A sad day

We've found out that we're going to have to find somewhere else to live as our landlord is moving back to Norway and needs to sell where we're living so that he can buy a house where he's being moved to. Good for him, but sad for us as we really like the house and the garden and the view etc. Oh well, we'll cope. We've had some thoughts about buying, rather than renting, but I think we'd then lose one of our financial perks of the work transfer out here in the first place. So, discussions all round and thinking caps on.

Spring already?

Not sure - but maybe spring is here?

This is the snow man I built with Jo two weeks ago - it's just about melted. It's sad. Maybe there will be more snow and I can make another one. Fingers crossed.

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!

About bloody time

Snow has finally arrived and it's started to feel more like winter than spring. Although we do have our first snowdrop out....

we're looking to playing with our snow shoes (hopefully tomorrow), or at least be able to make some snow angels.

2007

Happy New Year!

Instead of relating what we did for Christmas and New Year, we thought we'd write a list of Christmas and New Year firsts for us:

• Had our first Christmas and New Year in Norway (obviously)
• Cooked and ate Ribbe (thanks to one of the list coming up)
• Looked after Pusur the cat
• Moved my first project from the ikke ferdig to the ferdig list - I guess Lille Bamsa is better at finishing things than me!
• Tried aquivit
• Had a goat on the Christmas Tree - which remains unburnt
• Suspected twitching siting of a White Tailed Sea Eagle
• Paid 66kr to cross a bridge
• Went to a Norwegian farm shop
• Played canasta
• Saw first dragon movin in Norwegian
• Visited skydsstation in Baklandet and had fiske suppe
• Made and ate Norwegian waffes (twice as they were so good)
• Acquired our first cookbook på norsk

And here's a piccy of Pusur now that she's calmed down and completely chilled out.

Christmas

It's nearly Christmas. We have our fingers crossed for snow but I'm not going to hold my breath. I was hoping I was going to be able to add a photo of a nice snowy view of the fjord, but instead here's a photo of our first Christmas decoration - I should probably have used a tripod, but I kind of like the fuzzy lights.

We're busy trying to figure out what we're going to eat and also where we're going to visit while David's parents are visiting us from Spain. We'll obviously be eating brown cheese, and we were hoping to take them to Røros as it's meant to be pretty and have sleigh rides etc, but with no snow we're not sure it's worth going.

Had our final Norwegian test of the current class yesterday, so last class on Thursday with pub afterwards.

Sunday evening curry fest

The nights are definitely getting darker and longer - we're nearly up to the shortest day, or as they call it here the mørkester dag. We've spent this afternoon making chocolate brownies, curry and sitting in front of the fire. David is writing songs, but I don't think he's going to south America just yet to preview his new material like coldplay - hopefully he'll get the studio up and running soon and he will start recording - maybe we can preview some of his songs in the brown cheese chronicles? So the curry is nearly ready, we're having hot and sour pork curry from Madhur Jaffrey's Illustrated Indian Cookery, which sounds nice and smells fantastic. We've informally invited our neighbour round for some food at some point and have promised them "English food" - so we're thinking we're going to have to make them a curry.