Graeme’s second big adventure

There was only one service this Sunday - a confirmation service (I think!) for a number of youngsters and it was lovely to see them and their families at church. The minister had again very kindly gone through the service with me so that I knew when and what to play.

An idiosyncrasy of the Church of Norway would appear to be its Norsk salmebok (hymn book). It is a massive tome - coffee-table book size but even then it only comes with one or two verses of each hymn so you need another hymn book along side to check you’re playing the correct number of verses. My Norwegian isn’t exactly fluent yet so my technique is to simply listen out for the “s” and ideally they come at exactly the same time as I’m expecting them.

Tuesday was an action packed day. We had a staff meeting where all the upcoming services are discussed and the appropriate arrangements if required. And possibly most importantly, what is the après-service kake og kaffe situation.

I was given permission to nip off a tad early from the meeting as Christopher Eva (who led my job interview back in 2021) was giving an organ recital in Alstahaug which is a bit further south than we are. I met Helga and Laila and we caught the ferry from Bjørn to Sandnessjøen before a shortish drive to Alstahaug. Alstahaug Church, like Dønnes, is a church dating back to the medieval period. The oldest part dates back to around 1200 and its restoration was completed in 1970.

The church posses quite a small organ but Chris gave a very entertaining and varied concert including one of my favourite pieces by John Stanley and finished the whole programme off with some piano music, including a piece he had composed for his daughter.

The church itself is beside the Petter Dass-Museum which is rather stylishly built into/through the hillside. They have exhibitions inside and was rather pleased to discover in one of the books (not that I looked in all of them you understand) of Dundee as the birthplace of his father.

Of course it wouldn’t be a trip with Helga and Laila without some cake and cafe so I was “persuaded” to visit the cafe afterwards where we were able to have a quick chat with Chris.

We caught a different ferry back to Herøy which temporarily caused me a small amount of confusion “yes, you say we are arriving at a different port and driving back to Bjørn but how are doing that?” “In the car you just got out of Graeme”. The shame….

I had just arrived back at the house when I got a message from Gudny which roughly translated was “Spar - 4pm”. A quick change of shoes (very very fortunately it transpired) and I headed back down to Solfjellsjøen to meet her.

The walk started off fairly sedately but then got a lot harder. There was allegedly a path but of course it was submerged under the snow - which was occasionally up to at least the knee! If you couldn’t see the path there were red ribbons tied around branches etc but they were very conspicuous by their absence. Let me assure you that phrases like “I’m sure it should be around here somewhere” or “I can’t remember” were not the most reassuring. That being said, we could always see Solfjellsjøen so it’s not as if we were in any great danger of getting lost.

On the other hand, I was in great danger of losing one of my boots as I stepped into a marsh (hidden under snow and slush) and it took a good while to extricate my boot and indeed I thought at one stage I was going to lose it. Gudny of course just laughed….

There was another section that was quite tough due to the ice under the snow that I had to resort to literally crawling up the bank.

It has to be said that it was all worth it for the stunning views that were afforded.

As we started to descend Gudny spotted where we should have gone so a diversion was made and we headed back up to find the little red box with a book that you sign (and get entered into a lottery for chocolate (I think?)

As mentioned in a previous entry the trip back down can be a bit hairy with gravity always keen to give you bit of an extra shove when least wanted but we made it back down and survived to tell the day.

A very quiet evening and day today followed while Thursday I’m back playing at various services around the island.