Picture Sells a Scent

I was reading a girlie magazine today, and came across something unexpectedly refreshing. It was a perfume advert, of all things.

Let me explain. Perfume ads don't make sense. See, it's kind of hard to use a picture to sell a scent. You kind of have to sell an image. So to me, perfume ads say f**k all about the perfume, beyond 'beautiful women wear it. It makes you sexy and male models turn into drooling puppies.' Perfume ads are suggestive, they're beautiful, and it leaves you with no idea what the product might be like (unless it comes with a sample. That is brilliant). Just look at these (randomly chosen) examples. What can you say about these perfumes?

Kind of heavy?

Light and girlie, may contain pink roses?

Light and fresh?

That's just guessing, based on the ads. I have but a faint idea of what 'light and girlie' might small like, for example, or whether I'd like it at all. I'd say it would appeal to someone who likes a lot of pink, girlie girl, so probably quite sweet and not too strong. Alternatively, anyone who'd like to be Natalie Portman. These three adverts are gorgeous, but they essentially say the same thing. 

That is why I found this ad absolutely amazing. Yes it's beautiful, but more importantly, imagine what this perfume might smell like? I'm thinking maybe, possibly, a hint of daisy?

I absolutely love this ad. I want to try this perfume because of it.

Oh by the way, I don't own any of these images. They have been shamelessly googled.

Telephone Terror

It has been brought to my attention that I am not, in fact, completely 'normal'.
For example, I have been told that normally, people don't have a panic attack by the thought of making a phone call. I do. And despite previous statements to the contrary, people around me have come to realize it is not merely a matter of me 'being silly'. I am genuinely terrified of dealing with people over the phone.

Now I'm aware that many people find phone calls somewhat unpleasant, and I can come up with several reasons why I wouldn't be entirely comfortable with it.
- I much prefer dealing with people face to face, so I can see their facial expressions and body language.
- I'm afraid of being unable to hear/understand what people are saying, and they are unable to hear/understand me.
- I HATE having to lead a conversation. I never know what to say.
- You know that moment after you've dialed a number, before anyone picks up the phone? That moment of uncertainty when you don't actually know whether or not you've reached the person you're trying to get in touch with? That.

Well, these are all reasons why phone calls can be unpleasant, but downright terrifying? That doesn't really make sense. It doesn't explain the way my heart rate doubles and I start shaking when the phone rings, or why I need to sit alone in a quiet room with the door closed, with pen and paper or my laptop (or preferably both) in front of me, trying to control my breathing to stop hyperventilating in order to make a call. These are not rational reactions.

Furthermore, I don't know why I react this way. I can't remember any terribly unpleasant experiences in my childhood, in fact I used to phone people all the time. And I still remember being a kid with my first ever mobile phone. What ever happened? Could calling a wrong number a couple of times really have such a strong effect? I know I was a sensitive child but... really?

Did something happen that I have repressed?

Here choccy choccy...

It has been claimed that chocolate helps against depression, and I'm sure there's something in it.
I really wanted some chocolate today.

And I've got some, too... packed away in my backpack, along with all the other stuff I was supposed to bring back for my sister. And it's a massive one.

Basically, I am something of a personal shopper for my sister. She requests something, I go out and buy it. Quite a luxury. And if it wasn't for the fact that she's in a different country, I'd ask her to get it herself. Politely. NOT. Anyway. She asked for a Galaxy chocolate bar, so naturally I picked up the smallest one I could find, a christmas special family pack about the same size as the magazine I went out to get her.

Unfortunately, it's also quite suicidal, and currently screaming at me.

Bloody emo chocolate.

Chop, chop - there goes my hair!

Today, I had a haircut.

Not just any haircut, no no. A dramatic change.

Something so huge, in fact, that my hairdresser asked for permission to take before-and-after photos of me. I had my hair cut short.

I've enjoyed the long-blonde-hair look for well over a year now, but it's got to the point where I'm getting sick of constantly brushing it, and drying it... dear me, drying it! It takes forever!

Even my boyfriend admitted that, while he quite likes the look of my long golden locks, he is not so keen on the taste. I can see where he's coming from; long hair gets everywhere.

Now I have had short hair before, so I wasn't too scared having it all off again. Truthfully, I believe I can rock any hairstyle except the long look; long hair somehow washes my face out completely. Which is ironic, considering the cultural link between long hair and femininity, grace and beauty. 

I'm loving my new hairstyle, and can't stop messing with it!

Little Granny knits the "Skappel-jumper"

Norwegians will get the x-mas reference here... I hope

Every now and again, I enter what is commonly known as Granny Mode, and get a sudden and inexplicable desire to knit something. This most recently happened a couple of weeks ago, and as a knight in shining armour, the Internet was there to help me search for possible projects. Something other than "scarf".


This is how I came across something incredibly odd. It appears that my native country, Norway, has been home to something of a knitting craze over the summer of 2012. Young girls are teaching themselves to knit. Wool shops have been struggling to meet the demand for Alpaca yarn in greys, whites and browns over what is normally a rather quiet season. All in all, this is very strange behaviour and surely an early symptom of the zombie virus that will eventually wipe out the majority of the human population.

Actually, the Norwegian knitting hysteria is caused by this jumper, known as the Skappel-jumper because of its connection to celebrity Dorthe Skappel. The story, as I've understood it, is that she enjoys a bit of knitting, and has been photographed wearing her own, home made jumpers. As have her increasingly well known daughters. (I have to take the internet's word for that, as I am rarely exposed to Norwegian media in general these days and don't tend to follow fashion or gossip if I can help it) So, as people were getting more and more curious as to how one of these unique pieces of clothing could be acquired, Maria Skappel posted the instructions on her blog.

Norway went mad.

When I was a school girl, art teachers would face a desperate struggle every year to attempt to teach another group of kids to knit, with responses ranging from reluctant attempts to complete anarchy. Knitting just couldn't lose its granny image. Therefore, this phenomenon is quite extraordinary if you ask me. Which you do. Since you're reading my blog.

Now, for the very first time, I am starting work on a knitting project that is part of a fashion craze! I have chosen a different type of yarn though - as Alpaca yarn, and indeed any yarn with a high percentage of quality wool, is quite expensive. What I'm using instead is a 50/50 Meriono Wool and Acrylic for my thicker bit, and a fine yarn with small silvery sequins (31% wool) for added detail. Both from my local wool shop, that I went into for the first time less than a week ago and am now in love with!

My yarns and knitting needles, displayed so they just happen to show the labels clearly.

So, my Skappel-jumper
Because I'm a small girl, I made some adjustments. The pattern I worked from suggested to make it 80 stitches wide, I did 66. With the sleeves, I started at 28 rather than 40, and took it up to 52 as suggested.
And of course the yarn is different, as I've already mentioned.

The total cost of the yarn and equipment used was £51.47
broken up as follows:

2 pairs of knitting needles, one long bamboo and one 60cm round, total £6.20
1x 2 yarn/wool hand needles from amazon, £1.77 per packet of 2
8x Wendy MODE yarn, each £3.25, £26 in total
5x King Cole Galaxy yarn, each £3.50, £17.50 in total

It took me just under 2 weeks of intensive knitting to finish, and I'm quite happy with the result. Not blown away by it, there are some awkward bits - namely the seam connecting the sleeves to the torso - but hey, I made it myself!

I do feel a sense of pride and achievement to have knitted my very first jumper. I think it has also given me a new perspective of the value of clothes in general, in terms of the cost, time and effort it takes to make even the simplest of items. Making a jumper from good quality yarn, even taking out the potential cost of the labour, is not cheap. It costs more than you would typically pay for a (let's face it) better looking, finished product from somewhere like Primark. Even considering their materials are typically cheaper (bought in bulk and typically 100% acrylic), taking into account the margins needed to make a profit, imagine the value of the work going into producing each item? It can't be much?!

Parents and Sweethearts: How to sabotage a Girl's Relationship (with her parents)

Well people, confession time. I don't have a great relationship with my mother. Never had. It used to be very much up and down, but lately, it's been mostly down. I can't stand her company, and it alters my behaviour, so right now (which effectively means forever and ever and ever...) my mother is mad at me for being rude to her or something.

Now while my relationship with my mother has been up and down over the years - I blame my upbringing for many of my bizarre hang-ups and anxieties, though she did have her enlightened moments too, so it's been good and bad - recently, over the last couple of years, us getting along has depended on me being overbearing and smile through any bulls**t. That works just fine as long as the conversation doesn't get personal.

And that's just the problem. Lately, when we do get together, it does get personal. She clearly disapproves of my decision to stay in England and live with my boyfriend, and acquired a habit of putting in 'as long as you're okay with it' about five times a minute, which clearly demonstrates to me that, if she was in my shoes, she would not be okay with it, and I shouldn't either.

The funny thing about all this is, of course, what every parent of a teenage girl knows or will soon discover: telling her you disapprove of her chosen sweetheart, or trying to sabotage her relationship, will only ever damage one relationship, and that's yours - with your daughter.  And my mother knows this.

Years ago, I was dating a guy who was, shall we say, not right for me. My dad picked up on this straight away, of course. His disapproval was not at all subtle and I started avoiding my dad, spending more time with my boyfriend instead. When I eventually did come to the same conclusion, the boy wasn't right for me, it was something I discovered all by myself, without daddy's help. This was also when my mother confessed she knew it wouldn't work, she just didn't say anything because
A) She didn't want to damage our frail mother-daughter relationship, and
B) Because she trusted me to discover it for myself.

So what has changed? Why suddenly this urge to try to come between me and my boyfriend by coming in with constant, not-so-subtle digs at him? Why on earth does she think, if I have to choose between them, I wouldn't choose the one who makes me happy every day over the one I could never please?

It's MINE.

1000 pageviews

Yay I'm popular ^^ Thanks everyone on the internet. Never thought my ramblings  would have an audience.

Ghost Stories

I am not a great believer in the paranormal. Sure, I believe people experience things they can't explain, and get scared. It's just that I don't necessarily believe the scary experience is caused by the spirit of a dead person or demon. Just because I can't explain something doesn't mean there isn't an explanation. Of course this view puts me in the same position as pretty much every ghost story protagonist, ever.

Not believing in ghosts has not prevented me from having ghostly experiences. Three, in fact, and I'll share them with you.

These stories are all set in the same place, the farm my grandparents used to own in the middle of the a forest in eastern Norway. It is fairly old, though I'm not entirely sure how old since I never paid any attention to the family history. It is also far between the farms, so you wouldn't hear the neighbours. It is not, however, the kind of place you would expect to be haunted. It always had a warm and welcoming atmosphere, since my grandparents were always warm and welcoming people, and no stranger was allowed to pass without entering the kitchen for a cup of coffee!

Footsteps in the Night

My first ghostly experience happened when I was a little girl. I had my own room on the 2nd floor of the house, while my grandparents slept in their downstairs bedroom. There was no one else staying there at the time. As it was late at night, and I was very young, I stayed up reading a book a long time after my grandparents had gone to bed. It was a quiet night, though probably some wind outside and typical natural sounds I cannot recall, and did not pay attention to. The book in question was one of those christian teen-targeted anti bullying stories, and quite forgettable.

I believe it was some time around 1-2 am when I heard footsteps coming from the room next to me, passing my door and continuing down the stairs. I heard the stairs creaking, as they often did due to their age. At the time I was slightly puzzled, but figured it was just my grandmother, as she had a habit of walking around the house at night. I couldn't figure out what she'd been doing upstairs this late though, and for some time too, as I hadn't heard anyone walk up the stairs since I 'went to bed'.

Then, some 10 minutes later, I heard footsteps again, this time coming up the stairs. I looked up from my book, as I was expecting my grandmother to ask me to turn the light off and go to sleep. As I heard the footsteps pass my door into the next room, I saw nothing. Not even a shadow. No one left that room for the rest of that night, and I never heard those footsteps again.

Checking up on us

As a teenager, I stayed at this farm for a week with a few friends to work in a nearby stable. As my (maternal) grandparents, who owned the farm, were away for the week, my (paternal) grandmother had agreed to stay there with us, since we were not yet old enough to be away for so long without adult supervision. She slept in the downstairs bedroom, while we all occupied the large room upstairs, across the hall from my bedroom.

We had a blast, enjoying our time there immensely, and at night we would do as young girls do; stay up chatting for a bit, then do individual stuff like listening to music, reading and writing diaries as it was getting late, occasionally looking up from whatever we were doing to share an interesting or funny quote, ask a question or talk about some newly discovered music. We always made sure to close the door properly, and kept the noise down to avoid disturbing my grandmother. One night, as we were doing this, all settled down in our own beds or mattresses, we all saw the door handle being pushed down slowly, and the door creaking as it was opened slightly. We were puzzled, as we assumed it was my grandmother checking up on us, so why wouldn't she make herself known, or close the door?

We asked her the next morning, and she assured us she had got an early night and never left her bedroom.

The Baby

About 7 years ago, I was staying at the farm with my horse Blaze, a couple of friends, and Gaz, my (now ex) boyfriend.

One night, we went out to check up on Blaze when we heard a baby crying. Confirming with each other that we all heard the same thing, we hurried inside, terrified. We knew there were no babies at the farm at that time, and if there was one visiting one of the neighbours, we would not have heard it. Furthermore, we all perceived the sound to come from the same place, an abandoned outhouse.

The next morning, still shaken, we decided to investigate. We climbed the ladder into the attic of the outhouse, where we thought the sound had come from. There, right underneath the window, there was an old cradle.

The 'Feminist' Reaction

As a rule, I am not one to worry much about excessively sexualized depictions of women. I tend to just accept it. Hell, I even enjoy dressing up once in a while, with the specific purpose of looking more attractive to my boyfriend. In short, I am a very, very bad feminist.

Therefore, I am quite amazed at my reaction when my boyfriend turns on his motorbike racing. What am I reacting to? The girls. Seriously. What do they do? A lot behind the scenes I hope, because all you ever see on screen is some lovely looking young ladies wearing as little as possible, whatever the weather, standing around with stiff, frozen smiles on their faces. This is what I don't care for. There is no way, in my wildest imaginations, I can come up with any reason, however far-fetched, for those outfits. They seem to be designed for the sole purpose of giving men something to look at. For some reason, that makes me uncomfortable.

Similar arguments could be made in media such as film and games, I suppose. Impractical 'armour' for female characters is, after all, not an uncommon issue. BUT in the darkest, wildest corner of my imagination that could be down to self-expression, or allow them to move freely, or something like that.  A female game/film character has to take some initiative to do what they do, so it is not such a leap to imagine they may have been the ones making bad choices in the wardrobe department, too.

So, to try to put my finger on exactly what makes me uncomfortable, hopefully without becoming an absolute hypocrite, I believe it might be this: the apparent lack of choice. When the sexy outfit looks like a uniform, and the wearer looks out of place or uncomfortable in the situation, something feels wrong and my feminist side wakes up for a minute to voice its disapproval before it goes back to sleep and I put on an outrageously impractical outfit for the task I'm about to undertake.

No, I always wear this when I paint. It makes me feel like a pin up-artist.

"I don't mind"

I have, at times, been accused of being indecisive.
It's true, I am.
Because most of the time, I don't mind.

Not only do I not have a strong opinion either way, I know that usually, the person I'm with does. Look, I can be quite stubborn. I'll fight my corner if I have to. I can also be terribly opinionated, and I find the idea of repeatedly sacrificing my own needs and desires to please others absolutely ridiculous. This is not why I sometimes have trouble making a decision about what to make for dinner.

I have trouble deciding what to make for dinner because I'm usually the least fussy eater in the room, and being told I can make 'anything' is quite a challenge when I have to consider other people's cravings and preferences that they won't tell me about.

And just one thing that annoys me beyond belief:
Saying It's up to you, only to either complain about the decision, or refuse to go with it.

Seriously.

If you don't mind, you don't mind.