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For the past few weeks we've been taking photos of the forest as seen from the bathroom window, to watch it changing over the course of the autumn. Assuming the technology all works you may be able to see the result by clicking the little arrow at the bottom-left corner of the picture (left). (If the picture is all black or the arrow doesn't work you may need to refresh the page, or you might need to click the button at the top of the browser to allow Windows Media Player if it's being blocked).

4 November - Something a-foot. - But what's up with Tune's foot (photo, right)? As I was driving out of Ørsdalen this morning, a flock of white vans had gathered just on the valley side of the tunnel, and my drive down the narrow road past the ski centre was punctuated by frequent excursions almost into the ditch as seven large lorries as well as two articulated trailers carrying tarmac machines headed up towards Ørsdalen. The long-awaited road surfacing has begun. (Click photo, right, for view of work in progress at the bottom of our drive). Tune rapidly made a close investigation of the process, but has now been prised loose.

Comments Norah - November 4th, 2014 Is this where the new service station will be placed? Did you stock up with corn flakes in Hirtshals? Obviously you still like extremely long journeys. Tim We asked ourselves just the same question when they started work on the road, which seemed quite out of dimension with the surroundings. Hirtshals was never what you would call a lively European centre of culture, but it seems to have gone downhill recently and on a wet and windy autumnal day it is, without wanting to be unkind, a dump. So no cornflake buying! But I was able to stock up on various things in Germany ...

We've discovered that the road out of Ørsdalen is now completely closed for the next three days while work is being carried out. Naturally we weren't told about this (nor was anyone else). So technically we're stranded (though we did make a bolt for it over the fields today and got out - see highlights of our escape here).

21 November - Flurries - It's been an unprecedented long time without anything new appearing here - apologies. It's a sad combination of too little news and too much work. So here is a little catch-up.

We've had flurries of activity on the road. It was re-opened after four days (needless to say, it took a day longer than they estimated; but then, the road was so uneven before that they've had to raise the level by about four inches, which means an awful lot of tarmac!). A day or two later we were startled to wake up to what looked like a congress of bin lorries (photo, left - click for enlargement)). As our bin lorry is a little Transit van that comes once a fortnight, this seemed unlikely. In the event, they turned out to painting white lines on the new tarmac - a seemingly unneccesary exercise, but presumably demanded by some EU directive. We are, however, greatly enjoying our beautifully-surfaced road.

We've spoken before about flurries of mice. We have six moustraps strategically placed around the outside walls of the house, and these all attract a good deal of custom. So when NRK radio mentioned in the county news that someone was looking after an injured owl and needed a supply of mice not killed by poisons, Tracy naturally got in touch and volunteered. This led to her being interviewed on the radio on the subject of our ecological mouse production and to our providing a guarantee to keep the said owl well fed. Since then - three days ago - not one single mouse has stepped into a trap at our house. We've concluded that they all listen to NRK. (picture of one of our mice, right).

Comments Norah - November 23rd, 2014 I am delighted to hear about the mice and hope you will soon have a flourishing owl population. They are much nicer.

We've had flurries of cake baking on the part of Katie. She has discovered a dangerous talent for cake-making, resulting in an orange cake one day and a wonderful apple cake another. Tim is being kept busy eating them up.

Then there was a flurry of snow. This is the first year since we came that we've not had snow by mid-October. Actually it hardly deserves the name - just a sprinkling on the mountains on Tuesday 18th, with a light dusting on the road up by the ski centre. A little more fell today, and the tops of all the mountains visible from the house are now white. But nothing like winter yet. Winter tyres have gone onto Tracy's car, but not onto Tim's until the weather gets worse - which we're hoping won't be soon!

And finally, a flurry of news stories about people.
(1) One story involves women drivers (don't blame me!). A woman in Oslo managed to run herself over in a car that she was driving at the time. She managed this difficult feat by hitting something while reversing the car down a road. She jumped out and ran behind the car to see what she had hit, but in her haste she forgot to stop the car first ...
(2) Norwegians tell "Irish" jokes about the Swedes, so whenever a Swede does anything unexpected it gets well reported in the media. So the press enjoyed it very much when a Swedish man moved to Bergen this week and set off for a little walk up the hill behind his house. He rapidly found out that Norway is a bit wilder than he was used to. He got to the top of the hill and headed down the other side, but by then it was getting dark, his mobile-phone torch ran out of batteries and he ended up twisting his ankle in a boulder field the wrong side of a lake and having to ring the police, who had to carry an inflatable dinghy for miles to get to the lake and rescue him. And he'd only intended it to be a little stroll.
(3) Norwegians, however, can outdo the Swedes without even trying. The third story is about a man (called Jens) who was fined £700 for losing control over his bonfire. He accepts the fine in principle, but objected because the letter was sent to him in Bokmål Norwegian (you remember that there's two official varieties of Norwegian and the quarrels between supporters of these versions are almost worse than the Welsh Language conflicts used to be). So he sent the letter back and demanded it in Nynorsk. Since then he's kept getting reminders, with ever-increasing amounts of charges and threats of bailifs and imprisonment; but he just returns them all, repeating that he wants a Nynorsk fine. "Last time", he says, referring to a speeding fine a decade ago, "it took 7 years to get it".

Fudge, however, is unconcerned by such things and taking life easy as usual (photo, above left - click for enlargement).

Last but by no means least, congratulations to Thomas Andrew who is no longer a teenager. 20 today! Inspecting cake - right.

25 November - The tablecloth - Tracy went into the church second-hand shop in Sandnes today to buy an advent-like tablecloth. She returned with an ice-cream machine. Super-deluxe and advanced, brand new, never-used ice-cream machine for only 100 kroner: irresistable. So this evening we've had freshly-made strawberry ice cream. Beats a tablecloth, any day.

Comments Jon - November 25th, 2014 Home made ice-cream. Wow. Next it will be home made ice-cream cake made with real home made ice-cream made with home grown strawberries (or in Nenglish "homemadeicecreamcakemadewithrealhomemadeicecreammadewithhomegrownstrawberries", or in Norwegian "hjemmelaget iskremkakelagetavektehjemmelagetiskremlagetavhjemmedyrketjordbær". We'll definitely be coming to visit, both to eat ice cream and play Scrabble ... Tim - November 26th, 2014 We'll look forward to the visit. But we'll need an extension to the scrabble board to accommodate 70-letter words - and if you dare to put it on a triple-word score square, you'll find yourself back on the first plane northwards!

27 November - Today's news reports on the opening of a new stretch of motorway by a government minister. It was only mildly delayed when he discovered that he'd lost the scissors with which he was supposed to cut the ribbon. The problem, however, was solved in normal Norwegian fashion. A stray member of the public who was standing next to the minister happened to have a hunting knife in his pocket, so he lent it to him to cut the ribbon with. So everyone went home happy.

29 November - A day of wood - We spent a very long day chopping, splitting and stacking firewood. This is wood that has been drying all summer and autumn in lengths, but only now have we finished the preparations for winter. We were watched by our resident stoat (now turned white for the winter) who peeped at us from over a rock until I came too close with the camera and he scampered away. You can just make him out on the rather blurry picture.

Arms now aching.

30 November - Rock of Ages around the clock - National TV channel NRK2 will this evening end their 3-day-long programme of round-the-clock continuous hymn singing - the whole of the 899 hymns in the Norwegian hymn book. If you happened to miss any of it (that verse when you were just putting the kettle on), you can see it all again here (conveniently split into 2-hour segments). Such eccentricity has apparently attracted some slightly incredulous reports in overseas news broadcasts, but at least, having been around a bit in Norway, we are able to play the good Norwegian game of "spot friends and neighbours" - such as where good friends from Måndalen feature in this hymn.