June Ramblings

Summer is a strange creature. Especially in Norway. One day you're wearing light linen clothes and feeling a warm breeze on your bare toes as you stretch out on a blanket in the park, and the next day the clouds have decided to throw a monsoon party over the whole city, making it smell of fresh grass and french lilac. I love french lilac. Rik thinks it smells of poo. Ever the poet, that one...

We've celebrated our first 17th of May together this year (the Norwegian Constitution day). Rik found it a fun, though somewhat bizzare experience, and marveled at how the people of Norway were allowed to get so up close to the Royal family while they stood on the balcony of the Royal Palace, waving to the seemingly endless parade of school kids passing them by, all dressed up, small Norwegian flags in hand, in what is quite possibly the world's biggest annual children's parade. Time seems to have run away with us, because it doesn't feel like such a long while ago since we were each on our separate side of the pond, longing for the end of May when he'd be flying over for good. And yet, it's been a over a year now, and we still have a few boxes left in my parents' basement.

With summer, there tends to be a lot of people tying the knot, and this year, one of them is my best friend from all the way back to primary school. Being maid of honour, it's on me to sort out the bachelorette party (I truly loathe the name "hen party", it's full of negative associations to drunk women in home printed t-shirts that say things like "will snog for £1"), probably write down some notes on what kind of things I'd like to say in the speech, and help the bride with all those little bits and bobs that the groom tends to not be too fussed about. On top of that, I'm making the wedding dress. The wedding is in less than two months, we've still not found the textiles we're going to use, and I'll be on a holiday in England for two weeks sometime in between. Stressed? A little, but then again, last time I made a wedding dress I started two weeks before the wedding, so I think I'll be fine (as long as I sew my own dress before I go on holiday). :)


I've just finished a book I've been reading for ever so long called "The Gone-Away World", written by Nick Harkaway. It's a most delightful book, which, with it's wit and bizarre tangents, is difficult to dislike, and equally difficult to describe or categorize. It's got ninjas, pirates, politics, love, war and new, exciting ways to make flapjacks. If neither of the aforementioned seems to pique your curiosity, then you might not enjoy the book as thoroughly as I did, and might be suffering from an unfortunate case of having grown up too much. This golden nugget has rocketed it's way into my list of favourite books, and I dare say it's been the most enjoyable reading experience I've had in a very long time.

While waiting for Mr. Harkaway to publish more fun stuff, I'll be delving into the world of Steven Erikson in his series "Malazan Book of the Fallen", and hope that there might be the slightest chance that George R. R. Martin's latest book in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series, "A Dance With Dragons" will come out this year. I'm not holding my breath for the latter, but I am looking forward to the HBO "Game of Thrones" series due next spring. In the meantime, I'm watching "Rome" again, and the occasional episode of "Band of Brothers" (although "Band of Brothers" always tends to put me in a state of melancholy, and in dire need of watching "Kelly's Heroes" again). Yes. I'm a HBO whore. The truth is out.

I've now got a craving for brown cheese, coffee and a game of Go, so I'm grabbing my gun and bringing the cat in. Boom, boom, boom!

Home

After a long and tedious moving process, we are now starting to settle down in our new flat, Rik and I. Although Rik still has a list of stuff he would like to fix in our new place, things are slowly coming together; we now have a fridge, light in the kitchen, a toilet seat that's not broken, shower curtains, means to store our clothes, a TV (with no receiver, mind you), an Xbox, a kitchen table, and the curtain rail in the living room and the living room lighting will be fixed today. It's staring to feel like home!

Just last week we came back from a lovely long weekend in Liverpool. It had been planned since the end of this summer, but because of the delays with the new flat, it ended up being in the middle of the move. I think we need the break from the stress, though, and we came back feeling rather refreshed, much more energetic and in possession of a lot more clothes! :P

With all the time that's been spent sorting things out in the flat and fetching boxes of stuff stored at my parents, the promise of some spare time after Yule is very uplifting. I can't wait to start planning the wedding dress for my best friend, who will be getting married come summer next year. I've been appointed Maid of Honour and sewing her dress will be my wedding gift to the two of them, so I have every intention of putting my best effort in to make it positively dreamy! A small wedding is no excuse for not having a fab dress and I want her to feel like a queen wearing it! ^-^

In between everything, I'm trying to squeeze in some table-top RPG, but finding time in my busy schedule when all of the players can make it has been proving a bit of a bitch. Still, it gives me more time to prepare, and I'll be the first to admit that my "scenario studies" have been severely neglected lately. I suppose that's what happens when you move to a new place and get caught up reading George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" series in the middle of it...

On top of the lot, I've been asked to contribute in a concert in tribute of Luke Kelly, and have been spending a bit of time digging out songs from my repertoire and finding the right key for them all. Handing the list of the aforementioned has proven more difficult, though, as the list is a bit too long for a text message and the man in charge has no e-mail account. Hopefully, it'll sort itself out some way or another, and in the meantime I'm doing my best to brush up my memory of all the lyrics and melodies. But for now, I'm going to focus on getting that darned curtain rail up in the living room.

First Blog Post

First blog post. I don't know where or how to start, so I'll just dive straight into it. I've been ill for a week and I'm sick of it. I've recently gone wild with my scissors and cut my hair (again). I've also dyed it pink (again). I like pink. I've got tickets for the first Norwegian showing of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and I've finally managed to convince my boyfriend to read the books (he finished off the first one (today) after eight hours of intense and focused reading). I'm back to work again on Monday, although my throat is still aching and acting up, once more making Lemsip my best friend. And I got my first proper pair of wellies on Saturday, and they're bright red, matching my favourite brollie.

There. It is done. First blog post.