Memory Lane

Several months ago I got an Honest Scrap Award from Sans where I was supposed to tell 10 honest things that people don't know about me, but since I'm not doing awards, I answered only in a mail to her. Now I have also been tagged by Rebecca on Flickr with a request to share 10 random facts about myself and post a photo. She posted two photos, and the second related to some facts and stories from her childhood. On her blog Rebecca has also posted photos of her childhood furniture.

I was inspired by her photos like I have been by all the stories callsmall tells about her family, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to respond more properly to Sans' award as well.

I'll start with the photos. Tomy and Annika was kind enough to lend me their room and some of their furniture for this post.


The little doll in the bed is made by Cocco. The duvet and pillow are of my own making.

The bed and the matching drawers, the fish tank, the green chairs and the paper basket are all from my childhood. The bed can be folded up. Both Tivoli posters have been there since I put them on as a child.
Most of the toys in these pictures have survived my childhood, like the bus and the cars, the doll's houses and the farm. Recent additions: The little people and the farm animals are from Micro Playmobil sets. My children have the Ikea Mammut table and chairs, but these are the Lundby version together with the red flower mirror. The rest of the furniture are Re-ment and Playmobil.

I had a little elephant and a dog just like these when I was a child. These ones are from the "in my pocket" series. Pippi Longstocking was one of my childhood favourites, this copy is a gift from Grace at TreeFeathers.

Now, to the facts:

1. I have played the piano since I was 6 years old. I got the piano from one of my grandmothers and was taught to play by the other. I thought about studying music but found I wasn't good enough to make a decent living of it.

What I like most is to sit by the piano and improvise, it helps if I'm stressed or sad. Most of my songs are rather melancholic. I made my first song when I was seven, it was just one line and was supposed to sound oriental :-) I have written down some of the songs, but none of them are very original. The first song I wrote down, at 14, was one page long and was dedicated to a boy in my class who I had a crush on for several years. I wrote my best piece when I was 18 and gave the notes as a present to my grandmother who had taught me to play.

Recently my nerd of a husband wrote a Pre-Indo-European blues with the subtitle "The horse, the wheel and language blues" based on a book review. I made a tune to it, with all the blues clichés I could think of, and whenever I play it, he gets in a good mood. (I thought blues should have the opposite effect?)

2. I have sung in choirs most of my life. These days I sing in the church choir (which often consists of me alone).

3. I once won a limbo contest, but now I'm sadly unfit, so there's no chance I will be able to repeat that.

4. When I was fourteen we were in Morocco, and my father was offered 35 camels for me, luckily for me he rejected the offer.

5. I hate housework, so when we finally decided to hire a cleaning women, our house was a real mess.

6. I also hate woodeating ants and I am almost obsessive about killing them.

7. Like Rebecca, I'm interested in genealogy. One of my foremothers was Norway's most famous witch, Anne Pedersdotter, who was burned alive at the stake in the city of Bergen on the 7 April 1590.

8. I love reading about the Big Bang, nuclear physics and the space, even if I just understand a fracture of what I'm reading.

9. I'm an avid Dr Who fan, but I've only known the 9th and10th doctor.

10. I added the Gauguin painting not only because of the colours, but because a copy of the painting (by one of my great aunts) is the picture I remember best from my grandparents home. Now it's mine, and below is the painting hanging on my staircase wall. Underneath it is a painting I did myself some years ago inspired by François Boucher (when I had a wall that needed something in those colours).