1 September - Family is re-assembled at home after the funeral. Katie and Tim arrived at in Kristiansand at midnight, after a crossing on the night ferry from Hirtshals, and rolled into Ørsdalen at 4am. See short film clip of drive into the valley here.
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3 September - unexpected events - Just five years ago this month, Bjerkreim church was celebrating its 175th anniversary and Tim was in Germany on behalf of the church, buying a new Bechstein grand piano to celebrate the occasion. Naturally, the piano needed an inaugural concert and somehow or another Tim got hold of the Russian international star pianist Natalia Strelchenko to give it. It was a great concert, and rather a different type of venue than her usual major concert halls. She obviously liked the area, because last year she unexpectedly applied for the post of Director of Music at Sandnes Church (the job that Tim accepted and now holds). This was the lady who was murdered in Manchester on Sunday.
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4 September - the sermon -
Tracy has to be in two places at once during her service on Sunday, so (as she occasionally does) she's recorded her sermon on film and it will be shown on the screen at church.
Of course, the congregation doesn't get to see the bigger picture (click photo, left).
7 September - the search -
Our valley, in which nothing out of the ordinary ever happens, suddenly filled up today.
Dozens of cars, ambulances, Red-Cross vehicles, and a helicopter overhead.
A school class (the year below Katie's) had gone for their annual trekk in the mountains,
but when the pupils were counted at lunchtime there was one 14-year-old girl too few.
The following 6 hours saw panic escalating.
It was very heartwarming to be up there and see how many people turned out to help with the search.
In the event, she was found unhurt (just rather lost) and taken by helicopter to join the rest of her class (that's one way of getting out of a long walk).
A day she'll not forget in a hurry.
(Click photo, right, for a picture of the normally-deserted road, also showing the river, towards "our private" beach).
11 September - the staff meeting -
Tim's church staff have had an extended staff meeting, with overnight stay at a cabin.
The cabin was near Lindenses - Norway's southernmost point.
Spectacular weather (summer has belatedly arrived this week) contributed to a pleasant trip (click photo, left, for five pictures).
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12 September - the sailing -
Although we've lived in Ørsdalen for over 6 years, we've never actually been on the ferry that used to be the only way into our valley, before the road and tunnel were built.
So today — to make up for not getting to play with the powerboats at Lindesnes — we managed to make the trip.
The weather was on our side, although there was a stiff breeze (which made the lake quite rough) and the skies were starting to cloud over in preparation for the rain that is just arriving.
(Click photo, right, for picture series).
14 September - the election -
Today was election day in Norway — not a general election but four other elections: local council, county council, PCC and diocesan council.
Note that the local PCC election is of such significance that it is a formal event alongside the others, while the diocesan council election is hard-fought and the subject of press campaigns, largely due to an unfortunate battle between liberal and conservative forces within the church.
In any event, Ørsdalen has its own voting station and as an election officer for the church elections Tim sat there from 2 til 8pm along with the obligatory two others
(by law there have to be three so that there's always one to keep an eye on the other even when one person nips out to the toilet).
During the day we saw a fair cross-section of Ørsdalen's population and
as eight o'clock chimed, the tenth voter of the day rushed in through the door to get his ballot paper in the box before we sealed it and returned it to Vikeså for counting. (Photo of my two colleagues at the polling station - click image, left).
Results of local/county elections: Nationally a big shift leftwards (the current Right government is not popular); locally the biggest parties are the Christian Party and the Centre Party (which is favoured by farmers).
18 September - no news is no news - Last autumn, the whole of the Norwegian media was in a frenzy over what later was described as "the biggest no-news story ever". We've mentioned earlier that a major avalanche is expected from a mountain just outside Åndalsnes, close to our old home at Måndalen. Over 6 million cubic feet of rock is expected to fall on this occasion from the 4250-foot-high rock face adjacent to "Trollveggen", the "Troll Wall". Later, there will be a much bigger avalanche - up to 108 million cubic feet (three Empire State Buildings) - in the same area; which potentially could cause a flood that would wipe out Åndalsnes. The area is one of the most closely-monitored bits of rock in Norway, with every movement being registered by dozens of scientific instruments and immediately computer-analysed round the clock. Last October the movements were so great (the whole thing was moving a quarter of an inch a day) that nearby farms were evacuated and the main road and railway line closed. People gathered to watch the fun; at least one family put up a tent and said that they were staying until the avalanche had been, because they didn't want to miss it. All the newspapers and television stations had staff there on hand to report on the avalanche, and the main TV stations set up live feeds. A year on, they're still running. I don't know whether the family has stayed all year in the tent, though I rather doubt it. We, of course, knew better than to join in and announce an imminent rockfall last year. Current reports are that movements are increasing again, but I wouldn't hold your breath just yet. If you've nothing better to do, you can keep an eye on the live feed. Perhaps you'll catch the moment when it all comes down.
18 September - but this is big news! -
We have an engagement to annouce.
We waited for a few days in order that not everyone should find out first from this site,
but our Thomas Andrew has become engaged to Kristin (photo, left - click for enlargement).
Kristin is lovely and they make a great couple.
Congratulations!
The official geologists obviously follow this blog very closely. Within an hour of my publishing the above paragraph about the avalanche, the geologists responded by heightening the warning level to "red", closing the main railway line again and evacuating 359 residents (nine humans and 350 sheep) from the area. Thomas is here as I write and he assures you that the mountain will collapse at 2.30 am tomorrow. He also points out that the live feed is currently (at night-time) about as useful as our own webcam picture at midnight. There is, however, a thermal night-vision camera (second image down on this page) in case you want to stay up all night and check on Thomas' prediction. If you do, you won't be alone. I won't be, but according to NRK's viewing figures, on average at least 30 people have been up and watching the live feed on any given night all through the past year — and it's a fair bet that a lot more will be doing now.
19 September - other news while we're waiting -
In the absence of collapsing mountains (it's currently moving about 2 inches a day, but otherwise not going anywhere), we'll have to make do with the day's other news.
The major story is that if you're Norway's Crown Prince then you'd better keep out of the way of Mrs Crown Prince for the rest of the day.
The reason is that the Crown Prince made an official visit to a mosque yesterday and, like you apparently do in such places, took his shoes off at the door.
Unfortunately, he was wearing those socks that Mrs Crown Prince had told him to throw away last week
and which he had sneaked back into his wardrobe until he'd had a chance to go out to buy some more
(photo, right - click for larger hole).
The day's second story is that the security forces were tested with a surprise exercise recently. They had to go and rescue some hostages from a staged situation on an oil rig in north Norway. You may recall from past descriptions here that — no offence intended — things have a habit of not going too well in such exercises. Most recently on 14 March, when they got lost and stormed the wrong house. Or the little episode at the petrol station in Oslo which we reported on 2 December 2009. Not to mention the small matter of that bomb on 18 July 2011. This time they turned up 28 hours too late because they couldn't find a plane, their Sea King was unavailable and the army wouldn't lend them a helicopter and their submarine was in for a service. They wanted to use three inflatable boats, but in the absence of transport they had to drive these for 24 hours non-stop up the coast to get them in place. It took them so long to get to North Norway that the people staging the terrorist action had to keep putting it on pause for a few hours to give the security forces a chance to get there, and the latter never actually managed to carry out the hostage-rescue attempt from the rig at all. Their statement concerning the exercise read: "We've not finished our evaluation yet. And we don't want to comment on operational details. And we'd really rather you didn't write anything about this". They did add, though: "in real life we'd have got there faster because we'd have used public transport". Article (in Norwegian).
20 September - on the move. -
We're not referring to that mountain (though that's been moving at times at a rate of over 4 inches a day), but to the three oldest in our flock.
Beth is moving to Oslo to take over as head of kitchen design at the largest branch of the company for which she works.
It's another hefty promotion and she's looking forward to the new challenge.
Matt is looking to head back from Bodø to this area of Norway - more details presently.
Thomas, while continuing to live here, has achieved everything he wanted to in his previous job
(mostly involving taking every kind of machine-driving license you can imagine and a few that you can't)
so he's left there to start full-time farming, which is his real ambition.
Swimming competition. - Katie spent today all the way down at Mandal on the south coast (within a few miles of that staff meeting on 11 September), at a swimming competition. There she managed not only to keep her head above water, so to speak, but also to beat her own personal records in every discipline - even though she also stepped in (or rather, dived in) for someone else in a relay race which meant that she was taking part in more consecutive races than is normally done. So a very good day, before coming home to play a hideously complicated board game with her dad this evening.
Northern Lights - Thanks to a tip-off from Jon, we've just had an outing (at 11 at night) up to by the tunnel to watch the northern lights performing over the mountains. Photo doesn't do them justice, but we had fun anyway.
21 September - End of an era. -
Yesterday we had a pleasant walk with the two dogs down a bit of the old main road on the way to Egersund, past a quiet lake.
It was to be the last time.
Tune, who has been showing her age recently, was lagging behind and obviously not quite herself.
Today she lay down in the autumn sunshine under one of the apple trees and declared an end to her many faithful years.
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25 September - blue dye. - Tracy bought some blue dye today in order to dye a sheet. We hope that she won't be suspected of complicity in a rather unusual incident that has been discovered by a farmer near Bergen (see photo here).
Speaking of sheep, this weekend is the annual agricultural fair at Vikeså (which is why it is pouring down outside, as it does every year for this event).
Katie has been busy today helping rig up a sound and lighting system and will be on duty there tomorrow.
Thomas will also be there together with other agriculturally-minded individuals (nearly everyone in this district).
T & T are waiting to see just how many inches of rain fall before reaching a decision.
26 September - ... and the decision was, a bakery day for Tracy (help yourself, left).
And what was in today's national news? Click here to find out.
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26 September -
Today was harvest festival at Tim's church, with the youngest age group children's choir doing solos.
They all seemed to enjoy it.
If some of them look a little anxious, they're probably just hoping that they haven't eaten too many of those apples as well, like the one front left
(photo, right - click for enlargement).
The weather has mis-timed it and cleared up for the final day of the agricultural fair (photo here).
28 September - A few weeks ago we had a very enjoyable visit from Jon and Sarah, which we reported here. Jon's blog features some of his excellent photos from that week; part 1 here and part 2 here.
We stayed up last night to look at the red eclipsed moon (Tracy reckoned that perhaps we will be disinclined next time, in thirty-odd years). It didn't really perform, thanks to a sudden cloud. So here it is tonight instead. Neither red nor eclipsed, but just peeping over the mountains.
29 September -
Autumn means, amongst other things, mist hanging over the rivers and lakes in the early morning.
Here (left - click for pictures) is Vikeså at 7.30am.
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