back north

We had a great week in Barcelona last week - a very interesting city to wander around and explore. We took loads of photos, which David is currently weeding through and will no doubt be uploaded to flickr at some point.

Now we're back to Finland, which is pretty grey and dreary at the moment. The fire has been kicked into action, so we're nice and cozy despite the weather. Unfortunately the car's still giving us problems no doubt another trip to the car doctor will sort it out and make us poorer - still hopefully cheaper than buying a new one.

I did a little knitting while I was away, but not that much and we visited the three yarn stores I could find addresses for although I was good and didn't buy anything. Depending on how much work I find to do next week I'm going to make a concerted effort at getting some more of my City and Guilds course progressed.

Hanko

Last weekend we spent some time west of Helsinki in and around Hanko . We were very off season, but it was nice to go and relax and explore a little. We saw a castle, interesting street signs, lakes, sea, snow, sauna and our little hut and lots of other interesting things. The area's meant to be really bustling in the summer so maybe we'll go back and see what it's like?

The strangest thing we encountered was a peperoni pizza, which also had pineapple and tuna on it - a very strange combination, the yummy chips we had with it made up for the weird topping. We're meeting up with some friends for pizza and beer this evening, so lets hope there's some more traditional toppings going.

We also stopped at Fiskars on the way home on Monday, unfortunately everything was shut, but it looked really interesting - lots of history and crafty boutiques, so we'll definitely be taking a visit there soon.

In other news - I proudly present my finished spring socks. Yes, I know they're bright! They were fun to knit with the alternating colours. I shortened the foot of the first sock as I mentioned I was going to do and as you can see they fit pretty well. The photo of the tulips below is the inspiration for my colour combination.

Last weekend's trip

I feel a bit guilty for only getting around to posting about the weekend before last's trip today - but ho hum, this is my blog and that's what's happened! Since we've been back I've had a 2nd wisdom tooth out (which took a bit more getting out than the first one), and have also had some work to do.

Anyway, lets get beyond the excuses and back to our trip.

My Dad came to visit for the weekend on his way back from a conference in Copenhagen. We'd hinted that we might take the opportunity to go on a bit of a jaunt aound, but I'm not sure he was quite prepared for what we came up with... here's a map of our route - as you can see, we covered some distance and visited some pretty spectacular scenery, mostly in More og Romsdal, but we also managed to experience the Hurtigruter. I've uploaded some photos to flickr (which could do with some editing).

Some of my favourites are:
Trollstigen Road - we came from the bottom and were met by this almost shear wall at the end of the valley - which then has this hairpin road up in. I'm glad we were off season, so didn't meet a coach!
This is the Zakarias Dam near Tafjord where they're planning on building a glass bridge and hotel (link) - it looks like an amazing project. and we'll have to go back if it ever actually gets built.

This is a general "I'm in Norway - it's spectacular and it's sunny" photo.

And this one is to show some of the autumnal colours we saw. Very subtle and very beautiful.

For the next month or so things are going to be a bit crazy - a trip back to the UK, followed hot on its heals by the movers coming to move all of our stuff, followed by an uncomfortable week living without "stuff" and finally the physical move to Helsinki, followed by another week living in a new house without "stuff" before said "stuff" arrives and needs sorting into our life again. Change is good, right?

Norwegian wedding

We had another weekend away - this time to a friends wedding. It was great fun, at a place called Finse, which is in the mountains between Oslo and Bergen. Everyone travelled up by train on the Friday, we arrived in the dark, but by the time we were up the next day it was like this:
We had a walk in the morning and then the festivities began.... what a party, I must say the Norwegians really know how to have fun. It was a great set of people, some we knew already, a lot we didn't but knew better by the end of the wedding. This is the bride - she's wearing a traditional Norwegian bridal crown - it's a little on the large size for her, but what a fantastic thing to have.

This is David and I the day after, travelling back to Trondheim, we were just about alive by this point. We didn't go back the same way we came, but played at being hungover tourists. We took the Flåm Railway and then the fast boat to Bergen, which took 5 hours and went through some really picturesque scenery.

Oslo visit

Another weekend away.....

This time we went to Oslo to visit a friend of mine that I was at OSU with - I haven't seen her for 5 years or so, so it was really great to see her and to catch up - and to finally meet her two sons who are now 3 1/2.

It was a relaxing weekend - we went to the Vigeland sculpture park on Friday - what a fantastic place. It was built in the 30's and 40's and has lots of Gustav Vigeland's granite and bronze sculptures - of people at different times of their lives - very interesting and definitely worth a visit if you're in Oslo. I took a few pictures which you can see here.

On the Saturday we went to Drøbak, which is a really pretty town south of Oslo - we wandered around and looked at the bric-a-brac market that was there, and also took the tourist train around, which the boys loved.

On the Sunday we took a couple of short walks - one to a lake, where there was a bit of splashing around and swimming by those braver than me, and another to collect mushrooms - we found mostly chanterelle and hedgehog fungus (piggsopp), which we ate later before we had to go and get the plane back to Trondheim.

There was also quite a lot of this going on:

From left to right, Dan, Sindre, Bruce, Lenerd and David.

Panoramic views

I thought I'd share a few of the photos I took while my parents were visiting:

Nidarosdomen

Røros Church

View from Bymarka

View walking in Fossen

I also like taking panoramic photos (in case you hadn't guessed!)

Trollheimen

David and I went away for the weekend - we went about 1 3/4 hours out of Trondheim to an area called Trollheimen. The area is spectacular - rugged, snow capped mountains, fjords, U-shaped valleys ... I've been reliably informed that we walked nearly 50km with a vertical climb of 1.5km overall (to the top of Langfjellet (1264m) and Trollhøtta (1596)). David had been given a GPS for his birthday by his sister and brother and helpfully kept telling me that we were higher than Pen-y-fan, and Ben Nevis and then Sca Fell Pike. Thanks David! It was actually the down that hurt more - my poor knees. We stayed in two hytter - Jøldalshytta on Friday and Trollheimshytta on Saturday nights - which were really good. Very friendly, very clean, good food and beer to help the aches and pains (and bug bites).

Instead of posting photos of our trip to the blog, I thought I'd try linking to some photos here (I hope it works). We were really lucky with the weather and got some fantastic views - so do check out the photos.

Bergen weekend

We had a great weekend in Bergen with Mina, Arild and Lauritz. The weather was great, and it was good to see them again. We took the train north to Voss on the Saturday to see some of the extreme sports weekend, it was mostly paragliding on the Saturday:

It looked fun - but we didn't try!

On the Sunday we went to the Baroniet Rosendal - more my kind of thing! Beautiful rose garden, and a large (under construction) kitchen garden in a stately house in a beautiful mountainous, fjord-side setting, by a waterfall (if that wasn't enough!).

David also did a bit of this by where we were staying:

The weather since we've been back in Trondheim has been great - fortunately the rain and bad weather that hit the UK over the last few weeks has passed to the south of us. I took this picture this morning at about 7am:

In case you can't read it - or don't believe your eyes - it does say 43C! It's not a true temperature, but I thought it was pretty impressive looking - especially considering we're only 600km ish from the arctic circle!

The good weather has meant that are tomatoes are finally starting to fruit - this is our first San Mazano tomato:

With being away there hasn't been a huge amount of time for knitting, and progress is slow. David's not grey sock is making progress - I'm ready to pick up the heel stitches and get going with the foot.

I've also been working on konfekt 18703 - it's making slow, but steady progress - each row seems a long way round after socks.

Pernicious

Thanks to my Mum and Andrew for their comments on the weed quiz. Looks like we've got some pretty pernicious weeds to contend with between the Japanese Knotweed and the Ground Elder. Oh well - we'll do as much as we have to to keep them in check, but won't go to the time and effort of actually fighting them - that sounds like a job for the house's owners to me. David's talking about getting an incinerator, which is probably not a bad idea - more efficient and neighbour friendly than lighting a fire in the middle of the garden.

I finished the yellow baby booties for Jen and Neil's baby.

Here they are being modelled by Lille Bamse:

And here they are by themselves:

They're certainly yellow. So that's two down and maybe three or four to go. Our next friend that's pregnant is due in the middle of July, so the next pair can wait a week or so.

We're off to Bergen this weekend to visit Mina, Arild and Lauritz. We're going to be going to Voss to the extreme sports weekend - I'm looking forward to seeing and not participating! Arild's the extreme sports nut.

skitur

We went to try out the cross country skis we bought in the sale last week. We went to Malvikmarka - there was still a bit of snow, although it was pretty wet snow and a bit patchy in places. we went about an hour each way and ended up at a lake with a public hytta. The hytta wasn't open, but we sat there and ate our sandwiches before heading back to the car. It was quite a nice experience - although I think we could probably do with having a bit of a lesson with someone, if for nothing else than to tell us how to stop and steer! This is us at the end of our trip:

Just to prove that spring is sort of here - these are daffodils I picked from the garden.

I also started sock number 2 - keep the momento going before I fall on a different play.

I matched the start to sock number 1, which I think is probably the right thing to do, I'll just now have to figure out another join somewhere down the sock - I think it will end up being somewhere just past the heel.

Endelig holibobs

We're both going away next week - David's going to France skiing with The Tigers. And I'm going to England to visit my parents and hopefully see lots of gardens and plants with my Mum.

Maybe I'll get lots of new ideas for projects and David won't break anything.

Friluftsliv

Went on a truger tour this weekend up through snowy valleys and over frozen lakes. Six hours of hard work with fantastic views and a real sense of getting away from it all was deemed nothing more than a trip to a mound by our more knowing Norwegian friends! How 500m of vertical ascent can be deemed or described as a mound is somewhat baffling and probably mystically cultural. If you need to ask if it's a mountain - it's not.... still, mountain, or not you can't beat the views!