1 January - Happy New Year! Tracy commented, as we sat together in the car on a hill above Vikeså just after the stroke of midnight, that this was the first time for 24 years that we had spent new year without children. Beth was in Ålesund, Matt leading a new year's youth camp, Andrew with friends and Katie at a youth party in Bjerkreim (we saw her and the rest of the youth group briefly for the midnight service in church before she vanished back to the bedehus for the rest of the party; and she's stayed overnight with a friend). So it was that we sat alone and watched fireworks in the rain (left - click for enlargement), before driving home.

We're starting the year with the wettest (and least snowy) winter since Genesis 7. Sales of skis have been hit hard, and ski centres are making gloomy predictions about profts heading down a slippery slope. The poles that usually indicate the edges of the roads in deep snow will soon be measuring water depth on the fields (photo, right).

Comments joanna - January 2nd, 2014 What are the measurements of the Ark!!! Can you build one that will take a house organ? We are wet and windy here but in Norfolk its not as bad as else-where except where the carrots and sugar beet abide!! Tim - January 3rd, 2014 It has to be big enough to fit Fudge, which is proving a struggle. Still raining, by the way! joanna - January 4th, 2014 Re Fudge, you could try handing the job to Katie and her powerful story-telling technique. I'm sure she could cope with shrinking a dog to fit in the ark, after all Noah must have done it to get all the animals in!! Tim - January 4th, 2014 Brilliant idea for getting Fudge into the ark - I'll set Katie on to it right away. Do you want to come for the ride? We can pick you up from Hunstanton pier. joanna - January 4th, 2014 Would love to come for the ride, but you'd need to get Katie on the job agin to produce a pier

3 January - the year's first competition!
In this film clip (click picture, left, to view), Tracy is in the middle of a video sermon when she is overtaken by merriment about something - but what? Any ideas? It's not especially connected to the content of what she's saying, by the way. The entire sermon is available on the church's website.

Suggestions joanna - January 4th, 2014 I think she is secretly thinking Chocolate!! Just watched the clip, think Tracy suddenly found she had picked up the wrong script and was reading out one of Katie's stories, or else the Norwegian sounds very like broad yorkshire Cum out of there!!!

Solution Naturally, what you couldn't see on the film was the person doing the filming (me - Tim). I was concentrating more on sound balance and memory cards than on what Tracy was saying, so when she suddenly raised her voice and shouted "Lasarus!" I automatically took a step back - and fell down the altar steps. We both did quite well under the circumstances. I managed to land quietly and Tracy managed to translate her merriment into resurrection joy, so we didn't have to do a re-take!

The unusual winter we're having has called for some new vocabulary.
The warm, wet weather has suddenly summoned a couple of unusual phrases into use. One of everybody's normal jobs at this time of year is shovelling, or clearing, snow. Someone has worked out that if all the rain that has fallen in the past six weeks had fallen as snow, as would have been expected at this time of year, it would now be over 25 feet deep on flat ground - an awful lot of shovelling. People are therefore claiming to be thankful that "the snow has fallen ready-shovelled" (ferdigmåket in Norwegian).
During the winter months, it's taken as read when we say that today's temperature is "7 degrees", "19 degrees", or whatever, that we mean minus 7 or minus 19 °C. So what happens when, like today, it's 3 or 4 degrees plus, despite being January? People are having to resort to saying, a little awkwardly: "it's 3 plus-degrees today".
This month's other new Norwegian word relates not so much to the weather as to air travel. In English, every trouble - large or small - since Watergate seems to have been named the "something-gate" scandal. In a similar vein, when the 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland stranded large numbers of airline passengers around Europe, the Norwegian language acquired a new word - "Askefast" - which means ash (aske) + "stranded" (fast). Since then, any stranded travellers have been described as "...fast", depending on the nature of the problem. The low-price airline "Norwegian" has been attracting criticism lately for delays due to problems with Boeing's new Dreamliner plane (which they're using for their long-distance flights). This week they've also had a plane damaged by a collision with an eagle and today with other issues in Bangkok - so today I saw for the first time the word "Kjosfast" (Bjørn Kjos is Norwegian's answer to Ryan Air's Michael O'Leary). Wonder whether that one will make it into the dictionary?

8 January - Tracy (along with Matt) is in Prague this week, not on the run after nearly secumbing to sermon giggles but attending the triennial conference for the Normisjon organisation. The Huffington Post seems to suggest that Prague, or anywhere else for that matter, is a poor swap for Norway, but Tracy's looking forward to exploring anyway. And it's not raining there. (Points 22 and 23 on the Huffington link relate to Ålesund (Beth's town), by the way). I wondered briefly where Huffington was, and why a newspaper in such an obscure-sounding place should be interested in overseas matters, but it turns out that it's not a newspaper and it's named after its owner, not after a place. Always something new to learn!

Norway's high prices, especially for goods like alcohol, tobacco and meat, along with the many out-of-the-way and unmanned border crossings, have always been a temptation for smugglers, and hardly a week goes by without the news reporting some big and improbable haul (small family saloon stopped with a thousand cans of beer stashed into all the corners, etc). But today's "haul" brought tears to the eyes of customs officials in Nordland (near Matt's) - a Polish man had a ton of onions in his van. The news item concluded with "The police suspect that the goods were not being brought to Norway for private use". Perish the thought.

Sadly, I'm just going to have to provide the answer to the Tracy-sermon competition, and eat the chocolate marzipan pig myself (see under "solution" above).

At last, more normal weather (dry, sunny and -8 or -9) is forecast for next week (above right). Looking forward to it!

11 January - Tracy now safely back from Prague after a busy conference week. She liked the city - photos to follow at some point.

13 January - The intruder - Just before midnight last night I woke up to the sound of a car on the drive. Big 4x4 with the same engine as Andrew's car (2.5 diesel Mitsubishi), but it didn't sound quite like his car. And besides, Andrew had gone back to his flat in Sandnes earlier in the day in readiness for the coming week, and it wasn't likely that he'd driven all the way back here again. So I got up and peered out of the bathroom window to see where the car had gone. It was parked behind the barn, its headlights shining into the forest. Exactly where Andrew often parks. All the same, I thought I'd better check, so I pulled on some clothes and headed out across the yard. On the way to the barn it occured to me that just in case it was an intruder, I'd pick up an axe from the garage. From the garage we have a "short cut" to the barn - a wooden ladder that emerges through a gap at floor level between the two sections of the barn. Through the gap I could hear what sounded like Andrew talking on the phone, and could make out a roughly Andrew-shaped body walking around. So rather than picking up the axe I climbed the ladder so that I was standing just below the barn's floor level, peering through the little gap. The body wasn't Andrew - but it was his friend and classmate Kjell Arne from a nearby farm, evidently on the phone to Andrew and receiving instructions about where to find some tool or other. Kjell Arne was picking his way carefully around all the bits of machinery, using his torch so that he didn't fall over things in the dark. As he walked past the gap where I was lurking in the shadows, just below the floor, I rather unkindly reached up and tweaked his knee. As he left the ground there was a "waah" sound in the darkness above. Happily, Kjell Arne has good nerves and no heart problems, so we parted on good terms and he went home to dream about being attacked by monsters from the deep. This morning we found a text that Andrew had sent earlier last night: "don't worry if you hear a car in the night .. it's just Kjell Arne coming to collect something".

Comments joanna - January 13th, 2014 It sounds like the possibility of another Katie Story!! I am sure she could really make a tale of it!! Glad it wasn't a bad intruder Tim - January 13th, 2014 Katie says thanks for the suggestion - she'll bear it in mind! Jon - January 13th, 2014 Oh the joys of SMS (Sometime message system) Tracy - January 14th, 2014 The sms arrived an hour after we were in bed and the "intruder" arrived an hour after that. Such excitement meant that Tim and I could not get back to sleep so at 2am decided to picnic on tea and sandwiches in bed! We then slept very well until the alarm went off at 05.50. Never a dull moment in our house.

14 January - TV entertainment - The national TV network NRK is currently showing a 6-part series on snow ploughing (click photo, right, to watch a bit, if you want to see prime Norwegian entertainment).

Today is winter as it should be. Minus 7, brilliant sunshine glittering on decent amounts of snow, the sun at least half way down our mountain (only a few days before it's back at house level) and "our" eagles circling in a clear-blue sky above.

17 January - The flag - There was a funeral this afternoon at the little chapel, on the way between here and Vikeså (photo in more summery times here). First thing this morning I (Tim) went over there to unlock the door and put up the flag at half mast. The chapel is on a hill above the lake, and as I arrived there was a full storm blowing. The lake - though it's surrounded by mountains - had waves big enough to ground a ferry and although the heating had been on all night in the chapel, the place was still cold. The termperature is a good few minus degrees - as it should be for the time of year - and with the wind-chill it was easily -20°, and felt it. I picked up the flag and went out into the churchyard. I had to stand upwind of the flagpole and lean on it in order not to be blown away. To untie the flagpole rope I had to take off my gloves, which immediately flew to the other end of the churchyard. I was well wrapped up, in wool underwear, thick shirt, wool jumper, fur-lined whole-body snow suit, scarf, hat and all the rest, but even so the wind was going right through it all. The flag was flapping madly and I wrapped it round the flagpole in an attempt to keep it under control. As I tried to tie it onto the rope I was rapidly loosing all feeling in my fingers. I decided that given the strength of the wind it wasn't responsible to put the flag up at all. One end of the flag was now knotted in place, but because of frozen and numb fingers I could neither tie the other end nor untie the bit I'd done. But if I just let go of it all and bolted inside to thaw out, the remains of the flag would end up wrapped round a tree fifty miles away. I stuck my fingers inside my jumper for a moment, thawed them out sufficiently to untie the flag, roughly secured the rope back round the flagpole and bolted back inside the church. Phew. We had a funeral without a flag at half (or any other degree of) mast.
The funeral was that of a 91-year-old lady who (curiously enough) used to go to Tracy's church in Sandnes, though she was born around here and therefore buried in her original "home" chapel. A soloist came from the town to sing a solo, and I accompanied her on the organ. Just before she got up to sing, there was an extra gust of wind outside. The church is a traditional building, made of hand-planed whole tree trunks arranged to fit each other a bit like a dry-stone wall. This type of building has a certain "give" that allows it to withstand the gales that we get around here. The building "gave" - it seemed to lurch a few inches to the left and creaked and groaned in protest. The soloist leaped out of her chair and was heading for the door, and had to be reassured that "it always does that". Before going out into the churchyard, the vicar issued a warning that people should wrap up well before leaving the building ("I certainly will be doing") and that there was no shame in staying inside. We don't want any more funerals just yet!

Cookery day - At the end of a very busy week for us all (hence very little written here!) Tracy has had a massive cooking session in order to get meals in the freezer for busy times ahead!

Comments Tracy - January 17th, 2014 2 large quiche, 3 chilli con carne, 8 lasagne, 20 meatballs, lentil soup, 4 chicken and cashew nut casserole, 4 sausage and beetroot casserole. Phew! joanna - January 18th, 2014 Tracy Definitely PHEW!! I tried making 3 batches of chutney recently and it nearly killed me, so well done you !!

18 January - Trailer - I mentioned earlier that Andrew had given me a unique father's-day present - half a trailer (i.e. half-shares in a whole trailer). This was a trailer that he'd bought and was restoring. New wheels, new base, new sides, new brakes: it's rather like the joke about "I've had the same brush for the past twenty years - it's had eight new handles and ten new brush heads!" He's done a fantastic job and it's now ready for registering - and useable, though the base and sides are not yet fitted (that's the next job). Click photo, above right, for enlargement.

Ice patterns - I mentioned yesterday that a terrible icy gale was blowing across the lake. Here (Click photo, left, for pictures) you can see the results along the bank.

Comments Jon - January 20th, 2014 Fabulous ice pictures. And we don't seem to get waves like that here even on the sea! Joanna - January 20th, 2014 Hi Jon you should see what we can get round here, luckily so far we haven't had the ice but oh boy the waves have been pretty big, I'm in North Norfolk!!

26 January - On the road - That icy gale is still blowing. It keeps trying very hard to get into the house and certainly makes itself known as soon as we step outside. The roads are open, but not many people are trying to get around. Coming home from church this morning I met almost no-one until getting back to Ørsdalen, where the road was quite busy (see photos here).

28 January - fires - We started the month with the wettest period since records began, but the last three weeks have been dry, cold and terribly windy. The gales are causing some problems, including damage to buildings, and last night, parts of Stavanger were without electricity because the power cables had been brought down by a passing trampoline. Cold, dry and windy is perfect for drying firewood, and we've been taking full advantage of this. But there's a downside to this, too. Ironically , it's so dry and windy that there is now an acute danger of forest fires - and property fires too. Last week came the shock news that the West-Norway village of Lærdal had burned down overnight - the fire spreading in the wind from one wooden house to another to create the worst fire in Norway since the Second World War. Last night and today there was another (even worse?) major fire, this time at a village in mid-Norway. According to the news, all 139 houses there are on fire (photo from last night here). There's only one road to the village and the fire brigade daren't use it in case they get stranded, and it's too windy to get helicopters off the ground. The whole penninsula on which the village and surrounding farms was located has been sealed off and will presumably be completely destroyed. Very sad; terrible for the people affected. Like everyone says, the weather is becoming very strange.

30 January - fires (ii) - Even the two fires mentioned above have now vanished from the news to be replaced by a third - possibly yet bigger - one also in mid-Norway, where a quite large island with a village is in flames (photo from last night here). People in the neighbouring district were looking anxiously at the red glow to the south and hoping for water when they were swept off their feet by a 25-foot tidal wave caused by an avalanche. This sort of thing simply doesn't happen in Norway - it's utterly bizzarre and leaves you wandering what's going to happen next. Here in Ørsdalen we're bunkered down quietly as usual and it's almost a relief to look out of the window and see heavy snow outside. No forest fires here today, at least!

31 January - Do you want a job with interesting anatomical challenges? - I couldn't resist reproducing a job advert from today's paper (above right - click for enlargement). The Norwegian Mission Society (NMS) requires a "Right hand for the General Secretary". They're not looking in a second-hand shop, presumably because the right hand's main job (or at least the one that's listed first under the list of duties) is to "hold the General Secretary by the ears". Here lies the interesting anatomical challenge. Do you have a spare right hand that can hold someone by (both) ears (at the same time?). If so, NMS would like to hear from you. Contact details are on the advert. Say I sent you.

Comments Pat Here is one, found in Valencia cathedral. St Vincent's but I don't think he needs it any more.