Category Archives: Life in Norway

Gimme, gimme, gimme…

Blog, Holiday, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , ,

Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.

Anna and Lauren arrived on Monday afternoon as planned. There were a few things to juggle while they were here. Andrew’s oral exam was on Tuesday and he had a concert on Wednesday evening, when he would be playing piano. Brownie the guinea pig also had a lump under her chin, which I had hoped would be seen on Monday, but the earliest they could fit her in was Thursday. And I was working Wednesday, but I hoped we would fit a few other things in and the end of the week would be clear.

We decided to meet up with Andrew after his exam and have a picnic lunch out in nature. Given that the weather wasn’t entirely favourable, we walked up to a lake where there was a wooden shelter, but even there, the wind was blowing in straight off the water and though we managed lunch it wasn’t a day to linger. When we got back to the car, I asked whether everyone wanted to go home, or whether they would like a tour to see some of Senja and the consensus was that they would like that. Anna had asked the evening before whether I knew somewhere there might still be snow, as Lauren had never really seen any proper snow. As we drove across Senja, it struck me that the most likely place might be on the road to Skaland. There is a tunnel, right through a mountain, and to get to it, you drive high up to a bowl where there is a small lake surrounded by steep peaks on three sides. Most of the way up, everything was dauntingly green, but I could see the summits were still snowy and, to my pleasure, though there was not a complete covering, the lake was still mostly frozen. The mountain tops were wreathed in clouds and the bare trees made a kind of sepia wasteland that, if not a classic winter wonderland, was certainly distinctly arctic, given that it was the middle of June.

As you can see from this second photo, the melting ice was still very thick in places.

Having taken photos, we got back in the car. I didn’t want to drive much further, but Anna suggested we should go through the tunnel to the other side of the mountain. It was worth it to see the contrast. Everything here was green, though the mist still shrouded the peaks.

On Wednesday, I had to work and on Thursday, I took Brownie to the vets. The lump, which I had suspected might be a benign fatty lump, turned out to be an abscess. The vet lanced it and gave me antibacterials to give her. With hindsight, a surgical approach might have been better than lancing, but for now, I’m giving the medicine and trying to keep the hole open so it doesn’t refill.

With a clear weekend ahead of us, I was looking forward to Friday. I went to bed and went to sleep, only to be disturbed at midnight by Anna knocking on my door. Sorry to disturb, she said, but Andrew was having an asthma attack and was struggling to breathe. There are some words that, as a mother, certainly wake you up quickly. I made a very quick assessment (concerningly wheezy: still pink) threw my phone at Anna, asked her to call the legevakt (emergency doctor’s clinic) and got dressed. There was no reply from the legevakt, so I bundled Andrew into the car and broke the speed limit as I drove into Finnsnes.

I managed to stay surprisingly calm. I guess several years of working in emergency and critical care back in the UK has had an effect. They hooked him up to a machine, and when I saw his oxygen sat. was 87 (ideally it should have been between 97 and 100) I merely commented that it was a bit low. They hooked him up to a nebuliser and gave him ventolin (which acts to open up the airways) twice, but even then, his oxygen levels were still less than optimal and his heart rate was much higher than it should have been. He also had a temperature.

The doctor was very good, at least. Having listened to Andrew’s lungs, he made a tentative diagnosis of pneumonia. There was then discussion about whether Andrew would have to go to Tromsø or whether he could be treated locally. By now, it was around 4am and if Andrew was transferred to Tromsø in an ambulance, there was no way I would be fit to drive behind them, so I was very relieved when we were told he would be kept in overnight in a short-stay unit in Finnsnes and x-rayed there in the morning. I left him in a very pleasant single room with a very attentive nurse and a nebuliser on the stand at the side of the bed. He was also given penicillin V and prednisolone tablets, and was already looking significantly better than he had when we arrived.

I drove home and slept briefly and he called me at quarter to ten to say he could go home. Friday was a write off. We had intended to go to Polar Park to see the animals, but it wasn’t only Andrew who needed a day of recovery. Yesterday, John took Anna and Lauren to Tromsø, while Andrew and I stayed at home. Unfortunately, I seem to be coming down with whatever virus it was that triggered Andrew’s pneumonia, though I am hoping the effect on me is a bit less dramatic. I think John, Anna and Lauren might make it to Polar Park today, but I won’t be going with them. If I rest plenty, I might be well enough in time to return to work on Tuesday! Ho hum!

And if, at the end of all that, you’re still wondering about the title, last night, shortly after midnight, we had a visitor in the garden. I heard him when I went to bed as he was so close to my window. I went through and told Anna and Lauren, and so Lauren, on the second last day of the holiday, was introduced to a moose after midnight.

Light Nights and Shearing Sheep

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, Writing, , ,

Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.

I scrolled back to last year to find out how I had formatted the immortal words “Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.” and I see that this time last year, I was excited, having just found an agent for my book. It seems unlikely at this point, that Ger will find a publisher and I haven’t made much progress in writing anything new. There has been altogether too much going on and I haven’t been in a good frame of mind for writing. It’s always hard to write without deadlines anyway, but there has been way too much time spent clearing snow and on other distractions. So for now, there’s not much likelihood of publication any time soon, though several of the publishers said they’d like to see new things from me. There was, in fact, quite a lot of good feedback, but it seems that, without romance, women’s fiction of the type I’ve written is difficult to sell. At some point, I will get started again, but I will need to work out a new strategy.

Returning to the north was difficult after a week of sun and warmth in Yorkshire. I arrived back in Bardufoss at 11:30 at night. It wasn’t dark, of course, but it was very chilly and raining. At one point, as I drove back, my car pinged me to give the ice warning it gives when the temperature is 3.5°C. I had taken Monday off, so I drove Andrew into school. He is doing his final exams at the moment. All the written exams are over, so now he is waiting to do a final, oral exam. Both John and Anna did International Baccalaureate, so this is our first experience of the Norwegian exam system, which seems to be somewhat bizarre. I knew from before, that the written exams are oddly long. You can come in any time between eight and ten, then sit in them all day, if you like, though you can walk out after ten, all of which sounds enormously distracting.

But the oral exam tradition is even weirder. Over the course of three weeks, all the students will have one oral exam in one of their subjects, but they are not told the date or the subject in advance. At Andrew’s school, all the students who haven’t yet had their exam, have to go in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week. When they go in on Monday, some of them will find out that they have an exam on Wednesday, and in which subject. Those who have an exam stay and get some general extra tuition from the teacher on the Monday. On Tuesday, they are told the topic within their subject that they should prepare for and on Wednesday, they sit their exam. The rest of the students who weren’t selected for an exam, are free to go home, but of course for Andrew, this means waiting for a bus as there are only a few each day. Why they can’t just alert the students by text the night before, or early enough in the morning that they can go in if they need to is beyond me.

We’re currently at the end of the first week and happily, Andrew found out yesterday that he has been selected to have his oral exam in history, which is the subject he wanted. It also means that, once his exam is over, he will be finished and won’t have to go back in. There will be a graduation ceremony, but for me, as well as for him, it really will be the end of an era.

On Wednesday, John and I went to Ann’s to shear her sheep, at least John sheared them and I started and stopped the shearing machine. Despite it being quite chilly in the barn, John was quickly sweating. Shearing sheep is a very physical job. Goodness knows how it feels to be a sheep with winter-thick wool that is taken off all at once, but I should imagine it is both something of a shock and a relief at the same time.

Anna and her girlfriend Lauren are coming here on Monday, which I am very much looking forward to. I considered taking time off as flexitime, but having had to work the last time I booked that, I decided to take a holiday, just to be sure! It was odd being back at work for four days and hard to get my teeth into anything, though it’s great to see that my new colleague, Ingrid, is settling in well and picking things up very quickly. It looks like it is going to be a bit warmer this week, at least, which is good as it would be a sad introduction to the North of Norway for Lauren if it was still snowing in June, as it was on and off, right up to the end of May. And so, I am going to sign off as there is lots to do. I hope you all have a good week.

Hot Dogs and Buckets of Snow

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 01:04/00:24 Daylength: Up all day from today

There were two bank holidays this week, on Wednesday and Thursday. The first was 17th May, which is Norway’s national day. This was my first 17th May as a Norwegian citizen, so perhaps we should have celebrated in style and gone out to watch a parade, but it was raining heavily in the morning when we got up and so we decided to celebrate at home. There was a Norwegian flag in the house when we moved in, so we put it into the flag holder near the front door, then we had a relaxing day and ate Norway’s standard fare on 17th May of hotdogs and ice cream!

John’s girlfriend, Joana, came to stay overnight and celebrated with us and she and John made the hotdogs between them, including toasting the rolls, which I confess, we normally never do, but it did add an extra dimension of deliciousness.

On the evening of 17th May, I noticed a concerning change in the water pressure of the taps. I went to bed, hoping that it was a temporary blip and would all be okay in the morning, but it wasn’t. Instead, the pressure fell further, to the point where the toilet cistern didn’t fill and there was only a trickle coming from the taps. Given that it was still a bank holiday, we decided that we would probably be okay until Friday.

Though it was relatively easy to get some drinking water, I was in something of a dilemma about the toilet. I was trying to work out whether I should walk to get some buckets of water from a stream, when I remembered that there was still a source of water, right there in the back garden. Though most of the snow has melted, there was still a pile behind the garage. And so I went out with my bucket and spade, and for the last time this winter, I started digging snow.

Despite the heated bathroom floor, it took a surprising amount of time for the snow to melt, but when it did, we were able to flush the toilet again, thank goodness!

Friday dawned and then began the chase to try and find a plumber who was working. As you can imagine, with bank holidays on Wednesday and Thursday, a lot of people in all walks of life took the Friday off and the local plumbers were no exception. I messaged a few when I woke in the morning as some of them didn’t start until ten, even on a normal Friday, but I got no response and the ones I did phone didn’t answer, even though it was in their normal Friday working hours.

Fortunately, one kind plumber, Hugo Nordaas, actually rang me back. He was working all day in a shop, he told me, but would come out afterwards. I asked him whether I should continue trying to find someone else in the meantime, and he said yes, but to let him know if I still wanted him to come out. I had barely had time to start, when my phone rang again. Hugo had contacted someone else, who was on their way to me.

The young man who arrived didn’t seem very confident, but he assessed the situation and came up with a solution, which, I think, he checked with a colleague on the phone. I guess I’d better explain a bit more about our water system before going further, because I’m assuming the vast majority of you reading this have mains water, so if the supply dries up, workers magically appear and start trying to fix the issue. There is no mains water, out where I live, despite it being on a main road. Our water supply is private and comes from a “well” on someone else’s land. I hadn’t realised, until we went there, just how far away we were from the water source. I guess my house was built when there were very few other houses in the valley, so building a pipe from another house’s well was still probably cheaper than building a separate well.

You are probably wondering why I have put the word “well” in quotation marks the first time I used it. I don’t think there is really another translation for “brønn” than “well” but it isn’t a well in the way I would think of one. In the UK, a well is dug deep in the ground until the ground water is revealed. Usually it’s circular and very deep. Here in Norway, it’s common for water to be taken from an inlet in a stream or river, and that is what our “well” is.

And so, with thoughts that the long pipe bringing water from the well the house might be blocked, the plumber’s first action was to return to base to collect a pump and some water. He then pumped water back up the pipe in the hope that, if it was a frog or a mouse in the pipe, it would be pushed out of the top end and (hopefully) washed away. I thought, for a moment, as water gushed back out of the pipe, that he had been successful, but after a fairly short time, it slowed again to a trickle and we were back at square one.

The next step, he explained to me, was to go up to the well and check the inlet valve, to make sure it wasn’t blocked up with anything. That was a likely scenario, he said, as there has been so much meltwater in recent weeks. The snow certainly has melted fast this year and there was a lot of it. He was going to go away now, he said, and once I had checked, I should call him back if there was still a problem.

I got into the car and drove along to the house of the well owner. We had been there on Thursday and they had told us their water in their house was running as normal. They had also told us that the well might not be easy to access yet, as there could still be snow. It was also Friday now, and a working day, so I wasn’t sure there would be anybody in. Under these circumstances, which meant it could be several hours before we could get an answer, the plumber going away seemed not unreasonable. Quite unexpectedly though, the young man who opened the door told us that he had actually gone up and checked the well. Everything looked okay with it, he said, the entrance to our outlet pipe included.

I had expected it might be hours before we found out (I didn’t know where the well actually was, so we couldn’t have checked it ourselves) but in actual fact it was only a few minutes. Knowing that the plumber wouldn’t even be back in Finnsnes, I called him and told him the news, but instead of coming back, he told me he didn’t know what to do next and would have to consult with colleagues.

I waited for an hour and a half, but hadn’t heard anything. Given that it was now Friday afternoon and the weekend was coming up, with the thought in my head of having no flushing toilet and only a trickle of cold water all weekend, I sent him a message, asking whether he thought we perhaps needed to contact someone with a camera to check the pipe or even just that he could perhaps come back with someone more experienced, but despite the fact that my phone said the message had been delivered, after another hour and a half, I hadn’t heard anything back.

Had he been older, I might have waited longer, but I can remember being a young vet with not much experience, trying out my limited skills and, on not finding a solution, sending the clients home with something to try, and then booking them back for another evening when I wasn’t on duty, so that someone else would (hopefully) deal with it. I understand that feeling of being out of your depth and hoping the problem will resolve itself, and also the lack of client skills that make it easier not to call with updates, even if you are trying to organise something. I didn’t know which it was, but I thought that if I left it, I might well find myself stuck. It had been almost impossible to find someone earlier, and time was getting short. And so I rang the one number that I knew would result in action, which was the emergency number for the insurance company.

Last time I discussed Norwegian insurance, I raved about how good they were and how much better they were at paying out than UK insurance companies. My faith was slightly shaken after the last time, as they decided the problem with my drainage pipes had happened before I bought the house, and therefore they decided that they weren’t liable, however experience said that they would certainly get things moving and indeed they did.

They provide an advisor, who will get in touch with the relevant people for you. They know all the numbers to call and probably warrant more attention from busy workers than an unknown number. In no time at all, the young plumber was back and this time he had someone from another company with him. Now they had lots of water, which I understood they were going to try to pump through again, which I think they did, to no avail. But having not resolved the problem, this time they set up a temporary solution. We now have an 800L water tank in the garden and a pump outside my bedroom window to pump it into the house. It isn’t drinking water, but at least we have enough now so that we can flush the toilet and have showers over the weekend.

Working through the weekend was probably out of the question. I think most British people will probably be raising their eyebrows at that, but in Norway, lots of things have to wait, and here in the north, the pace of life is much slower, even than in the south west of Norway, where I used to live. They did give me a future outline this time, which is something a client should never be left without. On Monday, the advisor will come out and will hopefully explain more about what’s going to happen. It seems that the likeliest scenario is that there has been some shifting of the earth, which has resulted in the pipe becoming kinked or possibly broken. The plumbers seemed to think it might be necessary to dig up the entire length of the pipe, but I am hoping that there will be a better solution. There must be means for finding where pipes run, other than digging all the way from one end or the other. Hopefully on Monday, I will find out.

But for now, as I said before, there is a pump outside my bedroom window, with a plug leading through the window. I have to switch it off at night, but while it’s on, the window has to be open. I’m hoping that they find a better solution before the first big wave of man-eating mosquitoes arrives.

I guess that living up here, with the extremes of the weather, there will always be more wear and tear on property than in more temperate climes. There’s always a risk, buying a house, but it would be a near impossible situation if I end up with a bill running into tens of thousands of kroner, or worse. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the insurance will cover it. I also go on holiday next Friday and John is going away to do some lambing for the weekend, so I hope that I won’t have to leave Andrew on his own without everything being under control. I will keep you updated as things unfold, but for now, I wish you a happy weekend.

Depth of Vision

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 02:20/23:14 Daylength: 20hr54min

There’s only a week and a day to go until we have 24 hour daylight again. I just counted the number of weeks between Polar Night and Midnight Sun and it was only seventeen weeks. No wonder life here is a whirlwind of changing light patterns. The snow is in serious melting mode. There’s a lot of mud now, and puddles, rushing streams and brown, brown grass. The trees are still bare and, until a couple of days ago, it looked as if everything was dead. But in those couple of days, there has been a subtle change. Wherever you look, if the snow has been gone for a few days, there are signs that the regrowth has begun. The coltsfoot flowers at the top of the page are first to arrive, but as well as their yellow, there are tufts of green grassy plants and patches of ruby red. It will still take a bit more time to get going, but by the beginning of June, everything will be growing rampantly. Sadly, this will include mosquitoes that grow to the size of elephants, but you can’t have everything!

I got in touch with a dear friend of mine from Scotland this week and was terribly saddened to hear that she is going through something unimaginably tough right now. I could feel her pain and I so much wish that I could be closer. If you are reading, my friend, you have been in my thoughts all the time since we spoke. It did give me a sense of perspective however, over my own problems and yet my wonderful friend still found the time to say how frustrated she had felt on my behalf in recent weeks. I have made some amazing friends over the years and I its at times like this that I most wish I was back in the UK.

It’s been generally a good week at work, though I had a day and a half off on Monday and Tuesday as my left eyelid suddenly swelled up and turned red and hot. Norwegian doctors are rightly reluctant to hand out antibiotics, but I rolled up at the surgery mid-morning on Monday (as I had started to feel more generally unwell) and I was given topical antibiotics in the form of chloramphenicol eye ointment. I had half expected to be told to try paracetamol (given that physiotherapy – Norwegian doctors’ other staple – probably doesn’t apply here). The ointment does seem to have helped, though my eyelid looks a bit red again this morning. Hopefully it will do the trick, though having smeary gunk all round my left eye for half the day isn’t the best look.

Anyway, back to the rest of the week, I was delighted to be working alongside my new colleague Ingrid. Ingrid has taken over my old job in Finnsnes and will be spending some of her time at the abattoir and some of her time out in the field with Thomas. I hope she’s enjoyed her week with us as much as I enjoyed having her there. Obviously working in an abattoir isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but we try our best to be friendly and welcoming and I am doing my utmost to ensure she gets plenty of help and guidance. Starting a new job can be incredibly tough if you don’t get enough support. She wasn’t originally planning to come back next week, but I invited her to come a couple of days to work with Konstantin and she has agreed, so we must have done something right!

I had one of those 24 hour blood pressure tests done from Thursday to Friday. Surprisingly, having my arm squeezed every half hour didn’t disrupt my sleep too much. I confess that I took a sneak peak at the results and I’m fairly sure the doctor is going to tell me I have to do something about my blood pressure as it’s a bit higher than it ought to be. I hope he will give me practical advice and help me lose weight, get de-stressed and exercise more, rather than going straight for drugs, but I guess it will depend on how bad it actually is. I’ve been comfort eating more than I should in the past months and have been virtually hibernating through the snowy winter, so it’s not that surprising, but working out how to tackle it, while theoretically easy, will be mentally difficult. Still, if anyone needs an incentive to lose weight and get moving, it’s me. I know that if I do, I will feel better. Get the whip out and give me a hand please!

It’s only a couple of weeks now, until I’m going on another holiday to the UK. I am visiting Mum and Dad in Yorkshire, so hopefully we will spend a relaxing week exploring castles and trying not to eat too many fish and chips. April and May have so many bank holidays in Norway that they usually seem to fly by. This coming week, we have Wednesday and Thursday off. Wednesday is 17th May, which is Norway’s national day and Thursday is Ascension Day, which is quite a random day to have off, but no complaints from me. It’s supposed to get up to 19 degrees this week, so hopefully we have had the last of the snow for this winter. I will need to go and get the summer tyres put on my car, and other celebratory summer things!

Have a lovely week all!

Somebody Else’s Slaughterhouse

Blog, Life in Norway, Travel, , , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 03:04/22:29 Daylength: 19hr24min

A quick warning – this post contains details of the workings and meat processing in an abattoir, so if you don’t want to read about that, this probably isn’t for you!

The year is sliding on by at a great rate now. It’s only a couple of weeks until we will have twenty four hour daylight, though there is still snow on the ground and no sign of any plant life growing. It was lovely then, to fly down to Rogaland in south west Norway: my old stomping ground, where I lived for twelve years before moving north. I had a wonderful feeling of nostalgia when I saw the green fields and gently rolling landscape as we flew in to Sola and then later as I travelled down to Egersund by train.

A peaceful scene, taken from the platform at Klepp Stasjon on the journey between Sandnes and Egersund

There was a degree of nostalgia in visiting the abattoir in Egersund as well. I worked in a temporary, part time post with Mattilsynet in Rogaland, and though I never worked at Nortura Egersund, I had colleagues who worked there, and other colleagues from the area came along to take part in the audit, so it was lovely to catch up with a few old friends as well.

You have probably gathered from my posts over the past few months, that my entry into the world of responsibility for the goings on in Nortura Målselv (where I currently work) have been somewhat chaotic. There are things I am in charge of (including legal EU requirements for certain inspections and audits) that I still feel I am wading into, as they are not set out as clearly as I would like. It was good then, to see how my colleague, Inna, runs her abattoir, and I have returned home with a whole raft of new ideas and paperwork, that I will have to present to my colleagues in the north, so that we can work out what is useful and how we can implement it.

The key activity I was there to observe was a hygiene audit, and that was very interesting. I have carried out a lot of inspections, which examine how things are working on the ground, and whether any laws are being broken. An audit takes a step back from that. It examines the management processes within the slaughterhouse, firstly to check whether there are clear processes in place which, if followed correctly, would properly ensure hygiene is adequate, and secondly an assessment of whether those procedures are actually being put into practice. Obviously there’s no use in having wonderful paperwork, outlining how everything should be done, if that information is not then disseminated to the people doing the job.

I felt like there was a very thorough examination carried out. There was a lot of intensive reading of the operating procedures, which required those carrying out the audit to have a firm understanding of the laws underpinning the functionality of the abattoir, as well as a good knowledge of how things were being done along the line. I can see that the oversight of the latter is something that I am lacking at the moment. Inna told me that she had been advised by an earlier boss, that she should take a tour along the line most days and just observe what was being done at the different stations. I guess most people have never seen this process, but after the animal is killed, the carcase is hung up and travels along the line, where at various stations, removing the skin is followed by removing the inner organs, and gradually along until the carcase has been fully cleaned and is ready to be cut up for meat. There are lots of points in this where the meat could be contaminated, from contact with the skin at the beginning, to contact with the floor (generally with very oversized animals, such as large bulls) towards the end.

Any contamination, whether through soiling with gut contents or from an unsterilised knife, could mean that the meat ends up with too many bacteria on it, which could make the difference between a joint that is safe to eat and one that isn’t. As well as there being instructions on how contamination can be minimised, there also has to be recognition that sometimes, it does happen, so then there must be procedures for how to handle those affected carcases as well. This can include trimming of obviously soiled areas, wrapping and treatment of the surface with steam, or throwing away any parts that are considered not suitable for human consumption. Intermittent tests are also carried out for the presence of certain bacteria, such as salmonella, and if those are found, then the entire batch might be cooked (which kills the bacteria) and sold as a finished product, rather than sending out raw goods that might pose a public health risk.

It was also a treat to stay in Egersund. It is a pretty little town, partly made up of narrow streets lined with painted wooden houses. The hotel I stayed in had been created from some of those wooden houses, which were now integrated as part of a more modern building.

This is my room, with its lovely sloping ceiling. It was on the top floor of the green house on the outdoor picture – what looks like a row of houses has now been integrated inside into a medium sized hotel. The photo on the right, with its green walls and false windows, is part of the original external wall of the green house, which now makes up the decor in the inner well of the hotel within a glass walled stairwell, which winds around a lift.

Egersund is quite well served with good restaurants, and it was difficult to choose between Indian food, sushi and good quality pizza for the one evening meal I ate there. I chose Indian, in the end, as the nearest Indian to me in the north, is in Tromsø. Andrew is moving down to Stavanger in the summer though, so I think we will take a tour around when I travel down with him. Egersund will definitely be on the list of places to revisit.

On my way back, I stayed overnight with Wivek, who owns Triar’s mum. It was lovely to catch up with her and her family, who made me feel very welcome.

Triar’s mum, Trifli

All in all, it was a very useful visit. I have a much better grasp on what an audit entails, and specifically on how a hygiene audit should be carried out. I’m still not sure that I’m ready to have overall responsibility to carry out our own audit, but whether I will have to carry out the audit with help from knowledgeable local colleagues, or whether I can ask for support from one of my more experienced colleagues from the south west, will be up to my boss.

Tree blossom in Wivek’s garden. Spring has definitely arrived in Rogaland

Marching Onward

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway,

Sunrise/sunset: 03:42/21:52 Daylength: 18hr09min

I have the strangest feeling, at the moment, that the river of life is plunging forwards while I am treading water. Everything seems to be happening at speed and I feel as if I’m being carried forward. I’m keeping my head above water and have been doing so for some time, but that is all I have the energy for. It probably sounds horrible, but somehow it isn’t. I am being carried in a direction I want to go, and if I keep treading water, I will get there.

That probably sounds odd or fanciful, but the reality is that I was dragged quite low by the winter and the whole Mr Abusive saga, but I have coped and now things are heading in a better direction. Having lived quite a long time now, I recognise these feelings: though getting older certainly intensifies the tiredness. When I was younger, it would have taken a much longer time to analyse and recover, I think, but I know that this is what life is like. There are ups and downs, and sometimes we have to ride through them.

There has been so much to do at work recently, that there hasn’t been time to do anything but the basic tasks that keep everything ticking over. I think I touched on the number of people who were signed off sick a couple of weeks back, but my two trustworthy and knowledgeable colleagues, Trude and Konstantin, were both on sick leave at the same time and that was in addition to two other colleagues who have been absent for a long time. So over Easter, I was was first in line with responsibility for everything that went on in the abattoir. All the routine tasks that normally are done without me really noticing them, were mine to remember. There were checklists and post-it notes everywhere!

Konstantin unfortunately become sick with Covid during his holiday. He was due to come back on Tuesday, though I hadn’t put him in the rota until Thursday as I thought he might need travelling time; he had driven home to Latvia, rather than flying. On Monday, I had intended to work in the Finnsnes office as I had a dentist’s appointment, but I knew that if any animals had been emergency slaughtered over the weekend, I would likely have to drive to the abattoir to check them as there was nobody else to do it. When the message came in that there were four cattle that had been brought in over the weekend, it became a certainty that I would have to go. Four is the maximum capacity for the room where the carcases are hung, so leaving them wasn’t really an option. Driving to the abattoir and carrying out post mortem controls on four animals would have taken a massive chunk out of my working day.

Imagine my surprise then, when Konstantin’s face appeared on the screen in the Teams meeting first thing in the morning. He had come back a day early! With Konstantin back, he would take the emergency slaughter cattle and any other bits and bobs that aren’t very big or difficult, but nonetheless are time consuming. There were a million things I probably should have caught up on, but having gone to the dentist’s (my teeth are in good order, apparently – very well cleaned!) and seen what a lovely day it was, I decided to take the afternoon off. The picture at the top of the page was taken on my way home. Not that I did much, but it was lovely just to kick back and relax.

And now, with Konstantin and Trude back, I finally have some time on my hands again. By happy coincidence, Mattilsynet have finally got their act together and have completed the training course to become an Official Veterinarian in the abattoir. The abattoir is officially not meant to run without one, so I have been acting as one anyway, but it will be lovely if I can finally qualify! There are suddenly four new modules to get through, most of which I can tackle in between other work, but the last module was a task that was only announced recently. As part of the role, I will perform various annual audits in the abattoir and this year’s is a hygiene audit. Though I’ve passed the auditing exam, I need to observe at least three audits before I can qualify. I’ve been struggling to find any to observe and so, when I saw the task in the last module was to observe a hygiene audit, I was quite worried that I wouldn’t manage it before the August deadline.

Happily I have contacts down in south west Norway, where I used to work part time for Mattilsynet. I contacted my old boss, who sounded very pleased to hear from me. Better still, there is a hygiene audit next week down in Egersund and so, on Monday I am flying down to Stavanger, then taking the train to Egersund, where I will meet up with some of the lovely people I used to work with. It will be spring down there, I think. I’m hoping for some sunshine. I’ve already started looking through some of the paperwork for the audit and I think I’m going to learn a lot.

The Big Melt

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 04:17/21:18 Daylength: 17hr01min

The big melt is underway. It has been above zero for more than a week now, although there has been an overnight blip. I woke this morning to a light dusting of snow. I know some people reading this live in snowy places, but most do not. My mum asked me a couple of weeks ago, after a few days of warmer weather, whether the snow was gone yet and I had to tell her that it was still higher than the car roof. It takes weeks for it to go away and afterwards, another couple of weeks for the earth to begin to warm up and for plants to grow, despite the already long days.

The picture at the top of the page was taken yesterday morning, behind the house. It was difficult to photograph, but there is a newly formed river and lake just beyond the garden. No wonder, with the amount of rain that has been coming down. Coupled with the melting snow, there is going to be a significant amount of water gathering for the next few weeks.

Of course, as with any such major change, there is a lot of work to be done. Not particularly for me (I have to decide when to change from winter tyres to summer, which is always a lottery as it can snow into May) but for those fixing the roads, which are badly cracked this year, and also builders and anyone else whose jobs are limited by the weather, the next few months will be crazy. I will have to contact the plumber again soon, to see whether he can fit me in while entry to the foundations is not blocked by a metre of snow . I’ve also contacted an electrician, who hopefully is coming out to look at my museum-piece fuse box, with a view to installing something a bit more up-to-date! The current one is not as old as Per and Tor, as the house was only built in the early 80s, but perhaps they’d have been more familiar with its design than I was when I moved in!

I don’t really have much idea how much it will cost, and perhaps it won’t be possible now, but there are a few fixes I would really like to get done, and this is one of them. At the moment, we can’t run the washing machine twice in a short period and if we use the oven and plates too enthusiastically, dinner ends up being very slow.

I’m going to give what will probably be the final update in the Mr Abusive saga. I didn’t mention last time, but about ten minutes after the electronic letter arrived, Mr Abusive’s wife sent a demand for the money on my phone. This, I recognised, was the first part of a process, by which they have to give various warnings before contacting the bailiffs. As far as I can work out, they have to send a demand first, with two week’s notice, then a warning that they will be referring me for debt collection, with another two week’s grace. That is the minimum, but they are allowed to send various letters, ramping up the charges with each, and for every day I don’t pay, interest would be added on. The bailiffs in Norway are the police, and they have the power to take money from my bank, so Mr Abusive had the full force of Norwegian law and power behind him, based entirely on Husleietvistutvalget’s faulty decisions.

I hope you are not bored, but when I say faulty, I do mean it. The clearest example was that, for carrying out cleaning himself (rather than employing a professional company) he charged me 600kr per hour. This seemed a huge amount, when an inexperienced cleaner in Norway only earns 210kr per hour. My feeling that this was off, was backed up when I read various other Husleietvistutvalget cases. Most landlords only ask for between 200 and 250kr per hour. In another case, the landlord asked for 350k per hour and was firmly told that was too high. His fee was reduced to 212kr per hour. The other decisions were also faulty. For example, Mr Abusive alleges he had to throw out a rug because of ingrained dog hair, but the picture he staged (presumably by emptying the vaccuum cleaner over it) showed a mass of unvacuumed hair and dust. Legally, he is required to attempt to clean it before throwing it out, but there was no evidence he had. It really was like that through the whole case.

Currently, a group of students in Oslo have the papers and I hope they will give me their thoughts on the legalities, but I will be making a complaint, one way or another. Not that it is easy to do so. Every letter I send out from Mattilsynet contains details on how to challenge the decisions I’ve made. There is literally no official pathway to complain about Husleietvistutvalget, and even the information about which government department might have some responsibility for overseeing it is carefully obscured. That the only official channel for challenging it is taking it to court means that those without money are unable to get justice. I hadn’t expected to find myself here in Norway. There’s an assumption that tenants (and women) are well protected here, but this is the second time I’ve found out that I am not and I can’t deny that it has changed my view of Norwegian “justice”.

Anyway, unless my complaint results in something positive happening, I won’t be updating again. Though it’s enough to have an impact on what I can do to improve the house, I am not about to go bankrupt. I will move on, given time, but that’s a story for another day.

It’s not a very beautiful time here, when the snow is melting, but I took some photos anyway. As the huge piles of scraped snow melt, they turn black as the grit that was scraped up with them is left behind. There are a lot of septic tanks around here (I have one) and I should imagine that, as the water levels rise, they must all flood. There was something very brown deposited on the ice in a melting river I found yesterday. No smell, but I did wonder. Snow is beautiful. Its retreat: not so much!

Have a good week all! Thanks for reading.

Good Job!

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 05:55/19:51 Daylength: 13hr55min

I am not going to say much about last week’s case. Thank you so much to all of you who reached out to me with both comfort and bracing advice. One lovely friend advised me to “Shake the dust off [my] sandals and move on.” Given my job, I think that “Hose the bullshit off your wellies” might be a more apt version, but the advice is good. As a quick summary, I haven’t paid yet. I shall pay at the last possible moment. I know it isn’t clear cut enough for a court case, but I have in mind a complaint as the person who was supposed to represent me was obviously as much use as a leaking wellie boot in an undrained pig pen. I have therefore reached out to two sources who know Norwegian law well and will (hopefully) give me free advice. My therapist suggested I should do as much as I felt was reasonable before moving on and that is what I am doing.

Last weekend, John and I drove to the top of the fell he and I climbed in May last year. Unless otherwise stated, the photographs this week are taken from there.

I had planned a much more upbeat post last week, before the doomsday judgment arrived, so I shall revert to what I was talking about, which is that, exhausting though it is, I am increasingly enjoying my job. There are parts of it that probably don’t seem too attractive to many. Back in the UK, I quite enjoyed filling in forms neatly, creating clear, useful instructions for how to perform complex activities and writing reports. Though it’s more challenging to do all that in Norwegian, it does make up quite a chunk of my job. It pleases me though, that I am quite efficient at it. Some of my colleagues don’t like to write reports, but have other, complementary skills. We have to carry out inspections in the abattoir, for example. I don’t (yet) have the knowledge that others who have worked there long time have, but I am delighted to follow them and learn from them, and then write up the summary of findings afterwards.

I also like problem solving and don’t mind responsibility. I qualified as a vet at 22. Suddenly I found myself out in the real world, having to take huge responsibilities that I hadn’t even considered when I was training, probably because I was too young. It was a gruelling experience, but young minds adjust, and adjust mine did. And it’s not like I am alone, as I often found myself in veterinary practice in the UK. If there are things I need to find out in order to resolve a case, I have a whole team of people round me. Better still, I have a boss who believes in me, gives pragmatic advice and is generally supportive if something goes wrong. Those things are beyond price when the job you do includes significant power and comes with high moral obligations.

But as well as all the heavy stuff, there are brighter moments, when I feel I am being paid to do something that is so light that I could happily do it on holiday. At the end of last week, we had a gathering of Team Dyrego, which is the team responsible for animal health and welfare out in the field. We are scattered far and wide – Birgit and Astrid are in Storslett, which is nearly four hours driving from Finnsnes. Thomas and I work in Finnsnes and Anya and Annik work in Tromsø, which is perhaps half way between, though also not on a direct route between the two. These team meetings generally take a similar format. We drive to meet on Thursday, taking some inspections along the way, spend a night in a hotel, then hold a meeting the next day to share information and plan for the coming season. Some of the team were covering heavy cases on the way there, but as I am now mostly working in the abattoir, my inspections were routine. In order to comply with traceability regulations, we have to check a certain number of farms each year to see if they are eartagging their animals in line with European law. And in order to maintain our disease status for TSEs (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy – which can occur in many species, but the most famous is “mad cow disease”) we have to go out, inform about the symptoms and remind 10% of our sheep farmers of their obligations for testing.

I almost didn’t go. Due to people being signed off sick, I thought I would have to work in the abattoir, but my lovely colleague, Kaj, stepped in. On Tuesday, I was quailing as I didn’t think I had enough time for preparation for a day’s inspections, but he also stepped up on Wednesday, so I threw some stuff together, spent an hour on Thursday morning compiling a list of possible farms and phone numbers, and then headed out on a delicious sunny day to visit some farmers. Because of the short notice, I hadn’t warned them I was coming. We are now allowed to do so if there is a good reason (the sheer distance and the chances of sheep farmers being out as most have day jobs is reason enough) so I had no idea how successful I would be, but I had planned for six and hoped for at least two or three.

I had a hit with the first farm I went to. I knew it was a smallholding, so I thought it would be a nice one to start with. The farmer was in and what’s more, she was very welcoming. I have commented before that we are considered by some to be rather like the police. When we turn up at the door, it can be a worrying experience for an animal owner. But quite a few farmers seem to regard us as an agency they can look to for help and advice, and that is part of our role as well. So I asked her some questions and she asked me some, and then we looked at her sheep. They were a traditional Norwegian breed (Gammel Norsk Spælsau) with wonderfully thick wool and a hardy nature. They lived mostly outside, all through the winter, though with a sturdy, dry shelter, good food and clean water. Seeing well looked after animals is a pleasure for me that goes very deep.

It was a beautiful day in Bardu district.

After that, I didn’t have so much success. The GPS in the car had died, but I made my way round with Google Maps, taking care to ensure I didn’t drain my phone’s battery too much. It was minus twenty in places, so if the car broke down altogether, being stranded would be unsafe. I finally tracked down another farm with someone who could show me round. The farmer himself was away moving snow, but he had employed a young Dutch woman, who was available. She showed me the sheep, which were also well cared for and gave me warming coffee. I left there at about two in the afternoon and, hoping to get one more, I visited another two farms, but one had only a very old lady on crutches present and the other had moved to keeping cattle, due to living in close proximity to a bear that liked eating sheep (mentioned in my very first post here).

And so, having enjoyed a very pleasant day at work, I drove up to Vollan Gjestestue, where we spent the night in comfort (see pictures of cake and fruit from our meeting below). It was lovely to meet up with my colleagues and one of my aims is to improve the links between the abattoir team and the team out in the field. Together, I think we will have a great knowledge base and it’s a way that I can focus on improving animal welfare, which should surely be the aim of any vet.

The past week has also been satisfying. Konstantin is now on holiday, so he has been intensively teaching me about all the routine work he does in the abattoir. I had assumed I would assimilate these routines over time but, with everyone who knows how to do them now absent, it will be up to me to keep things ticking over for the next two weeks.

It was looking like things were going to be quiet, but there has been heavy snow and wind over the last few days. There was news last night of some horrifying avalanches in our area and I know that some farms and farmers have been affected. Where there are welfare issues, I know Mattilsynet will be involved. We are second in line to be called in, after the emergency services. So I am not sure what is on the way, but I sent a message to my boss last night that I was available if I was needed. She was still working, despite being on holiday. That is how it is and I can honestly say that I would always want to help, when there are people and animals in need. Despite occasional frustrations, doubts, and wishes for a quieter life, I know I am in the right job. Bring it on.

Lost

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway,

Sunrise/sunset: 05:26/18:23 Daylength: 12hr56min

I have lost my case against Mr Abusive. This despite the fact that, in his evidence, he made false claims and even sent in the receipt for a completely different oven from the one in the flat. Ignoring the fact that I could demonstrate he was lying about some things (which should surely have cast doubt on everything else he presented) they have taken his word for everything. I will get my overpaid rent back, but they still want me to pay him about two thousand pounds.

I am reeling and I don’t really understand how we ended up here. I knew that there was some fairly damning evidence against me in one or two aspects of the case. A vacuum cleaner had been damaged when it was in the store room and we had patched and used it, then stupidly left it behind. That was probably the worst as there’s a definite implication I hadn’t looked after things properly, or replaced them when perhaps I should have. The cooker had also been hard used and there was soot on the fan (burning fat from grilling spitting burgers being the most likely culprit) though there certainly hadn’t been a fire inside it, as he claimed. Also, there were some large items (the shower cabinet being one) which we hadn’t moved out to clean. If you move out items that haven’t been cleaned under for two years, with a dog in the house, inevitably it will be messy. But I think they have taken that as evidence that I had been negligent and have extrapolated that to everything else, rather than considering each claim on its own merits. They don’t seem to have taken into account the fact that he lied into account at all, even though there was undeniable evidence of it.

It is at moments like these that I feel most isolated. I have John and Andrew here, but there’s very little they can do. I have also friends and they will offer comfort and advice, but practically there’s not much they can do either. If I take the case to court and lose again, I will be faced with lawyer’s fees on top of the two thousand pounds I have to pay him. It’s also unlikely, given that he does have some evidence against me, that I would end up with a clear-cut result, where I win and he has to pay costs.

To pay up without objections feels awful though. I know that he has lied. I suspect that some of his evidence was contrived. He showed pictures of dirt where I know there was none, and unfortunately I left him a vacuum cleaner and enough dust and dog hair under the seats on the sofa that he had plenty of “evidence” to plant. He has shown pictures of garden seats that were not in my garden and removed the leg of a table that was standing fine when I left it, but of course I have no proof of these things. If they have decided to take his word over mine, there isn’t much I can do to undo it. I took some photos after cleaning the flat, but they appear to count for nothing. They are not mentioned once in the judgement. I will put them on the bottom of the post so that you can get an idea of what a flat in Norway looks like that needs a thousand pounds worth of cleaning doing and which contains damaged furniture and other things that were in such a bad stated that it warrants two thousand pounds worth of compensation. Click on them and zoom in all you will. It certainly wasn’t trashed.

So how do I move forward? I spoke to my mum, who has advised me to pay, basically to get it over with. I am fairly sure that is what I will end up doing, but it rankles. In books, the bullies never win, but in real life, it seems they do, all too often and I don’t really know what to do with that conclusion. There are too many complicated things going on with my life at the moment and part of me wants to run away, but for a number of reasons, that isn’t practical and wherever I went, I would still be there and there’s a risk I’d end up somewhere similar again.

So it looks like I am going to have to swallow this bitter pill. In the country where tenants rights are supposed to be strongly upheld, where the landlord’s power and relative richness and ability to pay are supposed to be muted, I still find myself here. Having been shouted at and lied about, having paid large sums of money for renting out his basement (enough that it probably covered a good percentage of his mortgage payment for the whole house) having been bullied to the point where it has affected my health and happiness, I am now being asked to pay him more money. Sometimes, life is just shit.

Link to previous post on the case.

The Snowy Peaks

Blog, Holiday, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, Travel, , , , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 05:58/17:56 Daylength: 11hr58min

And so I have returned from my holiday. It was not as restful as I could have wished, but I did catch up with almost all of my immediate family in the UK. Quite a task when they are rather scattered.

I will start with a picture of our plane in Bardufoss, just as Andrew and I were boarding. I commented on it after my last holiday, but the contrast between Bardufoss and Heathrow couldn’t be much greater. I meant to take a photo at the end of our journey, but was so pleased to have arrived, I quite forgot.

We spent a couple of days in Winchester with my daughter Anna and her girlfriend Lauren and then headed up to the Peak District to meet my parents. A few months ago, when booking this holiday, I decided I wanted to meet up with Mum and Dad. Driving up to their home in Yorkshire seemed quite a long way, so looking at a map of the UK, I plumped on the Peak District, as somewhere that was in between Winchester and North Yorkshire and was noted for being beautiful. I knew I would be hiring a car and I was looking forward to gambolling amongst the daffodils and driving round in blue-skied, spring weather.

It was wet on the day we drove up, and the journey was longer than I had realised. I had hoped to be there to pick my parents up from the station, but they decided to take an early train and there was no way that, with almost two hundred miles to go, I could make it there comfortably by one o’clock, so abandoning any idea of getting there early, I decided we would take our time, given that the driving conditions were quite unpleasant.

At about two in the afternoon, Anna received a plaintive text from Mum. They had arrived soaking wet after quite a walk from the railway station. The inn where we were staying was all closed up until five. They had been allowed in to their room, only after a special appeal to the landlady and that was only because there were absolutely no cafes open in the village of Bradwell where we were staying.

When I had planned the trip, I had hoped that my dad would drive the two hour journey to join us, so that we would have two cars. What I hadn’t planned for were the Dire Weather Warnings. Far from the spring holiday I had been imagining, an Arctic Blast was to arrive. Understandably, Dad had abandoned the idea of driving. While our inn had received wonderful reviews, I hadn’t really checked out how much there was to do in the village. The idea that the inn itself would be closed until five each day hadn’t been part of my calculations either. Nor was the fact that it was Monday afternoon and the inn wasn’t going to be serving food in the evenings until Wednesday. What on earth were we going to do for two days in a village with nothing to do, with only one car and six people? How were we going to feed ourselves? Mum was also cross, it seemed, as she had been told I had received an e-mail with the information that check in was after five. I confess that, at this point, I began to think the entire trip was going to be a wash out.

We arrived at about four and spent the intermediate time driving around Bradwell and Hope Valley. It was certainly a charming place, with steep roads, bounded by grey stone houses and drystone walls, which were sometimes so narrow that the distance sensors on both sides of the hire car were flashing at me. I noted that there was an Indian restaurant in the next village. Potentially I could drive everyone there in two trips, but curry two days running didn’t sound too appealing either.

When we finally drew up in front of The Shoulder of Mutton Mum came out to greet us. It hadn’t really been so bad. They had been allowed into their room, which had been quite warm. The landlady had brought them milk for their tea and four pieces of cake. The room Andrew and I were shown to was lovely. Each of the rooms was named after animals and ours was The Hare. As well as a lovely view from the window, it was clean and fresh, with lovely touches on the theme of hares. Even the mugs had hares on them.

Better still, when we went downstairs, the landlord greeted us warmly. There was no food on offer in the bar, but if we would like to buy in fish and chips in the village, or order carry out from somewhere else, they would set us up a table in the restaurant and we could eat in comfort there. To my amazement, at no extra charge, we were provided with a table, plates and cutlery on both of the first two days of our stay. It was also realised that, because of the way the booking had been done, we hadn’t received the e-mail we should have that would have told us about the five o’clock check in. It was just an unfortunate oversight.

We spent Tuesday exploring Castleton. Mum and Dad went on the bus (a fifteen minute journey) and we joined them in the car. I should certainly have checked out what would be available a bit more before travelling. I am out of touch with opening times in the UK and had assumed there would be historic houses open to explore, but we were a week too early. Still, it was lovely wandering around Castleton and we did get some lovely food as there were several cafes open. Though it was chilly, it still felt spring-like.

With ever increasing Dire Weather Warnings, Mum and Dad decided to go home a day early. Though they were on the train, there was still a risk of disruption and they had to drive to get their much-loved cat, Sammy, from the cattery. The lovely owners of the inn even reimbursed their room fee for the night they didn’t use. I would absolutely recommend The Shoulder of Mutton. After an inauspicious start, we couldn’t have been made more welcome or been treated better.

Anna, Andrew, Lauren and I decided to stay on and risk it. Though I was wary about other drivers, the potential lack of gritting and clearing of the roads and the lack of my trusty winter tyres, I thought we would probably make it. We took a drive over to Bakewell on a Bakewell tart hunt and as well as buying a delicious Bakewell pudding (like the tart but without icing and absolutely delicious) we got to see some of Derbyshire as the snow began to fall.

Bakewell puddings in Bakewell

It wasn’t great driving to Lower Slaughter near Cheltenham on Thursday. It had snowed overnight and the road that led over the moors at the beginning of our journey was treacherous, with rutted slushy snow that made driving very difficult. We arrived safely however, and met up with my sister, Helen, and her husband, Steve. They came out with us for a delicious Chinese meal in Cheltenham and donated a big box of logs for us to use on the fire in the cottage we had rented. Anna and Lauren took a walk to Lower Slaughter, which they tell me was gorgeous, but it will have to wait until next time as I spent the day resting in front of the fire.

We arrived back in Norway on Sunday night, very late and slightly concerned as a girl beside us on the plane had been vomiting all the way from Oslo to Bardufoss. I hadn’t expected a lot of snow while we were away: the forecast had been clear, but there was a good deal more than when we had left. It was no longer possible to see the road in either direction when turning out of the driveway. Even in my SUV, the snow was too high to see over and I made a decision as I pulled out, that I was going to ask the neighbouring farmer whether they could come round and shift some of it. And so I did. He came around in the evening and cleared the snow from the driveway, as well as some from the sides of the road so we could out out more safely.

I hadn’t realised how much the snow had built up until he cleared it. There was a foot of compacted snow underneath where the cars were parked and now it is clear, you can see just how deep it is when the cars are parked there.

Neither Andrew, nor I picked up the vomiting bug, though both of us have been unwell this week. I guess that’s always a risk of travelling, particularly on planes. I must confess that the burden of the snow feels much lighter now. I don’t know how much I will be charged – I did ask, but the reply was enigmatic. Still, however much it is, it is necessary. Next winter should be much easier.

Anyway, my holiday is over for now, but I would love to go back to both the Peak District and Lower Slaughter, preferably when the weather is a little kinder. There’s also lots more blogging to catch up on, both with work and with a lovely gift I received from Mary, who reads this blog and sent me a Norwegian book with some lovely history attached, which I will write about in due course. I hope you have a lovely weekend and I will see you all again next week!