Meme

This is from Jo in Cape town. Don't know who to ask to play along. Any readers/takers out there?

What is your salad dressing of choice? Balsamic 
What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? Zuni, Kilkenny, Ireland
What food could you eat for 2 weeks straight and not get sick of? Spelt bread with butter and orange marmalade
What are your pizza toppings of choice? Sundried tomatoes, mushrooms & rocket
What do you like to put on your toast? orange marmalade

TECHNOLOGY
How many televisions are in your house? 2
What color cell phone do you have? brown
What does the first text message in your inbox say and who sent it? No I didn't but we managed ;-) Love J
Who was the last person to call you? Mick

BIOLOGY
Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right
Have you ever had anything removed from your body? No. Babies came out of their own accord ;-)
When was the last time you were really ill? 2004. Tropical Sprue
What is the last heavy item you lifted? My son :-)

BULLCRAPOLOGY
If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? No
If you could change your name, what would you change it to? Would need to think about this for a long, long time...

DUMBOLOGY
How many pairs of flip-flops do you own? 5 - an estimate - too lazy to count
Last time you had a run-in with the cops? Never
Last person you talked to in person? Jesper
Favourite Month? May (in Norway)

CURRENTOLOGY
Missing someone? Nope. 
Mood? Good 
Watching? My computer screen
Worrying about? The usual - life, death, failure

RANDOMOLOGY
What’s the last movie you watched? Slumdog Millionaire 
What music are you busy listening to? Anything on the car radio
Do you smile often? All the time
Do you always answer your phone? Yes if I hear it!
It’s four in the morning and you get a text message, who is it? Tonje
If you could change your eye colour what would it be? Hazelnut
Do you own a digital camera? Canon 350D and 28-135 mm ultrasonic lens (like I know what that means)
Have you ever had a pet fish? A few short-lived goldfish
Favourite Christmas song? Last Christmas by Wham (Hey - I'm now old enough to admit it!)
What’s on your wish list for your birthday? Too far off to be wishing for anything (March)
Can you do push ups? Yep
Can you do a chin up? Doubt it; haven't tried since I was 8 and messing about on the monkey bars.
Does the future make you more nervous or excited? Excited and anxious
Do you have any saved texts? Only delete when the memory is full so lots.
Ever been in a car wreck? No, thankfully.
Do you have an accent? Mild Irish unless I'm talking to someone Irish, in which case, very Irish.
What is the last song to make you cry? Susan Boyle singing something on Britain's Got Talent/YouTube
Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom? Not in the past decade. Possibly before that but don't dwell on the past.
Name 3 things you bought today? Nappies, milk, bananas
Have you ever been given roses? Mmm, think the last time was 2004.
Met someone who changed your life? yes, of course
What song represents you? No clue
What were you doing @ +/-12 AM last night? Sleeping, dreaming
What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? What's the time? 

Sleepovers

As most of you know my 2 1/2 year old son attends a barnehage five minutes walk from our house. He's happy there although very attached to the teacher and assistant in his own little department of seven kids.  At the same age, his sisters were like, ' Right Mom, who needs you? I'm off to play with my friends. See ya'.  My son makes it very clear every day that he not only needs me, but also his dad and sisters (at least he seems to always want to know where they are, and never bores of the answers: 'office' and school'). 

So yesterday I was a bit surprised by a note from the barnehage telling us that in honour of the little kiddies moving into a big kiddies group after the summer, they are planning a sleepover next week at the barnehage for the (still in my opinion) very little kiddies, all of whom turn three some time this year. I did play with accepting the offer for a moment but really when I thought about it for a moment more, there's no way baby boy is ready to sleep away from home, even if it's only down the road. I'm not ready either, but that's another story.

While I do wonder about the lunacy of offering to give up a decent, normal night's sleep in a bed to entertain a bunch of diaper-wearing under-threes, sleep with them on mattresses on the floor at one's workplace, then face them all in the morning and feed them breakfast before starting another day's work, I honestly appreciate the dedication inherent in the proposal.

They were very good about it when I  declined the offer this morning whilst expressing my gratitude for their lunacy.  The staff seemed surprised though that baby boy hasn't slept away from us before, as in with grandparents and other relatives. The other kids in his group are doing the sleepover it seems. My son doesn't even know what a sleepover is and my attempts to explain it have failed miserably. 

His sisters, on the other, are always begging to sleep at other people's houses. Anyone's house except their own, in fact. Unfortunately the barnehage aren't interested in having two enthusiastic assistants for a night. Shame. 

National Day

 

Norway Wins Eurovision

Back in the days of my youth when I was a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest, Ireland used to win a lot and Norway used to get null points. Well to say I'm shocked to wake up this morning and discover that Norway won this year's contest says a lot about my childhood-initiated prejudice. (Ireland didn't even get into the final this year).

The thing is that I've been singing along to this song for several months on the car radio and I absolutely love it. I just had no idea it was Norway's Eurovision's entry. It's not that the competition, including qualifying rounds, doesn't get a lot of air-time here; it does. Too much, in fact. But I've just avoided watching any of it.

So well done Alexander Rybak and collaborators. Norwegians will be very proud of you today on their national day. Gosh, even I'm feeling a little misty-eyed. Must be here too long. Or maybe it's the thought of getting to cover next year's event, assuming it's held in Oslo, for whomever I can convince to give me the job.

Have a listen. I think it's fab!

Bunads & the In-Laws

 

I still haven't had a chance to post the Tivoli photos but I will. It's been a tough week with the news of Jordan and Peter's shocking split to contend with. Honestly, who'd trust romance after this? Only kidding! I don't even know who these people are. Honest! Er if you genuinely don't, just go to www.dailymail.co.uk.....

Anyway, as my neighbours clean and paint their flag poles in preparation for Norway's national Day on Sunday, the rain has returned. Last year it snowed on May 17th so anything's possible. It's the only day in the year when Norwegians really dress up. Most women wear a Bunad, the 'dressed up for Mass, milking maid' type national costume, and don't have to consider style or glamour on the day. D2 asks for one every year but every year I point out that she's not Norwegian so not entitled to one. 

My brother-in-law's girlfriend from Stavanger wore hers to my niece's confirmation last weekend in Copenhagen. They're brought out for weddings as well which means that Norwegian women are deprived of the delights of searching high and low for the 'perfect' outfit for big occasions. Poor sods. Anyway, my mother-in-law apparently started to cry when she saw the girlfriend dressed up in the bunad. I've been married to her other son for 11 years but she didn't get misty-eyed when she saw me in my teal Karen Millen backless cocktail dress. We clearly have very, very different taste in costumes, I mean clothes. Actually, in life in general we have very different outlooks. My husband did not marry a woman cut from the same cloth as his mother. (She is a lovely person, by the way; I'm not implying otherwise).

Anyway, a little bit later, my father-in-law, long divorced from mother-in-law, came up to me to tell me how much he loved my dress. It kind of said it all about them as a couple I thought. I took the compliment graciously, of course.

Not so wonderful Copenhagen

We had a lovely time in Copenhagen with great weather, plenty of pastries and hot dogs, and a fun-filled trip to Tivoli (more about that later in the week). Unlike some though, our partying didn’t get too wild. 

On Friday night a party organised in the centre of Copenhagen got way beyond out-of-hand. Parked cars were smashed and shop windows were covered in graffiti and broken, as around 300-400 people went on the rampage. I took some photos on Sunday morning of the after-effects. Unbelievable. 

This isn’t the first incident of its kind in the city and I’m sure that there are many reasons for such behaviour. It’s hard however as a foreigner to avoid making some connection with such anarchy and the ready, cheap supply of alcohol in Denmark. It surprises me everytime we go there. People seem to drink cans of Carlsberg and Tuborg as if they were Cola (I think they might be as cheap to buy) – on the Metro, the train, filing up their cars with petrol, on the streets, on boats sailing along the river at midday. Beer is very, very cheap and there seems to be no restriction on drinking it wherever you want, whenever you want. 

While I often get frustrated with the obstacles to buying beer and wine in Norway – price, availability, opening hours - each time we arrive in Denmark, I find myself nodding my head like an old woman at the more sensible Norwegian approach.  

As I said though, we had a lovely time.

Wonderful Copenhagen

We're off to see the in-laws tomorrow for our niece's confirmation on Friday. Apparently confirmations are a very big deal and an opportunity for teenagers to make copious amounts of cash. It seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with religion or spirituality. From my high atheist horse I disapprove of such shenanigans but am going along with the effort and expense of the three-day trip and hotel in Copenhagen out of cultural interest and a desire for marital harmony. In return I've been promised a trip to Tivoli. Not for me you understand, for the little children.

Copenhagen is like Oslo's hipper, trendier, more sophisticated cousin. I spy at least an hour snatched in some shopping environs on my weekend horizon, after I've trudged around Tivoli of course. And I will feel obliged to indulge in some genuine Danish pastries which really do taste a thousand times better in Denmark than anywhere else I've been in the world.

Hytte Life

 

Spending the weekend in a ‘hytte’ (cabin) is as common for Norwegians as Sunday shopping is for Irish people. So far though, we’ve only managed one weekend away from Oslo in four and a half hours. Until the weekend just gone by. 

Now, my version of a cabin is a brand-new or recently-renovated house complete with dishwasher and flatscreen TV but I do know people with cabins that don’t have running water or toilets. Yes, people actually drive for hours every weekend to get away from the trappings of modern life such as flushing toilets and showers. Well, not me. Ever.

We went to a tiny settlement of only a few houses - where people live all-year-round, miles and miles from civilization and shopping -  at the innermost point of Mauranger fjord. It was so stunningly beautiful that I didn’t mind that it rained all day Saturday, even though only a few miles away we could see the sun shining. It seemed we had hit upon a micro-climate.

Luckily the satellite dish meant that the kids had many more television channels to watch than they have at home. It was a bit strange, driving for almost six hours each way, over snowy mountains, within spitting distance of glaciers, to the edge of civilisation in fact, to watch Sky News. 

We were the first ever family to stay in the hytte we rented since the previous occupants died in the 1950s. They were a pair of blind sisters. Can you imagine, living right on the edge of a fjord and not being able to see it?