Category: Life, love and chocolate

I must learn to remember that the husband is much better at keeping secrets than I am. Also, possibly, practice this patience thingamagig that I hear people talking about.

Long story short: I got my birthday present two days early.

So I went for a short walk and took some pictures. It works! I think it seems to overexpose the pictures somewhat if left to its own devices, but I guess I’ll just have to learn to not leave it to its own devices. Or just test further, I might be imagining things.

I just realised it’s that time of year (no, not 29 again, 32 this time, thank you very much) so I suppose it’s time for a wishlist:

1. Dinner at Credo (downstairs, with wine)
2. External flash for Canon EOS 300/350D
3. Non-stop (bag, Amarula tube, packing crate, whatever)
4. Map of Vienna and/or Salzburg
5. Scrapbooking stuff
6. (Good) single malt whisky
7. Champagne
8. Hiking/walking shoes, preferably gore-tex
9. Ladies tees from think geek or similar, preferably not in white – edit: Or from here!
10. The new P.D. James novel and the new Jeffrey Archer novel, preferably in paperback (the Archer so-called hardback that I’ve seen feels like a paperback with hard covers and is therefore an abomination verging on blasphemy, I haven’t checked the James, but I don’t really collect her so I’d rather have something that’s easy to bring on the bus).

Not far enough south, though, unfortunately. Message from the husband this morning “Looks like the weather gods have caught on to the fact that you’re coming to Oslo – it’s snowing again” (he’s already in Oslo, teaching his colleagues to drink wine – or something like that). Drat.

Anyway, a weekend in Oslo comprising, among other things, a calvados tasting, Waiting for Godot at the national theatre (though in Norwegian) and dinner with good friends can’t be bad, even with snow.

I’ve been chastisised for not writing much lately. The problem, dear fictional readers, with real readers, is that they talk back. Some of them even pout at you through msn messenger for not diverting them sufficiently frequently…

So. Some words.

Last weekend there was an article in Dagbladet (I remembered today because a letter to the editor in this weekend’s paper – which I only looked through today due to the fact that we don’t buy papers and my parents do and I visited my mum this afternoon and the paper was lying around so I looked through it – referred to it *phew* sorry about that sentence, hope you’re still breathing) about a bus driver in Oslo who is known as “kj

Or, rather, it blows. The weather front affectionately known as Narve, that is. You could call it windy.

Martin, unfortunately, had to go to a meeting in Oslo today. His plane managed to leave Trondheim, which is impressive, no planes were allowed to land here in the early morning. Hopefully, Narve will have lost some of his huff and puff by this evening when Martin’s du to come back – since we’re supposed to go to a birthday party tonight…

It’s only a fresh gale, apparently. Well, at least one can still stand on one’s feet. The dry snow blowing into every possible opening is a bit unpleasant, and, on the whole, I’d rather not go outside unless I have to (unfortunately, this is not a job that allows for a home office, so I had to brave it this morning).

The expected weather this morning is -3.3

But, as Theresa says, probably worth it. At least the world was very pretty when I got the bus to town this morning to finally pick out a pair of new specs at the opticians (it seems I’ve gone from -1.75 and -2.5 to -2.75 and -3.5 one the right and left eye respectively over the last three years – it’s becoming a problem). The trees were all covered in frost and I got stuck on the Pooh hum lines “And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees, how very readily one sees that these are whose – but whose are these?” (read the extended entry for the rest of the hum), which would have been less of a problem if I’d remembered the rest of the hum.

At the stop by the teacher’s college a guy dressed in a bright orange turban and matching robes with a bright blue padded jacket over got on the bus. His appearance cheered me up mightily, being such a splash of colour in a rather white, grey and black world.

Voice on the stereo: Halvdan Sivertsen – H

Watch this space.

Lots of happiness. Not enough books. Lots of change. New (old) town. New job. New friends. New husband. New life. Eagerly anticipating the next.

(Note: I’ve edited the last “sentence” after publishing on the Mayfly site, as a better wording came to me on the bus.)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

May it bring peace and love to all mankind, and lots of great books and great single malts to me.

I’ve had a good weekend in Trysil. Snowboarding was fun. We only tried a few runs before giving up, actually (being lazy, I suspect), though I managed to sprain my thumb (by catching most of my own weight on it when falling) before we were through. Not a particularly good idea, though it’s such an ignoble injury that even I find it hard to take it seriously. But it does hurt. It was my right thumb, too, and it’s amazing how many little things become frightfully diffucult when your right hand is only partly operational. Two days later it no longer hurts constantly, and I can even move it about a bit without wanting to scream, but I still can’t really grip anything with it and it still hurts whenever I tense the muscles in my hand in general, so using the mouse hurts (need to move it over to my left hand, I guess) and this typing is slightly uncomfortable.

Hence I’ll stop now.

…and quiet. I’m at work. And, you know, funnily enough there doesn’t seem to be anyone else here. What? No students at Uni during the Christmas holidays? No lecturers?

Actually, I’m not quite alone – I mean, it wouldn’t do to take a stroll down the indoor street (known as “gata”, naturally, “gata” meaning “the street”) in the nude. Not only is it way too cold, but there are janitors and such. But not very many others.

But definitely peace and quiet. So I’ve hooked the zen up to the computer speakers to keep me company, and just now, for some unfathomable reason, it’ playing Debbie Gibson’s “Lost in Your Eyes”. Ah well. I was going to listen to Robin Laing, but found that I must have imagined uploading the songs to the zen – so I’ll have to wait until I get home to the CDs (and I will have to try to remember to actually upload them at some point).