Click here to go back to main page.
1 March - Happy St David's Day!
Yesterday the sun was shining for all it was worth and the temperature up in the teens, so we went down to the river to skim stones and enjoy the (very early) spring (For Matt's photos from the outing, click stone-skimming picture, left). Some bulbs are getting ready to flower in a sheltered corner of the garden and the forest has begun to take on the purple-red tinge which means the first sign of buds on their way.
A lorry driver on the main road at Vikes� did not enjoy his day, however (photo, right - click for enlargement),
so Tracy and Katie who had been to Sandnes to collect Katie's new glasses had to take a detour round some back lanes to get home.
2 March - Red letter day for Thomas Andrew.
Or rather, red diesel day.
He bought his very first tank of (coloured) diesel, to put in his tractor.
Following a course on tractor safety equipment he was able (by paying for the parts) to bring home his very own Massey Ferguson.
It was brought back to �rsdalen on a trailer behind Tim's car because it was rather too far to drive it all the way,
but safely inside �rsdalen it was unloaded and Andrew drove it home, where it's now tucked up in the garage.
Not surprisingly, he's planning to drive to work at the ski centre tomorrow.
Click photo, right, for enlargement and other pictures from the day.
3 March - I drove past the ski centre today, on the way to returning the trailer, and there was the Thomas Andrew tractor, parked discreetly in a corner of the car park, its owner delivered safely to work. photo at the end of the page of pictures - click tractor picture, above right.
5 March - Nearly two years ago, on 3 May 2010, we reported the shameful story of crime on the streets of our nearest town, Egersund. You may recall that "A police foot patrol discovered early Sunday morning at 1.45 two young men who were walking through the centre of Egersund and who had kicked several lamp posts. They did no direct damage, but the police stopped the two to warn them" (newspaper article here). Sadly, the police have not managed to put a stop to this wave of Saturday-midnight crime. There has now been a second incident on the streets of Egersund, as reported in today's newspaper:
Some teenagers threw a kebab at a tractor in Egersund town centre around midnight on Saturday. The police know who was involved.Wonder whether the police are just assuming it was the same two youths, who have now graduated from lamp-post-kicking to kebab-throwing-at-tractors? Must warn Andrew to keep his tractor out of the way ...
6 March - Katie's school day today consisted of a ski trip in the mountains - here at Stavtj�rn. So rather than catching the school bus slightly before dawn cracked, she was able to have a slow morning before meeting up with the rest of the class, who had to come here by bus for a change. It's snowing hard here today, but they had a wigwam to hide inside if they got cold, and a good fire to toast their sausages on (vegi sausages for Katie). As well as skis and good clothing, all pupils had to bring some firewood and a sharply-pointed stick to use as a toasting fork. And they were allowed to bring chocolate and flasks of hot chocolate (one of the perks of that sort of day). So it was a good school day.
7 March - "Finding new ways", it says on the side of the lorry (photo, left - click for enlargement).
But this lorry driver, a little further up the E39 (the road that runs through Vikes�) found that you can't find a new way out of a tunnel.
There's still just one opening at each end.
(The lorry, by the way, was wedged across the tunnel like a cork in a bottle and had to be cut apart to extract it).
10 March - Not content with getting a tractor, Thomas Andrew has now acquired a tank, which was delivered this morning. Click picture, above right, for photos.
14 March - Shaken, not stirred. We were sitting in the lounge this evening, working on some exciting plans (of which more anon), when we heard the sound of a large lorry going past the house and felt the walls shake slightly. Given the impossibility of this, we assumed it was another avalanche and went outside to see if we could see anything. Nothing seemed any different. The late-evening news, however, reports that it was an earthquake (3.5 on the Richter scale), centered just outside Haugesund. It was all very undramatic.
It's been a beautiful sunny day and Tim made his first substantial foray into the forest with the chain saw, so the "collecting firewood" season is now officially under way. Today's work was mainly clearing up some of the winter's storm damage, felling a few nearby trees that seemed to have suffered and cutting up larger logs that were lying on the ground. But it's a start.
15 March - Watch out for the fire brigade if you live in Lenvik! How do you get rid of an unwanted wooden building? You can, of course, dismantle it but then you're faced with disposing of huge amounts of treated wood that you can't really use for anything. A popular alternative is to invite the fire brigade to come and do some practice. They'll burn the place down for you while practicing their techniques at the same time. Everyone's happy. Except in Lenvik. There, the fire brigade was invited to come and burn down a house and adjoining barn. They successfully reduced both to a small pile of charcoal. The next-door neighbour was rather upset, however - "that's my barn you've just burned down". The correct barn was the one on the right, not the one on the left. "And grandma's sofa was in there". Fortunately, Grandma wasn't sitting on it.
16 March The ski centre by the tunnel is "singing the last verse", as they say in Norwegian, for this year. The snow is getting thinner, so they're intending to make this the final weekend of the season. There's now no snow left on the roads and even the verges have turned from white to a grubby grey. The big question that's in everyone's mind now is "when can I change the tyres?". We're all driving on winter tyres - in our case, tyres with metal studs that go "clippety clop" as you drive along. Not only are they not very effective on tarmac (as Katie perceptively said the other day, it's like walking along the road in football boots) but the studs get worn out when there isn't a layer of ice on the road. And besides, changing the tyres means that it's officially spring, which is a Good Thing. But changing them too early is tempting fate - it's bound to snow again and then you've got big problems if you're using summer tyres. There is (of course) a law about all this. The law states that if you're using studded tyres you have to change them to summer tyres not later than the first Monday after Easter Monday (a week later in the north). No exceptions. Rigid rule. Big fine. Unless the driver feels that it would be safer to use the studded tyres, in which case it's OK. (In case you're wondering why on earth the date is set to the first Monday after Easter Monday - a date which after all varies from year to year - this is because everyone in Norway goes skiing in the mountains at Easter, so this deadline allows everyone to get back home again and off the mountain roads before they have to change tyres).
When an opposition politician recently made some bold claim about what they would do with the tax incomes, the Prime Minister brushed this off by saying that the politician in question had "taken too much M�llers-Cod-Liver-Oil". That's not a remark that you hear often at Westminster. One of the things you can guarantee to find in all food shops is jars of cod-liver oil, and the "M�llers" brand is pretty-well universal. Certainly when we first came to Norway the stuff was spooned daily down all children. I'm not sure whather it might have gone a bit out of fashion recently, but the M�llers company has been working on the situation for the past year with some television adverts. The adverts show a small boy in the house of his elderly grandfather. Boy rushes off and returns in football kit, clutching a ball. Grandfather responds (quite properly) by producing a bottle of M�llers cod liver oil and pours out a spoonful each, which they take bravely before the boy rushes out into the garden and grandfather totters after. Boy kicks ball to grandfather who gives it a tremendous boot over the garden wall. As the tinkle of distant glass is heard, both rush back into the kitchen. Boy looks in awe up at grandfather and asks: "Grandfather - did you take too much M�llers-cod-liver-oil?" The phrase seems to be working its way into popular speech (and some advertising executive seems to be working his way into an early promotion).
20 March - Who will buy?
Curiously enough, within a couple of days of us referring to M�ller's cod liver oil (previous paragraph), the Norwegian industrial conglomerate Orkla has decided to sell the island, in the Lofoten Islands, where Petter M�ller first made his famous potion.
Orkla obviously reads this diary and decided that it was the perfect opportunity to sell.
They would also like me to mention that amongst their other properties (click photo, left, to see) is the old sea-plane airport in the centre of Oslo
(we have good memories of watching the sea planes taking off while we were waiting for flights at the old Fornebu airport just over the road, before Oslo's new main airport was built at Gardermoen)
and Rygge Airport (south of Oslo, this was the other contender to become Oslo's main airport when they chose Gardermoen and is now used as the main Ryan Air base).
If you choose to buy one or more of these properties make sure you mention that you found them on this site and that we want the commission. Thanks.
When we first came to Norway, 25 years ago, the population of the country had fairly recently exceeded 4 million for the first time.
We've got quite used to that number, so it's been something of a surprise this week when the Central Bureau of Statistics announced that as of yesterday the population of Norway topped 5 million.
It appears that there are now so many children that, like old mother Hubbard, one just doesn't know what to do,
because the monthly special-offers leaflet from Europris, which landed amongst the heap of junk mail in the post box today, contains a striking special offer (click picture, right, for enlargement).
Children for sale (or that's what it looks like, at least).
This "bulk load" is even available in a choice of colours, black, beige or (more puzzlingly) purple, but at least there's a 100% guarantee of satisfaction.
24 March.
The sun has shone brightly for the last couple of days, and the temperature has shot up to 18° or so.
Today (Saturday), Katie is away on a weekend camp, but the rest of us -
well set up with an indulgent breakfast of porridge, bacon and egg, toasted rolls and marmalade and a large pot of coffee -
have had a busy day at home.
Tracy and Thomas Andrew had a quick trip to Vikes�, where Thomas bought himself a chain saw (slightly bigger and better than dad's) and negotiated for a tractor-powered log splitter.
An hour in the busy centre of Vikes� (population 900 or so) was more than enough city living for both of them, so they returned and the rest of the day was spent in rather gender-conformist activities:
father and son with a chain saw each in the forest (click photo, left, for a series of seven chain-saw pictures) and Tracy baking bread, rolls and cakes (click for picture) for the �rsdalen bazar this evening - as well as writing her talk for the same occasion and polishing her sermon for tomorrow.
26 March.
Chopping down trees is not a great problem (once you've done the sawing, gravity kicks in and starts helping) but bringing the logs down from the mountain is one of our hardest tasks.
That's become easier this year (at least from the parts of the forest that can be reached by tractor). Click photo, right, to see.
27 March. We�ve said before that Norway is a long country, with great contrasts between the different regions. Yesterday, for instance, there was a temperature difference of 40° C between north and south: 20° on the south coast and -20° on the north coast.
But as of tomorrow it�s due to even itself out; our forecast for next week is around 1 and 2 degrees and snow. Time to put those T-shirts away.
We were outside, chopping wood as usual, when we smelt the smoke. Within minutes it had become thick and visibility was down to a few feet, except for a vague reddish tint through the grey clouds that were swirling past.
Most of the local farms have been burning off last year�s stubble and roughs for the week or so, but this was so severe that we had to go down for a look, just in case things were out of control.
But there were several farmers patrolling the area (we could just make out vague human shapes moving in and out of the smoke) and the fire trailer was within easy reach just in case.
I was going to take a photograph, but it occurred to me that as we couldn�t see anything, any picture would just be a grey mess.
So I took one just as the fire was dying away instead (above left - click for enlargement).
29 March. Speaking of smoke and fires, we see in the national news this evening that dozens of cars are on fire in our nearest town, Egersund.
No, it's not a riot or anything quite so dramatic (this is the town where the most dramatic traffic event is the occasional kebab being thrown at a tractor - see 5 March) -
it appears that a scrap yard just outside the town has somehow caught fire.
An Egersund resident has described the situation in Egersund as "like being in Iceland" (a reference to volcanos).
(30 March - during the night, the "some dozens" of cars turned into 450 which was described this morning as "quite taxing" by the local fire chief. Later stop press: Number of deceased cars now increased to 700).
There's a bi-annual culture festival in our district and our local mayor (who is very good at supporting things) decided this year to attend one event in each of the local authorities involved.
One of them was a pop concert, which he described as "very good, but these young people like a lot of noise, don't they?".
The local paper shows a photograph of him at the concert (right - click for enlargement - note his ears in particular!).
Yesterday and today Katie was involved in a concert production held at the school, performing the music of local composer Ragnar Bjerkreim.
We went to last night's performance, which was great.
There were three more today (with the composer present at one of them).
This photo (left) is from the local paper; Katie is behind the saxophone but for some of the concert was playing the piano.
30 March.
I was at church this morning when a message arrived on my phone from a neighbour.
"The tunnel is to be closed for cleaning for most of the day".
The neighbour in question was one of those who was most comprehensively taken in by our road sign on 1 April last year (warning residents that the tunnel was to be closed for three weeks for maintenance - see "doings" 1 April 2011)
and I texted back to check that she didn't believe it to be 1 April today.
Sure enough, on my way home I had to wait for a while.
There was one other car waiting, so there was time for a chat and a shared sandwich whilst we waited.
Very sociable, but we hope it won't happen too often!
Comments
Congratulations Thomas Andrew!! An ambition fulfilled.
Thanks Joanna
Well done. Your own tractor at last.
He looks very cold in his tractor!
It's called "air conditioning".
Tim your sense of humour gets more pointed every day! I love the tunnel problem!!
What's the Norwegian for fire insurance?
Mmm. The funny thing is, how different the questions are when you're insuring a house in Norway. In the UK, the questions are about locks, security and alarms. Here, they couldn't care less whether you've got a lock or not, but are really interested in whether you smoke (not ideal in a wooden house) and whether all rooms that have a water supply also have a drain in the floor. To this will now also be added the question of whether the local fire chief knows his left from his right.
See also Jonah 4.11 - there are also whales around coast of Lenvik.
