1 October - Today's national news: a case of international diplomacy -
One of the staple foods that you'll see on almost every breakfast table in Norway is liver pate,
which amongst other options is available in tins. These tins are enlivened by a picture of a smiling child (example, right).
The company that produces it, Stabburet — perhaps you remember from these pages a few years back that someone hacked the company's website
and made it advertise tinned stray cat for Oslo's oriental residents — will now produce tins to order with your child's picture on the lid.
Faintly uneasy tinge of cannibalism there, but never mind.
The national news reports that one customer this week sent in a photo of their smiling 9-year-old and duly received their tin (click picture, right, to view result).
Stabburet has issued an apologetic statement. "We'll make sure that Putin gets his tin: we don't want trouble with the Russians".
You get all the important international news on this page.
New laws - Jon has pointed out — and generously said that it should be published here — that some new laws come into force in Norway today. We call them "new" laws; they were actually passed in 2005 "but because the police have had to update their computer systems it has not been possible to bring them into force until now". A decade to update your computer? That's the trouble with Windows™. But, to get back to the laws: one of these provides for up to two years in jail for ... overstaying your welcome when (and here we quote from the actual preface to the law) "a dinner host asks the guests to leave his home because it is starting to get late". Jon and I, concerned about the risk of going out to dinner and ending up serving time, are speculating about how we know when it's time to go home. Does it have to be spelled out, or is it enough of a hint when the coffee cups are cleared away and the dishwasher put on? In case you have trouble swallowing this (the law, I mean, not the dinner), here is the report about it on the NRK news. "This is how the Department of Justice has decided that it should be", says a "despairing" Supreme Court Judge Magnus Matningsdal at the end of the article.
Blue sheep - We wrote at the end of last week about an incident in which a farmer's sheep had apparently been dyed or painted blue overnight. The farmer wasn't terribly pleased. The culprit has now been found: the sheep did it to themselves. They had apparently broken into a garden and amused themselves by rubbing up against a boat that had just been taken out of the water for the winter and given a fresh coat of blue hull-paint. Furthermore they then rubbed the worst of the paint off on the walls of the boat-owner's house. The culprits were easy to identify because they had left visiting cards as well as a trail of minor devastation on their way home. So Tracy no longer needs to worry about having just bought blue dye.
3 October - cracking the code -
It was flea market day at the Ørsdalen village hall and there were people and cars everywhere when Katie and Tim arrived from the morning's swimming.
The hall was full of the usual kind of flea-market items; to be polite we can say that the most interesting content was at the cakes stall.
One item, though, had caused some interest and a great deal of involvement — a very beautifully-made and obviously expensive leather brief case.
It was heavy. And locked with two combination locks.
The only problem was that neither combination was known.
Most of the visitors had spent some time with it (and the people setting up the stall had spent most of yesterday evening twiddling with it to try to get it open).
Tim came in and had the case open in 20 seconds, before buying it for £2 to keep music in.
Several people asked how this had been managed, but only got the reply "that's my secret".
So here, as an exclusive to this blog, you can learn how it was done.
The answer is, I tried putting in the three first figures of the village post code.
When that didn't work I twiddled the numbers at random and the first lock opened in five seconds.
I then repeated the process with the other lock.
Not sure how that happened, but I now have a reputation as a master-safe-breaker.
But no-body locks doors around here anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
And what made it so heavy?
It was full of books of the "I'll get rid of these at the next flea market"-variety.
Apart from code breaking, the most interesting thing to come out of the day was a rumour. The rumour is that the highways authority, bless them, are intending to close the Ørsdalen tunnel for three months as of next week. No-one knows anything about it other than the vague rumour, and it's not mentioned on the internet anywhere, including on the highway-authority's own "work planned on tunnels" list, which means that it's very probably true and will cause havoc. I've written to the highways authority to ask whether they're allowed to tell us (they normally keep such plans a strict secret until suddenly you find yourself the wrong side of a closed tunnel for a few months) and we'll keep you posted.
5 October - Tunnel - It is, of course, true — the tunnel is to close next Monday until mid-January. At least we managed to find out a week before it actually happened, which gives us a chance to make plans. Apparently, they will open it in the morning to allow the school bus out and in the afternoon to allow it back again. I've written to the highways authority to draw their attention to:
- the milk tankers won't be able to come to collect cow milk and goat milk
- the post can't be delivered
- rubbish can't be collected
- the road can't be cleared, so even if the school bus is allowed through it won't help because the road will be closed anyway
- emergency services — for people and animals — can't get through
- people like (for instance) vicars who have somewhat irregular working hours won't be helped by being able to get in and out with the school bus once a day.
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10 October - Weekend away -
Peversely, perhaps, we're celebrating our last few days of free access to Ørsdalen on a weekend away —
the annual church weekend at Tonstad (the village that's a dozen miles from home as the crow flies but an hour and a quarter's drive round the mountains to get there by road).
Tonstad is rather higher in the mountains, so it's more autumnal, with beautifully-coloured trees around the many lakes.
(click right for 6 photos).
12 October - Not going anywhere - Back home, we are now isolated in Ørsdalen. Not that this is a great problem so far, but I'm sure that irritations will arise after a day or two. Of course, getting about is never supposed to be easy in Norway. Today's news reports that fog has closed the airport at Trondheim so northbound passengers (towards Bodø) were sent by train and southbound ones (towards Oslo) were sent by bus. Unfortunately the train is now stuck because of an avalanche over the tracks and the bus has ended up in a ditch. The bus passengers have been returned to Trondheim in the hope that the fog will clear and flights will soon resume. The train passengers are all in for a long session of playing "I spy" until someone arrives to dig them out.
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While we were away for the weekend, an evening of strong winds brought down the top part of the big tree just next to the house (photo - above left). Happily it fell away from the house, so Thomas — who was in charge during our absence — was able to just drag it to one side with his pickup. Quite impressive: the trunk (which when you look at the two sections appears to have been perfectly sound and solid) has snapped off in the middle. Ah well, it will make a useful contribution to the winter's firewood!
14 October - "Getting around" (or the lack of it) seems to have turned into the topic of the month, so a story that Tracy has pointed out in one of Norway's national newspapers seems quite appropriate. It concerns the police station at Selje, a little south of Ålesund, and showed a photo of the head policeman there trying to look a little unhappy. His problem was that there's no police car in his district, so if he has to go anywhere (which seemingly isn't all that often) he has to ring for a taxi. He can drive his private car, he adds, but it's embarrassingly old and he has to remove his children's car seats first. It all sounds comfortably 1950s, though we do see his point that by the time the taxi has arrived and he's screwed the portable blue flashing light onto the roof and said "follow that get-away car", any villains are miles away.
Golden evenings -
we've arrived at that time of year when the sun is low in the sky in the late afternoons, bringing out almost absurdly strong colours in the forest
(click photo, above, for enlargements).
19 October -
It's a problem at this time of year.
We were driving down from the tunnel into Ørsdalen the other day and we stopped on one of the bends and looked out over the valley.
It was beautiful - the sun was bringing out the colours of the fields, the river, the bright-red barns, the autumnal forests.
Tracy asked whether I wanted to get out and take a picture.
The answer was no. I've taken that picture a dozen times before,
and even though it feels each time as if it's more fantastic than we've ever seen it before, in reality it's already there on the blog, somewhere.
In just the same way, on Saturday I was driving home from a wedding in Sandnes and couldn't resist jumping out of the car every few hundred yards to take a new picture.
You can see some of them here (click photo, left, for sequence) —
even though we've shown fantastic pictures from that drive on at least one previous occasion.
Somehow it just seems fresh and new every time.
And last night I drove past the River Bjerkreim towards Egersund and that was somehow even better.
(click photo, right, for enlargement and very short film clip).
It really is a problem at this time of year.
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20 October - The postman calls - We're gradually getting used to the tunnel-less life — or rather, to the interesting side-effects. There are short periods each day when we're allowed to get through, which meant that when we were a little late leaving Sandnes today we had to disregard a few speed limits and take the winding lanes in a manner more suited to a sports car than a 4x4, all the while expecting not to make it in time. In the event, we got to the tunnel at the second it was being closed again and just scraped through. As the various regular visitors to Ørsdalen discover the problem, new solutions keep emerging. We noticed that a milk tanker was collecting goat milk in the middle of the night, while there's a note in the post box to say that rubbish collection will be on alternate Tuesdays at at 7am from now on until the tunnel re-opens. Yesterday, the postman came to the door with a few letters. We wondered a little at this: why not just leave them in the post box as usual? Tracy asked whether there was a parcel, or something that needed signing for. The postman said that there wasn't, but nevertheless seemed to linger on the doorstep, as though he had some sort of unfinished business. "Would you like to come in and sit in a comfortable chair in front of the fire until you can get out of the valley again?" "Oh, well", he said, rushing in through the door before we changed our minds, "since you're offering". So he sat and drank coffee and chatted for a couple of hours until the appointed time when he could get out again.
21 October - A visit to Hogwarts -
We drove through the unmarked garage door at the back of the petrol station in Stavanger, down eight or nine loops of the long spiral road (stopping on the third loop down to admire the unexpected cave containing a car vacuum), struggled with a recalcitrent ticket machine and ended up in the deep-underground car park.
With its hidden entrance, it's rather like something out of James Bond.
Admittedly, there are more obvious and public entrances along other streets, dotted around Stavanger.
And that's a funny thing — when you walk out through one of the exits you've really no idea where you're going to end up.
Sometimes you emerge in the city centre and sometimes, well, almost anywhere.
If you see pyramids and camels then you go back in and try a different exit.
The purpose of our visit was to look at a school: Katie's current first choice for a sixth-form school next year.
Norway has all sorts of qualities, as we've mentioned elsewhere, but apart from a few dozen wooden medieval stave churches,
it generally lacks the kind of querky historical individualism that you can find in places in the UK, for instance.
This school is an exception.
It's a small school — there was one member of staff to show each prospective pupil round — but overflowing with character.
It is known as the Cathedral School (formerly the "Latin School") or "Kongsgård" ("King's Farm", which was the name of the building in the middle ages).
Our private guided tour included a computer lab built in a 13th-century basement, the library
("this strip of cobbles that runs across the floor here is the original medieval main road into Stavanger"),
a meeting room with signatures of all the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish monarchs who have visited the school over a number of centuries
and a dungeon, built under the adjacent cathedral, that houses the Slytherin student common room.
Here and there, new glass floors display bits of the medieval stone flooring underneath.
Most of all, though, we were impressed by the friendly staff,
their obvious attention to detail and committment to the progress of each pupil
and by how immaculate everything was. No scratched or kicked woodwork anywhere; no signs of wear or neglect.
We returned to the car park and emerged into the petrol station. I stopped to buy some unreasonably-cheap diesel. On my way in to pay and top up with free coffee, I stopped and took a photograph of the entrance to the car park. The garage proprieter (I've been there before and he's always ready with a witty comment or cheerful enquiry) asked why I was photographing his forecourt. I explained that it was purely because of the oddity of the car-park entrance. "It's because", he said, "this is not a petrol station". "?", I said (but in Norwegian). "Over there, where the pumps are, is a petrol station. But here," (he indicated the shop part), "here is technically another premises and not part of the petrol station at all. That's why there's a public right of way straight between the two premises and into the car park. It does mean that we're about to turn this shop into part of the "Joker" chain [how apt] and apply for rights to sell beer". Some Norwegian shops can get a license to sell light ale (less than 4.5%), but this is of course not permitted in any Norwegian petrol station.
We arrived home in time to get back through the tunnel — an interesting and successful outing.
23 October - Night at the Museum -
It was back to Stavanger for Friday night this week, where the Archaeological Museum was holding a late-night event.
It was full of interesting demonstrations of everything from stone cutting and lime slaking to x-raying paintings to see what was under the surface.
No dinosaurs coming to life — in fact there weren't any dinosaurs at all; just the skeleton of a polar bear found near Stavanger a while ago.
There was also a bit of 6000-year old chewing gum with a teenager's tooth marks in it.
Pity this didn't come with a sound track from the time it was dropped:
[pre-historic parent] "Put that chewing gum in the bin: it'll stick to the floor and still be there in thousands of years"
[teenager] "Yea, right, wotever. Pre-historic, that's wot you are".
25 October - swimming competition -
Tracy was drafted in as time-keeper at today's swimming competition (photo, left, outside the pool building, in jazzy official t-shirt) —
not, of course, allowed to time Katie's races, in which she gained three gold medals. A good day!
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