Tag Archives: John

Fish and Chips

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Sunrise/sunset: 03:36/21:58. Daylength: 18h22min

I didn’t update last week. I was too busy wallowing in the nostalgia of my UK visit. The past two weeks have also been filled with movement and travel, some further afield, but others involving more local discoveries.

Ten days ago, I travelled back down to Rogaland, where I used to live. I was bound for a Mattilsynet meeting about the important communication on welfare between abattoirs and the vets out in the field that I talked about in this post: The Ever Changing Sky

I emerged into the 11pm darkness at Sola Airport to be greeted by the ever present smell of slurry. It’s a very famous phenomenon. Jo Nesbø even mentions it in one of his books. Anyway, I had completely forgotten until I stepped outside into the warmish night air.

Knowing I would arrive so late, I had toyed with the idea of staying in an airport hotel and travelling onwards on the morning of the meeting, which didn’t start until eleven. But I had found a bus that would take me to Sandnes – the number 42 – and so I thought I’d risk it. I remembered the airport buses from when I used to live there, so I assumed I would be able to pay on board, but when the driver only opened the doors in the centre of the bus, it was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to buy one. Scrabbling online, I found I had the Kolumbus App already. Crossing my fingers that there would be no inspectors at that time of night, I finally bought a ticket for what I thought was the correct area, just as we pulled into Sandnes.

By this time it was midnight. Technically, I was still working, still on the clock, which I had switched on in the office when I arrived in the morning. Logging onto my computer to clock out, I thought I would check tomorrow’s meeting, so I opened up the Teams app to check the calendar. There was no venue listed. In fact, it was listed as a Teams Meeting. For a long, sweaty moment, I thought I had just travelled 2000km for a Teams meeting. A check of the e-mails confirmed that I had not. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had!

But the meeting was a success and I’m very glad I went. One of the tasks I struggle with at work is speaking up in meetings, but I had some valid points to make, based on both experience and reading around the topic. It was also great to meet some of the other Mattilsynet staff from other areas of Norway.

I flew back on Thursday afternoon and arrived home almost as late as I’d arrived in Sandnes. There was no rest though, as I had arranged an inspection with Gry on the Friday (post about Gry). The tour took me on an exploration of a part of Senja that I had never visited. Indeed it’s a small corner of the island that I had missed in all my driving around. We stopped in Gryllefjord for a surprisingly tasty chunk of pizza from the local shop. *

Surprisingly tasty pizza

Gryllefjord is an amazing place. It’s ramshackle collection of houses, clustered on the edge of the fjord, under a brooding overhang of mountains, with a small harbour. It was a cloudy day, and the tops of the mountains reached up into the mist.

We also drove to a nearby village, reached through a tunnel in the mountainside. The old road, which went over an exposed ridge, was often blocked in winter.

It’s always a joy finding new places near to where I live. There was also a restaurant in Gryllefjord, which was closed at the time of our visit. I had heard from others that it was a good restaurant, and when I checked online, it appeared that there was fish and chips on the menu.

For anyone living in the UK, that probably seems like a non-event. Fish and chips is the original British fast food. I can remember before Chinese and Indian takeaways became common, and well before the invasion of the US burger craze, that fish and chips was a staple. But in Norway, fish in batter is rare. So when John came over the next day, which was also his birthday, I suggested that we should take a tour out to Gryllefjord to try out the Skreien Spiseri and he jumped at the chance.

It was a much brighter day and we stopped along the way at Hamn to take a few photos. There were also some reindeer by the road, looking surprisingly defenceless without their antlers.

The fish and chips was delectable. We will definitely be back.

Fish and Chips from Skreien Spiseri

As you can see from the photos of John’s birthday, the weather was almost spring-like. I was hoping for a smooth segue from winter to summer, but it wasn’t to be. It started to snow again a couple of days later. I went to Tromsø on Thursday this week to go on an inspection with Line, who works there. Arriving back on the fast boat at five thirty in the afternoon, I walked back through Finnsnes centre and paused to take a couple of photos.

Still, I enjoyed the walk, even if it was a little more “refreshing” than I would have predicted a couple of weeks ago.

And as you know, there’s one member of our household, who always welcomes the snow! Hope you have a great week everyone.

Triar, looking cheery at the new snow fall

*I forgot to say that I also drank a cup of black coffee from the shop, when I was out with Gry. Perhaps, in time, I will indeed be truly integrated into Norwegian society. Maybe if I tell the authorities that I managed it without milk, they will give me a Norwegian passport faster.

Fit for the Summer

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Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.

Ann was on holiday this week and so I worked every day from Tuesday to Friday at the abattoir in Bardufoss. I was on animal welfare duty all week (which involves an early start) and as John is living over there in an apartment with a spare bedroom, I spent the better part of the week at his place.

As we set off to drive over on Monday evening, we began discussing health and fitness. Through the long winter, walking in the countryside was largely impossible. Trails were blocked with snow and even if you wanted to park and walk along the road, you often couldn’t as the car parks hadn’t been cleared and there was nowhere to stop. Looking back, I realise how unprepared I was. Next winter, I will have to find a solution other than sitting on the couch for three months, but for now, the challenge is to get my untrained muscles outside and get some fresh air into my lungs.

John suggested we walk up an unmade road close to his house that weaves up the side of one of the fells. Because it’s technically a road, it was cleared through the winter. A few weeks ago, there would have been an icy crust and walls of snow, but those have melted. There are large laybys all the way up. In winter, these were crucial passing places when the road was hemmed in, but now they are big enough to park in.

John’s proposal was that we should start from the bottom and walk up in stages, so that’s what we did. The first day’s walk was a steep twenty minute trek through woodland. It was pretty enough, even as I gasped my way uphill. A large stream, recently frozen, ran alongside sections of the track. The forest floor was still lined with snow. But it was only when we reached the end of the first day’s segment and turned round that I could see just how beautiful the scenery was.

Day one from the highest point of our walk.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the mountains were swathed in pure white. Now their rocky faces are emerging and the trees that line their lower slopes are beginning to be tinged with purple as new branches and leaf buds begin to grow.

Icy mountain stream.

We stopped to photograph the stream on the way back down. The peaty water flowing over the ice gives it a very different look from the streams in Scotland in springtime.

Highest point on day two.

On day two, we took the car up to the highest point we had reached on day one and set off from there. The trees were more sparse up here, clinging on to the thin layer of earth over the rocks. In the lower right corner of the photo, you can get an idea of how thick the snow still is. It’s treacherous to walk through. There’s a crust on the top, which occasionally holds firm, but more often you fall through and find yourself off-balance in a knee-deep, foot-sized hole. As your other foot is similarly wedged, moving it quickly to correct your balance is impossible. I haven’t yet fallen flat on my face, but that’s because I mostly avoid making the attempt.

Mountains beyond the trees.

The emerging colours are stunning. After months of white, it feels as if the world is coming to life again. The pussy willow trees are so rife with pollen that it almost looks like blossom. There were birds too, singing in the trees.

Tree in bloom.
Day three, close to the top.

By day three, my legs were beginning to flag and so we walked only ten minutes instead of the normal twenty. The sky that day was filled with dramatic clouds, and yet it was still warm enough to walk without a jacket. Then again, five degrees feels warm to me now. There’s no doubt my body has adjusted to the local climate.

The colours of spring.

I came home yesterday and walked here instead, but I confess that I love the new project John has created for me. We will continue walking up the mountain over the next few weeks, and hopefully when the trails on Senja are properly opened up again, we will be able to tackle some of the mountains there.

And, of course, I can’t write this blog and fail to mention the fact that we now have twenty four hours of daylight. I stayed up last night, to see whether there would be midnight sun, but it dipped behind the mountains at eleven fifty. Going to bed is more difficult when it is still so light. It’s also difficult when you wake in the middle of the night and there’s bright sunshine filtering round the edges of the blind and curtains. There’s no way to judge whether it’s morning or not. I have to check the clock each time. Tough to go back to sleep at four in the morning when your eyes are telling you it’s full daylight. Have a great week everyone.

To The North!

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“Pure ‘Northernness’ engulfed me: a vision of huge, clear spaces hanging above the Atlantic in the endless twilight of Northern summer, remoteness, severity… and almost at the same moment I knew that I had met this before, long, long ago. …And with that plunge back into my own past, there arose at once, almost like heartbreak, the memory of Joy itself, the knowledge that I had once had what I had now lacked for years, that I was returning at last from exile and desert lands to my own country, and the distance of the Twilight of the Gods and the distance of my  own past Joy, both unattainable, flowed together in a single, unendurable sense of desire and loss….”  C.S.Lewis.

***

I wonder how life would have gone, were it not for COVID-19. I can recall the fascination I felt, back in late January or early February, searching on social media for information from Wuhan. I watched with interest: those alarming films of people dropping in the street, reading that China (of all places) had gone into a lockdown so tight that people were not allowed to leave their homes.

It filtered through to me, as I watched those posts unfold, that something big was happening, though back then I had little sense of impending doom. That came later, as the virus began to spread. One by one, day after day, new posters appeared at work, telling us how to cough, to wash our hands, to use gel as we entered, notices in Norwegian and English and several other languages I didn’t understand. The canteen shut and then the borders of the country: closed to anyone who didn’t live here.

And as I watched the figures fall in Norway, I watched them rise in the UK.

I miss my parents. That is undoubtedly the worst in all of this. I had been looking for a new job for a while with no success. But with spring, the realisation came that I was no longer tied to Rogaland for my son’s schooling. And in the midst of a wave of homesickness and fear for my parents, who by now were locked down themselves, with no obvious end in sight, the grand idea came to me that perhaps now was the time to return to the UK.

But it was not to be. Though I found a wonderful practice close to my parents, who wanted to employ me, they were unable to make me an offer. They had sold the practice a year earlier to one of the corporates, and the corporate had a moratorium on taking on new staff due to … coronavirus.

But by now anyway, the insanity of a move back to the UK was starting to hit me. With the increased border security, it was unlikely I would be able to get the dog into the UK, let alone the guinea pigs. Juggling quarantine requirements would mean I would have to find somewhere to stay when I returned to the UK. It would need to have furniture, as mine would take a while to arrive. Likely many shops were shut, and even if they weren’t, I probably wouldn’t be allowed to go. Quarantine with no bed and no TV…

In the midst of all this chaos, a job popped up in the North of Norway. Mattilsynet (the Norwegian equivalent of the UK Food Standards Agency) were looking for a vet. The duties were very wide ranging, as often happens in remote places. Lower population often results in less specialisation… and that has always suited me. Easily bored, I love doing different things. And so I applied.

The interview was tough. I’d had a few by then in Norwegian, but it didn’t get much easier. I’d applied for an old job that I’d done part time before, and had been turned down, I was told, on account of my language skills. This time round I was prepared for the type of question. I had even thought up some possible answers. But explaining the concept of working as part of the management team of a fast growing chain of emergency clinics, covering all the complaints without the expertise of the best (and only specialist) veterinary insurance company in the UK because my boss wanted to prove to them that we could manage without them, is not the easiest thing to translate, not least because veterinary emergency clinics are unheard of here.

Then there was a medical question about cattle. I was sent a text with a scenario and had to answer questions around it. Despite having ten minutes thinking time, I translated one of the words wrongly, and therefore gave a confusing as well as incorrect answer. I think it was at that point I considered just blurting out that there was no point in continuing, because it was obvious we were all wasting our time.

So I wasn’t particularly hopeful. Still, I had a job which was almost full time. We weren’t on the streets, or likely to be. And then, to my astonishment, a contract arrived. No explanation, no welcoming phone call: simply sign here if you want the job.

I signed it of course. It was so precious I didn’t want it to slip through my fingers. And then I contacted them about accommodation and about moving and about how I wouldn’t be able to start on the day that was written on the contract because, with the best will in the world, I couldn’t start there the same day I finished here, because there was 2000 km in between.

All that happened only three weeks ago. And in one week’s time, I will be driving north to take up my new post. It’s a thirty hour journey and I will be taking it with my son John, our dog Triar, and a pair of guinea pigs.

Triar – our wonderful Kooiker

We will be camping! I hope the weather holds. John is planning on walking and lake swimming. I’ve bought a new car to take us up there… well I say new. She’s seven years old, but my first BMW… all wheel drive. I wanted something that could tackle snow.

I am about to move up into the Arctic Circle: Land of midnight sun and interminable darkness.

And I hope to take you with me!