Playa Del Ingles
You might have thought that I’ve gone and died on you all with such a long time between each posting on this blog – but I’m back – and I’ve most definitely not died! I’ve been on vacation – again, to Playa Del Ingles – again! And those of you who read my blog regularly might remember that I had a really great time there in April, and that when I got back from my week in June I said it was enough, and even though I had had a good time I wasn’t as excited as in April. Now – completely excited again – maybe it’s the time of the year that does it? April is a not a very bad time in Norway but it’s still spring and you’re longing for summer, and then coming to a warmer country is amazing. Walking off the plane into the heat, love it. June is a summer month in Norway and at that point being in Norway is really not such a bad thing, so I guess you don’t miss the warmth so much. The autumn is always bad in Norway, it keeps getting darker and colder, and then the snow arrives…. and you know it will be getting darker, colder and more snow till Christmas – and after that it’ll remain dark, cold and snowy for another couple of months. Now, of course, this autumn I’ve been very lucky, as I’ve been in England since September with rather excellent weather – so I can’t really complain about that. But I guess I’m Norwegian at heart, so autumn always brings out the blues in me, how everything dies or at least goes to sleep and you have to put your summer clothes away, and you can’t go to the beach, and you have to put on layers and layers of clothes for a short trip out the door and next summer seems years and years away. Even though I’ve not had a bad autumn when it comes to weather, the blues has still been a bit in me I guess.
We landed on Gran Canaria about one hour after schedule, at half past 8 in the evening. Got into our cab to the hotel Barbados at Playa Del Ingles, and at about half past 11 we again walked in the doors at “Dunes&Tunes” (“D&T”) Irish bar on the beach – it was the beginning of another awesome week. The people working in this bar are as I’ve mentioned before, great people, and the singers…. Archie goes on at around 8 – 9 every evening, he plays a lot of Irish songs and some other songs as well, and it is always a lot of songs that you will recognize when hearing them and that are great to sing along to, it really puts everybody in a great mood. John goes on around 11 most evenings of the week, and he plays a lot of rock/pop – and he does requests, which is excellent. Of course he does not know every song in the world, but usually if you do have a request and he does not know that particular song, he will know another one from the same artist; he really is a great singer. Some evenings the bar is full and on other evenings it’s not so crowded, it’s a great place to be either way. One of the cool things we did was to go down to D&T at 11 in the morning and get them to put the World Cup Cross country skiing from Gällivare on their big screen so we could drink beer and watch the competition. There were no other people than us there – but it was still a special occasion, sitting in an Irish bar, at 1130 in the morning, in 25 degrees, drinking cold beer and watching the biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen kick the crap out of the best cross country skiers in the world!!
The week did of course go by much too fast, but we’re already planning on another trip in the beginning of May when my lectures/workshops come to an end – and then we’re planning on staying for 2 weeks!
And now I’m back in England stressing a bit to get my things together before Thursday when I’m going back to Norway. I’m moving out of the flat where I’ve been staying for the last two months when I leave, and will have to find another place when I come back in January. This means that there’s a lot of packing to be done. Fortunately, a friend who lives here will store a couple of suitcases for me here in England till I get back on the 8th of January – so I won’t have to drag all 80 kilos or something back to Norway now.
Being back I do miss Gran Canaria a lot – but you know, I’ve also missed writing when I was down there. For some reason, too much drinking and too little sleep doesn’t seem to inspire me at all. I did write a couple of very short pieces but that is also all. Now I really have to focus on getting on with my English novel “Dreamland” and while I’m home for Christmas I’m also hoping on doing some editing on my Norwegian novel “365 days”. I have as you all know had problems doing this editing ever since the publisher told me they like it but I need to shorten it down some – and even though I have managed to push it out of my mind at times, it’s always there in the back of my head begging me to work on it. And last week when I woke up one morning, I suddenly knew what part of the first 20 pages of the novel I should move up to be the beginning of the novel – and when I sat down and wrote that it gave me such a good feeling – I’m hoping it will last through Christmas – and that I will find time to work on it. Obviously my work for the MA will have to come first. I’ll have to write a 4500 – 5000 word piece for both modules, and then a 1000 – 1500 word commentary for both pieces, the deadline for handing the work in is in mid-January so there is quite a lot of time. I don’t expect it to be easy though, and I really want to do well on this course so I will have to put in a lot of work.
And that’s it for now I guess. I’m back from my great vacation – I’m back in business!
We landed on Gran Canaria about one hour after schedule, at half past 8 in the evening. Got into our cab to the hotel Barbados at Playa Del Ingles, and at about half past 11 we again walked in the doors at “Dunes&Tunes” (“D&T”) Irish bar on the beach – it was the beginning of another awesome week. The people working in this bar are as I’ve mentioned before, great people, and the singers…. Archie goes on at around 8 – 9 every evening, he plays a lot of Irish songs and some other songs as well, and it is always a lot of songs that you will recognize when hearing them and that are great to sing along to, it really puts everybody in a great mood. John goes on around 11 most evenings of the week, and he plays a lot of rock/pop – and he does requests, which is excellent. Of course he does not know every song in the world, but usually if you do have a request and he does not know that particular song, he will know another one from the same artist; he really is a great singer. Some evenings the bar is full and on other evenings it’s not so crowded, it’s a great place to be either way. One of the cool things we did was to go down to D&T at 11 in the morning and get them to put the World Cup Cross country skiing from Gällivare on their big screen so we could drink beer and watch the competition. There were no other people than us there – but it was still a special occasion, sitting in an Irish bar, at 1130 in the morning, in 25 degrees, drinking cold beer and watching the biathlete Ole Einar Bjørndalen kick the crap out of the best cross country skiers in the world!!
The week did of course go by much too fast, but we’re already planning on another trip in the beginning of May when my lectures/workshops come to an end – and then we’re planning on staying for 2 weeks!
And now I’m back in England stressing a bit to get my things together before Thursday when I’m going back to Norway. I’m moving out of the flat where I’ve been staying for the last two months when I leave, and will have to find another place when I come back in January. This means that there’s a lot of packing to be done. Fortunately, a friend who lives here will store a couple of suitcases for me here in England till I get back on the 8th of January – so I won’t have to drag all 80 kilos or something back to Norway now.
Being back I do miss Gran Canaria a lot – but you know, I’ve also missed writing when I was down there. For some reason, too much drinking and too little sleep doesn’t seem to inspire me at all. I did write a couple of very short pieces but that is also all. Now I really have to focus on getting on with my English novel “Dreamland” and while I’m home for Christmas I’m also hoping on doing some editing on my Norwegian novel “365 days”. I have as you all know had problems doing this editing ever since the publisher told me they like it but I need to shorten it down some – and even though I have managed to push it out of my mind at times, it’s always there in the back of my head begging me to work on it. And last week when I woke up one morning, I suddenly knew what part of the first 20 pages of the novel I should move up to be the beginning of the novel – and when I sat down and wrote that it gave me such a good feeling – I’m hoping it will last through Christmas – and that I will find time to work on it. Obviously my work for the MA will have to come first. I’ll have to write a 4500 – 5000 word piece for both modules, and then a 1000 – 1500 word commentary for both pieces, the deadline for handing the work in is in mid-January so there is quite a lot of time. I don’t expect it to be easy though, and I really want to do well on this course so I will have to put in a lot of work.
And that’s it for now I guess. I’m back from my great vacation – I’m back in business!
posted by Lena M Bakke @ 2:55 PM
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