Summer Fest

Ah, the long sunny evenings and endless social diary of June. Summer Fest season is here.

Caught Jamie Cullum at Oslo Sentrum Scene last Saturday night with a mob of pals. Outstanding! He was electric, bobbing, weaving and bouncing around the stage. His young band dudes are wholly accomplished. The young sweeties standing behind me sang the words to all of his songs. Jamie loves Norway and Norway loves him back. I caught sight of Sophie at the side of the stage jumping around smiling and supporting her man. I wonder if he requires a foot stool to kiss her.

On the flight to London Monday morning I meet a good friend. I apologise we did not make it to his wife’s big birthday party Saturday night, Jamie was running very late and we did not dare show up after 1 am, we were shattered. Working lunch followed by drinks with friends at my Soho haunt. We haven’t seen each other for yonks and still joke about how much we hated the firm we both used to work for... we tried everything to get whacked including running up 10s of thousands of pounds of client entertainment expenses at sporting events and lap dancing bars... think I got an outstanding performance rating that year!

Important biz goes well Tuesday. Get pissed with Goldenbollocks on the flight home. We solve many of the world’s problems, but unfortunately create many more than we have solved.

Off to Nodee for Mrs BBs birthday dinner Wednesday evening, her favourite restaurant in Oslo. It is an Asian affair and is always packed, lunch or dinner. It is a family dinner and the ambiance is comforting as we catch up over the din. Everyone is busy and we have not seen each other for weeks. One of our extended family friends has moved back to Oslo from London... it is great to have her home. While out with my MiL for a cheeky Marly, I hear my name being called, it is Renny, the spiritual leader of Norwegian bloggers with his pal Tor – we are planning to meet the following night. Renny is like the bus, wait for months to see him and then catch him twice in two days!

Thursday evening at the First Millennium in the city centre with Renny and the gang. Renny has invited the world to Oslo for a Blog Gathering 19 – 21 August and we are helping him finalise plans. The Mayor of Oslo is opening the event with a champagne reception on the evening of the 19th. There are loads of local activities on offer for the posse of visitors rocking up. We are finalising the plans for a grand finale piss up for all visitors and expat blogger on Saturday the 21st. Make sure you have the date(s) in your diary!

It is late Friday evening as I pen this at the summer house. It is peaceful but unfortunately raining buckets. I glance out the window at the fleet of sail boats on the fjord going nowhere quickly. It is the annual race, Ferderseilasen, and to add insult to the injury of rain, there is no wind. I could swim faster than they are moving. They have taken hours to get 30 kilometres down the fjord! I would be beating myself with the tiller in these conditions, but then I am a fair-weather everything, except for friend of course!

The next couple of weeks delivers a raft of work dos, birthday parties, the theatre, golf competitions, and family visitors. It is Summer Fest season. I am slightly exhausted already, but it is a very nice problem to have.

Beaverboosh

Russ’ed

I was rudely awoken at 3 this morning during my perfectly deep and well needed beauty slumber.

It is Russ (roos) season in Oslo.

Russ is a month of revelry for high school graduates in Norway. They are granted carte blanche on partying through the town for the week, a sort of right of passage for completing an important life mile stone.

Russ in Oslo follows a similar format in the part of town I live in:

• Teenagers are dressed in red or blue overalls with all sorts of badges sewn into them
• They form small clans
• The rent specially recycled Russ busses (tour coaches), and paint and decorate the busses with their clan’s colours
• The busses are fitted with high end club-like audio systems
• They drive around town all week playing very loud music, getting pissed and stoned, dancing and fucking
• It goes on 24/7 in many neighbourhoods, one being mine

Russ is an annual tradition and a Norwegian cultural phenomenon with roots in medieval carnival traditions.

In all, I am bit envious. We had nothing like this in Canada, though during high school, we spent many weekends achieving the same result.

As annoying as it is to be woken from a perfectly good sleep, I am not bothered, the kids deserve it.

I am more tempted to throw my clothes on and join the party.

Beaverboosh

N.B. Thanks for the corrections Sunflower!