Header picture - star above the forest
Photo 28 November [and ever so slightly edited].

Happy Advent!

3 December - With Duracell in the forest - After a couple of windy nights, some trees have blown down in the forest. (Not just in the forest, by the way: we also encountered uprooted trees lying in the middle of the road — photo here (apologies for the low quality; it was taken off the car's dashcam)). Even though there's plenty of firewood for this winter we can't neglect the future (nor can you refuse when nature helpfully starts felling trees for you) so Tim was up there this morning prospecting and planning how to chop them up and get them down. With good help from Thomas Andrew's dog Duracell, who is staying with us this week. (Click photo, left, for pictures). Immediately afterwards we all went for a long walk in the mountains — Duracell bounding, rushing around and cavorting the whole time — and on our return towards our front door and the promise of the teapot and some very welcoming Advent chocolate biscuits from our friends in Germany, Duracell was glancing hopefully down the drive; "surely we can go for another walk now?". Her batteries never run low.

4 December - Out of Africa - The reason that Duracell was here was that her owner has been in Africa all week, doing volunteer technical work for an educational and social project in south-west Kenya. Of course, only he could go out into the bush to look at hippos and crocodiles and unexpectedly run into people from Vikeså, but this also happened. In any event, he is now back and once he recovers from the cold we'll get an account of his doings there.

Hogwarts from the air - Came across this autumnal photo of Katie's school as seen from broomstick height. The building at the top of the picture is Stavanger Cathedral; the dark area bottom left is the lake.

10 December - Christmas workshop at Norkirken (Tracy's church) - This whole-day event, organised by Tracy — craft activities, food, reading the Christmas story, carols round the tree — has become one of our annual pre-Christmas traditions. As usual there was a good and happy crowd (click photo, right, for picture sequence).

11 December - "singing in Christmas" — a kind of pre-Christmas carol service — finished Tracy's busy weekend at church (click photo, left, for picture sequence).

In connection with the weekend's festivities, I needed a quick list of Christmas carols (as a handy resource for those "just play a few carols while we take the collection"-moments). Google, of course, sent me to Wikipedia, which provides a decent list of carols in English. There are just as many carols in Norwegian — better ones, most of them — but for some reason only one of these makes it to the Wikipedia list; and that one — disconcertingly, rather — is a carol about mice not getting caught in mousetraps. But while looking at this startling omission, I noticed that speakers of Occitan (you'll find them, if you listen carefully, in the border areas between France and Spain) evidently belong to the Eeyore school of celebration; according to the same list, their sole Christmas carol is entitled "My leg hurts".

13 December - What is it? An odd evening. To give you the short and fairly normal version, it started when I found a bunch of keys in my pocket that weren't mine. So naturally, I photographed them in order to email the picture to all my colleagues in case they were presently sitting weeping in the street, locked out from wherever they were supposed to be (in which case they probably wouldn't get the email either, but never mind). But when I looked at the camera, I found this photograph. The only problem is, I've no idea what it is or how I came to take the picture. So maybe this ought to be our next caption competition. Best caption or explanation. The prize is a bunch of keys ...

Comments Jon - December 13th, 2016 The actual answer is, your picnic table on the veranda, looking across the valley. If I hadn't recognised it, I would have been tempted to wonder if you had in fact picked up a colleague's coat (and therefore their keys and camera, containing their photos). Remember the incident with the other person's car . . . ? Tracy - December 14th, 2016 You are right about the picture but a bit off about the keys. You see, they were in his trouser pocket! As far as I remember he was wearing his own trousers! ;) Tim - December 14th, 2016 Yes, you seem to be right about the trousers. At least, I seem to recognise the bits of fluff, receipts, unidentified plastic thing, foreign coin that I've still not managed to make good use of; yes, these are mine. And Jon, you're right about the table. Must have just pressed the button accidentally while searching my pockets for something. I'll put the keys in the post to you. Jon - December 14th, 2016 Curiouser and curiouser. It all sounds a bit 'twilight zone'. Anyway, I'll look forward to receiving the keys, and I'll leave them somewhere convenient in case you need them back at any point. On the other hand, this could just be a side-effect of Heisenberg uncertainty principle, in which you have popped up in a parallel universe, where the keys are in fact yours. Have you tried them, just to make sure? And are certain you have the correct Tracy? Katie - December 14th, 2016 Who's Tracy? Jon - December 14th, 2016 Katie, you are showing all the signs of a budding astrophysicist. You know instinctively about Heisenberg, but your own mother? Or maybe we are in a parallel universe! Tim - December 15th, 2016 In the run-up to Christmas, both Tracy and I have huge amounts of momentum, which according to Heisenberg means that our positions (relative to each other, bunches of stray keys and bent plastic Ikea self-assembly screwdrivers in trouser pockets) are uncertain and Katie's position relative to Tracy is indefinable. Enough to make you walk the Planck.

19 December - Cutting the lawn for Christmas - It's unseasonably warm and snow-free (in parts of the north it's presently warmer than in mid-summer). Stepped out of the door today and started to walk towards the garage when I suddenly heard a galloping of small hooves and bleats of welcome. Turned and saw that a team was busy treating our lawn to a Christmas trim (together with the occasional bout of pruning on the bushes). (click photo,left, for enlargement)

Comments joanna - December 19th, 2016 Can't resist this crack sorry ' were you washing your socks ' or even seated on the ground!! Have a good Christmas and Tracy a great birthday as well With love. Tim - December 20th, 2016 To which Mr Scrooge would say "Baaa humbug". Thank you Joanna! And also to you!

23 December - Into the Christmas routine. Decorating the house for Christmas (photo, Katie making a start on the Christmas tree) this morning, then carol service this afternoon. The carol service is an English 9 lessons and carols in Stavanger Cathedral. We always make a day of it, including a meal out and a wander around the city centre. This year we tried out a new Asian restaurant unpromisingly located in a shopping centre. Just a few tables in a corner behind a little bamboo fence — but the food was fantastic. The cathedral, as Tracy pointed out, had been adapted for an English-type service by the simple expedient of removing the two front windows for maintenance and covering them over with a tarpaulin. This made the cathedral sufficiently cold, damp and draughty to make any English-speaking visitors feel thoroughly at home. And we all did our bit: Katie was in the choir, Matt took the collection, Tim played the organ and Tracy did the taking part. Then home for supper and getting warm again. (Click picture, right, for photos).

24 December - Happy birthday, Tracy, while absent husband is in Sandnes church, with three Christmas-eve services. Help yourself to a piece of lemon meringue pie, left.

Comments Norah - December 24th, 2016 Happy Birthday Tracy! Tracy - December 25th, 2016 Thank you Norah. Merry Christmas to you!

Thomas Andrew reports that the national television channel NRK is doing another of its famous "slow television" programmes today: a 7-hour programme watching a Christmas joint roasting.

25 December - Happy Christmas!

Katie is very pleased with a new jumper hot off Tracy's needles.

Norah tells us that Storm Barbara was sufficiently unpopular in the UK that it's been sent on over to us, where it's increasing in intensity towards 100-mph winds, getting a new name ("Urd") and comes with warnings to tie down loose objects including sheep, not to go out tomorrow unless absolutely essential and to put new batteries in torches. We can hear the wind outside revving up, so it's absolutely on the way. All the mountain passes in southern Norway are already closed on account of snow (though we have hardly any here). We're invited out for tea tomorrow, but have just cancelled.

"God Jul", it says ("Happy Christmas"). This was written in a snowy field with a tractor (the dot on the J is a hay bale).

Comments Jon - December 25th, 2016 Tasty looking pie. Did you grow the lemons yourselves, given the warm state of Norway? Jon - December 25th, 2016 Almost unbelievably neat writing from the farmer. However, do we need to challenge Thomas Andrew to up the ante with a full English "Happy Christmas"?! I guess he'd need an even bigger field, and / or a very tight turning circle. Tim - December 25th, 2016 Sorry Jon - Thomas Andrew is already on contract with NRK for a full-day programme in which he will write the entire Christmas story by arranging windfall lemons that will be blown off our trees in tonight's storm.

27 December - After the storm - They were not singing "Silent night, all is calm, all is bright" last night, as the storm blew noisily and all the lights went out for tens of thousands of people across southern Norway. Nearby Eigerøy, where Jon, Sarah and I walked this summer, registered a category 2 hurricane with 100-mile-an-hour winds (a normal hurricane is only three quarters of that), but as so often happens we were somewhat sheltered by our protective ring of mountains. We even kept our electricity. Even so we were accutely aware of it and are now enjoying the sudden peace after the storm. Ironically it is just 25 years this Christmas since we moved to Måndalen and promptly lost our roof and many possessions in the new-year hurricane, which is still being talked about as the worst in Norway's recorded history (they never really established just how bad it was because the needle went off the edge of the paper on the few measuring devices that didn't just collapse under the strain). So after that experience we're still not that fond of hurricanes.

28-29 December - A little trip - T&T have slipped away for three days to recover from Christmas, hurricanes and all the rest and are exploring Prague. Boat trip on the river last night (click photo, left, for an indulgently long picture series) and a long walk around the city today, including a visit to a beautiful monastery library (click photo, near right, for series), Christmas market and the rest (click photo, far right, for series).