Header picture: Ørsdalen river, 17 May (complete picture here).
2 June - Bob and Pat visiting -
A stiff walk up a track at 29° and bright sunshine was rewarded by the opportunity to enjoy swimming in a mountain lake (photos, right).
Then dinner and board game in the evening.
An unexpected and unwanted guest checked into a hotel in Svalbard yesterday,
to the discomfort of staff and guests.
It apparently helped itself to wine and chocolate before leaving without settling its minibar bill.
4 June - Visit to Thomas Andrew's farm (see photos, left and panorama photo here). Curiously, we were there on 4 June last year as well. While we are into our second month of heatwave (we still have to retreat indoors from time to time to get out of the heat), a little further up Norway the story is entirely different (photo taken today): snowploughs are out and about and motorists are being advised to change to winter tyres.
Someone at Tracy's church has posted a link to a recording of her last week's sermon there, together with the comment: "Our great priest Tracy Rishton is a unique speaker! She hands out pencils and paper and wants you to take part, listen actively, learn and be inspired! She engages and includes the congregation in what she wants to put across."
5 June - son gets the fatted calf - It's confirmations time in Norway (Sandnes church had them a couple of weeks ago, but Bjerkreim church had theirs last weekend), which means lots of teenagers lining up for smiling photographs and receiving appropriate gifts. There are always discussions at this time of year about what constitutes an appropriate gift. Thomas Andrew points out this photo in the local paper, showing a youngster from Bjerkreim with his gift — some calves. He also had a tractor cake, which suggests he has clear ideas about a future career path; Thomas Andrew approves.
6 June - roadside flowers -
The roadside verges have been at their "summer" best (photo, left, from Ivesdal).
9 June - Tracy is on her way to Cambodia for her latest mission visit. I'm sure it will be cooler there than here (still unbroken record temperatures in Norway!). Quite a complex programme this time, with groups of guests from other Far-East countries that are interested in having similar projects there. She's away until the 17th.
Our occasional series on useful Norwegian words has been of great help, I’m sure, but we’ve always been aware that the biggest problem with languages is not the words (you know they’re going to be different) or even the grammar, but those odd querks that you wouldn’t even imagine that you have to ask about. For instance, when a teacher is correcting homework, a tick means that the answer was wrong (I can proudly show my old maths books and have people think I was a child genius), while the sign ÷ means subtract and a decimal point is written , (a full stop is used to divide groups of three numbers). In other words, if you’re asked to solve the following sum: 5.701 ÷ 32,001 you can be sure of getting a tick next to your answer unless you remember that it actually means 5,701 – 32.001. Get the idea? The reason I mention this is that three Romanian men have just been hastily released after 15 days in jail because the Oslo police forgot about the comma thing. They (the Romanians, not the police) had been doing the age-old ball-in-which-cup scam on an Oslo street and were put away after sending £70,000 worth of ill-gotten gains back to Romania. They did protest — loudly and persistently — that they weren’t that good at it and couldn’t possibly have made so much money, but no-one took any notice until the police realised that it was actually £700.
Of course, the police do have an excuse for feeling confused. A new law has just been passed in Norway with the rather splendid title: “Regulations for changes in the regulations for changes in the regulations for establishing changes in the division of sheriff and police districts and service districts in the police and sheriff service”. After reading that, any policeman can be forgiven for overlooking a comma or two.
Passing that law seems to left parliament reeling as well. Immediately afterwards they approved spending a billion kroner on some new satellites in a polar orbit. The news the following day commented that this was very generous, given that the main purpose of these satellites was as part of an American defence system. “What?”, said the MPs: “nobody told us about that. We thought they were for us!” The politicians are now demanding a re-debate.
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22 June - Not quite the world cup -
Just an evening out with some friends near Sandnes (photos, right).
A church in Trondheim is celebrating its 800th anniversary and — as Thomas Andrew points out — appears to be hoping that all its former parishioners will attend the jubilee event.
The newspaper advert reads:
Celebratory service in connection with the church's 800th anniversary. The service will be accessible for the dead. Until about 12.00
(All back in the crypt by mid-day?)
Unless, of course, the second d in dead was a misprint for an f. [Actually, the advert was of course in Norwegian, but the same applies: they printed "døde" when they perhaps meant "døve"].
25 June - the start of our summer adventures - Katie and Tim took the overnight ferry and are now in Germany for a week of concerts. Tracy is working for another week, after which we'll all be reunited at Berlin airport.
26-28 June - Pellworm -
Katie and Tim have returned to the lovely and quiet island of Pellworm which we first visited in June 2016 (see description there) for a concert tomorrow evening (Schnitger organ from 1711).
(Photos of Pellworm - mostly taken by Katie - left).
The organiser of the concerts — who is also the museums director for the island — says: "I came to Pellworm for two years. That was 22 years ago.
I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. There's no light pollution (it's wonderful looking at the stars on a winter's night), no noise pollution, no crime, no-one locks their cars, the only traffic hold-ups are sheep on the road or the occasional tourist". This all sounds just like Ørsdalen! A press photographer turned up to take pictures for a story in the local paper. "I've retired here from Stuttgart", he said.
"I wouldn't go back. It's a laid-back community here. People are there for you if you want them, but they're not in your face: they leave you alone if you want peace".
The concert went fine and was even well attended, considering that Germany was getting soundly beaten by South Korea in the World Cup at the same time —
perhaps people had a sense that it was going to be a bad football evening and chose a less painful option. Katie and I are invited back yet again in summer 2020.
We left our hotel at 5am to catch the first ferry to the mainland, prior to a long drive south.
We had booked a taxi (we left the car on the mainland while we were on Pellworm).
As we set off down the narrow lane, the taxi driver asked whether we had seen the sunrise.
We hadn't, of course — the sun hadn't yet risen over the dyke, and besides, at that time of morning we really hadn't been rushing out to look at the weather.
The taxi driver banged banged vigorously on the brakes, "Oh, but you must!. It's so beautiful".
We reversed hastily back up the lane before driving right up onto the dyke to give us a glimpse of the sunrise. "It's different every single day".
(Some details of the organ of interest only to organists with nothing better to do).
It was a bit far to drive all the way to our next concert location — Bamberg, at the top end of Bavaria — so we opted to drive to a mid-German hotel in which we've stayed dozens of times before and which leaves us with just a couple of hours of driving tomorrow. We stopped for an hour's snooze and proper breakfast (we had just a drink and a roll on the ferry) at another of our familiar stopping-off points — Egerstorf on the Lüneburg Heath — parking in a shady spot behind the lovely old church, then a dinner break at the vast shopping centre by Leipzig. It's curious how familiar all these places have become over the years and how these comforting routines add to, rather than detract from, the experience of the journey.
29-30 June - Bamberg -
Down in Bavaria (though they don't like us saying that: "Franken, please") it's much hotter (over 30 degrees) and the beautiful town of Bamberg is very full of tourists.
I described it on my previous visit, 5 years ago (photos here), but here are a few extra pictures (right).
The concert went fine, with an audience of 400 or so.
I would have thought they were mostly tourists, but over drinks and apple cake after the concert, the cathedral organist assured us that they were nearly all locals ("they come every time").
It was a lunchtime concert, which meant that we were able to move on to our next destination —
30 June - Weimar -
I've always loved coming to Weimar, which is a town of huge character (yes, that post box, left, is on a wall in Weimar).
We took an evening stroll in the town.
A group of teenagers was sitting on some steps in one corner of the town, sharing a couple of bottles of something that looked distinctly alcoholic.
But they were sitting quietly — listening in to an outdoor classical music concert that was taking place the other side of a fence.
Somehow it seems to sum up Weimar.