Header picture: Ivesdal, 30 April (complete picture here).
1 May -
April was rather a slow news month.
May, though, is getting off to a more active start.
It's 10 past 8 in the morning on 1 May and I've already done two live-broadcast concerts today (in the lovely old church in Neubrandenburg).
And that is on top of four confirmation services in Sandnes this weekend.
Keep it up at this rate and it will be a record month.
We're staying this week in Neustrelitz, where it's 24 degrees and sunny — a swim in the lake is beckoning!
(Click photo, left, for 2 springtime pictures from a short walk from our flat).
There was a minor problem while preparing for the concerts at Neubrandenburg yesterday. The church caretaker told me that when I had finished I should go out of the back door — "out through this inner door, then out here". I finished practicing and headed out through the inner door as instructed, came to the back door and found it locked on the outside. Turned to go back into the church through the inner door, only to find that this door could only be opened from the inside. I was stuck in the 4-foot gap between the two. To make matters worse, there seemed to be no mobile phone reception just there; I tried to ring the organist but although he answered we couldn't hear each other. Remembering the time Thomas Andrew and I had to escape from Colditz when we were locked in there, also just before a concert, I tried forcing the door, but on this occasion it wouldn't budge. Luckily, the caretaker turned up within 10 minutes or so, but I was starting to wonder whether I would get out this week. He was vaguely apologetic and explained that he'd locked the door because it was time to open the other one.
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This afternoon we decided to explore an area which, though it's only 20 miles away, we've not previously ventured into:
the Feldberg Lake District Nature Park (which is the right-hand third of the map in the pictures).
That Wikipedia article boasts of the area's rare birds and animals, as well as its many kettle bogs and ancient beech woods.
We saw the lot, but as usual we were most taken by the many quirks we encountered in the villages.
Click photo, right, for pictures.
In Mellenau (1 on map) we found a sunny-looking path heading into the forest, and there we ended up first at the village's bathing beach (complete with little picnic cabin) and then at an unexpected chapel in the middle of the (ancient Beech) forest. The chapel was built by a grieiving countess as a funeral chapel for her late husband; he and the rest of the family were then buried there. The family fled at the end of the Second World War (the Russian army burned down their stately home as soon as they arrived) and the funeral chapel is now used for romantic weddings. The tiny village, though (population of about 30), is obviously a lively place. One end of the village sports the Blue Lizard music bar, while the other end (a few yards away) has a very colourful puppet theatre (photos) (2 on map).
Our next destination was Carwitz (3 on map),
but due to a closed road we were diverted along a lane that makes our drive look quite serviceable.
Carwitz, as I'm sure occured to you immediately, is most famous as the home and museum of the author
Hans Fallada (don't worry - we hadn't heard of him either, but Wikipedia seems to suggest thst he holds the world record for early-life disasters),
but was also a pretty lakeside village. There were a good half dozen cars there (some with Berlin plates) and a bunch of barefoot children playing in the stream, which is pretty busy for around here,
especially at the beginning of May. It probably gets very touristy in the summer — certainly judging by the number of cafes.
A fun afternoon out.
This morning's radio broadcasts were both in connection with this year's celebration of the centenary of the end of WWI (though celebrated a few months early). The programmes were therefore agreed with, and partly dictated by, the arrangers, who wanted to include the whole of Bach's "Well-tempered Clavier" — played on the organ — within the series, and asked me to play the F major and F minor from Book 2, set within relevant programmes. So here (in case you missed the broadcasts) are the recordings. The microphone was put very close to one section of the organ, which means that the balance is all wrong (in other words, it sometimes sounds as though the accompaniment is louder than the melody, which it wasn't), but never mind.
The first concert, which included the F major prelude and fugue, both of which are written in classical dance forms, was therefore of organ music written in dance idioms by composers living in the same centuries as Bach.
(Programme here)
The second concert, entitled "Europe, reconciled in music", consisted from one piece from each of most of the countries involved in WW1, with all the composers (apart from Bach and Vivaldi) living through the period of the war;
the last composer (a Russian) died in 1918. Those of a certain vintage will recognise the Fauré piece, at least: hope you're sitting comfortably ...
(Programme here)
4 May - No purity is not level - Najjeftijije! - We will (naturally) be spending this summer in Germany: a few concerts and a good deal of pottering around on the water. However, our location here does allow us some freedom to take trips that would be a bit too far from Norway but are very easy from Neustrelitz. For this reason, we've got two short trips planned; both to places we don't know at all but we're taking a chance based on internet recommendations. The first of these trips takes us to Nice, where we've hired sea kayaks for two days, followed by two days exploring inland. The second trip is to northern Croatia, where we again have hired a couple of sea kayaks and a tent for a week and are going to explore a series of islands. However — and this is where you come in — because we fly back to Berlin fairly early in the morning, we are intending to stay the last night in a hotel near the airport. And we need your advice. You see, there are two hotels to choose between: the Adriatic Hotel or the Hotel Delphin. Both are reviewed on Google; both sound exotic. All the available reviews are reproduced in their entirity below. The Delphin reviews suggest either that Google's automatic translation service is still doing its beginner's course in Serbo-Croat, or else that the hotel's clientelle favours a very esoteric, modernistic stream-of-unconsciousness literary style. Which would you choose — the "perfact" Erich Honecker museum or the hotel whose food-hygene dog has been shot by a previous guest and served hot for breakfast — and why?
- Adriatic Hotel
- The Staff was very unkind and they don’t speak English. They smoked Cigaretts in the reception room and it looked like the living room of Erich Honecker. As we came into our room we thought we were in world war 2. There was a very bad smell and our bed was hard. The breakfast was very bad and the location was also very bed. I will not recommend it!!!!
The room is old fashion, a smell of cigarets, the pillows with a smell of sweat. Very noisy from the club in the basment & people shouting in the terrace. However, the place is perfact, near the promenad & easy to park.
How can anyone rate this 5?, friendly staff yes. But rooms were very poor, 3 floors but no elevator, just wifi in the lobby. Real USSR style, not renovated in probably 3 decades.
- Hotel Delphin
- (Translated by Google) Vacation from 2-09/09/2017, Admission to the reception a solid few words and a photocopy of the disability certificate from my wife (should check whether laws allow Croatian tourist tax exemptions) .Soba 309 dark and when you open the balcony door SOK- to the top of the door overgrown bushes . Kitchen ,, kii reminded me of the old workers' železničarsko kitchen in Šentilj road in MB. Cutlery, on the weekend, we have a better ,, cold food macaroni, spaghetti, sauce, between eating swept under the tables and the chairs .Spalnica yogis tired by the end of the pit lying just no flexibility, towel, hung all of them codes to tepla the two dogs torn (I shot), beds are not harvested or suck .Turistične room charges for disabled persons, proof cards are ignored, incompetent receptionist who, in my opinion, has no experience .Nezadovoljen with food hygiene at the dog needed would be sanitary inspection, menus almost every day the same food tasteless, cold .Do not recommend this hotel, maybe later when you edit a set of kitchen and osebje.lp VINKO
(Translated by Google) Frugally. Lift broken all seven days but the climb to the 6th floor with a small child. Food too modest. Salami and hot dogs for breakfast najjeftijije. Cheese one day spoiled. No purity is not level. All in all very bad. Only close to the beach plus ostaloza not so little cost. I would not recommend.
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5 May - Don't tell Tracy (who's had to return to Norway to do confirmation services this weekend), but in Germany (where Tim is lucky enough to be until over the weekend) the weather is glorious — even at 5 in the evening, after a day spent largely in the kayak, it was still 20 degrees and Tim was swimming in a small lake in our local woods. Pictures of the woods here.
13 May - "We apologise for any inconvenience caused to the bodies concerned" -
There has been uncharacteristic (if hollow) laughter in a churchyard on Norway's south coast,
where a sign was put up last week, asking people "not to store their belongings behind their own gravestones".
The Verger has now taken the sign back down: "That didn't come out quite as I meant it".
A lake near Ivesdal (click picture, left, for enlargement).
17 May -
Tired out after parading, flag waving and cries of "hurr-baaahh!" (it's 17th May — national day)
and exhausted by the unexpected heat (we've had a week of clear, sunny days with temperatures in the upper 20s),
the sheep are enjoying siesta time in the shade of our fruit trees.
Tim, though, only had the usual 17th May service to do, so he went for an evening walk up the banks of the river instead.
The warm weather means that the snow has vanished like, well, like snow in summer, so that only the deepest avalanche tracks remain,
while the river is fairly lively (and rather cold).
Here is a picture of the Ørsdalen river this evening (click on picture to enlarge and scroll side to side);
more river pictures by clicking small photo, right.
19 May - tidying around the village hall -
Every May we all get together to mend, paint and generally tidy up the village hall, ready for a variety of uses over the summer.
Rain is the usual difficulty; today it was heat (photos, left).
Tim, though, had to leave early to go to a wedding
(not that one — someone else booked first).
As it's over 4 months since the last Norwegian lesson on these pages (31 December last year, when we gave you the word gravlysautomat, meaning graveside-candle-vending-machine), your next word is well overdue. This time it's an easier one. The priest in today's wedding in Sandnes started by saying "there's another wedding going on at the moment, but this one is less Harry". So, today's Norwegian word is "Harry", which means something of which you don't quite approve. A bit tacky or tasteless, like taking a "booze cruise" or — very commonly — driving over the border into Sweden to shop at border shops in order to avoid the high Norwegian tax on alcohol and tobacco. Who's going to tell HRH?
20 May - Pentecost service - T&T were together in Gand church today — "Team Ørsdalen", as they called it — for the Pentecost service. Then home and a walk in the hot sunshine up to what Jon terms our "private beach" — deserted, as always, despite numbers of tourists elsewhere in the valley — where we paddled in the water before settling down for a snooze on the sand, waking up to a punnet of local cherries that we bought on the way home from church. A perfect day! Photos here.
25 May - barbie on the beach - T, T & Katie met up with some friends from Sandnes for an afternoon on the beach, in glorious sunshine. Felt like Spain (except that today it was actually warmer here). Took a small barbeque and cooked sausages and burgers on the sand and played in the water (Tim's first swim of the year in Norway) - Photos here.
26 May - now we've seen it all - This evening the famers are out watering the fields (dryness is not at all a normal problem around here!)
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