In the absence of the real thing a girl will have to make do with pictures. So here’s a picture for you (well, me, really): Martin in his Kilt. I really need to get some better ones snapped, though.

And while we’re at it, this is the only digital picture I got around to snapping while we were “up north” – the house peeking into the frame at the right is where his father was from.

Voice on the stereo: Lillebjørn Nilsen – Tanta til Beate

How I’m supposed to survive next week, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Martin since this morning – he’s nursing his cold under a duvet on his couch and I’m trying to get some useful stuff (washing up and uploading pictures…) done here – and I’m missing him like crazy. And he’s off to Scotland on Saturday and I don’t get to go until the Saturday following. So how am I supposed to cope?

Help!

Anyway, in the meantime: I’ve uploaded the few pictures I managed to scan from Ireland – more will follow once I’ve been to Trondheim again – mid to late October…

Voice in the room: Ainslie Henderson – Keep me a Secret (yay! the new series of Fame Academy has started!)

Smells are incredibly important. We all know (partly thanks to Proust) how evocative smells can be. Certain smells can transport you back to a different time and place with much more immediate effect than other sensory data.

What I find fascinating, though, is how people smell different and how perfumes react with an individual’s own smell to produce different results from person to person. Most people I know have tried a perfume that smellt really lovely when a friend wore it and turns out horrible on themselves. This is why you should always try a perfume on yourself rather than on one of those silly little paper strips, and why you should leave it on your wrist for at least half an hour before you decide whether you want to buy it or not.

Really.

The topic came up because I bought a deodorant yesterday. Not an unusual occurrence, obviously, but I thought I’d try a new one, which has turned out to be a big mistake. It has obviously clashed seriously with my personal chemistry and now smells totally icky. Instead of “perfume” or “sweat” I smell of disinfectant mixed with that smell blackboard sponges get when they get old – mouldy moistness. Not good. I would have preferred “sweat”. Need to go shopping. Definitely need to throw yesterday’s buy in the bin.

Incidentally, I have another deodorant at home that I am unable to use, too. Not because it smells icky, but because it smells all wrong. It’s a Ldh (or whatever) and it actually smells of hand cream. I’m sorry, but armpits are just not supposed to smell of hand cream, that just majorly confuses the brain and my brain is having a tough enough time as it is.

Voices in my head: The Fraggles – Fraggle Rock

Melissa is, again, the source of excellent links. I agree with her on Albert (how could you not want to tousle his hair?), but I think I’d like a wee Will, too.

Now where have I heard that word before? The Friday Five is in a housewifey mood:

1. What housekeeping chore(s) do you hate doing the most?
I don’t do ironing. If clothes need to be ironed, I just don’t wear them (so I try to avoid buying them).

2. Are there any that you like or don’t mind doing?
I don’t mind doing the dishes. I actually like getting up and doing the dishes in the morning, especially after a night out. Normally I don’t have time to do it, though, so I’d still rather like a dishwasher in order to get the dirty dishes off the work surface.

3. Do you have a routine throughout the week or just clean as it’s needed?
Throughout the week? How often am I supposed to clean? I do the dishes when it’s needed – actually, I do them when I have the time, as it’s pretty much always needed. I do the vacuuming whenever it gets so bad that I really have to or when guests are coming. Other cleaning? Hm.

4. Do you have any odd cleaning/housekeeping quirks or rules?
I have a definite order for what gets cleaned first when I do the dishes – most importantly the glasses get done first (there is actually a rational explanation for that – it’s very difficult to get clean glasses if the dishwater is already greasy, so greasy things need to be done once all the glasses are out) – and I get annoyed if I watch someone and they do it ‘the wrong way round’.

5. What was the last thing you cleaned?
I vacuumed around the bed on Tuesday. Since then I’ve hardly been at home.

exactly was the person who searched for “flint painter kittens” looking for? Did they find it? I’m just curious.

Been looking at my referrals again, obviously.

People have been stopping by looking for kilts lately.

Mmmm. Kilts.

Voices in my head: Annifrid and Agneta – The Name of the Game

Thort? Not here.

1. If you emigrated to, let’s say, Spain, with the intent of staying there, how long do you think it would be before you started speaking Spanish in the home?
It probably wouldn’t take long before Spanish got mixed in with the Norwegian and English I already speak at home, but I don’t think I’d ever speak Spanish instead of Norwegian, only in addition to.

2. If you were magically named President of the country, under what circumstances would you consider it acceptable to lie to the public?
None. Ok, so there might be circumstances where a lie by omission would be acceptable in order to avoid mass hysteria, but not many.

3. If you were completely deaf, except for one hour a week, what would you want to hear during that hour?
My favourite music. Waves crashing on the beach.

Now that we’ve started going to the Oslo Scottish Country Dance Group, is this what I should be wearing, I wonder? This whole Martin’s-in-a-kilt-now-what-am-I-supposed-to-wear-to-look-somewhat-coordinated thing is tricky. I think a visit to a proper outfitter in Scotland might be in order, even if it’s just to get advice rather than shop…

And if I am to wear a ‘kilted skirt’ (which is – apparently – what you should call it if it’s for women rather than men) – how do I deal with the fact that I can’t wear wool next to the skin? Can I line it or will that ruin the cut?

Voice in my head: Stevie Wonder – For Once in my Life