Naming my garden - GBBD April 2016

As a foreigner living in Britain, English is a language I am still learning – even after 17 years here in London. I still bump into words I have absolutely no idea what means and I love looking them up and see their meaning and history. Some words just jump up and down and do a little dance for me when I see them, some words are just hilarious whilst others give me a lump in my throat. Have you heard the word ‘Discombobulate’ before? What a lovely word! And what about haberdashery?? I absolutely love that word too. OK, so the title of this post is naming my garden. I have thought about doing that for a while. Well, to be honest, I have thought about it for many years, but I never really found a good name. I know it is quite common here in Britain to name your house, at least if you live in a countryside cottage or in a somewhat grand house. Naming your house in a council terraced 2-up-2-down in East London would probably have raised some eyebrows, so that was never on my agenda. But my garden? The most important room in my house? Sure! ....But what?

My October garden

Autumn has arrived in London, it is either cold, crisp sunny days or hammering down with rain. The nights are chilly and my garden has started to die down here and there. I can’t really believe it’s only 2 ½ month left of 2012 – we waited so long for the spring that never really arrived, then we waited forever for the summer too and now it’s all over. Well, nothing is really over in my garden, I have plants in flower every month of the year, but the winter is going to feel very long after a spring and summer like we have had this year.

13.04. Meet Ayla the AR

I saw an interview with a writer on the telly here the other day, a writer named Jean M. Auel. She is most famous for a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. She has just published her sixth book in this series and the interview was about this new book. Her first book in the series called ‘Earth’s Children’ came out as early as 1980, and I read it a few years later when it had been translated into Norwegian. You might have heard about it, the first book was called ‘The Clan of the Cave Bear’ and was filmed with Daryl Hannah as Ayla. The next couple of books came out at regular intervals, number 2 in 1982, number 3 in 1985, number 4 in 1990...and then there was a long wait for the next book. I thought I had missed the book launch, or perhaps because I had moved to Britain maybe these books weren’t as popular here as they were in Norway. But finally, in 2002, book number 5 was released, and I read this one in English. I have to tell you these books are not exactly small things you tuck into your pocket on the tube...they are huge! And so is book number 6 too, just published, 9 years after number 5 and long awaited :-) The book is 660 pages and just as much a brick as all the other ones, but I bet that when I get to the last page I will feel exactly the same way as with all the other books in the series; wishing that there were many more pages still!

03.01. Gadgets

Did you see the news yesterday about the fault on some iPhones, a glitch that stops its alarm clock going off, leaving many people oversleeping on the first two days of the New Year? It made me start thinking on how dependent we are of all sorts of gadgets today. Well, I am anyway, are you? I do use my phone as an alarm clock, but I still have an old fashion alarm clock too – an electric one though, with battery back-up. Mind you, my phone is probably not