Category Archives: In Darkness and In Light

Blog about moving to northern Norway.

Autumn

September 10, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in NorwayAurora borealis, Darkness, Emergency readiness organisation, Guinea Pig, Mattilsynet, New house, North NorwaySarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: 05:42/19:45 Daylength: 14hr02min

I wrote, last week, of frost and autumn is following fast on the heels of the drop in temperature. Before moving to the north I would have said that spring was my favourite season, but it’s so brief here as to be almost non-existent. Winter, though I love it, is too long, but autumn is sweet and still and very beautiful.

There’s a sense of battening down the hatches for the winter to come. We were driving home on Saturday last week when we saw a tractor at the side of the road in an area where wood was being crated up. We stopped and ordered two crates. As we were only a few hundred metres away, the farmer agreed to deliver, so later that day, this pile of wood was deposited in our driveway. It took some time to stack. It’s not obvious from the photo, but the stack is four layers deep. Seeing it all safely under cover, ready for the wood stove in the depths of the Arctic winter, brought a real sense of satisfaction.

It’s getting darker. We will shortly be at the Equinox and it struck me that the seasonal foods will soon begin arriving in the supermarket. No mince pies here (though our local Europris has started to stock a few Iceland products, so you never know) but rather there will be mørketids boller, which are doughnuts with vanilla cream, topped with darkish chocolate.

And as the Darkness closes in, I am often out walking with Triar in the twilight. As you can see from the picture below and the one at the top of the page, we live in a very beautiful place.

We still don’t have internet in our new home and that tends to mean I don’t follow the news very closely. It’s quite peaceful, not knowing so much about what’s going on in the wider world, other than things that are so significant that they come into conversation or crop up as a part of my job. This week there was a stark reminder of the ongoing war in Ukraine in the form of emergency readiness instructions from work. As someone performing a critical function in the food chain, I received information about what to do in the case of a radioactive incident with fallout spreading over Norway. Even if the government issues a general warning not to go outside, we will be expected to do so, and the guidance explained how to minimise the risks. I already have some iodine tablets in the cupboard for Andrew and John though, being over 50, I have no need to take them. Hopefully the tablets will gradually go out of date and will never be needed.

And I woke at 3am last night, as I often do these days, and glanced at my e-mails on my phone. There was a message from WordPress about a blog I follow, and the title of the blog was “The Death of the Queen”. Of course, I went to explore further and found that Queen Elisabeth II had indeed died on Thursday afternoon. While the news was not devastating, nor wholly unexpected, it does very much feel like the end of an era. I remember when growing up, learning a about the Queen and the Prime Minister, who at that time was Jim Callaghan. I recall assuming both were permanent fixtures and feeling shocked when Jim Callaghan was replaced. How long a year was when I was nine years old!

But the Queen has been a permanent feature as a backdrop to my life. I remember the street parties in 1977 for the silver jubilee, and going on a float in a parade. The eighties were punctuated with a pair of royal marriages, the nineties with their sad endings and the awful demise of Diana. Earlier this year, while recovering from Covid, I watched The Crown, and though I know it’s not entirely historically accurate, it gave me a broader overview of the long life and momentous events the Queen has lived through. As I watched the series, I experienced a degree of melancholy. I feel that the optimism and sense of cohesion that pervaded the UK when I was younger has gone and the Queen’s death feels like a link to that past has been removed. It will take some adjustment to having a king, though living over here, I will be one step removed. I won’t see new coins and notes with the head of King Charles (even that sounds wrong). I won’t hear the national anthem sung. Though the UK still feels like home in many ways, I am gradually becoming further and further from the realities of living there.

The Aurora visited last weekend, in spectacular style. I thought I’d share these with you, though my Facebook friends may have already seen them. Andrew called me outside close to midnight last Saturday. I had just gone to bed, but I’m sure you’ll agree it was worth getting up for.

And finally, another death. We lost our adopted guinea pig, Susie, this week. We’d had her for three years or so and she was three years old when we got her. She drove the length of Norway with John and I two years ago when we moved up here. We sadly had to get her put to sleep on Tuesday. It became quickly obvious that Brownie, who regular readers might recall we bought on arrival here in the north, was lonely and so we bought her a new friend. Meet Millie, the latest addition to the McGurk family,

Cows in the Field

September 3, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norwaycows, Moving house, North Norway, PhotosSarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: 05:15/20:17 Daylength: 15hr01min

Well the flat handover went slightly worse than I expected. Though I had assumed the landlord might be quite fussy and exacting, I hadn’t expected him to go into full rage mode. We looked round the flat together on Sunday evening and for the most part it went quite well. There was a moment of triumph for him when he found I hadn’t dusted on the top of a couple of very high, inbuilt cupboards and heard I hadn’t cleaned out the U-bends in the bathroom, but despite their expressed disbelief that I could have done the cleaning in two days (I was told over and over that it had taken them fourteen days to clean the three bedroom flat before we moved in) they seemed satisfied. It was agreed that I would go back and rectify the dusting and U-bend situation and so we left to go and eat as it was late and there were still three days of the lease to go.

I received a message while we were eating, to say I hadn’t vacuumed under the seats on the sofas (I had forgotten) and that we had removed an office chair (a miscommunication between John and Andrew, who had both removed one) but otherwise I was quite pleased myself. The remaining work would only take a short time to do, and then I would be free. They hadn’t taken a deposit, so I thought that if I could do the work to a reasonable level, and they were adequately satisfied, there would be no further comeback.

Andrew had offered to come and give me a hand on the Monday evening. So relaxed was I about finishing up, that I almost took some of the afternoon off work and went myself, though perhaps it was some sixth sense that protected me. I collected Andrew after school and we went round to the flat. We hadn’t even had a chance to begin, when the front door of the flat was slammed open and the landlord strode into the room and right up to us. It was obvious immediately that he was angry. He told us in a tight voice that not only had we not come close to cleaning the flat well enough, but that we had damaged three items.

I asked him to show me the items, the first of which was the board under the sink in the bathroom. There had been an ongoing problem with the U-bend, which he knew about as I had asked him how to fix it the first time it cropped up. Indeed the very first time I found I had wet feet on running the tap, I had opened the cupboard to find the MDF was already warped, and so I had concluded that it was not a completely new problem.

I politely pointed out this fact and he began to get angrier, insisting that he knew it had been fine when we moved in because he’d replaced the panel before we came. Ironic that it didn’t even cross his mind that his statement was a clear indication that there was a problem with the U-bend if he had to change the board before (without taking the sensible precaution of getting a plumber out to fix the actual problem) but by this time he was working himself up into a full head of steam.

By the time we left the bathroom, he had gone into full ranting mode. Even with Andrew there, I felt uneasy and uncomfortable. The fact that there had been a sock under the cushions on the couch seemed to be a particular point of vexation. Not sure why they found it quite so shocking. He was shouting by this time and I made the decision that we should leave, so I handed him the key and Andrew and I left. By the time we got home, there was a terse message on my phone about the fact that I was “refusing to engage with the process” with ten photographs, which included a cupboard door where the hinge at the top had come slightly loose and a photograph of the drawer under the oven, which I had opened during cleaning, to find that the base was entirely rusted through, with large rust bubbles bursting out through the black paint, which definitely had not occurred over the course of two years.

It ended up with me blocking their numbers. John went round to further tell them, in no uncertain terms, why I had left. Unsurprisingly he was met with much less aggression, as he is about four inches taller and visibly stronger than the ex-landlord. Typical bullying behaviour to yell at a woman and a young man with Asperger’s and be polite to someone who could easily take you out. I guess I wasn’t entirely surprised. A year earlier, he had randomly come out of the house and yelled at Anna and Andrew for some made-up misdemeanour. In fact, it was after that that I started to look for somewhere new to live. In the event though, it was all pretty unpleasant, and utterly unnecessary. Had he engaged in a normal fashion, I would have completed the remaining tasks and probably would even have agreed to pay a small amount for the damage under the sink. Never have I been so glad, however, that the one thing they had neglected to do was to take the sizeable (two month’s rent) deposit from me.

Anyway, with all that said, what I mostly feel is relief that we have moved out and pride in my sons, both of whom helped me handle a difficult situation. I was shaking when John came home, and he was incensed, but he had the presence of mind to take a calming friend with him. It’s a wonderful feeling every time I see something that tells me that I have raised some truly decent human beings who also love me. The best feeling in the world!

The rest of the week has gone much better. I was in Tromsø for a couple of nights, catching up with all my far-flung colleagues from around the region.

The end of the week has been really very pleasant. I came home from Tromsø to find that John had strimmed the veritable hay field at the back of the house, where the grass had obviously not been mowed for a good long time. John is likely to move back into the house (though he might stay in his caravan outside the abattoir during the long working days of the season) and it is lovely to have so much help. I’ve really wanted them all to feel like this is truly a home they can return to, should they want or need it, and it’s obvious John is enjoying working on making it a truly pleasant place to live. I would enjoy doing it on my own, but it’s even better with family to share it with.

He called me up on the way to work yesterday, to say that there was ground fog over the valley and that if I wanted to take some photos for this blog, now was the moment. And so I drove out to find that not only were there wonderful views over the valley, but that there was frost on the ground and all the leaves were swathed in white.

Sunrise over the Målselv valley with frosted field in the foreground and fog over the river

Yesterday was the only weekday when I was likely to have a chance to take enough time off work to get some things sorted in the house, so I had arranged for the beds to be delivered, a new heat exchanger/air conditioning unit to be installed and, most importantly, a builder to assess the work that needed to be done on the roof and (money permitting, after the roof was fixed) various jobs inside the house. It seems likely that the roof will cost less to fix than the 50,000-100,000 NOK (round 5,000-10,000 British pounds or US$) and so we will hopefully have more to spare for other things.

And all day, as I worked in and around the house, I could see that there were cows in the field across the road. Of all the domesticated animals, dairy cows are easily my favourite. They are such calm, curious creatures. I had a real feeling of “cows in the meadow, all’s right in the world”. I know that’s not a real saying, but it works for me. It won’t be long before the winter arrives and then the cows will be inside, but they’ll be out again next summer and the summer after that and the summer after that. I have a really good feeling about the move we’ve just made. Onwards and upwards!

The cattle on the other side of the road

Still Here

August 20, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in NorwayAbattoir, House, Lamb, Norway, Seasons, SheepSarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: 04:16/21:.22 Daylength: 17hr06min

Time is going by, and the harvest season is almost upon us, here in the far north. Not that there are many crops, but there are berries and fungi now on the forest floors and already there are hints of yellow and red on some of the trees. As you can see at the top of the page, there are flowers in the garden of the apartment we’ve been living in for two years now. I am going to miss the view, even though I can’t wait to move into our own house. It already feels more of a home than the apartment ever has. Today or tomorrow, my bedroom will be fully decorated and I can start to move my clothes into the cupboard and drawers, though my new bed still hasn’t arrived. The boys and I are going to camp out in the new house tonight though. I want Triar to get used to the idea as Andrew will be back at school next week, so when we do move in Triar will be home alone after only a couple of days.

The main harvest here isn’t wheat. Coming from the UK, harvest still brings to mind combine harvesters ploughing through fields of golden cereal crops, but I don’t think I’ve seen a field for growing any kind of vegetable or corn up here, other than grass for silage. The local autumn crop is seasonal lamb. Odd as it seems, I am looking forward to what is referred to at the abattoir as “sesongen” – the season.

For most of the year, the abattoir is fairly quiet. It’s only open three days a week and there are only two or three staff in the Mattilsynet office on any given day. In the season, staff are drafted in to work on the line, many of them from traditionally Eastern European countries. Mattilsynet fields seven people on any given day, and the whole place comes fully alive.

When I moved here first, I was thrown into the season and mostly on the sheep and goat line and I quickly grew to enjoy it. It’s the only time when two Mattilsynet staff work on the line in tandem. I was on the line alone this week (the line speed is much slower until all the extra staff arrive) and was thinking that shortly I will be standing instead with Vaidotas (who has worked the season for the past two years) and Ernestas (who is coming back after a couple of years off). I haven’t met Ernestas yet, but I’m looking forward to it. He keeps popping up on my Facebook page as someone who knows a lot of people I do, so hopefully I will be able to add him shortly. Working with Vaidotas has always been a pleasure. Soon we will be competing to see who can open the door for the other first and he will be picking up things I’ve missed and correcting them with quiet gravitas, while still treating me as if I’ve never put a foot wrong in my life.

Bright red berries on a rocky outcrop under a purple sky.

I haven’t had the results of my MRI back yet. When I lived in the UK, there were generally good systems in place for doctors to follow up test results, but here it’s much less reliable. I hope they would contact me if they’d found anything serious, but the lack of contact doesn’t absolutely rule anything in or out. I’ve been mostly feeling quite good recently and it crosses my mind often that they may not find anything. Hopefully, by next week there will be an update. In the meantime, I should probably go and pack more boxes. Soon we will have to be out of the flat, beds or no beds, and everything will have to be spotlessly clean. It’s going to be a busy time. Have a pleasant week, all of you.

Own

August 13, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in NorwayBuying a house in Norway, Divorce, Frikort, Hurtigbåt, MRI, TromsøSarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: 03:44/21:.58 Daylength: 18hr14min

My divorce from Charlie came through this week. I don’t talk about the past very much, but I will say that I feel more free to be myself now than I have in years. It took a lot for me to leave, and even more to free my mind, but I’m getting there.

Project House is now well underway. I have ripped off the skirting boards in my currently pink bedroom (Norwegian skirting boards are commonly narrow strips of pine, nailed on – I haven’t prised off any heavy-duty British style ones) and, with John’s help, flattened all the lumps caused by badly inserted screws and filled the resulting holes. Today I will be sanding them down, then hopefully starting to turn it from pink to yellow. John’s room is more complicated. It’s currently black and lilac, and the walls are in a much worse state, so he has his work cut out. That said, it’s wonderful to see him tackling the job with enthusiasm. He wants to create his own space, and that’s making me feel very happy.

The house makes me happy too. John and I were taking a break, sitting in the kitchen a few days back. There’s a breakfast bar beside the window which looks out over woodland. John saw movement among the trees and he realised there was a moose there, which seemed to be watching us. It stood stock still for several minutes before turning and walking away. It felt like another very special moment.

The weekend in Tromsø went well. We went to Tromsøbadet swimming pool on Saturday. I say swimming pool, but it’s much more than that. There are diving boards, a wave pool, slides, a dimly lit hot pool and a «sea temperature» plunge pool – bracing! The swimming pool has a section outside too, so you can swim outdoors, looking out over the surrounding countryside, then sit on an underwater bench where the edge of the pool temporarily becomes a jacuzzi. I want to go back when it’s snowing!

On Sunday, John took Andrew for his first ever climbing session. John has been climbing for a while. Here he is making his way up a wall.

Andrew did remarkably well. John took him up to a practice room and he very quickly started to get the hang of it. Once I’m feeling better, I hope to have a go too.

Lastly, I had my MRI scan yesterday in Tromsø. It was quite long, and involved a lot of breathing in and out, and breath holding. The results will probably take a week to come back, so I will get as much done in the house as possible before then.

I took the hurtigbåt (fast boat) and on the way back, I had a window seat. As well as the wonderful scenery, I was lucky enough to see a puffin, flitting over the waves, and later, several cormorants, which seemed to be fishing off the channel markers as we approached the dock in Finnsnes. It felt good to be coming home. One day, I’ll have to take the boat in the opposite direction. It goes to Harstad, stopping off at Brøstadbotn and Engenes. So many things still to explore.

Have a good week all.

Moving

August 6, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in NorwayMoving house, North NorwaySarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: 03:07/22:36. Daylength: 19hr28min

This is going to be very short. I’m on my iPad, which makes typing and editing much more difficult, and I only have a couple of photos, a reflection of how busy this week has been.

On Monday, I got the keys to my new house. It was wonderful to see inside it again. It’s been ages since I was biting my fingernails in that Tromsø hotel room, making that bid. It was better than I remembered. When I went to the viewing I was obviously being hyper-critical, because the walls, with their textured wallpaper and holes, are nowhere near as hideous as they seemed back then.

It was my first (and probably last) time meeting the seller. She said she’d been very happy in the house, and every time I’ve visited this week, it’s given me a lift, which I hope will continue. The boys love it too. They have chosen their bedrooms and both seem happy, which is wonderful. Andrew and I took Triar over yesterday and he cantered round, then cheerfully christened the garden with his first poo. Some things never change!

So this is the view from the end of the house with the veranda:

View of trees and mountains, taken from the veranda

And this is the view from the back, which you can see through the window when you sit at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

So the remainder of the week has been punctuated with calls to internet providers, visits to furniture shops (three beds have now been ordered) and discussions with a builder about the hole in the roof, and the more pressing jobs that need to be done. We bought some paint yesterday. John’s new bedroom is currently black and mine is bright pink, so we thought that a quick makeover was in order before we move in. My colleagues have been very helpful. Trude has given all kinds of useful information on everything from where I can get a heat exchanger to be paid for over time, to where I can buy wood for the stove. Øivind has offered me lots of furniture, which is just brilliant.

Hilde was also very reassuring yesterday. I was visibly unwell at work, having spent part of the night in pain (the usual upper right quadrant/shoulder area) and sweating. (Who knew that the night sweats from (probably) a blocked bile duct can be worse than the menopause?) I commented that it would be potentially calamitous if they found something serious on my MRI on Friday. She immediately said she was sure a dugnad could be arranged. A dugnad is a very Norwegian thing, where lots of people chip in to get a job done. Often it’s a community thing, like maintaining a local park area, so I was very touched that they might have one for me.

Anyway, so far things are progressing quite well with the move. John’s friend and colleague, Bowen, is coming on Monday evening to move furniture. He has a pick-up and trailer, so hopefully we can get Øivind’s furniture, so we will have sofas and shoe cupboards and coffee tables. I have moved a lot of kitchen equipment and white goods over. Somehow, despite having lots of forks and spoons, there are only two knives, which is odd, but easily fixed. In the coming week, I hope to move all my books and the remaining kitchen stuff, and get the storage room at the flat properly cleared. It is currently in the maximum chaos stage, where I’ve taken all the big stuff and now there are just small things scattered everywhere. Fortunately we’re not moving far, so I don’t have to pack carefully, so much as fling everything into boxes, then not shake them too much!

We’re in Tromsø for the weekend. Not the best timing ever to have a weekend away, but I do need to rest, so it’s all good. And last but not least, Andrew turned 18 on Tuesday. So now all my children are officially grown up. The black forest cake I made him was messy, but he seemed pleased enough, which is all that matters. Have a good week all!

July 30, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in NorwayBuying a house in Norway, Mattilsynet, North Norway, Senja, Wild swimmingSarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: 02:22/ 23:20. Daylength: 20hr58min

And so the months of perpetual daylight have passed again for this year. There’s a feeling of change in the air as we move towards the autumn. There’s change coming up for me too. On Monday I should get the keys to my new house. I am feeling a mixture of excitement and nervousness. The mortgage payment went out of my bank a couple of days back, and my account, which was replete with the deposit, suddenly looks very much emptier, and the limitations on what I will be able to buy and do with it came into focus. There are a few things I urgently need to fix. There was snow in the loft last winter, so the hole that let it in needs to be fixed. Also the heat exchanger (which most Norwegian houses use as a significant part of their heating in winter) needs fixing or (more likely) replacing. On top of that, we need, as an absolute minimum, beds to sleep in. My kind colleague, Øivind, has offered us some furniture, including sofas, so at least we will have something to sit on.

In addition to the furniture, there are various other things I had to do, including arranging contents and building insurance, and letting the post office and National Population Register know I will be moving. There was a close call yesterday when the estate agent rang me up in the afternoon to say that the insurance for legal problems with the exchange hadn’t been paid, by my bank, with the mortgage. This was apparently serious enough for her to suggest that the exchange might not go ahead on Monday. I presume that might have set me in breach of contract, but fortunately they allowed me to make the payment and send evidence I had done so. Everything to do with the bank is done online here, so barring further problems, hopefully everything will go ahead as planned.

It’s been a mixed week at work. The first half was spent out on the road with Gry. Always a good thing! As usual, she had some very interesting snippets on sheep farming. The most interesting, from my point of view, was that in the past couple of years, she has started breeding her first time ewes with Norwegian Villsau rams. This means that the first time they give birth, they will have relatively small but hardy lambs, which are more likely to thrive with a first time mother. She and her sons are so engaged in making improvements to the farm that it’s inspiring to hear, as well as fascinating.

Sheep on pasture near the road at Stonglandseidet

The downside of going out with Gry is that it means that once the visits are finished, there are reports to write. These are relatively straightforward in uncomplicated cases, but this week, for example, I went to a farm where there were some animals with no eartags. Norwegian law is very strict on traceability, and an animal without tags is much more difficult to track. They can’t go into the food chain, and of course, if there’s an outbreak of infectious disease, it potentially makes tracing which animals were in the area at the time much more difficult.

So if there are animals without tags, and especially if there are other traceability problems, such as not updating the Livestock Register regularly enough, I have to serve notice that those animals that can’t be traced must not be moved off the farm. In addition, I have to set deadlines for the farmer to have the animals properly tagged again, and explain which laws cover the problems I found, and what they mean on the ground.

In addition to the report writing, Line sent me notice that next week, I have to go out and certify a horse which will be travelling to Sweden. I’ve inspected many horses in the past that were travelling from Scotland to Ireland. The inspection itself isn’t complicated. But back then, the paperwork was just that: paperwork. Standard forms would be printed out and filled in. Now all the paperwork has to be produced through a Europe wide system called Traces. Not only is the system itself quite impenetrable, but everything has to be registered and double checked. The importer (who in this case was a private individual) has to be put in the system at both ends, so as the person sending the horse from Norway, and the person receiving it in Sweden. Putting someone in the system in Sweden has to be done by an official vet in Sweden. We can’t do it here.

Because I have barely used Traces, Line had kindly set up a meeting at twelve on Friday to walk me through it. After a long week at work, I had been hoping to get away early to go swimming with John and Andrew. I thought the meeting would take perhaps an hour and hopefully less, but it turned out to be much more complicated than I had realised. Not only did everything have to be put in place in Traces, but there was also information that had to be added in Mattilsynet’s own system MATS. I think Line had not realised just how unfamiliar I am with the sections of MATS that I don’t regularly use, and also perhaps hadn’t realised how difficult it still is for me to work in Norwegian, in any circumstance where the language is complex or unfamiliar. She was very patient, but by the time two hours had gone by, I think we were both pretty tired of the situation. I rushed away at the end of the meeting, hoping we would still be in time for an hour of swimming, but it was at that point I found out that there was a risk of the house sale not going through, which had to be sorted immediately, and by the time that was finished, there was no time left because the pool was shutting.

Still, every cloud, as they say. Having missed the pool, we decided to go out and see if we could swim in a lake instead, so this was where we ended up.

We took some wood and had burgers and hotdogs afterwards. Obviously that doesn’t quite fit in with the low fat eating I’ve been doing for the past month or so, and I’m suffering somewhat in the aftermath, but by the end of the evening, I had certainly put the past two days at work firmly behind me.

A couple of pictures to finish up, from a walk last weekend, arranged by Ann. By next week, I should have a new house not too far from here. See you there!

The Rest is History

July 23, 2022Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, VetMattilsynet, Norway, Travel, TriarSarah McGurk

Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.

It was hard leaving Yorkshire. I left just after midday last Saturday and the last few hours were melancholy. I travelled to Gatwick on the train: a frustrating journey as I misbooked my tickets on the Trainline App and though I realised my error moments after I had done it, it couldn’t be undone. And so I walked through Leeds station and watched an almost empty train to Kings Cross leave ten minutes after I arrived there, then travelled to York, where two more trains to the same destination left before the one I was booked onto pulled in. Still, I stayed overnight in a Premier Inn near the North Terminal and set off at a civilised time on Sunday morning to fly home.

That day’s journey was somewhat hair-raising. I flew from Gatwick to Bergen, then from Bergen to Tromsø. The original plan was that John was to collect me from the airport, but as he was stuck in the UK due to the SAS strike, I planned on getting a bus from the airport to the fast boat and taking the last boat of the day, which left Tromsø at 8pm. All the connections were a bit tight, but despite a couple of delays and an almost interminable wait, while they unloaded the baggage for four planes onto the two, smallish luggage carousels in Tromsø, I arrived safely at around 10pm. Just as well as I was due in the abattoir at 6am on Monday morning. Had I not made it, I would have been faced with the interesting dilemma of which of my colleagues might be willing to take the two and a half hour drive to Tromsø at an unspecified time on a Sunday evening.

It’s been a fairly typical summer week at work. I was at the abattoir Monday to Wednesday, then on Thursday I set to, tackling the six new cases I’ve been sent. Fortunately, the abattoir is closed next week, so hopefully I will get at least half of the investigations under way then, and keep my fingers crossed that I don’t get another six in the meantime. The good news is that Gry is sacrificing some of the first week of her holiday to come out with me.

I haven’t been out and about too much this week, but Triar and I did take a tour down the pathway at the back of the house and round to the little harbour that lies near the bottom of the hill. I’ve commented before on the fact that most of the small paths are blocked in the winter due to the snow. When it’s a meter deep and regularly added to, they rapidly become impassable. But this is a land of extremes. While the long dark spell brings a blanket of white over the landscape, the light brings so much life that even the floors of dense pine forests are swathed in green. This was the path Triar and I took. The undergrowth is at shoulder height.

Rampant plants almost obscuring the path

And here’s Triar on the harbour wall.

Of course, all that growth means there are lots of insects. In particular, I love watching the bumble bees.

The last two photos are from a trip to collect John from the airport yesterday evening. I set off for Tromsø before his plane left Oslo and before the hour and a half delay was announced, so I took my time (and a small detour) driving up. The tops of the mountains were swathed in clouds, but now and then I would catch sight of a rocky peak.

And as ever, where the mountains are so steep, there are stunning waterfalls along the roadside. Though technically today is the last day of 24 hour daylight, there was a brief period around 1am where it was definitely twilight. Due to the mountains, though the sun is still technically above the horizon, the reality is a little different.

And though it was hard leaving Yorkshire, and Mum and Dad, now I am back, I am not homesick. The week after next, I will get the keys to my new house, and then a whole new chapter will be beginning. Have a lovely week all!

Holiday Reflections

July 15, 2022Blog, Hillwalking, Holiday, In Darkness and In LightFood, Returning to the UK, Settle, Walking, Waterfall, Yorkshire DalesSarah McGurk

I thought I’d start with a few thoughts about my stay. Someone commented last time I was in the UK, that they were interested to find out what changes I’d noticed since I was last here, in 2019. I can’t say I’ve noticed too many, though of course my parents notice many things I haven’t, such as changes in the NHS. Prices have probably gone up, or portion sizes have shrunk, but that’s happened elsewhere too.

I think perhaps it’s me that has changed more, and that’s partly to do with the pandemic. Living in the north of Norway, along with general pandemic precautions, I am unused to being close to large numbers of people. In Glasgow I went to a Marks and Spencer Food Hall, which was (to me) heinously busy. I pretty much ran to the section I wanted, grabbed something, and rushed out. It was much the same when we stopped at a service station on the motorway. I escaped outside as soon as I possibly could. I also had a discussion with John about driving. He’s learned to drive in Norway in an area where there are relatively few cars on the road. He was watching the drivers on the A65 with a kind of horrified fascination as they drove in close convoys, with only a meter or two between each car.

Other things struck me anew, which I had forgotten because I hadn’t been here for so long. Nobody in Norway has a string light switch in their bathroom! Anna tells me one of her friends was mystified, trying to turn the light on when he visited. Then again, Norwegian houses seem to burn down quite often, which is probably because a lot of the electric wiring is DIY. That and all the candles, of course. Most of the taps (faucets) in Norway are mixer taps, so I was freshly frustrated trying to rinse my hands before the hot tap got too volcanic. Cash? There was consternation recently when the entire card network went down for one of the major Norwegian supermarket chains. I had to go and find an ATM. I’ve lived in Finnsnes for two years and didn’t know where it was. Lots of people still seem to use cash here. And for anyone who likes their floors to stay clean, Norway is the place to be. I still can’t adjust back to keeping my shoes on in the house. I kick them off at the door, every time.

Food wise, it’s been a frustrating holiday. I’ve been sticking to low fat foods throughout. Fortunately, there’s a fairly good selection, though it can’t have done my teeth much good eating so many iced buns and scones with jam. There has also been a glut of bacon and ham rolls, slathered in delicious chutney, but without butter. Eating out is difficult, though full marks to Rosa and Matteo’s Italian Restaurant in Settle, which made me a wonderful low fat Pasta e ceci – pasta with chickpeas – (twice) but there have been a few occasions where I’ve watched everyone else eating fish and chips or curry, and wished I could join in. Still, there’s much more choice here, even with my health limitations. I think I might get thinner when I go back.

What I would have liked to eat in The Golden Lion in Settle – sausage, mash, onion rings, peas and gravy

What I ate – noodle salad with mixed leaves, roasted courgettes, peppers, cherry tomatoes, sweetcorn, coriander and lime

Still, I managed to fit in a couple of walks this week. On Tuesday, Helen and I were driven over to Long Preston, and walked back to Settle over the fells. We also took a detour up to see Scaleber Force waterfall, though Force is a complete misnomer at the moment as there’s hardly any water in it. Still, it was a pleasant, 9km walk, taken early in the morning, before the day started to heat up.

The second walk was this afternoon, with Dad. We didn’t go far: just along the riverside in Settle itself, but I was glad to have the time together, before I have to leave tomorrow.

The Ribble as it runs along the back of Ribble Terrace

We’ve also managed a bit of shopping. Andrew took us on a hunt for Raven Forge in Crosshills. We almost missed it, as it looked like a unit in an industrial estate, but we stopped and asked someone who was working there, and found ourselves invited in to a wonderful display of swords and weaponry, from all kinds of games and films.

We also went upstairs in The Geek Side, a little gift shop in a rather magical arcade in Skipton, and discovered a veritable Harry Potter paradise.

Harry Potter merchandise in The Geek Side shop in Skipton

And if you want some sweets, you could do worse than The Dalesman Café in Gargrave.

An old-fashioned sweetshop in The Dalesman Café, Gargrave

But in the end of the day, it all comes down to the wonderful view from my parents’ garden. As the sun goes down, and the shadows lengthen on my last day in this golden oasis, I can only hope that it won’t be too long before I can return.

Wildflower garden with golden evening sunlight on the hillside behind

A Tale of Two Walks

July 9, 2022Blog, Hillwalking, Holiday, In Darkness and In Light, Travel, WritingJanet's Foss, Malham, Submssions, Summer, Walking, Writing, Yorkshire DalesSarah McGurk

This week’s post will mainly be about two walks I took this week, the first with my dad, the second with John, but first a quick update on things I forgot last week when I was unable to use my computer. My health is moderately stable. Because of the likelihood of some kind of blockage of my bile duct, I have been eating a low fat diet. This has mostly worked, but any time I deviate from it, I develop pain. It’s nowhere near as bad as the pain before I had my gall bladder removed ten years ago. It’s only somewhat physically troublesome, but psychologically more so.

On the subject of submissions and publishers, there’s nothing much to report. Another couple of rejections, but with some positive feedback about my writing. Too commercial, seems to be the main objection at present, which presumably means it doesn’t fit the style they’re looking for, and not that they think it will sell too well. One editor gave more specific feedback that she “wasn’t sure [it] had quite the escapist, romantic tone [she was] looking for at present”. She did say it was well written though, so I hope that somewhere there is an editor who will fall in love with it. Commercial fiction within traditional publishing tends to fall into very specific genres at the moment and what I’ve written doesn’t fall neatly into any of them, so it was always going to be challenging.

I guess it would be odd to write this without also noting that John, Andrew and I have ended up in the UK at a time of mass upheaval in parliament. The astonishing events of the past week, with dozens of resignations within the Conservative Party, resulting in the resignation of Boris Johnson (though he hasn’t gone yet which, given his recent maverick activities, seems risky) have been something to behold. It has interested me, watching from Norway, that in the UK press at least, it has appeared that Johnson has been credited with handling the pandemic marvellously, based mostly on his roll-out of vaccinations. Watching from the relative calm of Norway, with its early lockdown and only marginally slower vaccination roll out, it seemed bizarre that he received quite so much credit, but of course I don’t know what it felt like on the ground. I can’t say I’m sad to see him go. He seems an unfit person to be in power, with his history of lies and profligacy, but he’s obviously one of those divisive figures that some people love and others don’t.

Anyway, onto the walks and photographs. I went for a walk on Sunday with my dad. After not seeing him for two and a half years, all the time wondering whether we would ever do such a thing again, it felt wonderful to be out in the Yorkshire countryside: a very precious moment together. We walked to Langcliffe, which is a village not far outside Settle. We walked past an old mill, then on up the hill to Langcliffe itself, which is even more charming than Settle, with its terraced stone houses, quiet country church, and village green. We called into the village institute, where volunteers were serving tea and cakes. It felt very much like being inside a James Herriot novel (though without the animals, obviously) which I found very pleasing!

View of Ribblesdale through a wooden farm gate

The second walk was a 7km hike with John. We drove to Malham, then went up the almost 400 steps to the top of Malham Cove.

On the top of Malham Cove is a limestone pavement. It’s amazing to look out over the valley below from this incredible structure with its weathered stone, the cracks between the rocks filled with ferns and tiny flowers.

Having reached the top of Malham Cove, and finding my second wind, we decided we would go on a circuit from the top of the cove to meet a road that went back down into Malham village. As we reached the road, we spoke to a couple we met, who had come up via Janet’s Foss, so rather than walking down the road as planned, we took another detour down the shady river valley, past Janet’s Foss (my Norwegian friends will know what that is, as Foss in Norwegian for waterfall) and back through some gorgeous green pasture, where cattle stood knee deep in grass.

We finished with a well deserved drink in the Buck Inn. A lovely end to a wonderful sunny day.

Narrow Lanes

July 2, 2022Blog, Holiday, In Darkness and In Light, Travel, WritingHoliday, Literary agent, Settle, Travel, Writing, Yorkshire DalesSarah McGurk

We flew out of Tromsø last Sunday. Despite the threat of strikes and potential airport chaos, for us everything went without a hitch. Flying out of Tromsø is spectacular. The island the city inhabits is still surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Snow-capped mountain peaks and Tromsø from the air

Andrew and I arrived in Edinburgh in the evening, then the next day we took the train, via Carlisle, to Settle in the Yorkshire Dales. My dad met us as we climbed down onto the platform. It was both wonderful to see him after two and a half years, and jarring at the same time as he stood well back: the first time we’ve met and not hugged immediately in many years.

I had booked an AirBnb – an old workers’ cottage in Upper Settle. Our intention was to quarantine for a week before moving into my parents’ house, but our plans changed with the sad death of my mother-in-law. Instead of quarantining, Anna joined Andrew and me and we drove to Glasgow to attend her funeral two days ago.

Driving in the UK again was something of a challenge. When I bought my car two years ago in Norway, I went for a sturdy SUV. it had to be suitable for winter driving and potentially farm roads. I wasn’t looking for an automatic, but as luck had it, that was what I got. Mum and Dad’s manual, diesel Polo couldn’t be much different. Add in the fact that the national speed limit in Norway is 50mph and I hadn’t driven on the left for three years and starting out was something of a challenge. Our practice run into Skipton was … interesting! Sixty mph on the narrow, winding road seemed impossible. I kept slowing down to go through the towns and villages, only to realise I was already only doing forty. I was amused then, when Dad solemnly bade me not to drive too fast as I set off a couple of days later to drive to Glasgow.

John also flew over and joined us for the funeral, which was only very small, but which fortunately went well. He returned with us to Yorkshire, and so yesterday afternoon, for the first time in many years, John, Anna, Andrew and I all sat in my parents’ conservatory together.

Though I was in the UK in spring, with Anna, it’s different being back in Yorkshire. The contrast with the northern Norway summer is striking. Where the growth around Troms is short-lived, wild and uncontrolled, here the green has a quiet maturity, with its dry stone walls climbing the fellsides and the clustered grey houses on steep lanes. The rest of this entry then, will be a few of the photographs I’ve taken this week, in sunshine and showers, both in my parents’ garden and as I’ve wandered round the town.