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1 May -
To celebrate the spring that's supposed to be coming any time now, we've been busy constructing a dog run,
which will enable us to leave the dogs in the stables with a door out to an open area -
which saves them having to come into Sandnes if we need to be there all day.
There are deep foundations (to make sure that Tune can't dig her way out)
and a high mesh fence (to make sure Fudge can't jump over),
so we're hoping it will work well.
6 May - We're all back from a flying visit to Claire's wedding in England - an enjoyable experience. As usual, we had a good time with family - although on the journey there we were yet again struck by the contrast between the generally clean and peaceful Norway that we had left behind and the frenzied, grimy and agressive airport/car hire/motorway in England (fairly much a re-run of an earlier experience). But the event made it all worth while.
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Not that traffic always runs problem-free in Norway either, as we saw on our return in the shape of the Norwegian national news (see picture, above right). In an unusually dramatic turn of events, one of yesterday's headlines involved a car driver who "Ran over Bishop and then stole the ambulance". On a rather more every-day traffic note, another headline pointed out that the main north-south road through western Norway was closed for half an hour just outside Bergen while the police helped a family of ducks waddle through a busy motorway tunnel. The police were very understanding about it all. The police spokesman said: "de skjønte vel at det var korteste veien. Det tar jo sin tid å dra rundt Eidsvågsneset, hvor det er fartsdumper ..." ("they realised naturally that this was the shortest route. After all, it takes a while to go round Eidsvågsneset, which has speed humps ..."). Presumably the police were conducting radar checks at the same time, which is why the ducks took their time going through the tunnel, despite the absence of speed humps there.
8 May - Family beginning to gather for the weekend.
9 May -
The joys of mid-May — admire the spring weather in a short film clip from our drive home today.
10 May - Katie's Confirmation - Family gathering, service, sit-down dinner for 60-odd; everything went wonderfully and exhaustingly well. Most importantly, it was a good day for Katie and for all the family. And one of those all-too rare events when we could all be together for a while. We couldn't put all 700 photos on this blog, so here (click picture, right) are (just!) 18 snapshots of the day. And thank you to everyone who worked so hard and came so far to make this such a great event.
13 May - an English exam story - Katie has a succession of exams at school this week and today's exam was English. One of the tasks was to write your own Sherlock Holmes murder story. So here it is. We love the contrasts between the Holmsian language and that of the street urchin (just where that dialect originates from could be the subject of a whole new mystery story), as well as the names of the Icelandic characters (aside from the obvious, it should be pointed out that Katie's form teacher is called Marius Solberg). Enjoy!
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Ready?
17 May -
During the ten years we spent in Måndalen we got very used to the way that 17th May was "done" there:
the children waking everyone up early in the morning, the procession round the village ending up at the church, where everyone came to the service before going on to the school for silly games and ice creams.
It's never seemed quite right since we left.
First in England, where 17th May didn't exist (it did, of course, but not as a special day),
but even once we arrived here in Ørsdalen, which doesn't have its own village celebration,
which means celebrating the day with "neighbours" who live at least half an hour's drive away in Vikeså.
This year was even stranger, as Tim was playing for the church service in Sandnes.
Being a large town, the church service was completely separate from the "civic" celebrations, and only moderately attended.
And there was certainly no "neighbourly" reason to join in the procession there, so it was just like an ordinary Sunday.
Except that it snowed.
There was a pale snow-line in the trees in the garden, but further up the road the snow meant business and I began to wonder whether summer tyres really were the right thing to be driving on.
Today's uncomfortable fact: apparently the word "Hurrah!", which everyone shouts during the 17th May processions,
is derived from the old Persian word "Urà!", which means "kill!".
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20 May -
Pictures of snow here on 17th May do not mean that we've had no good weather —
some days have been the cloudless blue skies and warm sunshine over the beautiful spring colours that we demand from May in Norway.
Just not enough of them.
Some people are pleased, though.
So much snow has fallen so late in the spring that those who know these things reckon that the mountain skiing season will last far into August.
Some of the roads out of Sirdal (our neighbouring district) are just being opened after the winter, leaving 40-foot (12 metre) cliffs of snow on each side of the road.
Picture of Sirdal, left - click for enlargement.
21 May - A dewey morning (photo, right - click for 3 pictures). Tracy is away at a pastor conference in Oslo (or, as Thomas Andrew said: "a pasta conference? She's learning to cook?") and so is missing one of this month's rare beautiful days.
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23 May -
All the villagers are out today to do maintenance inside and outside the village hall (photo, right - click for 5 pictures).
29 May - will summer come this year? -
There's some nervousness around in Norway about whether summer has been cancelled this year.
It's still only around 2 or 3 degrees up by the tunnel, while some roads in southern Norway are experiencing problems due to substantial amounts of snow
(roads that are supposed to be clear by now, unlike those in Sirdal and such places that have to be dug out from under the winter's snow).
(Click picture, left, for a couple of photos).
Trouble at work. Tim has been called in to a meeting with the church manager, who has been told to write a report to the regional Director about his working hours. They say he's doing too much. It's apparently not possible to do everything that he's been doing within the hours specified by Norwegian law, so a "divergence from working plan" report has to be filed. Minor rap on nuckles for overdoing it.
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