doings

January 2013

1 January, 12.01am - Fireworks outside the church in Bjerkreim tell us that 2013 has begun (photo, left - click for enlargement).

Evening - After a quiet day, a traditional dinner of trout and gingerbread house (photo, right - click for enlargement).

Comments Jon - January 1st, 2013 Looks very exciting, but do you still have a kitchen table? Tim - January 2nd, 2013 Bit of firewood always comes in handy ...

2 January - Shots. There was shooting this evening in Helleland, near Bjerkreim. Don't worry - it was just a competition. It was Katie's first shooting competition, which she enjoyed - and did very well (narrowly beaten by her friend Gisle).

Bumps in the night - It's a constant feature of �rsdalen. We hear a rumble in the distance, increasing in intensity before fading away to just a few falling rocks. And there's a new dark stripe down the mountainside. At some times of year, particularly just after snow has melted, we can stand on the balcony and watch first one avalanche and then another. The vast amount of snow that has melted during the past few days has produced it an even longer and noisier rumble from the mountainside directly opposite our house. Thousands of tons of rocks and rubble have fallen 2000 feet, leaving a clear trail behind (right - click for 2 pictures). It wasn't the only strange noise in the night. We were very puzzled by a high-pitched wailing in the sky until we realised that a hurricane-force wind was blowing directly across the valley and the sound we could hear was the equivalent of standing inside a bottle whilst someone blows across the top of it.

3 January - Little hen lost - What is the news story that makes our regional newspaper print a photograph of this street in the town (left - click for enlargement)? The story is that there is a lost hen wandering around. Someone has now claimed it and it's safely back home. Happy endings are good, too.

Comments Jon - January 3rd, 2013 It's not just Norway that has chicken problems. Here was the front page news in Georgetown, SC, USA, a couple of years ago. We thought it was 'quaint' but now clearly the problem is spreading: Tim - January 3rd, 2013 Ford's feral fowl on Front Street - seems like an attack of alliteration as well. But this one was just playing chicken, I think.

4 January - Not much to see - The photographers on this morning's NRK news have really excelled themselves. The national network has published on its news website a picture of how little you can see from the mountain this morning - which is just an empty frame of grey. Almost as bad as those terrible puns about photos of �rsdalen by night, except that this article is meant to be serious. I think.

7 January - How do I get across?, asks Tune (right - click for 2 pictures). It seems that another casualty of the thaw (as well as the avalanches mentioned earlier) is the bridge over the river, just at the bottom of the garden. The river had been frozen more or less solid throughout December (which always worries me a bit since the instructions in case of fire are to to pump water out of the river, but that's another matter), and the sudden thaw has broken the river into huge icebergs, which have been parked on the fields on both sides of the river. These icebergs have also carried away part of the bridge. I've emailed the mayor to say that it'll need fixing before spring when the goats will need to get to the other side. Otherwise the troll will go hungry.

8 January - Life continues in �rsdalen as usual. Today was the twice-weekly bread-baking day. This normally goes without comment (let alone photo, left, click for enlargement) except that in a droll moment I was tempted to use the headline "oat cuisine". In the event I didn't dare - the (whole-groan) bread is corny enough without that sort of thing. But the sun shone brightly today - I stopped the car outside the tunnel on the way home just to enjoy a quick blast of brilliant-sunshine-reflecting-off-snow, and felt so much better for it.

10 January - Sick as a dog. Fudge is under the weather at the moment - according to the vet he has caught something from too close a contact with a fox. So he's on a variety of anti-fox tablets and will hopefully soon be on the mend. He knows well that we have a strict rule that no dog is allowed to set foot on the furniture, but he has circumvented this rule by edging himself onto the settee in such a way that all four paws dangle over the edge (photo, right, click for enlargement). With head on pillow and a sorrowful look (he'd put a paw on his forehead if he could), he seems to reckon that he won't get thrown off.

12 January - A grand day out. What do you do with one of those glorious January days when it's -9° but glorious sunshine and clear, blue sky? You go to the beach. At least, Katie, Tracy and Tim went to the beach; Thomas Andrew went flying together with a friend. Several other families had the same idea - on the beach there were children all dressed up in snow suits, attacking the ice which was lying thick on the sand. Click photo, left, for a picture series.

Katie also took a set of photos. The first three are beach scenes, but most are of patterns. These are brilliant - click small photo, right, to see them.

Comments joanna - January 14th, 2013 Katie I love the Patterns on the beach photos that you took, keep it up you have a good eye!! Katie - January 14th, 2013 Thanks! I'll try but I can't promise to be the official photo supplier!

15 January - More bumps in the night It's nothing to do with �rsdalen - nothing whatever - but who (while carefully refraining from mentioning women drivers) could possibly resist this morning's news headline, which tells of the cleaning lady who allegedly stole a train from a suburban station near Stockholm and drove it into a house (picture here)? I mean, how?? According to the Swedish news, a neighbour, one Mats Haglund, was woken by a bump in the night and went out to look. "I couldn't believe my eyes", he is reported as saying. "I just couldn't get back to sleep again afterwards". (Later: The BBC news has belatedly picked up the story).
Stop press:
It now appears that the cleaning lady was just dusting the knobs when the train started to drive off - and she didn't deliberately steal it at all. So now it's the train company that's in trouble! But it was still quite an achievement to park the train so neatly in someone's front room.

We're still enjoying day after day of clear, sunny weather (apologies to friends in the still-dark north - your turn comes soon) and temperatures remaining around -9°. Photo (left, click for enlargement) shows the last traces of sunset at 6-ish over a rather chilly-looking �rsdalen lake.

We gather that snow is causing problems in Britain. With that in mind, to give you some ideas, we thought you'd like some pictures of what Norwegian kids do in the snow (right - click for enlargement).

Comments Jon - January 19th, 2013 Do you happen to know what brand of ski wear they were wearing? I would hate to buy warm clothing and find it suddenly shrinks so bad in the cold! Tim - January 19th, 2013 You'd look great in it! joanna - January 19th, 2013 Absolutely mad!! Mind you I never did like snow and the cold!!! I notice some seem to agree. Tim - January 19th, 2013 You've got snow forecast for Monday in Hunstanton, so I hope you're practicing! joanna - January 20th, 2013 Don't some how think I would look as good even with full snow gear on!!! Tim - January 20th, 2013 If you do try it, send a photo and I'll post it anyway! joanna - January 22nd, 2013 Tim luckily I don't have a camera at the moment!! Also we have only about 2-3 inches of snow!! Tim - January 22nd, 2013 Such a shame - would certainly have been the photo of the year!

We reported on 6 November that there were problems with carrying brown cheese out of Norway by plane, because the new airport scanners confused it with TNT. Now it seems they might not be so far off the mark. A Norwegian road tunnel has today been closed "for several weeks" because 27 tonnes of brown cheese has caught fire in the tunnel (news picture here). What have we been putting on our biscuits?

19 January - Bumps in the day. Thomas Andrew has long been planning to chop some of the many trees above the smaller cliff immediately up from the house. He insisted that it would be an easy matter to get the timber down and today demonstrated his plan (click photo, left, for 2 pictures).

20 January - No bumps - remaining upright. After church this morning, Katie and Fudge went skating (click photo, right for pictures).

25 January. After the snowy and cold December we've had not so much snow but very low average temperature in January - apart from a brief thaw early in the month the mid-day temperature in �rsdalen has been around -9° every day and a good deal colder than that at night. Further inland it's been much colder, of course - pushing -30° for much of the month. A news report says that foreign tourists are coming to find out what it's like to live at those temperatures. But the people who live there are used to it. A mother reports that she'd tried to tell her daughter that -25° was a bit cold to go to school on her "spark", but was quickly put in her place: "25 below isn't cold: 40 below is cold".

Anyway, the river and all the streams and waterfalls are completely frozen. Yesterday evening I noticed that even the very big lake on the way to Vikes� is now entirely ice-covered. So what do people do apart from throwing yet another log on the fire or going out snowballing in bikinis? Click photo, near left, for two short film clips of suitable activities.

"Setting fire to Norway's national sandwich topping" is the subtitle to a story on today's national news. It all started with the tunnel fire a few days ago (reported above) in which 27 tonnes of burning brown cheese has closed a road tunnel for several weeks. Yesterday evening, as I was carrying my brown-cheese sandwich into the lounge at suppertime, I steered it carefully away from the fire. People are asking: "is brown cheese really flammable?". Perhaps the top restaurants will start offering cheese flamb�? So in today's news, a Norwegian fire chief invited NRK to "a brown-cheese-fire demonstration under safe conditions". "'I am surprised that the brown cheese in the tunnel burned for such a long time', he says, whilst setting fire to a classic Gudbrandsdal-type cheese in a pot". The video clip on the news page shows the fireman first aiming a portable blowtorch at a block of cheese, then pouring petrol onto it, re-lighting it and prodding it with a stick. His guarded conclusion was that anything will burn if it's hot enough, that cheese (even brown cheese) is not specially flammable and that "something else" has contributed to the tunnel fire. So it's officially safe to carry your sandwich past the fireplace.

Comments joanna - January 25th, 2013 Gosh that must be a relief Tim, think of all the times you had been near a fire place with brown cheese before, it could have been years of worry compounded if it had been found to be really flammable!! I love the zany stories you find for us to enjoy, just wish there were more in the british press!

31 January. Big storm last night, but we're still here. Quick quiz. Here is a short sound recording: There's a certain amount of wind noise, but also a clinking/tinkling sound. What is it? Suggestions in the comments box.

Comments Jon - January 31st, 2013 Is the noise the sound of the local troll ringing the doorbells of your neighbours, seeking refuge now his bridge is gone? Tim - Tim - January 31st, 2013 Brilliant - but as it happens wrong - suggestion! The Troll has taken up residence in our barn until the bridge is repaired. joanna - January 31st, 2013 The icicles breaking in the wind? Or the sound like my bones make when I get up in a morning (not that any of you are old enough yet. Just wait!) Tim - February 1st, 2013 Absolutely the closest. Ice, that is, rather than bones. It's the sound of the ice on the sea breaking up in the waves after the storm. Well done! Jon - February 1st, 2013 Is it the distant sound of hot brunost crystallising? Tim - February 1st, 2013 I'm still working on that recipe: haven't yet found the right gas mark for the blowtorch.

It's Sunday! Yes, I know it's Thursday, but we're celebrating seeing the sun from our house for the first time this year. The real Sun-day - the first day that the sun is high enough in the sky to actually reach us over the mountains opposite - would have been two or three days ago, but it didn't put in an appearance because of snow, cloud and other miseries. But today we have blue skies and - sunshine!