Norway. It is getting a lot darker and colder too of course. We have a little snow on two occasions although it didn't stick around. A few evenings ago it was blowing like crazy. NK kept singing Coldplay's lyric, "It was a wicked and wild wind, blew down the door...". JH was singing Winnie the Pooh's blustery day lyrics and I just complained. I don't think I had a song in my heart. Just getting cold, and dark...blah blah blah. Norway is so beautiful but during the dark season...well...
We have had some days when I can sit at my desk in our home office and watch snow falling on some of the higher peaks across the valley. Quite lovely really. And the critters are creeping. Lots of moose wandering about. We saw a big fox last week. Lots of smaller creatures too. And the sheep are all very wooly. Lots of sheep in the fields as we drive to work every day.
The beautiful colors on the trees went away fast with the unusual winds. Too bad as our neighborhood has some great bushes which turn bright red...and lots of bright red and orange vines too which are fading.
NK is ready for skiing and snowboarding. He has his stuff ready. Boy-boy do we have ski stuff. Downhill, cross country, snowboards the short ones and the longer ones, different sizes of poles and different types of boots. JH will be putting the box on top of the car to tote all the stuff around.
We had an ice storm one afternoon and we had to abandon our car 4 or 5 blocks from home and retrieve it later when it warmed-up. We had yet to put on our metal studded tires. Of course I wore spikey boots the day of the storm and JH had to drag me up the mountain.
NK has soccer (football) 2 or 3 times a week all year. Last year they played indoors in the winter and this year they will play outside so we were told to take a pair of tennis shoes to a tire store and have them fire metal tire studs through the bottom of the shoes. Apparently this is much more effective than metal cleats.
NK finished his regular soccer season and had a tournament this past weekend. They played 6 games on Sunday. He stays busy.
JH heads to Washington DC next week on business. Actually he flies into DC and heads straight to Virginia for meetings. Of course he will need to find a Target or Walmart somewhere to stock-up on American items we miss. Although a colleague from our Arizona office brought me a care package last week with some creamy peanut butter (for NK), corn bread mix and some assorted stuff we miss! With JH's promotion at work he will be headed to the US every other month or so...which is great for shopping!
I bad mouth Norway a lot...but thank the gods we have great health insurance. I listen to the debate in the US and I am shocked at the rowdy, angry folks against providing the uninsured with access to healthcare. Amazing. I think of the US as such a generous society and I believe that access to healthcare is a human right so it frightens me to hear the loud opposition...especially those who call themselves Christians. In Wichita we had a friend who was a conservative Christian who said he found great humor in the fact that a lot of the large mega churches like the one he attends in south Wichita are socialistic societies (according to him!), with subsidized (by the church) day care, schools, health clinics, sport teams, food pantries, transportation, etc. I told him that regardless of where people find and access services, I am just glad they can and do. The public schools and the postal system are run by the government...not perfect, but accessible...mostly.
In Norway we get medications, access to doctors, any hospital or clinic in the country...nobody worries. With my congestive heart failure I consider myself lucky to have such great access and my meds are not breaking the bank every month. I recently found a letter which I copied in 2005 and emailed to myself from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas. In the letter, BCBS tells me that regardless that my Kansas doctor had tried three times to get a medication for me that he was sure I would respond to...three times BCBS said that they didn't think I needed it and according to their risk analyst it was too expensive for me. Idiots. Glad I don't have to deal with them anymore...BCBS was playing games with my healthcare under the guise of "insuring". Sadly millions of Americans would be happy with the crappy BCBS "insurance".
Well, now that my bloodpressure is high...just thinking about the bullies in the US trying to kill healthcare access for the uninsured...I will sign-off. I hope that change comes about for those needing healthcare in America.
We spent some glorious days this fall at the cabin we share with a group of people. The cabin is in Gausdal Norway which is home to some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth. Lots of deep valleys and rocky mountains. Huge pine forests are separated by lakes and marshland.
See the blueberries? We picked and ate blueberries until our fingers were stained purple. There were so many varieties of berries including cloudberries, raspberries, and so many other varieties which I can't remember the names in English.
This is me hiking across of path of granite stones dropped in a marsh. Twice I slipped and sank into the marsh until JH could hoist me out of the mud.
The cabin is about 2 hours from our house. It is remote and there are a few other cabins and a couple of farms in the area.
This is NK and his best buddy Torkjell. They had hiked ahead of JH and me and we found them resting on some rocks next to a mountain lake.
This is NK and Torkjell taking a break from fishing. They had more fun playing in the streams and underground springs running out of the mountains into the lake. They found small fish and frogs to chase.
I think there is a small frog somewhere in this photo. There is about a foot of water where I am standing in the lake and the water is so clear. We have a pump that goes straight into the underground springs so we can pump our drinking water. The water is fresh - straight out of the mountains.
I think JH is looking for signs of fish. They just were biting this trip. The boys throwing rocks in the water certainly didn't help.
This is the little boat use to paddle around the lake.
As night falls the fish get more active. This night we were grilling hotdogs and marshmallows over a small fire along the shore.
This is the cabin and the three boys (two small ones and the big one) were playing soccer and having fun.
This is the view from the cabin veranda. It is so peaceful and beautiful. The mountain springs run under ground on either side of the cabin so the sound of rushing water and the nearby waterfalls is amazing.
The buddies. NK has made some great friends in Norway. Torkjell lives in our neighborhood and he and NK are in the same class at school and on the same football team which meets 2 -3 times a week all year long...so they have a lot of fun together.
Again our plum tree produced like mad. We had some many plums. They were delicious. We made preserves as we did not need any for wine since last year's wine is still occupying part of my laundry room!
This restaurant burned in the 1960s. For the first time since the night it burned there was a concert onsite. The concert had many hundreds of people. We had a great time at the concert listening to the different jazz groups which included a 90+ year old lady who played the piano!
This is a view of our town from the ruins of the restaurant.
JH and I were sitting on onside of the stage area and NK went to find our friend Charles (who happens to be from Tonganoxie Kansas!). later as we were watching the band we saw NK and Charles peeking out from behind the band! They had fun. I guess it was a great day for everyone at the concert!
The ferns were starting to overtake the restaurant ruins. We were sitting at tables surrounded by ferns, pines and birch.
This is NK catching some late afternoon sun after the concert.
