doings

May 2011

1 May This year's lambs have arrived. The larger one is Katie's and she has named it "Fredo"; the smaller one is a family one and as yet anonymous. Here (photo, left - click for enlargement) they are - as yet in the stables but soon to be released into the garden.

Speaking of which, we now have daffodils, one solitary poppy and a lot of colours to enjoy (photo, right - click for enlargement) - so Andrew and Matthew are busy building a stone wall to regulate just where in the garden the lambs get to go. Stones are one commodity not in short supply here.

3 May So we're all keeping busy with the normal things: feeding lambs (left), pruning fruit trees (right) and so on.

The weather, though, has taken a step back - snow forecast for tonight!

6 May The snow didn't really materialise and we're back to glorious sunshine - and forest fires in this part of Norway. Tim has been at a meeting in Stavanger this morning (photo of Stavanger today, left - click for enlargement), while Katie is staying overnight at a friend's house prior to going to the "Vikes� Day" tomorrow.

7 May Went to the 70th birthday party of a friend, Berit - the lady Katie named her black lamb after last year.

8 May Tracy and Tim went off to Tracy's church alone this morning (leaving children slumbering at home after two late nights!). Tim was catching the afternoon's fast boat from Stavanger to Bergen (a four-and-a-half hour journey) in order to go to a meeting at the university tomorrow, so after the service we went and had lunch in the (very elegant) Solastrand Hotel, followed by a relax on the beach in hot sunshine (click photo, right, for a couple of pictures). Watched a couple of airoplanes landing at Sola airport next door (the planes almost touch down on the beach) and worried about the strong wind (or at least, Tim was worrying about it, given that he was about to go on a long boat journey up the Norwegian coast).

Forest fires and wind are not a good combination. Just had a text message from our internet provider to say that an out-of-control forest fire in the next county has burned through the main internet cable, which means that our internet is down until further notice. (I - Tim - am writing this on board the fast boat half-way to Bergen, and using the on-board internet). Happily, the wind is blowing off the land so it's not too rough! It's a beautiful journey today along a spectacular coastline - and arrived in Bergen just as the sun was setting (photo, left - click for series of ten pictures).

11 May Sheepdog? (photo, right - click for enlargement). A goat jam (photo, near left - click for enlargement).

15 May On Tuesday it will be the 17th May (Norway's national day - a bank holiday with huge celebrations everywhere). By law the sun has to shine, and it surprisingly often obeys. However, after six weeks or so of continuous sunshine and high temperatures it is now pouring down (yesterday it was 1 degree and snowing here) and the weather forecast has now decided that it's going to pour down for evermore. So 17 May looks like being rather damper than usual.

Yesterday, after a rather hectic day, we were delivering Matthew to some friends in Sandnes and decided to go out for dinner. On the way home Tracy's car had a puncture. We put the spare wheel on and drove to the garage in Vikes� with a thought of leaving the wheel with the puncture outside for the owner to find and repair on Monday morning. But as it happens he was around at the time and thought nothing of repairing it there and then (at 9 o'clock on a Saturday evening). He asked for �15: we gave him �20 and thought it cheap at the price.

16 May Under the headline "Broke in and played the church organ", the national newspaper V�rt Land relates how intruders broke into Vangen Church in Aurland and played the organ and rang the bells at 4 in the morning. They did not do any damage, but apparently left an empty bottle of a 2007 Chablis on the piano.

17 May National Day at last. And even if the sun was a bit reluctant, the rain held away and a good day was had by all. Click photo, left, for a picture sequence.

One of the sounds of summer is the regular ding-dong of sheep bells as sheep from neighbouring farms wander through the garden. Today, a family in nearby Dirdal (the next village north-west of here) heard a sheep making more fuss than usual outside their window. When they looked, they found that it had tangled its horns in the wire leading from the house to the television aerial (further up the hillside for better reception) and found itself sliding down the wire to the house. The sheep was apparently unhurt and relatively unaffected by its experience and is now auditioning for the opening credits in "Shaun the Sheep". Click photo, right, for enlargement/explanation.

19 May We often find rocks on the road, that have fallen down from the mountain - and sometimes have to get out to move them. But the motorist who found this one early this morning couldn't move it by himself. The road (not our road - one north of here that we don't usually use) is currently closed while the highways people come to blow the rock up.

Today has been alternating heavy showers and sunny periods - an ideal day to do the annual cleaning of the veranda. This involves spraying some sort of unpleasant and highly acidic stuff on to the wood, which gets rid of any algi as well as of last year's wood oil (which needs re-doing every year). Once it's been sprayed the woodwork needs a good, protracted rinse, so the gap between two heavy showers is the perfect time for the job. I've just sprayed it and am now watching the sun coming out to stay and the clouds scurrying off into the distance to be replaced by a clear blue sky. Just what we've been wanting. But can't it manage a last quick shower first?

At the end of a long, conspicuously dry and sunny late afternoon and evening, Tracy was encouraged to have a generously-deep bath. The water was then taken in buckets to the little upstairs balcony and lobbed down onto the woodwork below. "I had thought this family was sane and normal", said Andrew, emerging from his bedroom to investigate the sloshing noises. Wherever did such delusions come from?

20 May Earlier in the month we spent a pleasant few hours between church in the morning and Tim's boat journey in the evening relaxing on Solastrand beach, after lunch at the Sola Strand Hotel (see pictures 6 May). We were impressed with both, but have only just found out that the beach there was ranked by the Sunday Times as the 6th most beautiful beach in the world - far ahead of (for instance) the Seychelles, where the royal honeymooners have been slumming it. The hotel got a mention in the same article. We'll have to go back now that we know we're supposed to like it.

23 May One of the features of �rsdalen is that we don't get passers-by. No-one comes selling things (it's not worth a 25-mile trip along a dead-end road to visit a handful of farms) and we've always commented that this is one place where even the Jehovah's Witnesses don't get to. Until today. This morning, a car was spotted coming into the valley, containing four serious-looking women. Two of them seem to have been ditched somewhere because the car turned up here mid-morning with the other two and an armful of Watchtower magazines. They were thanked for their attempted visit, and dispatched.

How much widespread damage can be caused by a snapped telegraph pole (photo, left - click for enlargement)? This one knocked out all mobile phone networks in the greater part of Norway for most of today, as well as putting air-traffic control in Bod� out of action, thus grounding flights in the northern half of Norway. Tonight, only a quarter of southern Norway is still without phones and Telenor is hoping to fix the remaining problems before morning. Apparently, a digger knocked over the post, which had only been put there temporarily while the road was being dug up. There was a reserve route some distance away, but a tree had fallen over on that one. Telenor is now considering whether there should be an extra backup for the country's phones.

26 May The end of the school year is creeping nearer, introducing an "end of term" flavour. For Thomas Andrew (who leaves Vikes� school and goes to 6th-form college this time) it's exams and school ball. Norway doesn't like to overload people, so the system for the equivalent of the "GCSE" is that after course work and tests through the year, pupils are to revise thoroughly in all subjects as thought they were to have exams in everything, but in the event are randomly picked for an exam in just one subject. They get only a couple of days' notice of which subject it is to be (to make sure they've revised everything else). It's the schools that are responsible for carrying out the random selection, but they're not supposed to cheat to improve their own grades. Thomas Andrew was randomly picked for his exam ... in English.

Katie's end of term musical was performed at school last night - very entertaining (photo, right - click for enlargement).

We've written at various times about the misfortunes of the new school bus driver, whose catalogue of accidents and disasters over the last few weeks could fill this news page in itself. A friend came to visit us yesterday and we were telling her of some of these events as Thomas Andrew came in after his day at school. A few minutes later his phone rang and a friend related that just after dropping him off the bus had driven into a digger, resulting in dented panels and a range of broken lights as well as a half-hour delay while it was extracted.

27 May Lawnmowers and lambs. Cutting the lawn can be a challenge when small helpers constantly want to be involved (photo, left - click for enlargement). Fredo and Lizzie were bounding around enthusiastically, occasionally coming over for a nibble at the lawnmower or for a chat.

Perhaps a little trip northwards is called for this weekend, at least if NRK's weather forecast for tomorrow is anything to go by (photo, above right - click for enlargement). Warmer there than here.

28 May The first of the year's confirmation services in Bjerkreim Church. Thomas Andrew and Siri Elin here enjoying the service (at which Siri Elin's sister was being confirmed) (photo, left - click for enlargement).