Fallow?
- Graeme Stevenson
- Mar 20, 2022
- 2 min read
Yesterday was very stormy so my original plan of going for a nice long tootle at Nordvik Kirke went by the wayside and I planned to just spend the day in the house organising what luggage had arrived. A lot of my stuff is still en route and somewhere between Oslo and here so it will hopefully arrive some point this week.
Eventually however my need for coffee outweighed my concern for the weather so ventured out to the local COOP to purchase 1 or 2 bits and bobs. Was very chuffed to make my way back to the house without needing the SatNav. Well, I still had the SatNav on but forecast each of the directions in advance.
As mentioned in a previous post the roads are generally quite narrow so getting used to driving on the “other” side of the road hasn’t been to bad. First wobble was yesterday as I was following 2 vehicles and was noting to myself that they weren’t very close to the edge before realising that it was in fact me that was miles from the verge.
I was messaged by Helga later in the afternoon and invited round for a meal with her and her family which was lovely. They live just beside Nordvik Kirke and I remember Helga pointing out her house as we came back from Mosjøen so managed to find it without too much difficulty.
They all speak amazing English compared to my somewhat “limited” Norwegian but I’m able to drop the odd word into conversation. One sticky point however was “fallows”. Had I heard of the Dønna fallows? No. I’m sure the word is the same in English? Hmm, not sure? Explanation followed. Oh, phallus! Apparently this marble phallus dates back to the 4th - 6th century and was a fertility symbol - Viking sagas tell of sacrifices being made in the hope of achieving wealth and fertility. I was also told that children (girls) are given necklaces with the symbol when they’re born.
I have to confess that I haven’t seen it myself yet so the picture is from Wikipedia. I drove past the area a couple of times today on the way to and from church but didn’t see it. And I didn’t want to look to hard and lose concentration while driving and then have to explain the police that I crashed while looking for……
I’m afraid I did you a great injustice and thought at first that you’d taken your sat nav with you as you walked to supper since you’d mentioned you were out in the ulu. It had me giggling. Then I realised you’d driven-in which case, fair dibs. I feel slightly guilty-but not a lot😂
😂😂😂👍 There’s nothing like picking up interesting vocab😂
Brilliant G. Sounds as if you are settling in really well. You'll get the hang of the driving. At least you don't have motorbikes coming at you from every conceivable angle including head on!!!!!!! Looking forward to hearing more stories from Norway. Enjoy the adventure.
Look forward to exploring when I come to visit 🙂