doings

June 2011

1 June Childhood obesity. A family of owls living in a barn in Engerdal has enjoyed so many mice this spring that the youngsters have become too fat to fly out through their hole in the barn wall. This one (photo, left - click for enlargement) got stuck on the way out and had to be rescued by the farmer with a crow bar.

Our family is growing vertically rather than horizontally (not that they've tried flying through holes out of the barn). Katie is due to undertake an organised long-distance coastal bike ride - and as her bike was many sizes too small she's got a new one today. Here (photo, right - click for enlargement) trying it out.

We mentioned a few days ago that Norwegian pupils have a relatively easy time with "GCSE" equivalents, in that although they're supposed to revise for everything they have a written exam in only one subject and a viva exam in one other (both subjects randomly chosen). Thomas Andrew was randomly chosen to sit his written exam in English (and it would be strange if he struggled with that!). This meant that his only remaining task was the verbal exam in another subject, and he's waited in anticipation to find out what that was to be. He's just found out this subject is to be science. However, the science teacher was suddenly admitted to hospital immediately after, which means that all those selected for an exam in science will simply be graded on course work and previous tests (which suits Andrew absolutely fine). So he's suddenly finished his school career in style.

So he's celebrating with a new sand pit (photo, below left - click for enlargement and two more). (Actually he's repairing the drive after all the rain we've had this month).

Speaking of science, the Norwegian King (Harald) has been visiting Statoil's research centre near Trondheim, where he was given an introduction to Co2 capture technology. The king, speaking of how pleased he was to have been shown round, said "When you visit places like this you get the chance to get confused at a much higher level". Good job he wasn't getting a verbal exam in science either.

"Everyone" in Norway has a cabin in the hills where they can get away from it all. We don't - you can't get any further away from it all than where we live anyway. Traditionally a cabin means a log shed with a grass roof, a couple of rooms and an outside privvy with a door that doesn't quite fit and planks that let in draughts in uncomfortable places. (photo, right - click for enlargement and more). So when Tim went to a colleague's cabin yesterday evening for a staff "jolly", he took an extra jumper. It wasn't necessary. While we've been out of the country, the standard of cabins has been improving. They've now got bathrooms with (hot) running water, saunas, double glazing, electricity, wide-screen satellite TVs, built-in kitchens with dishwashers and every luxury known to humanity. Absolutely wonderful and a fantastic place to relax. But somehow not quite as exciting as the old-fashioned ones used to be.

3 June Two friends enjoying a chat in the warm sunshine (photo, left - click for enlargement) -

5 June and the humans still enjoying the sunshine (photo, right - click for short sequence).

7 June Life on the (lake) wave (click photo, left, for larger pictures).

8 June New tyres. It's the second time this spring that we've bought a pair of car tyres. The first pair was for Tim's car and this pair was for Tracy's. It's much more economical to buy tyres over the internet (Tim's came from Hannover in Germany; Tracy's only from Lillehammer), even though it means that they're delivered by courier. The only problem is getting the courier to come out to �rsdalen. We're getting to know the routine now, so when the tyres failed to arrive last Friday as agreed Tim rang the lorry driver yesterday on his mobile.
"Have you got the tyres on your lorry?"
"Ah, mm"
"Will you be bringing them today?"
"Ah, mm: is there any chance I could drop them off in Vikes� instead? Save an hour and a quarter's drive into �rsdalen and a fight up your farm track just for two tires?"
"OK. Where in Vikes� are you going to leave them?"
"I'll just drop them off at the Co-op".
Having agreed to this, Tim called in at the Co-op to check that they didn't mind.
"Oh, is it Kai who's bringing them? He'll just put them in the back. That'll be no problem".
So today, just before closing time, Matthew and Tim dropped in to the Co-op to pick up the tyres. Of course, there was no-one still working in the storeroom (just one girl at the checkout) but we just wandered in through the (of course unlocked) storeroom door at the back of the shop and rooted around until we found them. Then we carried them out through the shop. The checkout girl (who knew nothing of any of this) looked faintly surprised as we walked past carrying tyres.
"They're on special offer today", I said.
"Two for the price of one", added Matt. And off we went.

11 June We are regular lurkers on a Norwegian website that (amongst many other things) advertises things that people want to give away. It's astonishing how much nearly-new furniture, electrical goods, useful building materials and so on people are getting rid of (as well as unwanted puppies, kittens and a wide selection of household junk). If you want to see what is being given away at the moment just in our local district, there's a list here. We've taken advantage of this to acquire all sorts of useful stuff - most recently 400 very good ceramic tiles that we're going to use for the bathroom in the cellar (and probably for the ground-floor bathroom as well). Last night, just as we were about to go to bed, we noticed that someone nearby was giving away an antique chest, which looked like a fun and useful storage item for the cellar flat. So when we found out that they were night owls and not planning on being in bed for another hour or two we set off in the car. Their house was an Aladdin's cave of junk - the garage stacked floor to ceiling with various items - including five brand-new internal doors, complete with door-frames and handles, all still in original packaging. Just what we needed (and weren't really wanting to afford) for the new rooms in the cellar. So we drove home, carefully and slowly, in a car with five extra doors (photo, left - click for enlargement).

Here, it's fine and dry but elsewhere in Norway it's rained hard (which is always a problem in the early summer because the rainwater is added to by melting snow). We remember very well the floods of 1995 which swept away part of a village in the Gudbrandsdal Valley and caused havoc on the roads. There are two main roads between Oslo and Trondheim, but both are presently under water, as is the railway line (photo of the Gudbrandsdal Valley, right), and once more Norway's entire mobile phone network was out of order for 18 hours (which caused a lot of problems to the emergency services).

13 June Very hectic Sunday and Monday, full of Pentecost services and other things. The evening services both days in Tracy's church were packed, with a tremendously positive and inspired congregation.

We've noted before that Norway has a small population. One result of this is that whenever two Norwegians meet for the first time, they (we, nowadays) always play a game of "what friends do we have in common". Even if it's someone from the other end of the country, it only takes a minute or two to find someone you both know. Between two services on Sunday, Tracy and I went to the 50th birthday party of a friend in Bjerkreim. The party lasted 7 hours in all, including a many-course cooked meal and - of all things - an organ recital in the church, commissioned by the man himself (who is very keen on music, especially organ music). As we went in, we met a couple who'd travelled a long way to come to the party - our friend's wife's sister and her husband. It took a moment for us all to realise that these were actually old friends from mid Norway, who we've not seen for over a decade and had completely lost touch with. So we had a pleasant time catching up.

14 June Last year you had the opportunity of watching the salmon swimming around in a nearby river, thanks to an under-water camera. If you found this relaxing you might like to know that the camera is back up and running, ready for this year's salmon. Click photo, above right, to watch. Like last year, it takes a moment to start up and there's a bit of introductory text before it gets going - just be patient!.

15 June Two very full, action-packed years today since we moved here!

Today, both Thomas Andrew and Katie had a class end-of-term party. For pictures: click tractor photo, left, for two pictures from Thomas Andrew's party; click photo, right, for picture sequence from Katie's party.

16 June A television programme you have to watch. The programme starts this evening at 6.45pm (BST), runs continuously (not even adverts) on Norway's national channel NRK, ending on Wednesday 22 June at 8.45 am. It is simply a continuous filming of the journey made by one of Norway's coastal steamers ("Hurtigruten") from Bergen to Kirkenes. You can watch the whole thing (or even just part of it if you really must go off and do something else) here.

Thomas Andrew's school-leaving do was held this evening (click photo, left, for pictures). Now it's summer holidays, before 6th-form college in the autumn.

19 June Open-air service in our garden today; 50 or so people from Tracy's church in Sandnes, together with people from �rsdalen and from Tim's church in Bjerkreim. Followed by barbeque (click photo, right, for pictures).

22 June Tracy, Tim og Katie had a day's outing to Kristiansand. Lovely drive along a beautiful stretch of coast, pleasant day out in the town and a visit to our most long-standing friends in Norway - what could be better?

The coastal steamer (see 16 June above) arrived safely in Kirkenes and half of Norway got up out of their armchairs to stretch their legs. The 5-day programme was seen by a staggering 2.8 million people in Norway alone (and if that doesn't sound a lot, remember that there's only four-and-a-half million in all, so if you deduct small children and people who were away from home, that's about three quarters of the population). Quite a number watched the entire programme, just dozing occasionally in their armchairs, and are now trying to come to terms with the fact that it's all over. The good news is that if you want to watch a repeat, it's all available for download on NRK's website (the tab marked "Nedlasting" just below the big picture) - but it takes hours to load down!

23 June Andrew, Matt and the two dogs spent last night in a cabin in the mountains. It was a long walk to get there, and an equally long walk home again. The two dogs came inside, wet, dirty and worn out, collapsed in a heap and have snored all afternoon. Andrew however just keeps going. He's spent part of this afternoon with us putting bits of wood into a trailer to take down to the beach for the annual St Hans bonfire party (click photo, far left, for two pictures). You can see reports and sets of pictures from this date for the past two years. Tonight it's raining and we're all feeling rather flat after a busy few weeks and (apart from Katie, who is appalled at the thought of not going) there is little enthusiasm for a lakeside barbeque and midnight games.

25 June Tim and Tracy spent much of the day laying floor tiles in one of the new rooms in the cellar flat (click photo, near left, for enlargement), whilst Thomas Andrew was off in the hills with the dogs, keeping an eye on where the sheep were getting to (setting off - click photo, right, for enlargement).

26 June Pleasant Sunday afternoon (click photo, left, for four pictures)

Just returned from evening service at Tracy's church. She's now finished for her 7-week summer holiday from work.

29 June "Are we expecting visitors?". Normally we only get excessive rainfall when we have visitors, but 80mm (over 3 inches) fell today and about the same yesterday. Several roads are closed due to avalanches, the internet has been off for 24 hours, the neighbour's dog ran off in yesterday's thunderstorm and was found today on the wrong side of the river by Andrew and Tim - and a chunk of the road has been washed away. It's been a "sitting inside and admiring the weather" couple of days. (click photo, right, for four pictures).

30 June A dry day (but more rain forecast) so all the usual things have come out - Andrew hastily cutting grass (photo, left - click for enlargement) and wild flowers around the barn enjoying the absence of the lambs (photo, right - click for enlargement). Tracy and Katie are also out, cycling, while Matt is out cold after returning from some busy days leading a youth camp.