It’s obviously Friday afternoon, I’ve just had to use four attempts before managing to add a column to a table.

In a short while I’ll be off, off to Bergen in fact. Janne is – was it 30, dear? – next week, so Martin and I are going for a spot of celebration. We come bringing haggis. And some other stuff.

And so I’ll get to see my “nephew” again for the first time in, oh, over a year. Not being a very good aunt, am I?

So. Need to go catch a train. Thing is, I’ve just realised that I’m starving, so I need to eat something. Preferably before I get to Bergen, which won’t be for another 3-4 hours.

Of course, we could eat at Pizza Hut at the airport. Judging from when Linda and I ate there this summer, it’s an entertaining place. We almost chocked on our food when the people at the table next to us started quarreling about who was going to eat the last pizza slice. Not as in they all wanted it, but as in none of them wanted it. For heaven’s sake, they were four people (mother, father and two teenage daughters) and they’d managed less than one standard size pizza between them. We left one slice and a couple of slices of garlic bread, but there were only two of us and we’d had extra garlic bread because they were out of something or other. As I said, we almost choked. We were already giggling because the people at the table on the other side were being very weird too. Shortly after I decided we had to leave or I’d openly start laughing and pointing my finger at people, which would be rude. So far I think we’d managed to give the impression that we were talking about something very funny. Which we were, of course, but something other than our fellow guests, I mean.

Rambling now. Will stop.

Am hungry.

Voice in my head: Vonda Shepard – I Only Want to be With You

My grandfather’s in hospital. It’s – allegedly – nothing very serious, his blood sugar is waaay down and they want to keep him in over the weekend, partly to get it up again and partly to ascertain whether there is any other reason for this than the fact that he’s hardly been eating at all lately.

I can’t help being worried, though. And I’m worried not so much about him – though that as well, obviously, as about what’s going to happen to my grandmother if it turns out there’s anything seriously wrong. I talked to her last night and one of the first things she said was how strange it was to be alone in the house. She’s got plenty of relatives nearby, but this is “nearby” for the Norwegian countryside, which means, well, an hours walk for me – too far to even contemplate for her. And she doesn’t drive, she never had a chance to learn because that was my grandfather’s domain. Seems silly now, but at 80 it also seems a bit late to start taking driving lessons.

So I’m worried.

In other news, Martin alerted me to the fact that my mother’s in the paper (she’s been interviewed about the disappointment over the failure of the local bus company to get their new electronic card-based payment system to work – it’s been delayed for years now). I’m somewhat worried about the sentence:

Familien, og særlig sønnene mine som studerer, kunne tenkt seg blant annet muligheten med halvmånedskort.

Or in English: “The family, and especially my sons who are students, would be interested in the season ticket option.” (My emphasis.)

Sons? I have more than one brother? You’d think I would have noticed, wouldn’t you?

The Friday Five was off last week, but then, so was I.

1. What vehicle do you drive?
I don’t. I don’t have a driver’s licence (and believe me, you really don’t want me to get one). Ok. I can see this is going to be somewhat pointless unless I start referring to a car I ride in. Right. Well, Martin has access to the company car, so that’s the one I most often ride in currently. It’s one of these minivan-thingies. And it’s bright green. That’s all I can tell you.

2. How long have you had it?
Had? Ok, skip that.

3. What is the coolest feature on your vehicle?
Lots of space for luggage… And it being free, of course.

4. What is the most annoying thing about your vehicle?
The seats aren’t exactly the height of comfort.

5. If money were no object, what vehicle would you be driving right now?
I’d have an old MG sports car. I wouldn’t be driving, though (see q1), I’d leave that to Martin.

Uhm. Think that was still pretty pointless, but whatever.

I arrived at Prestwick as scheduled and got to Irvine easily – for free, too, as there was no one to take my money either at the station or on the train. Anyway. Stopped off for lunch (and my first pint of cider) before locating the B&B. There were still hours to go before the others were likely to turn up, so I headed down to the harbour to breathe the sea air. Mmm.

Finally, the others arrived. Well, when I say the others, I mean Martin, of course. Not that I wasn’t glad to see the rest of them, too. I’d just been contemplating finding a pub to wait for them in, and having company is always nice, but I can’t claim that I would have been devastated if they’d decided to stay with the boat another week – there was really only one person I was anxious to see. So they arrived.

*insert (mostly) quiet jubilation and lots of lovey-dovey stuff here according to your own taste and/or imaginatory capabilities*

We had drinks in The Keys and then food (haggis!) in a pretty nice pub called The Ship Inn, before retiring to our respective beds.

In the morning the others were off before we even got up, so Martin and I had a nice leisurely breakfast (to the soundtrack of – appropriately – “Take My Breath Away” sung by the host in the kitchen, he had a good voice, too), and then made our way back to Prestwick to pick up the hire car. We were lucky in that they didn’t have the car we’d booked (a class b) so they gave us a class f instead for the same price. A Ford summat-or-other (well, what do you expect? It was grey, anyway), much roomier than the one we should have had. No complaints there.

Martin’s never driven on the left before, so that was interesting. Also, the car was larger than any he’s driven before, so figuring out exactly where the corners were in relation to the rest of the world took a little while. No sweat, though, he’s an excellent driver (I don’t even think that’s a biased view, but you never know), and we were able to hand the car back three days later without any accidents (or even near-accidents, which is more than can be said for the car we had at the festival – when he was no longer driving – but more of that later).

We managed, after a little confusion in Ayr, to find the correct roads to take us to Wigtown. It is a well-known fact that all roads lead to Rome, what is less well known is that the other end, all these roads lead to Ayr. At least that’s what it seemed like. Anyway, as I said, we found Wigtown, and immediately set about cleaning out all the bookshops (or at least all the ones that were open on a Sunday afternoon). We had another excellent haggis dinner at The Ploughman and then stumbled back to the B&B where we attempted to have a nightcap to sample some of the whisky Martin had picked up during the sailing trip, but fell asleep in the middle of it.

We woke to a wet and chilly Monday morning, but both of us were all smiles in any case. After a couple of more bookshops (any that opened early enough) our first stop that day was Bladnoch distillery. They were busy cleaning up after the night’s downpour, so they sent us off on a tour on our own, which we didn’t mind at all. Both of us have had enough tours of distilleries to know the process off by heart and I was round Bladnoch in July in any case. The only pity was not getting to see inside the warehouse, but this was compensated for by the entertaining company of a black cat – a better tour guide than some I’ve had at other distilleries. At least he didn’t talk nonsense but let us get on with peeping inside the washbacks and stills (they were not in production, so the vessels were all empty, don’t worry, I don’t think they’d have let us round on our own if they were actually distilling…).

In the shop I aquired my first bottle of whisky on this trip – a Signatory bottling of Bladnoch distilled in 1974. It’s the first bottle I’ve bought that was distilled the year I was born – it does make the bottles just that bit more interesting, I must admit.

One more bookshop (and 10 more books – anyone say “hopeless”?) and then we set off for Edinburgh, which we reached, eventually, in the late afternoon. We’d located a street with lots of B&Bs with the help of a guidebook in the breakfast room at Craigenlee, so we stopped at one near the city centre end which had “Vacancies” in the window and got ourselves a room.

No time to sit down and be lazy when there’s all of Scotland to explore, so off we go again, walking into town and managing to locate the Royal Mile and Royal Mile Whiskies at first try. Not a cheap experience, that. Not that I expected it to be, but I came out of the shop with the most expensive bottle of whisky I’ve ever purchased – a Gordon McPhail bottling of 1974 (that year again) Ardbeg. Irrestistible. At 100 pounds it was way over my previous “limit” of 50ish pounds a bottle. Oh well, I’ve tried it now and it was worth every penny – luckily. GMcPh can be a bit of a pot luck kind of buy. Very happy to find it was all right this time…

We had a bit of a wander down Prince’s Street after that and then went to meet Lyn for dinner. Dinner – at Howie’s – was very good indeed, and the company was even better, so I fell asleep a very happy Robin. I woke up in pretty much the same state – it’s wonderful what a difference having Martin around can make to how pleasant it is to wake up in the morning.

Anyway, we’d decided Pitlochry held more attractions than Edinburgh for us that day, so we set off pretty much immediately after breakfast. On the way north we realised we’d be passing Aberfeldy distillery, so we stopped off there. Though the main focus there was on Dewars’ World of Whisky – i.e. their blend – it was still very interesting and we did get a tour of the distillery. Not to mention a bottle each of the Flora & Fauna cask strength Aberfeldy…

Arriving in Pitlochry Martin decided to be lazy rather than thirsty, so we used the car to get to Edradour, Scotland’s smallest working distillery (seriously, the stills are itsy). We were very relieved to find that the coach party arriving at the same time as us required a translator, as they all spoke German, so we did not have to join the tour with them but got our own guide. After an interesting tour and a trip to the shop (and, yes, you guessed it, another bottle of whisky – a cask strength Edradour in a decanter bottle) – where we got to talk to Ian Henderson, yay! – we set off to find our third distillery of the day: Blair Athol. Yet another interesting tour and yet another bottle of whisky – this time a standard Flora & Fauna Mortlach, just because it was so cheap. Then, finally, we got around to looking for a B&B and found one immediately run by a nice little lady who was delighted to discover that we both wanted mushrooms with our breakfast (I hadn’t the heart to tell her I’d rather not have the sausage and tomato after her joyous: “Finally someone who wants the full breakfast!”).

Finding a place to eat proved quite tricky, as Pitlochry is a town geared towards the coach tourist trade and so was full of tea rooms but rather lacked pubs, but we persevered and found The Mill House which served food. Then we glanced at the whiskies behind the bar and decided that food was of secondary importance anyway, other than as cushoning. To mention but a few, we tried a Talisker cask strength which on the bottle said £6 a dram but which the barmaid could only find on the computer at £2.50 so that’s what she charged (the single was immediately turned into a double) – and we finished the evening off with a 21 year old Ardbeg at £15 a dram, a dram for savouring, indeed.

On Wednesday the main goal was to get the car to Aberdeen airport before noon so as not to have to pay a penalty charge for handing it back late. We almost made it – luckily Hertz did not insist on charging us. Having considered our luggage I suggested we change the plan – which had been to get the bus into town – and find a taxi. I’m not quite sure how we would have managed otherwise… Anyway, we found a taxi and then a B&B, and set off to explore Aberdeen – or at least its pubs.

Much of Thursday was spent browsing the various shops selling highland dress of all sorts, admiring kilts and sporrans galore, but not shopping much, except we managed to get hold of a pair of highland dancing shoes each, which should come in handy on Monday nights. While at lunch (in The Prince of Wales) we had a message from Per (the festival excursion organiser) to say he was able to pick us (and, more importantly, all our luggage) up – so off we went. After Morten, the fourth participant had arrived at the airport and we were all well stowed in the hire car, we set off for Dufftown.

Hm. Following Martin’s excellent example, I’m going to call that part 1 and see about telling you what happened in Dufftown later. Maybe. If I can remember anything.

I’ve only had one or two cups of coffee a day while in Scotland, and now I’m back at work and I’ve just had my fourth (with caffeine – I had one decaf as well just before lunch) and now I feel a splintering headache coming on. Have I veaned myself of caffeine, or is it just the unfamiliar staring at the computer that’s doing my head in?

Being back at work is a bit of a shock to the system, I must say. Coffee is helping, but a holiday would be better…

People have been asking me whether I’ve had a nice time, and then they laugh at me because all I can do is answer “Yes” and grin like a maniac.

Nevermind.

Voice in my head: Frank Sinatra – The Memory of All That

It may not be Monday, but it sure as h*** feels like one.

1. (snip) As a US citizen, are you embarrassed by President Bush? (non-US citizens are welcome to chime in with their feelings about Bush as well)
My feelings on Bush? I wish he’d just go away. I cut this from Punk Princess a while ago, just because I thought it was so well put, but haven’t found a reason to use it until now:

Wild finch frenzies are incredibly amusing, and relaxing, to sit and watch while drinking tea and pretending that Martin Sheen really is the President. Try it. Trust me, you’ll feel better.

2. Do you have good friends in countries other than your own? Which is the furthest away? How did you meet them? What makes them such a great friend?
Well, Linda just moved to Sweden… And then there’s the Zep, the person furthest away being, let me see… Ryoko in Japan. Roger would be the longest flight away of the ones I’ve actually met in real life. What makes anyone a great friend? Being there for you and being able to laugh together, I think those are the two most important ones…

3. Two cars on the road right now bug me more than any others. (snip) Are there any models of automobile on the road that irritate you when you see them?
Short answer: No.

4. When you were in school, did you ride the bus? Do you have any school bus horror stories? What really went on in the back seats anyway?
I didn’t, so I don’t have any.

5. Last week, I asked what sort of things a man should never say to a woman. Now it is time to turn the tables. There are a few things a woman can say to a man that can totally emasculate him. Such as: “Hold my purse.” What sort of things should a woman never say to a man?
Ok, a man who can’t hold a woman’s purse without feeling emasculated can’t have much self-confidence in the first place. Puh-leese. (For your information, most women when seeing a man with a woman’s purse assume he’s holding it for his girlfriend/wife/daughter/grandmother even if there’s not a woman to be seen in the vicinity.) The things you shouldn’t say, I assume, would be obvious with a little common sense. Anything that would be hurtful or that would undermine someone’s confidence is better left unsaid whether the someone is a man or a woman. When it comes to physical attributes, the only difference is which attribute(s). Any sentence resembling “I wish your ____ was/were ____” is probably a bad idea.

6. Do you have a favorite cartoon Super Hero? Who and why?
(Well, that’s a bit of a change of theme from the last question, isn’t it?) Not really. Does Lucky Luke count as a Super Hero?

7. Just what does it take to make you happy?
Good company (and/or a good book), good food and drink and a long evening ahead with nothing to do that can’t be put off until tomorrow.

And since we’re at it – last week’s Mission:

1. (snip) What was the first perfume or cologne you wore? Tell me about the memories that come to mind when you think about it/smell it again.
I can’t remember. I didn’t really start using perfume regularly until I discovered Laura Biagotti’s range (they all suit me) a few years ago. Mind you, it’s almost ten years ago by now, but since I’m still using even the first one (Laura) on a regular basis, it doesn’t really bring back memories as such.

On the other hand, I have two definite perfume-related memories: Bodyshop’s vanilla scent (or any other scent that smells of vanilla) reminds me of a girl in my class at school, as she would always wear it and it really suited her personality somehow. Poison, the perfume, reminds me of when my mother and I went to London in 1989, as she tried it on and we both hated it and she spent the rest of the day trying to get the scent off again, but it hung to her clothes like, well, poison.

2.We’ve had a lot of cooler weather here in Oklahoma, it reminds me so much of Fall. Even though it isn’t Autumn, I find myself thinking of fires in the fireplace, taking walks and having a cold nose, and stopping for a flavored coffee on the way in to work. What are some of the best things about Fall?
All of the above, well, except for the flavoured coffee – keep that syrup away from my coffee or else… Long nights in front of the fire, or – since I have to go to the cabin to have a fire – on the couch with a blanket and a good book. And a new discovery this year: It being cold enough that it’s a pleasure to have someone warm to curl up to in bed. Mmm.

3. I saw an episode of Dr. Phil recently where this good ol’ boy was just breaking his wife down left and right by making fun of her weight and the size of her rear end. I am amazed that men like this exist and are able to remain married. Why do some women put up with men who constantly insult them and/or abuse them?
Search me. I wouldn’t. Low self-esteem to start with?

4. Speaking of that, obviously making fun of a woman’s weight is something that men should know not to ever do. Still, many of us are clueless. What are some things men should never say to women?
See my answer to this week’s question 5. I’m trying to think if there are other obvious ones, but I think most of the time what you should or shouldn’t say depends on the individual rather than gender.

5. (snip) How many pairs of shoes do you have? Is that too many or not enough? Do you keep shoes you know you will never wear again?
Uhm. Let’s count, shall we? As far as I can remember, I’ve got… 8 pairs of “ordinary wear” shoes – including both sandals and winter boots. And… 10 pairs of “party” shoes. Then there’s ski boots, bunad shoes, tap-dancing shoes, wellingtons (two pairs for some reason), ice skates, inline skates and now – as of yet unused – highland dancing shoes. Too many AND not enough, I’d say. I doubt I’ll ever need the tap-dancing shoes again, but I’m not going to get rid of those. I don’t keep shoes past their use-by date, I threw away a pair only yesterday, in fact, where the inner sole had come loose which made them very uncomfortable. Shoes that are fine but which I know I’ll never wear again are sent to flea markets or charity shops.

6. (snip) Did your family keep a lot of photo albums around? Do you like looking at family photo albums?
We’ve got photo albums galore and quite a few photos up on the wall as well. Looking through them is great fun. I don’t remember to get them out very often, but I’ve had a bout of it recently, trying to find pictures to scan for the gallery.

7. I’ve finally got a Friday night off to go out to a movie. You’re coming with, right? Great! I am leaving it all up to you though, you make the plans, who’s going, where to eat, the movie, whatever else later. I’ll be by a 7 to get you, so what’s the plan?
Uhm, this was last Friday, right? I was getting plastered on excellent whisky in Dufftown, I’m afraid. If you can make it – let’s check the calendar – 24th October however…: Well, I’m not going anywhere without Martin – you bring anyone you like. How about we start with curry and chips (you can have something else if you like, I’m generous like that) at The Dubliner? Then a movie… Still haven’t seen Pirates of the Carribean, so if that’s still on, we could go for that. Or Dogville. Dogville needs to be seen, I suspect. Depends on what’s still on on the 24th, really.

In Scotland now. Really no need to say anything else, is there?

(Weather pretty, but cold. Whisky – hm – mostly very good. Economic situation deteriorating at an alarming rate.)

Off to find another pub, now.

See ya!

Voice in my head: Meatloaf – Bat Out of Hell