doings

May 2012

2 May. I remember a few years (all right, quite a few years) ago experiencing frustrations at school. There was the Latin teacher who wanted me to learn quite useless declentions of obscure verbs (it was all right for him - he was a native speaker - but it was a dead loss for me). But music was usually fine, except when I was told to learn a piano piece by Schumann called "Mai, lieber Mai". There was nothing wrong with the music itself, it was just such a stupid title. May in England is OK if you like that sort of thing, but what was so special about the month that it needed celebrating in such a way? To find the answer, come to Western Norway. Just at the moment - and we're still right at the beginning of the month - we have the sudden and fantastic brilliant green of the leaves and grass that are in such a hurry to come out, you can almost see a tide of dandlions and other brightly-coloured flowers sweeping across the landscape, the sky is brilliant blue and there's still snow on the top of the mountains. Yesterday and today it's been 35°C (95°F) in the sun and in the low 20s (70s) in the shade; on several occasions I've been out on the balcony and had to come in after half an hour because it's been too hot. "If it would just do this all summer", said Tracy, "we wouldn't want to go away anywhere". Just to give an impression of the diversity of Western Norway during May, compare home today (left, click for enlargement) with a photo taken yesterday at �rdal (where I bought my car - a proportionately short drive from here) (right, click for enlargement).

Tracy and Katie have gone to Kristiansand this evening to a Matt Redman concert. They had a very good time (report to follow).

3 May. It's a horrible feeling to loose control when you're driving - those nerve-wracking few seconds after you hit that deep snowdrift or patch of ice and the car just won't do as its told. So it must be particularly unpleasant to be driving a big lorry that leaves the road and topples over. The driver of this one, though, (right) probably spent those few seconds wondering whether his load would be all right in the back. The lorry's load is two tons of dynamite. Damage to the vehicle includes sundry scrapes and dents on the right-hand side and a large wet patch on the driver's seat.

4 May. Tracy was a little late home today, after spending some time skulking in the forest around Malmei (the start of the road up to �rsdalen). This was because in a fit of alliteration she met a male moose at Malmei and jumped out of the car to ask it to pose for pictures. It was a bit shy, so they spent some time playing hide and seek amongst the trees.

5 May. Snowing thick and fast this morning - with strong winds driving the snow horizontally up the valley. We can hardly see the mountains opposite, though the glimpses we get show lots of new snow there. The heat wave seems to be over for the weekend, at least.

Norway is becoming overgrown. For all the many years we've been in Norway, we've heard complaints that "Norway is becoming overgrown" - that trees and bushes are covering the landscape. I've never really seen this as a great problem - surely trees are a good thing? "Plant a tree in '73" and all that. During a short break in the snow storm, we've just been up in the forest looking at a few large trees that we felled last year, with a view to cutting them up and getting them down. Last year I cut a wide path up to that part of the forest, felling a few small trees, digging up bushes and cutting back branches. Today I was surprised to see that new trees have taken root on my path and already have grown eight or nine inches tall, while the branches on the neighbouring trees have grown back. There's an area of about an acre immediately behind the house that had been completely felled and cleared not long before we bought the place three years ago and I reckoned that I'd need to re-plant that area for the next generation. I've done no re-planting but the area is now thick in birch trees that are already between 20 and 30 feet tall. I'm beginning to understand how Norway can be "becoming overgrown". If you don't hear from us for a while it's either because the internet company has sent assasins round or because we're trying to hack our way out of a new swathe of forest that's sprung up overnight.

6 May. After church today we were invited out to dinner, Tracy, Tim, Andrew and Katie. In usual Norwegian style, this meant dinner at mid-day (a whole trout with all the trimmings, with "Molte" and cream for dessert), followed a couple of hours later by "coffee" (which automatically includes cakes, in this instance "lefse" and a traditional sweet cake with a rich yellow topping (with our friend Dagfinn in M�ndalen used to claim was made out of chicken fat, though it isn't, of course). It was all absolutely wonderful, of course, but it reminded me that I'd been intending for a while to mention a particular Norwegian tradition that seems to be going out of fashion - and which wouldn't have gone amiss today. That tradition is the after-dinner nap. When we were living in M�ndalen throughout the 1990s (and before that in Lur�y) we were very used to the idea that we were not to call on anyone for an hour or so after dinner. Even a couple of hours after dinner time, it was customary to creep round to the back of someone's house and peep in through the lounge window to check that there wasn't a prone figure covered by a blanket on the sofa before creeping back round to the front of the house and approaching officially via the front door. Many was the time that we had to creep away again and return an hour later. People don't seem to do this here. Either it's not a tradition in this part of Norway or else times have changed and people don't feel that they can justify it any more. Perhaps we ought to set an example.

9 May. Lost and found. Coming home from the ski centre the other day, Andrew found that his phone was missing. He'd put it down somewhere and now it was no-where to be found. For me, that wouldn't have been a big deal. My phone is so technologically advanced that not only can I make and receive phone calls, but I can send text messages and even - height of technological achievement - use it as an alarm clock. It cost �10 or so. I managed to leave its less-fancy predecessor on a boat and it was cheaper to buy a new one than to go back and collect it. Andrew's phone, though, is in another class - it will not only film HD video (whatever that is) but will compose a film score for it and automatically subtitle it in Japanese, and make you a coffee at the same time. But it's not the loss of a physical object that's the issue - it's the thought that someone seemingly had picked it up and gone off with it. That's not a problem we're familiar with in �rsdalen. Added to that, there are reports of some Lithuanians in a white van who have been driving round the most remote rural areas, stealing things. And this morning Tracy is in court - as a witness, I add hastily - because a foreign man had been into her church in Sandnes and stolen a couple of items. Fortunately she was able to identify him. Society here is built on trust and it's incredibly sad to see that trust under threat. For the first time ever, we've actually locked the house door, in response to the Lithuanian van. But a couple of days ago the owner of the ski centre rang. A passer-by had found a phone that seemed to have been dropped. They were sufficiently anxious to restore it to its owner that they'd taken the trouble to find out who owned the ski centre and to contact them. So now, Andrew and phone are happily reunited and some trust restored.

17 May. Today was the Seventeenth of May. I dare say it was where you are as well, but you'll recall from previous years that it is a very special day in Norway. The whole day is devoted to celebrations of the signing of the Norwegian Constitution in 1814 (see the quite good Wikipedia article) - church service, procession and then refreshments and silly games. The middle of May is a particularly beautiful time of year, and usually the weather is very good as well. This year, however, there was driving rain, sleet, hail and temperatures only just above freezing (it was falling as snow by the �rsdalen tunnel and ski centre). (Click photo, left, for four pictures of the procession).

18 May. "I thought I'd tidy the garage for you", said Thomas Andrew helpfully the other week. "It will make more room for your cars". He did an excellent job, moved his tractor in straight away and somehow there's not been any room at all for cars in the garage ever since. The tractor is permanently surrounded by tools and an assortment of equipment, generally with a variety of attachments in the process of being adapted. Then there are drums of oil and one thing and another. Outside, there's a steadily growing accumulation of tractor shovels/buckets and other appendages - a plough arrived last night and is now parked behind the barn. But he came a little unstuck yesterday when trying to use a slodd (I don't know what it's called in English but you'd use it to break up earth before using a harrow). It was a little heavy even for the most enthusiastic tractor and its driver (photo, right - click for enlargement).

20 May. The exhaust-free but high-exhaustion lawn mower (click photo, left, for more).

22 May. Three hedgehogs have spent their first winter in the stables, two living in suitably-insulated boxes and one in a rabbit hutch. (If you can't remember what they were doing there, the story is on 11 August 2011.) This evening they were brought outside and introduced to the world of grass and insects for the first time that they can remember. We watched them for an hour, exploring and experimenting and showing every sign of having a wonderful time.
PS, 23 May By this morning they had vanished into the forest. We'll carry on leaving some food out at nights for a little while, but they seemed to be making a good job of foraging for themselves! (click hedgehog photo for a film clip of the first one having a final snack just outside the stable door).

Only five days after it last snowed here, summer seems to have arrived in �rsdalen, with temperatures in the mid-20s (nudging 80° F) in the shade. The suddenness of it all catches us unaware every year and we constantly manage to be surprised. In the meantime, this photo was taken yesterday at Suleskard, 23 miles from �rsdalen. But we're enjoying it!

A happy ending. It's often said that there hasn't been a policeman in �rsdalen since 1953. If this was an exaggeration it was a very slight one. Imagine our surprise, then, when we took the dogs for a walk and saw ... a police car heading up the valley. We could also hear a helicopter, which made us immediately suspect that there'd been an accident somewhere. We found out the whole story soon afterwards (neighbours were ringing each other - "do you know what's going on? - and by the way, there's a police car about - who's out driving cars and tractors that shouldn't be?"). Three mid-teens girls from Vikes� were camping by the river when they saw a man jump into the water and pull something out, while shouting. They went over and found that a Russian family had somehow found their way to �rsdalen and gone for a walk and picnic by the river. While they were eating, their 3-year-old girl had wandered off and fallen into the water. By the time the father pulled her out she'd been under the water for a while and wasn't breathing. The Russians couldn't speak Norwegian and didn't know what to do or how to get help. One girl spoke to them in English to calm them down. Another rang the emergency number and called out the helecopter ambulance. The third set to work with CPR, later under direction from the emergency operator. After a while, the girls said, the child suddenly coughed up lots of water and started breathing and wailing in turns. The helecopter arrived soon afterwards and rushed the child off to hospital, where it's reported that she is recovering. The three girls decided to stay an extra night in their tent so that they could have a bit of time to come to terms with it all. The kids of today - you can't fail to be impressed.

23 May. Before we came to �rsdalen, Andrew was taking flying lessons and enjoyed using a little Cessna - and he's been looking around for similar opportunities here. But the other day he came across a more recent photo of the very plane he used to use - showing what happens if you land them in the wrong place (click photo, left, to see (above) a rather younger Andrew in the Cessna and (below) the plane some months ago). Thankfully (and surprisingly) the pilot and instructor from the bottom picture were not seriously harmed.

Katie doing her homework, �rsdalen style (photo, right - click for enlargement).

Matt finishes college in a fortnight (he's coming home on 8 June after a year that he's enjoyed very much) so if you want to write to him, don't use his BIC address from now on. He's got a job working for the ACTA organisation again (where he was working before he went to college) and is intending to live near Stavanger from after the summer. Congratulations, Matt!

And to complete the round-up, here (photo, left - click for enlargement) is Beth in characteristic pose, enjoying a day back at our old home, near �ndalsnes.

24 May. Just happened to notice the regional news page on the NRK (BBC-equivalent) website this morning. Click cow photo, right, if you want to see what kind of stories it contains.

38 ° C = 100.4 ° F. On the balcony at 11.30 this morning (in the sun) (right).

25 May. Last week we had the coldest 17th of May on record. Less than a week later we had the hottest day ever recorded in Norway in May. The record was broken at the weather station just a few miles from here - and �rsdalen is known locally to be an even hotter place, thanks to the steep-sided, sheltered valley. In any event, for the last few days we've had higher temperatures than Spain. This evening we lazed on the balcony, had a barbeque by the pond in the garden, chopped logs (of course - can't get away from it!) on Thomas Andrew's tractor-driven log splitter (another of his matching accessories) and generally tried to keep cool. Luxury problem! And tonight, Katie's sleeping outside in the garden. Click photo, left, for pictures.

26 May. The first of this year's confirmation services at Tim's church, followed by an afternoon by and in the river - paddling, swimming and lazing on the beach. (Click photo, right, for three film clips, showing life at the �rsdalen river beach (just up the road from our house) and Thomas Andrew's return from his trip).

27 May. "Do you want to come down to the beach at the lake this evening and have a barbeque?", asked a neighbour this morning. We (Tracy and Tim) couldn't because of an evening service, but Andrew and Katie did. When we got home at 10'ish in the evening there was no sign of Andrew and Katie at home so I (Tim) drove down to the lake to see them. The whole village had turned out for an impromptu get-together. The adults were gathered around two b�lpanne (can anyone give me an English word for one of these?), while the older teenagers had their own bonfire (to which they seemed to be competing to carry the heaviest tree trunks) and the smaller children were playing an endless game of boksen g�r. The sun set at about 10ish, but the moon shone brightly over the lake (and I suspect there was a certain amount of moonshine on the shore as well) and things were still going strong long after midnight, the bonfires burning brightly and even the smallest children still running. There'll be some sleepy people in �rsdalen on Monday, I suspect.

28 May. The social round continued with another barbeque, this time an "urban" one in Sandnes with friends from Tracy's church (photo, left - click for more).

Some more photos from the beach in �rsdalen the past couple of days - click photo, right, for a short series.

Holy church gets license to kill. Sorry, couldn't resist the headline. This story is about a church at Mo i Rana, near Lur�y (for those of you who visited us there) which has been plagued all winter by a neurotic woodpecker. "The church has been perforated", says the church administrator despairingly to NRK news, pointing out fifteen holes in the walls. Woodpeckers are protected, but the church has applied for and been granted a special license to shoot the unfortunate bird.

30 May. There's still a couple of weeks until school summer holidays, but Katie's nearly-end-of-term class outing consisted of (1) a visit inside a local HEP power station (2) swimming in a lake and (3) barbeque and games. Click photo, left, for picture sequence and description.

Comments