Up at 8am!

Well, it's before 9am and I'm up! I know any Norwegians reading this will react somewhat skeptically to this assertion, but believe it or not, it's true. In fact....in even more shocking news, I have been up since 7am! The coffee's brewed, my cheerios are crispy (well actually they're a bit on the chewy side...they are a month old) and it's a lovely sunny morning.

Einar is getting ready to go for his morning run and I'm avoiding going for mine by writing this.

Now I thought that I should explain a bit about the blog entries that I'm hoping will follow this one. As you all know I have been shamefully lazy and haven't been keeping up with the blogging thing. This has meant that gradually a LOT of stuff has happened that I haven't written about. The knock-on effect of this has been that I have found myself trying not to do anthing that would give me extra blogging work when I finally got round to writing anything. It began with not taking many photos because "If I take photos I'll have to put them on flickr and write about them in the blog." Gradually I found myself avoiding any activities that I felt might be blog worthy....I had enough to write about what with all our guests turning up and forcing us to enjoy ourselves! So anyway, eventually I stopped doing anything that could be construed as interesting and now I have no life...but at least I don't have to write about it!

In a bid to remedy this situation and to make the whole blogging mountain seem more molehill-like, I have decided to blog about bits and bobs that have happened in the past few months but not attempt to recount what we did with all our visitors in minute detail or in organised fashion. The result will probably be a mish mash of snippets that don't necessarily inform the reader about what we've been up to in any coherent kind of way. There are things that have stuck in my head as blog worthy, but sadly a whole lot that is also worthy and probably more important/interesting has been jettisoned by my brain in favour of useless odds and ends. But....well....tough.

Well, what to tell you all first.... let me see.

Well, the electrician is here at the moment doing lots of exciting stuff like putting up recessed ceiling lights for us, attaching our new oven (delivered yesterday), putting sockets in for the dishwasher, the fridge the range hood etc. He must be working hard it's VERY NOISY!! :)

What else...oh yes, we have no hot water as our furnace has just broken! We discovered this the day before yesterday. So we waited for the electrician to come out to do all the other stuff (we though it was an electrical fault at the time) and asked him to take a look. Anyway, it turns out it isn't an electrical fault. In The electrican's words "something's fried" somewhere..... so I've had to call an emergency plumber out. Apparently one is on his/her way over when they're free. So I am currently very greasy as I'm avoiding having a cold shower. Einar got back from his run, was forced to shower in icy water with chattering teeth and is now at work.

So yes, it's all happening at 120 Eastwood today ;)

As for past events, well it was all rather special knowing that lots of people were coming out to see us. We felt really chuffed that anybody would bother! So yes, our guests were fab. They put up with humidity, a wreck of a kitchen, mosquitos, and frequent supermarket trips with great equanimity and good humour. We were very grateful! Mum and dad spent quite a bit of time when they first arrived going from one room to another and getting a bit lost. Mum would turn up in the kitchen with a startled expression, having expected to find herself in the bathroom. Gradually though they settled in and made themselves very useful by mowing lawns, tidying garden borders, washing up and generally making themselves indispensable. I'll be putting some pictures up of their time with us shortly. Oh! Just remembered, even before we had mum and dad to stay, our friends Jill and Jim (or "JillJim" as I like to call them....like "Bennifer" or "TomCat," only higher profile and better looking...) came to stay. In fact after my visa crisis, I flew back to the states and they picked me up from JFK. Then they very kindly ferried me all the way back up to Ithaca. They hired a car, a yellow one. Not a muted, understated yellow you understand. YELLOW yellow. It was great.

I think Jim was discussing hiring an understated silver car with the rental person, until Jill popped up and gazed with longing at the bananamobile. So the yellow car it was. We never lost it in a car park and the bugs loved it. What more could you want from a rental vehicle!

Had great fun with Jill and Jim although the weather was shocking for a lot of the time. Pictures from their trip are posted on flickr.

Right, well, as the electrician has gone off to have his lunch I think it's time I had mine. Who knows, sometime today I might get to have a hot shower!! Back soon everyone!
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