2 April - Header picture - April showers on our balcony

For those unlikely individuals who like comparing pipe organs, there is a short film clip of 16 instruments from the Sandnes/Stavanger area here, including Sandnes Church (Tim's church).

Comments joanna - April 3rd, 2016 Hi love the organ 'interlude'. Were you all playing in sequence or completely separately; many of you seemed to be wired for sound! You're looking well Tim and your organ is beautiful as are so many of the ones shown, so much better designed than English ones. Is it cos many are modern? Tim - April 4th, 2016 You're very observant, Joanna! The recordings were all on separate days and we were indeed all "wired" - in order to keep the speed exactly the same throughout. The organs are all designed along the lines of 17th and 18th-century European ones, which is why they look better (and work better) than the English ones; but it's also a sign of a lot of money available for that sort of thing ... Joanna - April 16th, 2016 I have just been watching the organs again and noticed that many of the men have a 'wedding' ring on the right hand 3rd finger. Is that Norwegian custom? I had never thought about it before, just assuming that all countries did left hand! slightly perplexed !!! Tracy - April 16th, 2016 Yes Joanna, in Norway the wedding ring is on the right hand. I assume you also noticed that Tim doesn't sport one? He can't stand even the thought of something restricting his fingers, not even for me. He has drawn the line at a wedding ring! joanna - April 17th, 2016 Thanks Tracy, Bob didn't wear one either, that was for safety reasons working with machines,plus He didn't see any point!

This month's contribution to the ongoing theme of styles of driving in western Norway is a report in today's paper that a woman lost her driving license when she was stopped just outside Ålesund after some rather wiggly driving. The police found that she was knitting and driving. You just can't get the drink in Ålesund, of course. "Clutch one, perl one ..."

4 April - We've often mentioned the "things given away" website. We keep a close eye on it, mostly because it's a constant source of useful items but also because it's a constant source of entertainment. Everything from sunken boats to large construction cranes are yours for the taking — the biggest problem generally being how to move them ("house, to be taken away within two days"). It's also a great social comment. Posh neighbourhoods offer luxury furniture that is being given away because it doesn't match the decorator's new colour scheme for the room, while certain areas tend to focus on fridges-that-nearly-work and second-hand Ikea furniture that's evidently had a hard life so far. Today's list contains items from Hafrsfjord (very posh), down through Stavanger/Sandnes (moderate) and out along the coastal towns of Nærbø and Egersund (heading towards the bizarre). And it contains our own district (Bjerkreim). What does that have to offer? See today's list.

Comments Jon - April 4th, 2016 The cockrel is obviously in the wrong section. It should be in the 'dating' area, where it would no doubt have come in contact with the hen being given away not far from us. On the other hand, would that count as a tvang ektaskap [forced wedding - ed.], and therefore be illegal? Unless of course it was the cockrel which placed the advert himself. Tim - April 5th, 2016 There's actually not much that doesn't happen on Finn - see this advert on Finn (this was the last story on 27 February 2013) Norah - April 14th, 2016 what exactly is a Pynt? [ref. the objects being given away in Egersund] Tim - April 14th, 2016 Addurniad. Hope you're enjoying the spring - I see from the news that all the boats are being put out in Caernarfon harbour to the accompaniment of 50 harpists, so there's plenty going on. Norah - April 23rd, 2016 Gair da. I watched the boats being lifted into the river - but where were the 50 harpists? Surely I would have noticed / heard them?! Tim - April 24th, 2016 A bit of editorial license: I was thinking of the ones in Galeri, not really at the riverside

9 April - Double wedding - Not two sets of couples, but two priests. Ludvig the Rural Dean and Tracy did a double act for a wedding today in Sandnes Church (with Tim at the organ). The bride's family did not speak Norwegian so Tracy did the service in English.

Annie! - The musical Annie is being staged in Vikeså by local children and adults. The big building that's used for the agricultural show has been filled with seats and the show was a sell-out for every one of the three nights: it appears that nearly everyone from the district has gone or is going. Katie was in charge of projecting images as part of the scenery and of filming the result for posterity, as well as helping with the sound and lighting system. We went this (Saturday) evening and enjoyed ourselves very much.

11 April - A new bout of pyromania - The weather is warm, dry and sunny and a light breeze is blowing from the east: just the perfect day to burn off the field by the orchard without the risk of burning the house down in the process. So (with our neighbour Jon burning his fields as well today) Tim put a match to the grass and within seconds the whole field was alight; within minutes there was an acre of charred and smoking field (photo, left - click for pictures). It will guarantee much better growth this summer — and Tracy wants to put some wooden frames for vegetable beds there, so it's handy to be rid of last year's undergrowth.

Today's news reports on a hotel near Bergen. A sheep turned up today and — apparently annoyed at seeing its own reflection in the four big well-polished plate-glass windows by the entrance — smashed each window in turn (photo here). In the press interview the hotel owners say that they now have local mutton on the menu.

14 April - planting - Those wooden frames for vegetable beds we mentioned a couple of days ago are already in place (photo, right) and it will soon be planting time. Like the Bergen hotel, one of our problems will be keeping the sheep away; in our case, how to prevent them from using these as a fast food takeaway. Perhaps we could buy some second-hand plastic sheep dogs from Aberconwy Borough Council to keep them away (on the assumption that Ørsdalen sheep are less clever and able than Welsh ones).

In connection with a conference, Tracy was asked to produce a very short film describing in about three minutes what her church does. This was a bit of a challenge, both editorially (Tracy's department) and technically (Tim's first attempt with the "openshot" video programme), and the result is not exactly professional, but when we watched it we thought: "that church looks quite fun". You can watch the clip here, if you can cope with the Norwegian titles. Being a family production, we couldn't resist including a fleeting glimpse of Uncle Bob and Auntie Pat and ask for their indulgence.

Back in the "olden days" the Rossendale Free Press used to be a treasure trove of eccentric news stories, as seen in some of the clippings after the sheep-dog one mentioned earlier. Nowadays there's so much real news going on in the UK that it's only here in Norway we can find really satisfyingly-daft stories. Or so I thought until I read about the fleeceless burglar (we can send him a new sheep) who is being hunted down by a set of false teeth and a scrambled helicopter, with only a screwdriver to defend himself — in none other than today's Rossendale Free Press.

16 April - Big clear-up outside, resulting in a bonfire that lasted well into the night. Hot fire, cup of tea in hand, northern lights particularly active overhead; perfect evening!

20 April - Happy 25^th birthday, Matt!

The pub quiz - At the Vikeså “local”, like all of Norway's “pubs” other than the odd “Irish Pub” in the centre of Oslo and a few similar drinking bars dotted around the bigger cities, you'll not find an inch of dark oak counter or colourful bottles lining the walls. That's because the Norwegian village equivalent of a pub is the petrol station. The petrol station is a place where you can drop in, grab a free coffee, use the toilets, collect the parcel that DHL helpfully left on the counter for you last week (now partly buried by half-price Easter marzipan), chat to a few neighbours and then leave again — with no sense of obligation to actually buy petrol there. The real heir, when you think about it, of the 18th-century "coach and horses" staging posts. Our regular in Vikeså is the Statoil, but the other one is an Esso station which includes our local-authority district's only cafe/restaurant, often used for parties and events. A couple of years ago I was asked to give a lecture there, on Händel, of all things, to quite a large audience (nearly all with coffee mugs in hand) in the "snug"; the corner behind the rack of magazines (which incidentally are all devoted to agricultural vehicles, livestock or boats; nothing racy or disreputable, even on the top row). This, then, is the venue for the monthly pub quiz. About a dozen teams of four compete; most of them regular teams. Each team has a name; "the optimists", "Team Tom" (because Tom is in that one) and a team whose name (which I can't off hand remember) is a composite of all its members' names. Some teams relax with their pints (coffee) and evidently enjoy the sociability of an evening out. A few teams are more focussed and have sharper expressions; one team — intimidatingly — sports matching tea shirts embroidered with the team name. Our team is called Π — which is a good name in that it confuses people, though perhaps an unfortunate name in that it inadvertently suggests that the fourth member of our group is only worth 0.142 or thereabouts. The team consists of Katie, Tim, our friend Peter from Vikeså and whoever else we can drag in (this evening it was the husband of Katie's German teacher at school). The questions are a rag-bag of geography, history and politics (Tim's department), weird and wonderful things about the natural world, mythology and all kinds of unexpected knowledge (to which Katie has an astonishing knack of supplying the answers) and film stars and football (for which we depend totally on Peter, who is also very handy with other general knowledge). Tonight's quiz master was an elderly lady of unclear speech who in addition was having a lot of trouble pronouncing some of the long/foreign words, so that almost every question was followed by cries from around the room of "what?", "say that again", "can you spell that, please?". Once all the questions had been answered, papers were exchanged with the next table for marking (a bit like having a test at school). As this evening's answers were read out by the quiz master, many of them attracted conversations along the following lines:
Farmer on table 3 - "No it's not — that's not right"
Teacher on table 7 - "No, it was actually Albania"
Table 1 - "No, wasn't it Peru in 1947?"
Eventually a consensus would be arrived at and approved by the quiz master: "all right, we'll call it Albania, but I'll accept Peru as well".

24 April - For her latest knitting exploits, Tracy has been experimenting with a bit of her own designing (right).

"Must be able to get up a flight of stairs in three seconds after running outside through the snow". I've never seen that in an organist job advert, but it's the sort of thing that does happen surprisingly often. There have been four confirmation services in Sandnes Church this weekend. For each one, the church was full to overflowing; not only all the seats taken but even standing room was tightly packed. Two soloists were playing; a singer (who needed accompanying on the piano at the front of the church) and a trumpeter (who needed accompanying on the organ on the gallery at the back), which meant a total of four return sprints between the one and the other during the course of each of the four services (16 journeys in all). For instance, at one point in the middle of the service, a song solo was immediately followed by a hymn (needing the organ) and a trumpet piece immediately after that. I arranged with the trumpeter that he would start the playover for the hymn and I would join in as soon as I got up to the gallery — which gave me ten seconds or so, from piano stool to organ bench. The quickest route was a sprint out through the vestry door, across the churchyard and in at the church's main door, up the stairs to the gallery, jump over a little group of children who were sitting with their parents on the gallery floor, push past a slow-witted couple who hadn't realised where I was going and and a flying leap onto the organ bench, with two notes to go before the start of the verse. Add yesterday's unseasonal fall of snow to the mixture (so be careful on those slippery flagstones on the corners) and it all adds up to a lot of exercise in one weekend.

Comments Jon - April 24th, 2016 Tim, if you like that kind of excercise, you should move to South Carolina. I had that sprint every week (from the front of church to the organ loft / choir gallery during the thanksgiving after communion). It was usually OK apart from Easter Day, which was standing room only, with visitors who usually didn't know that they had to clear the gangway for the flying organist. However, it was rare that we had to contend with snow . . . joanna - April 24th, 2016 Love the Knitting Tracy, what a great design! Tim its a good job you have long legs!! I thought you may be having some snow, our forecast chart always shows part of Norway and I'd seen snowflakes! We are threatened this week, Global Warming!!!! Global cooling more like.