The grand plan...

The grand plan was to proceed through my house room by room, with me photographing each room when it was slightly-more-clean-than-usual and at least sunny.

Bwaahahahahahah!

The alignment of three things: sun, cleanliness, and availability of camera when married to a journalist who takes his own pictures is sort of like Mars, Saturn, and Jupiter all aligning with Earth - very rare indeed.  And don't be all "oh, well, why don't you wait for the weekend?" If it's not cloudy on the weekend (oh, Danish weather, you scamp you!) I am all about trying to get out and see new stuff.  Have car, will tour, that's me!  I really hate staying home and cleaning on the two days I'm stuck with enjoying the company of my husband and his Fascist cleanliness tendencies.  Since lounging around and enjoying our house and garden is seemingly beyond him (unless he can AT THE SAME TIME watch the news, balance the checkbook, and research the going rate of 1986 commemorative 10 kr. coins - current value, less than 10 kr. because it's no longer legal tender), we resort to the Archaeogoddesses surfire way of enjoying a weekend. 

Go see old stuff.

We went to the museum up the street the other weekend, because it was having a free day and we're a bit poor until payday, at least poor enough that money should be spent on food, not entry fees.  It was quite nice.  Lots of old stuff.  And we learned what these funny small stone buildings were that we see all over the island.  Sorry, there's no photo.  Lemme see if I can describe them.

Imagine a dog house-sized stone structure with a flat tin roof.  The walls are very thick, thicker than the walls of most houses (medieval castles aside) and there is one small door in the front.  This door may be made of iron or it may now be missing.  Also often missing is the roof.  The roof (when present) is slightly sloped from the front to the back.

It drove me nuts.  What were these small buildings?  While they were dog house sized, why would you need a dog house that had walls that could withstand months of siege warfare?  Was there something especially violent about Danish chickens that they had to be housed in a bunker?

The museum gave me the answer: they held white sand used to clean floors.  Yeah, I'm also having a WTF kind of answer is that? But at least it's an answer.  Now some investigation can be undertook.  Something along the lines of, why does everyone in one town have a HUGE sand house and no one else?  Do you really need that much sand to clean your floors?  What The F*ck?

Okay, so when I'm not driving around the countryside yelling at my husband "what do you mean you don't know what these small houses are for?  Don't give me that 'you grew up in suburbia'!  I demand answers!" I sit in my office and write blog posts.  Or google.  Or read WAY too much wikipedia.  And then cross check it with Encyclopedia Britannica.

This is the desk in the office that I inhabit.  Through the double doors you can see the dining room.  The photo was taken while standing in the door between my husband's office and my own.  Just trying to orient you.  Speaking of orientation, the desk, violently purple couch and TV are all angled oddly to keep anything from being up against the radiator or the exterior wall and to make maximum use of my desk, which has shelves and drawers on the front AND the back.  I also can still get a lovely view just by turning my head and yet I also get to keep my back to the wall.  Wild Bill Hickok taught me a trick or two, you see.  Since I scream like a baboon if startled, and I startle easily, this is the best defense against punctured ear drums.  

This is the view from my desk.  Obviously not the one out the window and into the garden.  Now there are fewer boxes (two less, yay me!).  The door seen there is the one to my husband's office.

And if you sit on the violently purple couch, you can see into my husband's office (to the right), the dining room (to the left), the kitchen (although not in this photograph) and sometimes the parlor, if the doors are open enough and you tilt your head back just so...  Behind the violently purple couch is another bookshelf, not nearly so tall as the one you see before you.  It's also full.  We need more bookshelves.  We also need file cabinets, which I am *so* getting the next time we're in Ikea.  With money.  Very important distinction there.  No point in being arrested for trying to shop-lift a large organizational device from Ikea.  That's just sad.