Header picture: view from peak near Vikeså

1 May - T&T took a mountain walk in the sunshine yesterday, up a track that we've seen many times and wanted to explore. We were rewarded with a gorgeous panorama from the top, a bit of which you can see on this month's header picture, or in slightly larger format here (you may have to click the picture to enlarge, then scroll left and right).

Last night's grass burning did not get out of control, so no pictures for the newspaper (just for you — click left for enlargement).

A little pebble art produced by Tracy as part of activities for a young visitor (click right for enlargement).

Comments joanna - May 1st, 2017 I do so envy you the walks and the views!! I spent the weekend at Brother-in-laws 80th birthday bash o the south coast, only a smallish 5 star hotel but my legs have had it!! Had hoped the exercise would improve things but !! No Way!!! Love all Thomas Andrews sheep, they look very fit! Also I think I need to pinch Tracy's houses!! Did you use poster paint? Tracy - May 1st, 2017 I had a lot of fun making the little street Joanna. I painted them with acrylic paint and for the windows I used a paint pen.

It's a busy week, what with a bunch of confirmation services over the weekend (with rehersals on the preceeding days), 1 May service on Monday and then something every day the following week. Our 1 May service at Sandnes church is most memorable for the visiting choir that comes each year. It has a ... err ... distinctive ... sound, quite unlike anything else. This year they have a new conductor and their intonation was rather better than in previous years. You can listen to the sound clip below, recorded at today's service, if you like that sort of thing. Enjoy!

Only a few days after there was snow on the balcony, we're now able to sit out in the sunshine with our coffee (click photo, right, for enlargements).

2 May - Beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news (Romans 10:15) - Not sure about these feet in particular, but it was beautiful on the beach this afternoon, where T&T sloped off for an ice cream and a sit on the sand between meetings. (photo, left - click for for bigger feet).

5 May - As so often happens here, the temperature is shooting up (well into the 80s F at home this afternoon), the sheep are ringing their bells madly outside and we can almost watch a wave of brilliant green washing up the valley as all the trees rush to come into leaf. Click thermometer, right, for pictures.

7 May - More end-of-term feeling, with Sandnes church choir taking part in its last service before the summer holiday, with bits from a Bach cantata and Vivaldi's Gloria (final voluntary below).

9 May - Yet more end-of-term; this time at a Norwegian course that Tim has been teaching on in Stavanger all winter. It ended, as you might expect in Norway, with coffee and cake (photo here).

The village fire practice - As you may remember, the fire brigade here is a self-service arrangement, where everyone in Ørsdalen has a key to the village "fire station" and is given tuition twice a year in using the equipment. I wanted to go to today's practice for a number of reasons. I missed the last one due to being at work. It's always fun watching the children enjoying themselves having water fights with the fire hoses. It's a good excuse for a gossip with the neighbours. And not least, by attending this I get out of having to spend an extra day in Sandnes at a fire demonstration for church staff. At the end, when everyone was a little weary from carrying the petrol-driven pumps down to the river and rolls of heavy-duty hoses along the road, a little damp after the children's water fight got out of hand, and very much in need of the coffee that the firemen had quite properly brought with them, the smallest children were allowed to sit in the fire engine and drive over the bridge with the blue lights flashing. But when the firemen turned the siren on for added entertainment, a 6-year-old girl rushed across. "Turn that off — you'll frighten the sheep!"

The address for Thomas Andrew's farm (just in case you need to order any lamb) is: Lauperaksvegen 1622, 4387 Bjerkreim, Norway
(Google map and street view). If you're in need of some light entertainment you can use Street View to navigate the road from his farm and back to the village. Good luck!

11 May - Our yo-yo weather has suddenly taken a new dive — as you can see from today's photo of Oslo. The police (in a rather incredulous message) are telling motorists to stay at home unless they've still got winter tyres on. Wonder what it's going to do next?

13 May - Tonight is the Eurovision Song Contest, which has always been surprisingly popular in Scandinavia and is a regular topic of conversation. No doubt the results will be discussed in depth at church tomorrow. Just to give you an idea of the depth of feeling, the Swedish newspaper Expressen wrote earlier this week — with true Swedish-Norwegian sentiment — that they "hope Norway gets through to the finale, so that they can come last again". The first part of their wish came true (and Sweden didn't get through to the finale); we'll find out tomorrow about the second half.

Comments joanna - May 15th, 2017 okay what did happen, I don't think Norway were last!! Tim - May 15th, 2017 10th, it seems (but I had to check up!). UK was 15th, Denmark 20th and Germany 25th, so like you say, Norway didn't come in last, much to the disappointment of the Swedes.

17 May - After the Eurovision event, the main topic of conversation throughout Norway has been the weather forecast for 17 May. Will it rain on everyone and dampen the flags that they will wave during the 17 May processions, and make the obligatory ice creams run? The forecasts became steadily gloomier until the day before, when a sudden reprive was offered. 17 May turned out dry and warm (but a little cloudy and it belted down during the night!) And so in every town and village throughout the land, people went in their traditional costumes and paraded. Here, though, the parade was a little different (photo, right - click for enlargement).

19 May - Testing out an outdoor dash cam that we're hoping to use on the kayaks during the summer, we recorded the drive from home to Ålgård on the way to Sandnes this morning. If you've got three quarters of an hour to waste you're welcome to join us for part or all of the journey, dodging sheep on the road and enjoying the spring sunshine. See film here .

After the storms - We've had a few storms this winter, and when the wind blows easterly or westerly it can create quite an effect here in the valley. That effect is well illustrated by this area of forest, which is going to provide much of our firewood for the next two winters.

20 May - Spring cleaning the village hall - Another annual event in Ørsdalen is the day everyone gets together for coffee, cake and hot dogs, together with a little work on the village hall. Weeding the edges of the car park, cutting the grass, fixing anything that's broken. (Click picture, left, for photos).

20 May - Today's misty lake picture Panorama photo of a "sea mist" on the lake (click photo if necessary to enlarge and then scroll left and right)

A new cooker - Our cooker has been giving trouble, so Tracy has sewn a new one (photo - click picture, right). Actually, it's for a small boy in Sandnes who loves playing cooking in his nursery school, but in order to cope with size restraints in their flat this cooker is a loose cover that fits over a kitchen chair. (In case you're wondering, the oven door does open. You're also quite right that for safety reasons tea towels should not be left across the rings).

21 May - Even in Norway! - Today's news reports on trouble at sea. A group has built a copy of a Viking longboat and has been using it to take small groups on trips around the harbour. But the Norwegian Seaways Agency — eager, it seems, to outdo their colleagues in the Highways Agency — has put its oar in (so to speak) and refused it a passenger licence, amongst other things because it lacks (wait for it ...) signs showing the way to the emergency exits. See photo of boat here (I think the guy in the red coat is doing the safety announcement: "there are two emergency exits ..."). What a good thing the original Vikings didn't have bureaucrats!

24 May - We're at the flat in Germany, enjoying a few days together with Jon and Sarah. Today Sarah and Tracy spent some time at a spa, while Jon and Tim visited a nearby organ museum. Sarah and Tracy got the better deal. The "museum" was faintly surreal: it was more a depository for broken bits of instruments. A rather sad and incomplete keyboard, sized up and with bits of action hanging loosely from it. A gap-toothed row of rather frayed pipes. In all fairness, there was one exhibit that showed how the various stages of rods and joints function in an organ action attached to a keyboard — but this exhibit had a big sign saying "Do not touch". Still, it was memorable and we all met up for dinner afterwards. Thomas Andrew is still hard at work at the farm, but sent a photo taken from his barn today. Click photo, left, for pictures; more pictures on Jon's blog.

25 May - A day on — and even at one point in — our beloved lakes and rivers! (Click photo, right, for picture series, some of which © Jon; lots more pictures — including birdlife — on Jon's blog).

26-27 May - We drove across country, through the pretty lakeside town of Rheinsberg (a once-favourite haunt of Frederick the Great, and where we stopped to test some of the 365 flavours of ice cream on offer at a cafe, carefully avoiding the garlic flavour one, amongst others) and on to Neuruppin, which we visited and described back in 2014. The final destination, unfortunately, was the airport from where we were shipping Sarah and Jon back to northern Norway, while we were able to return for a few more days at the flat. The weekend is proving so warm that we returned to our swimming lake (a locals-only lake in the forest, well off the tourist trail, with a box of toys left on the beach for the kids) where Tim and Jon had swum on Thursday — and this time we were by no means alone: quite a few other people were swimming too. Even Tracy dipped toes in the water to cool off. And in the cool of the evening (down to 30° or so) we enjoyed a walk round the town centre. (click picture, left, for 3 photos: a street in Rheinsberg, Tracy at the lake and our evening walk).

28 May - With sunshine and temperatures well up in the 30s, we went out to the camp site where we store our kayaks, unwrapped them from their winter storage and took them out on the lake, re-visiting the hidden lagoon, getting out for a picnic at our favourite picnic spot and generally enjoying a glorious foretaste of summer.

31 May - Back to work (T&T both speaking at different evening meetings yesterday) and back home in Ørsdalen, with clouds, wind, rain and 25 degrees colder than when we left Berlin (forecast down to 2 degrees tonight). But at least it's not snowing — yet — unlike in Tromsø. The main excitement here while we were away was caused, oddly enough, by a German couple in their 70s who were checking in for a flight at Brønnøysund (the town where Tracy was stationed as a student priest, and not far from Lurøy, where we first lived in Norway). When asked at security whether they were carrying anything dangerous, they were evidently carried away by the smallness and informality of the place and replied jokingly that they only had one bomb and it wasn't a particularly big one. Panic buttons were pressed, the police called and the airport evacuated (not a huge operation as the German couple were the only people travelling that day). "A joke in extraordinarily poor taste", said the local police afterwards.