doings

June 2013

3 June - Caption contest (click photo, left, for wider view). Suggestions?

Suggested captions Jon - June 3rd, 2013 The sheep may safely graze (after the shepherdess finishes her ice-cream). joanna - June 4th, 2013 Tune 'am I a lamb, a people or a tune?' joanna - June 5th, 2013 How about 'Sofa, me, ray, doh'!!!

The news reports on various blocked roads around Norway. The main E6 road through Oslo has been blocked due to deep flooding caused by torrential rain, while the main access road to Stavanger (Sola) airport was blocked due to - deep drifts of sand blown in off the adjoining beach (photo here).

It's rather strange at home at the moment. Thomas Andrew has gone back to his flat in Sandnes, Matt is having a final week in college at Grimstad, while Katie has just headed off, together with her school class, for a week's stay at this maritime outward-bound centre on Norway's south coast, just over 20 miles from Matt's college (photo, right - click for enlargement - Katie is to bring some photos home!). So it's Tim and Tracy alone - with dogs, sheep, a barn full of swallows, the eagle on the mountain and all the rest of the hangers-on.

So what exotic things do we get up to (after work, of course) when we find ourselves alone? We're enjoying brilliant sunshine and high temperatures, so we've sat out on the balcony and taken the dogs for the usual 15-minute walk "round the block" (photos here) - hardly what you would call adventurous! Slightly more unusually, we've been given an antique sofa, which has spent some time being exhibited at the regional museum (so it's of some historic interest). It needs re-stuffing and re-covering, but it has the most wonderful carvings (photo here) and we're hoping to find out some more about it in due course. When restored it will probably sit around in the hall. Driving home with it, we were again reminded of a saying by Joanna about "upgrading our junk". Perhaps tomorrow we'll manage to strike out with something daring!

5 June - Traffic trouble in Mjøndalen. "I had to rub my eyes - I wondered whether I was still in bed, asleep", said a motorist to the NRK news. He had been driving along a road when he suddenly had to stop to allow an emu in from a side-street. Hot on the heels of the emu came to policemen in pursuit. "They tried to capture it, but I could see that they don't have routines for catching emus," said the motorist. "But at least they were laughing about it - they obviously had no idea what to do". "It was quite surreal". According to the news, the emu has now been reunited with its owner.

7 June - The lambs are growing horns - literally and metaphorically. "They're round the front", said Tracy last night, peeping cautiously out of the door. "If we sneak out round the back we'll probably get away without them seeing us". It happens every year. They start off sweet and innocent (this was only 7 weeks ago) but before you know where you are there's a herd of little rhinoceroses affectionately charging at you as soon as you go out of the door (click photo, left, for today's pictures). Yesterday I was in the garage putting together a machine. I throw down the screwdriver to confiscate a plastic bag that one of the lambs is busy eating, and as it rushes off to eat some wires instead I fall over another lamb that's now sneaked in to chew the screwdriver. There's another one grazing on the cardboard box, while a fourth is creating a large puddle over the instruction manual that I left on the floor. "Get out!" I throw a small cardboard box at them, which they look at briefly before starting to eat it. Wherever you go, the Baafia is watching you - and really wants to join in.

Comments Katie - June 7th, 2013 Home!!!!!!!!

Yes, Katie has returned from her seaside outward-bound week. She's spent a great week sea fishing, doing a rowing test, exploring an island and finding out about how the local pilots and fishermen lived (and apparently drank and gambled), learning the seaway code and all the rest. But she didn't bring the promised photos with her, so I'm going to make her a sandwich and then send her back for another week. The only down-side, apparently, was that they had to live on shop-bought bread (horror!) and food made from processed ingredients. Can you imagine? So it's not bad to be home.

8 June - Baafia behind bars, or rather behind an electric fence (photo, left - click for enlargement). They've been evicted from their comfortable bedroom in the stables and restrained from joining in with all our activities - and are now having to learn to eat grass rather than cardboard boxes, plastic bags, car bumpers and other objects. Naturally, they had a go at chewing the wire fence, but jumped back pretty sharpish.

Comments Jon - June 8th, 2013 Is that Noah's ark in the background behind the sheep. Or should that be Noah's Baaark? Tim - June 8th, 2013 It sometimes feels like we're in it already. Just the giraffes to get and then we'll be off. But we've been worried about some very good friends in the East of Germany, a place that has more need of Noah's ark than we do at the moment; and we're relieved to hear that they're OK.

We've been warmly celebrating the completion of the sauna in the bathroom (photo, above right - click for enlargement). Just a bit of tiling and finishing to do around it, but it's now fully functional. Just in time for summer. Ah well.

10 June - Glorious, hot day; parents enjoying a relaxing evening while the youngsters slave over a hot stove. As it should be.

Comments A Pat - June 13th, 2013 I like the look of the flan and flapjack. Do orders come with the delivery of a child? Tim - June 13th, 2013 I'm absolutely sure that can be arranged. I'll check with the airline whether they have a little label for "unaccompanied flan" to go with the "unaccompanied minor". Welcome home from Scotland - your trip looked wonderful!

14 June - Tim had an unexpected email a couple of days ago - the BBC wrote to ask whether he'd contribute to a programme on Bach for Radio 4, focussing on to what extent the experiences of a modern-day organist can be relevant to understanding Bach. The programme was recorded this evening (with Tim in Norway and the presenter in the UK - but it went fine) and will be broadcast on 6 August. The programme hasn't been put together yet, but here is a little snippet, in which Tim is spouting telling us about Bach's Orgelbüchlein, or "little organ book". (That link is quite a big file - over 3 MB - so if you click it, you may have to wait a while before anything happens. Might almost be better to do a "save as" and then play it afterwards).

16 June - The church picnic It's the "end of term" for Tracy's church (the last regular service before Autumn - during the summer there's just an evening "meeting" every Sunday) so the Vicar is now on her summer hols until mid-August. It's a hard life. As usual, the day was celebrated with an outdoor service and picnic, in which everyone enjoyed appropriate activities (click photo, left, for pictures).

The person who was most pleased with the day, however, was Katie - for whom a long-standing dream is coming true in a fortnight, when "Storm", a Dartmoor pony, will be joining the family, and moving into the stables here (click photo, right, for two pictures).

Comments Katie - June 17th, 2013 EEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! Jon - June 17th, 2013 Tim. Is it possibl to borrow kati's kyboard, as I'v run out of "" on min. Tim - June 17th, 2013 Try just typing MC2 instead - Bert assures me it's the same. Jon - June 18th, 2013 Tried the MC2 thing, but when I pressed enter my computer suddenly disappeared and was last seen passing alpha centuri at light speed on its way to deep space (this message typed on Sarah's machine). Tim and Katie - June 18th, 2013 Hope you left Skype running: Nasa will pay a fortune for the webcam pictures. Jon - June 19th, 2013 I did indeed, but the pictures have taken on a rather blue tint and everything appears to be in slow motion.

17 June - A beautiful summer's day for the start of the holiday season (photo of garden today).

Is it a plane; is it a snowplough?" We have boringly predictable days compared with Thomas Andrew. His day included events as unlikely as collecting a snowplough, meeting a stray tourist in a seaplane, suggesting to tourist (who'd popped over for the day from the south coast to take a look around) that we had a very nice lake as well, and then meeting him again there (see picture sequence).

Comments Norah - June 27th, 2013 enjoyed the pre broadcast talk. What time does the programme start on the 6th? All good wishes to Matt, naturally I am very interested to know he is going to Bodo----!

20 June - Holiday A relaxing week on the Norfolk Broads (click photo, left, to see short picture sequence).

Comments joanna - July 6th, 2013 It was great to see you all for the few hours, I don't think the weather was too horrendous whilst you were at Stalham, I trust no one got 'sea sick'!!! or drowned!! In fact nothing to laugh at at all! Its hotted up here we have just had a very good Summer Fair, wall to wall sunshine! Now its of to a very early bed for my aching bones!!!