Weekend...goooood.

Weekends. How I love weekends

I'll only put down a quickie for the now. Been out and about in Tønsberg after delivering Oskar to David and Solveig. (More on that in a future post) Had a rather nice lunch at the Machinists House with the family and Rannveigs mum, who turned up this morning from Lillehammer. They have some ideas for improving the house. (More on this subject another time). Flowers starting to bloom in the garden, even a little warmth in the air. Winter has left the building, I hope.

The Job application is in

For all of you who wanted to see a pic of me...happy now?

The deed is done and I've got my hot new CV off to the folks at Opera. I had a word to their Personnel person this morning and the positions are vacant until they find someone who can actually fill them. I had forgotten that people still fill jobs that way! No cut off dates, no artificial waiting periods, just first in (who is qualified), best dressed.

They look like a very interesting company to work for. 28 nationalities and more than half of their 200 staff are not from Norway, meaning the corporate language of choice is English. Bliss!

The weekend beckons and the evil deed will be done tomorrow morning. Oskar will be moving out for an extended holiday from Rannveig. He was at the vet this morning getting squeezed, poked and his teeth cleaned, so he will be in great mood when I get home tonight.

Speaking of commuting, being on the train 90 minutes each way, every day has revived my pleasure in reading. It has been literally years since I've had the chance to read anything but technical manuals. I've probably read more books in the last few months than I have in the last seven or eight years. This is not a bad thing, especially as we have a backlog of quality, unread books at home for me to wade through.

My current recommendations:
The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (yes, that really is her name) is an absolute cracker of a read. Great romance with a very bizarre back story. Money back guarantee on this one if you don't love it!
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracey Chevalier. Alright, so I am the last person in the western world to have read it! Doesn't stop me from recommending it. Beautiful, spare prose that fits the mood to perfection.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by you know who (Rowling silly, not Volde... sorry). Hands down best of the Potter books. Worth the read if just for the Quidditch World Cup mascot brawl.

Negerlandsbyen...?

The renovations await

The little area we live in has been known by this name for years by the locals. The workers who lived here years ago would come home tanned and filthy from their jobs on the whaling ships and there were so many of them living around here that nickname for the area was born. What does it mean? Black-village. Hardly politically correct, but what are you going to do? ;)

Fabulous to see people getting into the spirit of things and using "Comments". We might manage to re-establish a few contacts, not just to us but between each other. A special hello to the hunky boys in Florida, Judy MacG (yes, you will continue to get Oskar news) and the Bimbo from Cairns.

Oskar offers gardening and pruning tips

Click on it for bigger image

Just for Judy, todays pussycat fix. We took this one a few weeks ago when the thaw finally hit and the apple tree needed pruning. Naturally, hairy legs had to be at the centre of the action as usual.

Todays safety tip: write down in LARGE letters the date of your wedding anniversary. 11 April came and went without so much as a bat of the eyelid from Rannveig or myself. She reminded me the day after and I think she was as embarrassed as I was. I suspect we aren't getting quite enough sleep these days. Anyway, lucky 13 years it is! I think a picture of those of you who were there will be in order in a day or two.

Ashleys job saga takes a turn for the worse

Yet another baby picture...?

...but she does look awfully cute in her snow gear.

Yes, job stuff. Today I got the rather disappointing news that I have been placed third on the candidate list to fill my position at HiO on a permanent basis. Third. Not first, not second, but third. Seems I am up against some very highly qualified opponents and practical experience does not seem to have been taken into the equation.

So what does that mean in real terms? The first two candidates will be offered my current position and if one of them accepts, then I am out the door. Having created the position from scratch and getting good feedback from people during the last six months, this is not good news. Once again, time to pull out the friggin' CV. There is still a vague chance that I might still pull it off (should the other two knock back the positition), but realistically, I'm probably back in the job market come June.

There are some jobs going over at Opera who make one of the best web browsers out there and they really need folks with English skills at native level, so I'll probably give them a go.

Onto more cheerful matters, people are starting to use the comments function! Hurrah! Just make sure to use "Other" instead of "Blogger" or "Anonymous" when you write your comments. Now if the rest of you will just get aboard with comments, we can get a conversation going here.

Oh yes, an important safety tip: Do not send email to Lyndals insession address. She will be cross. I haven't been punched out online for a while, but she did the business on me ;)

6 months with LC... already!

Linnea Clare Riddell reaches a milestone

Well, we decided to finally start getting a proper form of communication together, so a blog it is. Make sure to click on "Comments" and leave your own thoughts here as well. (Easier than sending an email, troooly!)

We will try our best to keep this thing up to date and cover all the fascinating things that happen up here. Especially those of you interested in home renovations (sob! Not again, oh no, not again...)

Rannveig thinks the sun shines out of...hey, that IS the sun shining..

Linnea Clare has just passed 6 months, something that we are both finding a little strange to accept. Soon it will be school backpack, then job, then moving out...

Oskar contemplates his fate

Oskar will shortly be leaving us for an extended visit with his Uncle David and Auntie Solveig back at Munkebakken. Rannveig and Oskar have had a series of creative differences (as in he wasn't too impressed with her creating another person in the house) so for the sake of peace and sanity of all, he will hopefully be returning to his old stomping ground for at least a few months.