Obviously the highlight of February was the visit of Jen - it's always nice to have a friend from Dundee visiting and the joy of not feeling like I'm copping out by speaking English.
We had hoped to get a fair amount of walking in over the week but the weather conditions were not really ideal. Who would have thought that February in Norway would be a tad on the wintry side? Actually, it had been a lot worse before Jen arrived - so bad in fact that things were actually cancelled. In my last post I mentioned my car being stuck and hoping that all would be well on the following Monday. As it transpired it wasn't well. I couldn't get my car up the tiny hill where I park so had to cancel Forsangergruppe that evening. I have since discovered that going out in reverse makes things so much easier so another lesson has been learned. I remember it well because I'd had such a good day and was excited about telling the Forsangergruppe about it. And what was so exciting I hear you ask. The short version is that I bought a snow brush for my car and had been to the library.
Many times have I moaned about digging my car out of the snow - and when I say "digging" I tend to mean "using the sleeve of my jacket". I do have a scraper but it's about the size of my hand which frankly isn't a lot use when the car is under 2 feet of snow. It finally occurred to me that maybe a snow brush might be a worthwhile investment so headed off to the Norwegian equivalent of B & Q. Now the reason I was so chuffed with this purchase was that one of the assistants came up to me and although I didn't quite catch what she said, I guessed that she was asking if I needed help so I explained, in Norsk, what I was looking for and obviously got it right as she took me straight to them. I was so chuffed :-) I paid for it and stuck it in my GRAEME DUNDEE back pack ("Graeme Dundee" seemed like a good idea at the time but much regret since, Although there's never any doubt whose bag it is) and pottered off to a kitchen shop for my next purchase was to be a cheese grater. Alas I didn't really take into the account the size of this brush as I did cause a certain amount of havoc in aforementioned shop as I crashed my way around. Suffice to say that I'm glad the display was metal flasks and not.... The lady offered me a bag for my cheese grater and I accepted in the hope of somewhere to put the brush but alas she only gave me a tiny paper bag so I had to gingerly wind my way out the shop.
Next stop was the library where I've finally taken to actually borrowing Norwegian books to help broaden my linguistic horizons. I'm working on the policy of borrowing non-fiction books where I know a bit about the subject already so my first book was on the battlecruiser Scharnhorst. I was able to follow quite well the narrative and even though I didn't by any means understand all of it I did find it a gripping read. I was delighted to discover that there was an English version coming out so am looking forward to reading it again. Of course the downside is that I'm not really learning useful words - you may find this hard to believe but I haven't been able to slip the phrase "8 inch guns firing salvos" into any staff meetings yet. But the highlight was getting into a conversation with the librarian. She's the one that encouraged me to go along to the Sprak-kaffe last year but despite that I'll still talk to her. We had a short conversation about the benefits of reading books in a foreign language and I came away feeling quite chuffed about how much I'd managed to comprehend.
But to return to Jen's visit - despite the less than ideal weather conditions we managed to get a lot done - we ended up visiting the Peter Dass museum 3 times! The first time was a "proper" visit and as well as the upstairs exhibition we were shown a film about the life and times of Peter Dass. The second visit was a late night visit to see an Art/ Light Installation being displayed in the surrounds and the third and final visit was to a concert of Philip Glass piano music by Franziska Wilka with accompanying visuals.
Of course, the unquestionable highlight (though I strongly suspect Jen disagrees) was the announcement of another "Swim in Kino" Yes, after the joys of Jaws 2 last year, it was turn of Jaws 3. Having learned my lesson last year, I chose an inflatable that was likely to survive the whole movie and following Jen's advice I didn't get one to sit on so was so much warmer than last time. That being said, dearie me, what a terrible movie. Having read up on it, just to make sure I hadn't missed any subtle plot points (no, I hadn't) I now know that it was so bad that they took to describing Jaws 4 as the third movie in the trilogy.
On the Saturday, we had planned to venture into the great outdoors to visit Bålkaffe. Stein, stalwart of the Tirsdagstur, has built a little shelter in the woods at Våg and on some Saturdays the invite goes out to bring a cup and enjoy coffee boiled over an outdoor fire. Milk was purchased and Jen and I did start towards it but we were met with deep ice, snow and the Norwegian equivalent of the Niagara Falls (possible slight exaggeration there!) so decided a far better place for coffee would be Sabine's who had invited us to try out her new and very glamorous coffee machine.
We spent a fair amount of time in Sandnessjøen drinking coffee/ going for walks/ drinking coffee/ going to shops. There's a fabulous second hand shop where we both managed to pick up some bits and bobs - we had been talking about books and I was about to tell Jen about the fact I'd love to read "Catcher in the Rye" again and would you believe in the tiny selection of about 10 English books in this little town near the Arctic Circle they had a copy? It was obviously meant to be!
As is traditional when Jen visits, I eat staggeringly well and my freezer is now well stocked for the future. Many, many months ago Gudny very kindly gave me a huge slab of moose and we (ie Jen) got around to cooking it this time. There was so much that I had to but extra freezer tubs and I strongly suspect there will still be some when Alison comes to visit. Also included were these strange plants that I believe are referred to as "vegetables".
Jen had been encouraging me for a while to purchase an Air Fryer so we spent some time looking at them before choosing a rather glamorous one which now adorns my kitchen. As well as for the meals we had I have also used it for other exotic culinary delights such as "toast" and "baked potato". Once my freezer is empty I'm looking forward to trying slightly more ambitious recipes from my new Norwegian Air-Fryer cook book.
I continue to go to Innebandy and I like to think there has been a marked improvement in my playing. Mind you, the base line was pretty low so improvement isn't saying too much - one improvement I have noticed is that it generally doesn't take me 10 minutes to get the ball under control when it's passed to me. I bought what I strongly suspect is my first ever "proper" Dundee United top and Jen was kind enough to bring it across with her. The joy of
not only owning this but then to be actually able to wear it in "anger"? Happy days.
