fashionably late and hence last; Norwegians are sticklers for punctuality. Everyone who turned up got a picture of one half of a celebrity couple so that when it came to time to sit and eat you were forced to sit with someone other than your real spouse. A great idea actually. 

Well, himself was Brad Pitt and I was thrilled to receive a photo of Camilla Parker Bowles - not! Well turns out that Angelina works in the Norwegian public sector and Prince Charles, would you credit it, runs a restaurant by the fjord. 

Me and Brad Pitt retired to my boudoir just after 1 AM. Not bad for a night at a kindergarden, drinking wine out of plastic glasses. Tough luck, Angelina.

Warming the wine and other adventures

I’m feeling some snow envy across the blogosphere; a case of the grass being greener perhaps? Except there hasn’t been a sighting of grass of any colour here in a long time.  

As I placed my glass of red wine in the microwave last night to bring it up to what winemakers consider to be room temperature (although the means might be considered sacrilege among them), I thought that there might a be a few other practicalities of daily life that those of you in warmer climes are unaware of – at least I was before we moved here.

Did you now that when I park the car, I cannot engage the handbrake but must instead keep the car parked in gear? Apparently, handbrakes can freeze in place so, to avoid this, they can’t be used in sub-zero temperatures. Ditto make-up or liquid containers should not be left in the car for extended periods of time.

One delight of living in a cold climate is heated seats in the car. I get in to collect the kids from school shivering and emerge 15 minutes later with a sweaty bum. It’s great! Now if only someone would go to the trouble of designing heated steering wheels, I might actually move into my car for a few months every year. 

This brings me to my bedroom – where all things lead surely? It’s not heated so besides the fact that getting into bed every night is a screamfest – because of the cold you see – the chilly atmosphere has another effect. Mould. Yes it seems that warm bodies + cold windows + dust + time = mould. Clearly it’s not very realistic to remove the first two, but dust removal would seem to be a no-brainer. Except, the thing with dust is that it’s very, very difficult to see in poor light.

And that’s another thing about winter; you don’t get a heck of a lot of light. So I guess mould is just dust’s way of saying, ‘Hey lazy, put the glass of wine down, I’m over here!’. 

White World

 

 

 

 

Before I headed out last night, my husband, mindful of my reluctance to pad around at a social occasion in my stocking feet, suggested that I take along my fluffy slippers to put on once I got there. It was a preposterous suggestion met with ridicule of course. Or so I thought.

Thank goodness, I did take along my platform ankle boots from Top Shop to change into with the weak hope that I would be allowed to wear them. Everyone - all nine guests - arrived in big, ugly snow boots and changed into more demure foot attire on arrival. Well not everyone. One girl had taken along a pair of leather moccasin slipper things while another quite bizarrely, to me at least, changed into a pair of turquoise blue wedge espadrilles - you know the cloth sandal things you wear at the beach? Anyway, after interrogating one of the women on this strange-to-me cultural carry-on, it was explained thus. If going to a party in a private home, it is perfectly acceptable to take along a pair of indoor shoes - or in my case back-breaking stilettos - but one wouldn't do this if just dropping by for lunch or coffee. Then you'd just be in your stocking feet. The woman clearly couldn't understand why I was asking such an stupid question until it dawned on her that in Ireland we wear the same shoes inside and out because we don't get snow. But we get a hell of a lot of rain which after all is the same thing when it is deposited on your carpet or wooden flooring.

What mucky pigs we must seem. Ask someone to take their shoes off at your front door in Ireland, and they'd look at you as if you had two heads, and then laugh because they are certain that you must be joking. 'You must be kidding,' they'd say as if you'd asked them to strip naked.

A waste of decent shoes

So tomorrow night I’m going to a friend’s house for cheese and wine to celebrate her 41^st birthday. I don’t eat cheese but am tempted to have a glass of wine or two. This though will mean paying for a taxi home, for which the cost of the 11-minute journey – and that’s keeping to the speed limits, which taxis don’t – will be around the same price as a restaurant meal in Ireland. Mm dilemma. I’m lucky enough that I can afford the taxi but I just can’t get my ahead around the fact that the cost of visiting a friend is so extortionate. I rarely go out though, so I think I’ll swallow the fare and the wine and put it done to ‘life being short’ which is my answer to all sorts of indulgences.

The other far more important issue is shoes. Yes, as you know, I have plenty to choose from. The thing is though that people take their shoes off indoors here. You arrive all glammed up and tall, then cross the threshold and you’re padding around in your stocking feet, two inches shorter with trousers flapping around your ankles and under your feet. So of course, I’ll have to wear a skirt and tights to avoid the too-long trouser problem and then place my lovely shoes prominently at the door to be admired and marvelled over. Except they won’t be of course. Around here, they never get the attention they deserve. 

Just call me practical

The snow plough has cleared the driveway making the mounds of white stuff for the kids to play in as high as the neighour's truck. Husband has driven off to work and will be back tomorrow evening. D1 has gone to school armed with sled and helmet - well an excuse for a sled called a 'bum board' - to use at Brownies. The trampoline has still not collapsed under the weight of the snow; thank goodness we bought quality;-) 

I haven't worn a proper pair of shoes or boots in over a week and have taken to wearing ski pants as a default garment - so comfy, so practical, so economical on the laundry front. OMG! I'm on a slippery slope to Norwegianisation. Going to dust off my beautiful boots now just so I can look at them. Maybe I'll get to wear them in Ireland at April.

P.S. Speaking of glamour - what about those beautiful Obamas and their two children. Talk about gorgeous - and with intellect, integrity and great intentions to boot. Don't you just want to be their friends?

Let it snow, let it snow...

If I were a romantic.... OK, I am but not when it comes to climate issues...but IF I had romantic notions about the weather, I might tell you that this morning, snow is falling like bugs from the sky and that it's cute to see parents pulling their kids to kindergarden on sledges. But it's not. It's dark, despite all the white stuff, it's wet, and I think its never going to stop snowing. 

My husband is going to arrive back from Stavanger tonight to find his car marooned behind a snow bank. Worse, if Mr Snow Plough man doesn't turn up today before 2 PM, because he's too busy clearing important roads and not our little lane, like yesterday, I might have to resort to a sledge myself for child transportation. Or even worse - a bus and my feet. Ba humbug.

More winter

I hate winter

Mommy, I hate this crap weather. PLEASE ask Daddy to get a job somewhere warmer!

(Who said I put words in my kid's mouth?!)

And here are two who actually seem to like it......

Weak ankles

D2, the only healthy one this week, twisted her ankle at her skiing lesson on Monday. It prompted my husband to express concern about a possible lifetime of ankle trouble for her as he revealed, for the first time, the fact that he has 'weak ankles'. I mean seriously he tells me NOW after three children. Makes me wonder what other genetic flaws are in store for the poor offspring. 

How's it I never noticed his double joints until they appeared on D1's incredibly long fingers, for instance? She's perfectly equipped to be a piano virtuoso if only I ever got around to organising piano lessons for her. And what about that really irritating noise his jaw makes when eating; how on earth did I not hear that when we were dating. And don't get me started on the snoring! 

At least I was upfront with my physical shortcomings - the nose, the freckles, the hair that can only be smoothed at the hands of a professional, the flat chest, the weak teeth, the short legs. Right. Thinking about it I was clearly lucky to attract a mate at all. Who cares about weak ankles!?

In a house of nasty viruses

A mom without a voice is like Samson without his hair, a lion without its roar (literally). Right now I feel as impotent as a man without a penis. (Apologies to any eunuchs reading if this causes a bone of contention).

Facebook

The world seems to be divided into Facebook enthusiasts and those who groan at the mere mention of FB (as we users often call it). I'm not exactly a zealot but I could wear a t-shirt, if it ever got warm enough here to do so, with 'I heart FB' on it.

I like to check in every day to see what some of my friends are up to. Some post daily on the minutiae of their lives and health conditions; some I suspect haven't logged in in months. I like knowing when my friends are ill, moving house, on holidays, better, pissed off. As they are spread around the globe, it makes me feel that I'm keeping up with their lives without having to spend time emailing details of my own. It sort of removes some of the guilt of not keeping in touch. And being a lapsed Irish Catholic, I've plenty of guilt to have removed. Short of a lobotomy, FB works well on the 'keeping in touch' section of my guilt complex.

So far, I have 71 FB friends. Piddling compared to most under-30s but respectable enough given that I am very, very fussy about who I am friends with. Ahem. And I left university before the personal computer was invented, or near enough. 

So this morning I got a message to say that my step-sister-in-law thinks I should be friends with a name I, at first, failed to recognise. Given that for my generation, step sibings are virtually non-existent, you'll have guessed that this will be the Danish side of the family. A few seconds, and the name registered. It was my 13-year old niece. The child I first met when she was 2. The child who taught me my first Danish word which I found very useful in ordering scoops of ice-cream - jorbaer which means strawberry. The child who is now almost 6 foot tall and no doubt thinks that her aunt, who was born in the same year as her father, is tres un-cool. Too uncool to be seen in the company of on the world wide web probably. Still, I over-looked my ageism and quickly dispatched an invitation to her, asking her if she'd be my friend. 

Thinking about it now, I'm not sure she should accept. Do I really want to be privy to her adolescent angst and navigation of the battlefield between childhood and supposed adulthood? No, I don't. But I didn't think of that then, and can't really withdraw the invitation without seeming rude. So here's hoping she's not an FB enthusiast, but rather a groaner who thinks FB is for old people like me. Here's hoping.