doings

February 2013

1 Feb - parcel post. Our post box is located at the bottom of the drive (where, you may recall, it is prey to passing goats). If we get a parcel that won't fit in the box, the postman either leaves a note that we're to call in and collect it from Vikes�, or - if he's got plenty of time - drives up to the house, where he's sometimes rewarded with a cup of coffee. (He takes the cup away with him to drink along the road and leaves it in the post box the next day). Yesterday was evidently a busy day (or he wasn't thirsty) because a note in the box invited me to call in at the "post office", which is behind the cash till in the Coop at Vikes�. I bought some oranges and lemons (for making squash with) and other odds and ends and mentioned to the lady at the till that there was also a parcel to collect. She jumped up and headed for the little parcels room. "What does it look like?" "I've no idea", I said, "it just says there's a parcel". She rooted around for a minute. "Come and see if you can find it". The parcels room is lined with shelves, on which incoming parcels are tossed in no particular order. "Here you are", she said, passing me a parcel from England. I looked at the address label. "Thanks, but that one's for someone else". "Oh, well, you just stay and see if you can find it while I serve these customers". So I settled down for a good root through the room, getting to know the postal habits of several neighbours a bit better, until I finally found the right package and clutching it returned triumphantly to the till, where the next-customer-but-three was carefully separating her groceries from mine (which were still lying there). "See you next time".

Congratulations, Joanna, on your identification of the strange sound as ice - though both of Jon's suggestions were much better than reality!

Comments joanna - February 4th, 2013 Hi there, it looks as if you could get another dump of snow this week, we could also suffer!! I hate winter. Job - February 4th, 2013 "He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth'" (Job 37:6). Looks like we'll just have to make the best of a bad Job. joanna - February 5th, 2013 What a surprise, I did't know that Job read your Blog!! Mind you that shows great discernment on his part. Tim - February 5th, 2013 That guy from Ecclesiastes used to read it as well, but he gave up when I started talking about the weather because he had already seen everything under the sun and besides, it was all striving after wind. We'll try to hang onto the snow and not send it towards Norfolk. joanna - February 6th, 2013 Tim you are doing a good job hanging on to the snow, keep up the good work Thank you!!!

5 Feb - a good Job? Joanna's prediction of snow yesterday had already come true, for us at least, and another foot or so fell last night. But the temperatures are very warm (only minus two or three), meaning that the snow is damp and clings onto every branch and twig. Snow is nothing new (!) - but when it does this to the trees it manages to be quite appealing (click photo of our washing line, right, for short picture sequence).

Congratulations to the young gent on the photo (left, click for enlargement) on now having a full Norwegian tractor driving license, rather than just the �rsdalen variety. The photo shows Thomas Andrew 15 years ago, with red tractor and heap of firewood - not much changes, does it?

This evening it was carnival time in the village hall. Fun, games, drinks and food and a chance for some adults (no names mentioned) to show their ignorance by not recognising costumes based on the latest films. Katie was a lion, but due to the heat in the room and energy being expended, had temporarily laid aside her furry head when the picture (click speedy clown, right) was taken.

7 Feb - Happy 13^th birthday to Katie today! (It's all happening this week ...)

Comments joanna - February 7th, 2013 Katie a very very Happy Birthday and welcome to your teenage years. Cherish them, lots of love from me. Katie - February 7th, 2013 Thanks! I think my teacher was really mean because he put a maths test on my birthday! Apart from that its been a great day!

8 Feb - Start of half term. Just come back from a walk with the dogs, enjoying the ever-stronger sun shining merrily on the snow. Katie is singing in the kitchen whilst making chocolate biscuits, Andrew is out taking his new driving license for a ride, and Tracy is in Drammen on a conference. And the goats (left, click for enlargement) are wondering whether the troll really has gone and it will soon be safe to come out. (Just reading back over that, I should make it clear that there's no connection between those last two items). But there's still no bridge over the river as yet.

You see all kinds of road signs whilst driving around Norway (some examples, right). The "moose" sign (top) is very common, as are similar signs for other ordinary creatures like reindeer, sheep and horses. Quite a few drivers are killed in collisions with moose on the roads, and from time to time car manufacturers offer "free moose insurance" as a promotion. The "polar bear" sign (second from the top) is fairly normal in Svalbard and the "troll" sign is a familiar old friend from the Troll Road near �ndalsnes. But drivers near Bod� were surprised today by a new warning - the "flying saucers" sign. This one is apparently a private initiative and spoilsports officials from the Highways Agency, once they recovered from their surprise, promised to take it down straight away.

Comments Jon - February 10th, 2013 Is it really a UFO? Looks more like a warning to beware of roadside barbeque. In fact maybe it was put up by the troll, after he slew the elg and is preparing a feast for all the other trolls (or is that troller or trolli?). Tim - February 11th, 2013 I'm not so sure. According to the troll in our barn, the word under the bridges is that the whole of the troll dietary requirement (i.e. a good variety of large mammals) can now be obtained from frozen lasagne, which makes life so much simpler than it used to be.

11 Feb - "Wolf!, Wolf!". Three years ago, when we went for our first long ski trip from here, we saw the tracks of some large animal, which may have been a bear. Since then we've discovered all manner of wildlife in the hills and we've heard occasional reports of people seeing wolves. Over the last couple of days there have been several definite and confirmed sightings of one or more wolves on the hills less than 10 miles east of here (these wolf prints, left, photographed yesterday near Tonstad - our closest village).

12 Feb - Day after day we've been saying how wonderful it is to have clear blue skies and sunshine (even though it's still around -10° and we're getting through the firewood at an alarming rate). Today was no exception, so I took the dogs for a short gallop in the snow in the direction of the lake (2 pictures here), just to check that there were no wolves. And there weren't.

Comments joanna - February 12th, 2013 Lovely photos. The dogs look well, I'm sure they were quite glad not to find the wolves. Great sunset, we haven't seen the sun since Saturday!!!

"Why do you think my car got stuck?", asked the woman after Thomas Andrew had towed her out of a snowdrift with his tractor. (Towed her car, that is). "It's a difficult road to drive in the winter", he replied, diplomatically. As he commented privately to me afterwards, "people tend to tip badly if you tell them it's because they're rotten drivers who should never have been let loose in snow and ice". As it says in the Bible, "The child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom".

Comments Joanna - February 16th, 2013 At 2am this morning I heard about your slow burning wood programme on Norway TV!!! The commentators sounded surprised that it could happen!! They have never visited your blog and learned of the other 'slow burn' programmes. Hope you enjoy it Tim - February 18th, 2013 We didn't actually get to see any of the programme - but it's true that chopping and burning firewood is very much a part of Norwegian life and everyone is a bit of an expert on the best sort of wood, the best thickness and length, the best way to light it ... Whatever will the TV people think of next?

17 Feb - Long weekend. This week it's been the "winter holiday" - the half-term week when "everyone" goes off to the mountains skiing. We've not been skiing at all, but we've had a full week of activity. It's not often nowadays that all six of us are home at the same time, but this happened for Katie's birthday (three pictures, left). Her official party is still at the planning stage - we want to make sure this year that it doesn't get cancelled due to bad weather, falling meteorites or other problems!

This weekend it's been the parish weekend for Tracy's church. This was held at a very pleasant centre in the hills a few miles from Sandnes, so four of us have enjoyed a "different" weekend there (Beth flew back to �lesund on Friday and Andrew was in �rsdalen clearing snow to keep the roads open). (pictures, right).

18 Feb - An NRK news report tells the story of a lady who was flying from Kristiansand to Oslo. She went through the gate at Kristiansand airport and followed the crowd onto the airoplane, where she sank into her seat, took off her shoes, fastened her seat belt and relaxed as the flight attendent did the welcome speech and said how long today's flight to Bergen would take. Something there didn't sound quite right. Bergen? Off with the seat belt, on with the shoes, quick dash out of the plane door, across the tarmac and up the steps onto the next plane. "It happens several times a week", say staff at the airport. This is not one of the smaller airports in Norway, but things are obviously fairly relaxed there.

19 Feb - First signs of spring. It still doesn't smell like spring, but this week for the first time combines strong sunshine with a temperature above freezing (1 degree today), so the ice is beginning to melt, the birds are singing (and the more aquatic ones are swimming in patches of open water in the river) and there's even small patches of red to be seen in the forest (the trees turn red a few weeks before they start to turn green, rather like slow traffic lights). Driving back to �rsdalen from Egersund today, there were hundreds of swans on the Bjerkreim river. They took great care to only swim on stretches of the river where I couldn't stop the car to take pictures, but I did manage to snap a few (click photo, left, for picture sequence). No doubt Pat or Joanna will be able to put names to them.

Comments Joanna - February 20th, 2013 They look very like Whooper Swans, the yellow patch on the bill Makes a wedge as if a capital W were laid across it. The smaller Bewicks have a B across theirs -- a fact that helps to remember their names as with Dromedary and Bactrian Camels. One hump and two. I think it might have been Thomas Andrew that told me that years ago!! Tim - February 20th, 2013 Thanks - I'll try to remember that. I'm going back down that road tomorrow so I'll try to get a better beak inspection. Pat - February 22nd, 2013 A belated agreement, swans are whoopers, on way back north to breed. Tim - February 22nd, 2013 Thanks, Pat! There's a picture from the promised beak inspection here. I seem to remember that you were watching whooper swans here at this time two years ago (picture here). I tried to tell them about it, but they didn't seem to be impressed.

23 Feb - According to Thomas Andrew, Findus is changing the markings on their lasagne packets. Where they used to state energy content in calories (kilojoules), they are in future going to measure it in horsepower.

Poohsticks - Katie and Tracy on the bridge (not the one at the bottom of the garden - that's still out of order - but the one a couple of hundred yards higher up the river). Click photo, right, to see how it goes.

24 Feb - Breaking news. The downside with the snow melting is that it turns into ice. For the past week, the drive has been one solid ice-slide (you can get right to the bottom in just one step!), so we went out in the warm sunshine today to break up some of the ice, which helps the rest to melt. (Click photo, left, for some pictures). The sunshine was so warm that we were able to take a break from ice-breaking (so to speak) and sat, sunbathing and listening to the sounds of birds singing in the trees and avalanches coming down the mountainsides.

With a spring in the step. As we sat, we discussed whether the warmth, the melting snow and the singing birds meant that spring was on its way. But, as Katie pointed out, it still doesn't smell of spring, and until the distinctive smell arrives, spring doesn't either. But what is it that spring smells of? We speculated about whether it's the sap in the trees, the grass beginning to grow, or something else. Any ideas?

Yet more bumps in the night. Curiously, there was a bump in the night at about 4 this morning. We've no idea what it was, but Tim and Andrew both went downstairs to investigate. It was hardly likely to be a burglar (not the first idea you consider here), but as Andrew pointed out afterwards, even if someone had taken it into their head to "break in" they would never have managed to get up to the house over the ice, let alone get away with anything!

26 Feb - Stripes. Each evening, as the sun goes down, the strong evening sunshine (and I'm only saying this for the benefit of our good friend Jon further north, where it refuses to stop pouring down) catches on the trees on the other side of the valley, producing startling brown striped patterns, just for a few minutes (photo, left - click for enlargement). As the sun continues to sink, the mountains glow briefly against a deep-blue sky before the stars come out and night falls properly. And later this evening, Tracy and I sat in the deep silence and watched the moon rising over the mountain. It's the kind of show that you simply couldn't buy tickets to watch.

A round-up of this evening's national news in Norway features crime, commerce, women drivers and other natural disasters - it all happens here:

• The getaway. Some tools were stolen today in Grimstad (that's where Matthew's college is). Police recovered the stolen goods after following the wheelbarrow tracks to the thief's house.
• Whose lights are these? (news photo, right). "Finland won Father Christmas: [Norway is] fighting for the Northern Lights", reads the headline. It's all about tourists.
• Where did it go? I can't do better than to suggest you look at the photo and I'll translate the news article, which reads:
  "At 9 o'clock on Monday evening the police received a message from an ambulance driver who had happened to come across an Ikea home-loan trailer lying in the middle of the dual carriageway. ... The woman in her 20s did not realise before she had arrived at Ikea that the trailer had gone ..."
• Late delivery. The postman in Glomfjord (a place that will bring back happy memories for at least one of our readers) is presently stuck between two large avalanches. The post office is hoping to get him out tomorrow, but warns that post may be delayed.

27 Feb - Miau! Now I've seen it all. At least, I think I have. An advert on the local noticeboard-page on the internet (click picture, left, if you don't believe me) reads: "Female cat seeks male cat". It's called Hilde, lives in Stavanger and has an email address if you happen to be a male cat reading this, though I somehow imagined that these things were organised differently.