1 September - No thanks, Vicar! - In Norway, it's the local vicar who has to deliver the bad news to people — deaths, accidents and the like. We say the "local" vicar, but in our district there's a rota in which one vicar is "on duty" for the entire district for a week at a time. This week it's Tracy. The district, by the way, covers an area twice the size of Cheshire or three times the size of Greater London, but thankfully there are not many call-outs. It's well known that the only thing in the universe that can travel faster than light is bad news, so it's easy to cover even the large distances involved here. Tracy has had none all week — except for during a party we were attending on Friday evening when, like busses, two arrived in quick succession. Quite effective, really: at the beginning of the party, just before the eats, the vicar-phone rings and Tracy has to rush out; and later on, just when we had gathered for speeches, the same thing happened again. Very impressive effect. But it was a less impressive effect when Tracy turned up in vicar's garb on some lady's doorstep to tell her of her husband's sudden demise.
"Oh, no thanks, I'm not interested".
"I think you need to hear what I've got to say"
"No, I've heard it all before and I don't want to know"
"Can I come in to tell you some news?"
"No"
How do you break it gently?

3 September - lake swimming - Tracy's duty week means that she has to stay round the clock in Sandnes, so Tim has taken advantage of a few quiet days to slip away to the flat in Germany, where the sun is still shining brighly and the lake water is still warm enough to swim in.

4 September - oh boy!, writes Tracy in response to today's national news story. The two sorts of chocolate milk-shake powder that are on sale in Norway and Sweden — O'boy and Nesquick — both have their different fans, and the one or the other is almost guaranteed a place in every household where children are to be found (and quite a few where they're not). Except that, due to upgrade work at the factory, an "O'boy crisis" in Sweden is threatening to spread to Norway. I can't do better than to translate a few sentences from the news story (I just couldn't make this stuff up):
... "this has resulted in the product being offered for thousands of kroner on the Swedish website Blocket.se" [that's hundreds of pounds for 1kg of hot-chocolate powder]
... "the supplier ... advises people against buying the product on the black market"
... "the head of communication ... admits that it will probably be difficult for people to use a different product"
... "we reckon on being able to supply our customers from Friday onwards. So there's no need for fights yet".
Welcome to the asylum!

Tim, in the meantime, has had a long and active day, swimming in three different lakes as well as a 10-mile walk and a long kayak tour (click picture, above right, for evening photos).

15 September - batteries fully charged - Thomas Andrew's dog, Duracell, is visiting us in Ørsdalen this weekend, while the Master is away, and is demonstrating that her batteries are as inexhaustible as ever. Here she is (click left for photos), enjoying the autumn colours in our forest. We're having fun with her, too.

"So, the third point I want you to remember is ..."

The following week - A long week at work; we've barely managed to make it home at all. This photo is all I can offer by way of local views.

21-24 September - weekend in Molde - Despite the rain hammering on the windows of the quaintly old-fashioned flat we've rented for the weekend, we’re greatly enjoying a weekend in Molde to see Beth and Gjermund and to visit their new house, which is lovely. It's all too rarely that we can get to Molde — it's only practicable by air and it involves a change in Bergen (on the way out) and Oslo (on the way back). Our outward journey was delayed and very rocky due to a powerful storm, which made it an interesting flight in the little propeller-plane from Bergen to Molde. On the return journey we had a stop-off at Oslo. Norway’s national airport is evidently getting fussy about safety, as you can see from this sign (photo, right) in the middle of the terminal building. The hot topic of general conversation in Molde is, not unnaturally, the famous rock face just outside Åndalsnes that is still threatening the imminent avalanche that we’ve been reporting on for the last couple of years. The families living underneath it have just been evacuated for the ninth time (the third time this month), so everyone will be very pleased when it finally comes down!

26 September - Accidentally left the car door open last night, and the car not in the garage. It doesn't matter, of course — you can leave the keys in as well; it's perfectly safe — except that it chose to pour down all night like it seldom does even here. Driving to work this morning I had to take the bends slowly to prevent tsunamis across the floor in the back. Free foot washing now on offer for all back-seat passengers.