Norway, I should have mentioned by now, is very lovely. I will come back to it at another point, I’m sure - most likely when I get round to transcribing this notebook from my trip into typingness. But basically all the other countries should get together and see if anything can be done, because Norway has somehow ended up with more of its fair share of Pretty.

It keeps quite quiet about it, but Norway has been backing out of the room with extra wodges of Pretty tucked behind its back, and tucking them up in the fjords where the Norwegians know they can sneak off and enjoy all the Pretty, and all the other people in other countries won’t know it is there. It’s a bit dodgy, but it’s quite easy to forgive the Norwegians for it, because they sneak off very politely. They do everything very politely, I think (apart from ‘have their eurovision entry criticised’, but that’s someone else’s story).

But the main thing we were in pretty, pretty Norway for was for a wedding. It was a beautiful wedding. Really ridiculously, unbelievably, physically and emotionally beautiful. Some friends - an ex-colleague in fact - who had been together for ten years, but, now having the time and the means to put a wedding together (the power of recessionary lay-offs, eh?), suddenly did. And did so in the place they grew up (which happened to be in the most stunning place imaginable. Honestly, it’s totally unfair).

There was a ceremony, there was a boat ride, there was champagne on the banks of the fjord (seriously, it should be banned how close to perfect it all is), and then there was an incredible five hour meal with at least 27 wonderful speeches made (there should be a law against this level of perfection), it seemed, by anyone and everyone who wanted to make a speech. Actually LITERALLY that. it’s a tradition.

This is one tradition I like.

But then, there were lots of traditions I liked. It’s one of the nicest things about going to weddings, I tend to think - and when you hit a certain age you suddenly have to go to a bunch of them - that they’re all different, and the wedding receptions are always this brilliant humongous mixture of family traditions and friend traditions and national traditions and regional traditions and sometimes religious traditions as well depending on whose wedding it is.

At the wedding in Norway, for example, there was suddenly, at one point, a tinking of teaspoons against a glass. I glanced around the room, looking for a speech - that’s what it would mean in the UK - but someone put their hand on my wrist… “…this means…” they said “that the bride and groom have to kiss. They HAVE to” they said.
And they did.

What’s more, I learnt, when people around the very very-mannered tables started stamping their feet, everyone started stamping their feet and then the bride and groom had to kiss again … but this time under the table.

When the bride got up (to go to the toilet, or greet family, whatever) girls were suddenly swooping on the top table (which contained not family, but just the bride, groom, best men, and friends). More specifically, they were swooping on the groom and kissing him on the cheek. First one woman ran, then another, then he was swamped, and a Norwegian woman at my table was grabbing my hand to run and kiss the groom myself. Just one more snatched kiss, they said when we asked: a last minute cheekiness. The same happened when the groom stood up. Every young man in the room ran in and kissed my friend H.

At night, once the sun had set (about 11.30pm, and then just barely, this was Norway after all) another tradition: all the youngsters from the village who hadn’t been invited (you can’t invite everyone) turn up at a wedding in fancy dress, sing a song, dance a couple of dances, and then, very politely, leave. They are the interlopers. Polite ones.

I love all of this.
I love that, to the people involved, this was all very normal and natural and business as usual… but to the rest of us, coming to the wedding from outside, there was a lot of ‘Hold up a second, people!? WTF?!?” and then a bunch of explaining.

Marriage isn’t something I’m really very fussed about - I’m committed to someone and see no pressing need to legitimise that for someone else’s benefit (though yesterday, a judge overturned Prop 8, which means that gay people can, once again, legally marry in California and that makes me happy, because while I believe unmarried relationships are as valid as any other, people should be able to get hitched if they want to). But I love the idea of all these mini-traditions within a major tradition.

I love the idea of collecting all these brilliant regional, national, quasi-religious and cultural reception traditions and picking and choosing, selecting all the best and having, no doubt about it, the best, most random celebration in the history of the world.

That said:
Anyone know any good ones?

NB: I don’t usually share anything as personal as emails between me and my beloved on this site, but emails when one of us is far away in a new place for work are barely ever the ridiculously soppy kind (or at least the bits I put up here) and I want to keep them somewhere proper. Besides, barely anyone reads this site anymore, right? So it is just like forwarding them to my mother (Hello jan!) so yes. Good.]

FROM HE TO ME

…. so. china.

let’s get all the cliches out of the way from the start.

yes, it’s hot and smelly and noisy and there are people everywhere and bicycles and the odd rickshaw and old men with long beards and little girls in funny school uniforms and crazy taxi drivers careering all over the place and smog and shouting and tower blocks.

but it’s much more interesting than that.

for a start hong kong, what i briefly saw of it, surprised me. it was bigger than i thought, and less concentrated than i had been led to believe. in my mind, hong kong was a tiny labyrinth of people living in vast skyscraping complexes that intertwined and twisted together like some science fiction film. instead, the city seemed spread out across quite a wide area, with lots of lush green and oh! the smell of jasmine wafting around like magic.

i always find it funny that places smell so different. like california’s woody, eucalyptus air and sri lanka’s hot, tea-heavy perfume. britain doesn’t have much of a smell, to me at least, aside from the odour chips and vinegar. china, it turns out, smells like either a dream or a nightmare: you can walk inside a jasmine cloud or a puff of incense and then turn the corner and be sucking in some sewage stink or the reek of somebody smoking as if their life depended on it (ironic, eh).

shenzhen, from my micro survey, is a bit like manchester: a straight-forward, industrial city that doesn’t muck about. it’s huge, about 8 million people spread along the border with hong kong, and full of shops. is it poor? not as far as i can see. the roads are crowded with bmws and volkswagens and lexuses that leap from side to side to avoid the gnarly old dudes who are riding their bikes up the street the wrong way. yes, it’s a bit grimy and not very pretty. but it’s poor like oxford street is poor: that is to say, it’s grimy and a bit mad, but not really struggling unless you’re going to get all uppity about it.

anyway.

the heat here is beyond oppressive: i walked for maybe an hour around the city and have probably lost half my bodyweight already. right now, as i sit in the airport waiting for my flight to shanghai, there’s a thunderstorm. the sky is that thick, soupy sort of grey that you get when the heat’s this heavy, and from time to time there’s a deep rumble like some enormous train is clanking past.

still, i have learned plenty. i managed to navigate the metro system in shenzhen without much difficulty; even when i couldn’t understand the chinese writing i could get it. there’s some english signage (enough so that i haven’t really got lost yet) and the beauty of is that they display all their numbers in chinese and…

next stop: shanghai. I arrive too late to get the tube (which closes, absurdly, at 9pm) but Luke has said he’ll meet me at the airport, which is handy.

One final note. I still haven’t managed to buy a sim card because — let’s be honest — the whole concept of a rabid chinese salesman yelling at me and trying to make me buy his phones is a little disconcerting…

next night. day me. night him. next day. night. gah, stupid time zones.

FROM ME TO HE

…I literally have no idea whether it’s morning for you or not. I literally have no idea whether you’re asleep, awake, in Shanghai, on a plane, or halfway to mars by now.

But I’m writing your good morning email in case it *is* night, and then when you wake up you will have it.

Not that I have anything to counter your amazing travel mails. Nothing has happened here. I’ve not even been out yet today, though I think I may go to the gym later. Maybe. It’s cold outside, and grey, and I’m not really feeling much love for the concept of ‘out’ right now.

I was on Irish radio. It was brilliant. No, that’s not true, it was terrible. The radio station was terrible. I was ok. I had to listen in for a minute or two before I went on air. He was just announcing the winner of a competition they’d been running all of drivetime to celebrate the Ballybuttfecknowhere women’s golf championship taking place this weekend.

The party that won the competition - I didn’t catch their name, but I feel sure it was probably Moira. Or Barbara. Or Ken - won a round of golf at Ballybuttfecknowhere Castle golf course. The “jigger” had “spewed out” their name at random though, said the DJ, who sounded just like a budget Terry Wogan, or, worse, a budget Man-That-Comes-On-Radio-2-After-Terry-Wogan-and-already-sounds-like-a-budget-Terry-Wogan. I think his name was Derek. At least, I hope his name was Derek, because I called him that nine times.

I was ok, I think, apart from the fact I picked up the DJ’s accent a little. Except, of course, I can’t do an Irish accent, so I squawked and burred like a lady pirate.

So I did that. And that is done. It was fine.

Jim came round to collect the late fee for the rent, and we had a long, long conversation. A long, weird, Jim-like conversation. You know the type. He asked rather urgently about your return - I said it was next friday, and asked if he needed anything from you. he said no, and that he had just wanted to talk to you about solar flare activity which is meant to be happening next tuesday, and may take down ALL THE COMPUTERS IN THE WORLD. Including ones that run aeroplanes so, you know, watch out for that. He then asked if I thought people in England would assume that an American who asked them to take a DNA test to check genealogy might be after a share of their business, if they owned a business, and I said no, no, as long as he was clear that he wasn’t trying to claim any inheritance or share of family business, there would be no reason people would naturally assume that, but as we weren’t as interested in genealogy as as peoples, they might be a bit confused by the concept and level of curiosity.

He explained a little more about his interest in genealogy. Apparently he was on a train heading up to Halifax, passing, I believe through the Leicestershire area, when he looked out over an empty field and saw, charging over the rolling hills, a Braveheart type scene, shadows of warriors and flags and swords and shields. I believe he was introducing this as a possible glimpse into a past life.

I suggested he not mention that to his Yorkshirian possible-relatives when requesting a DNA blood test.

He’s off to North Eastern Canada on Monday. He and Pat camped in Vancouver Island near a family of bears once. A bear in Montana killed someone last week. A man in England once found an enormous stash of roman coins in a back yard. He thinks the man found them with a metal detector. The plums are nearing the end of their fruiting season. Seth once complained about not being able to shut the cupboard doors in his kitchen very easily. Pat said he just had to open them both and then close them at the same time. He did that, and it worked, but didn’t see why he should. But if we want new magnets in the doors then we should say. Because they wear out. He’s not been to Glacier Park. Contractors are hard to find. He likes Halifax. Watch out for solar flares. 2013 is going to be a very bad year for them. And fifteen other topics of conversation. For half an hour. Half an hour.

…

Letters aren’t dead.
People who say they are are crazy.

[Although home alone with a very large dog with with a gun hanging around its neck on loan, if you are a murdery burglar. Or a burglary murderer. Or a Jehovah's Witness. Or my landlord. (Not because we owe him money. Just because he's Very Boring.) Or a rodent.]

My Beloved, as of this morning, is vacuum-packed off on a long-range-people-flinger to a far off country for a week and a bit, doing some exciting work of freelance-writerism that I would have also jumped at the chance of but will resent anyway because he’s getting to do exciting travel and not me. I won’t resent him, of course. I’ll just resent the nature of business. And the country he’s going to. And the fact that while I’m having a very jolly time at the moment, by the end of the week I’ll be as bored as… as something. I’ll be as Bored as A Bard Spelt Wrong.

My friend Amy asked me this morning what my plans for the day were, once I had seen him safely dispatched off to the airport. I said I was planning a doing bit of fretting in the morning, aiming for a touch of light sulking in the afternoon, having some grumping MIXED with fretting for tea, and then getting stuck back to the sulking for most of the evening. She pointed out - quite correctly - that I hadn’t remembered to block out any time at all for ‘being in a bad mood’ and ‘feeling sorry for myself’, so I amended my plan and rescheduled my second block of sulking and some of the less time-sensitive fretting I was going to do until tomorrow instead.

This, of course, was not what I did. We have both done a lot of travelling over the last bunch of years - he more than I on less-fun business, and it’s not a hardship, it’s not unbearable, and it’s certainly not that I can’t cope without my man by my side: it’s just bloody weird. Especially now we both work from home, and have done for the last two years - you do get very, very used to being around a person that much, and that constantly.

And so it’s only when you have to stop yourself from saying out loud “Did you see where I put my *insert random semi-lost thing here*‘ and then searching for it regardless because no, he’s not seen where you put it, he never knows where you’ve put these things - apart from the fact they are always, ALWAYS in your handbag. Or you have to write down things to ask later because they’re important but you’re so used to being able to ask them at once, you know they’ll go out of your head otherwise. And there’s no one to say the funny thing you just thought of to, and even if you think of the right kind of person, you’ll have to explain the concept and then it won’t be funny anymore, and… well, and I get bored.

So this week, fortnight, ten days, whatever it is: I am working on Project Notgetbored. Today I cleaned the house, did some writing, answered a couple of emails and went on a nine-mile hike up and down some hills around the city. Tomorrow I will do more of the writing and less of the walking, because I think my knees might fall off otherwise. Stupid pavements. I will also try and be sociable with some new people, even though people are scary.

I will also continue my preliminary work on Project Be-less-fat. Because I WAS working on that project and that was all going well and good, and then in the last couple of months that all dropped off a bit because there was stress and bother and worry and comfort needing to be had. I do so wish the words “Yes, it’s been dreadful, we’ve been so stressed out the weight’s simply been falling off us” ever fell out of my mouth, but I, my scales, the gym manager and the owner of our local chinese restaurant know this is very very not true. And much as I know in my clever new-brain that exercising stops me feeling sad or anxious, the only thing that I want to do when sad or anxious is curl up under a duvet and sleep, so it’s hard to balance the two.

But that will all change and be different these next few days, next ten days, this next week or fortnight or however long it is. I will be brilliant, and eat perfectly, and sleep optimally and…

Oh balls.
It’s one a.m. already.

See I’m just writing now because I’m avoiding going to bed, and there’s no one here to remind me that it would be sensible to go to bed (by whining about it in a monotonously manly way until I give up). And if it was up to me, I would sit here and write about nothing at all, nothing whatsoever, nothing that anyone cares about at all, just because it’s not bed. But that is not sensible and rational and logical and reasonable. So I hereby will add Project GoingToBed to my list of current works, and action it immediately.

*adds thing that wasn’t on the to do list to her to do list*
*crosses it off immediately with flourish*
Progress!