Bolig Drøm

With our next trip to the house getting ever closer (and it being half term), excitement is building. We also have a meeting planned with the plumber and Magnus, our builder.

It is with this meeting in mind that I am spending my Saturday afternoon listening to radio 2, and looking through the many Norwegian interior/homes magazines trying to gain inspiration for the bathrooms! #happydays

Taken

The builders started work a few weeks ago on the foundations; Jim received some photos so we could see what had been done - I shan't bore you with them they were photos of beams next to other beams (I suspect that I will be told the technical term soon!).  Not being an architect or builder I didn't really know what to make of the photos, all I know is that the foundations are better now, and frankly that's all that matters to me.

However they've now moved onto replacing the roof. 

They've sent some more photos - looks like there's been nice weather in Ålen just recently - but nerves have started to kick in.  And then today, a friend emailed through some more and it hasn't alleviated the anxiousness.

So this was how the house looked until last week (with less snow ;) )

And this is it now (complete with waste water treatment thingy!)

But the porch has gone! 

Initially (well when I woke up at 3 this morning stressing about things), I thought it would be fine to stay there in just under 2 weeks with the kids.  We can use a ladder I thought. Then reality kicks in; each time one of the kids needs a wee (and you know,it won't be at the same time, but 5 minutes later!) we'll have to help them up and down; can we manage to lift our heavy bags in and out; will we need 2 ladders in order to reach the key safe?  My last thought, and the nail in this particular coffin was - I'm not f--king carry a full camping toilet down a ladder!

So to plan B. ...make the call.....*

Mind you, for some; the excitement has proved too much 😉 

* Obviously not plan B. Only Jim's warped sense of humour having watched Taken quite a bit recently (in our defence it's been on Film 4 just lately. A lot).

Saucisson

In an unusual twist of experimentation this is a joint blog post...... :O

.....So on this rather cold September evening with the sun setting earlier, I thought it was time to reminisce over this summers Nordic expedition.

A 2 week stay always goes quick, especially when meeting builders (now a normal holiday treat), tripping to ikea (no more please) and on this occasion entertaining our first guests :) 

When we first started to mention our idea to buy a house in Norway and one day move there, some of our friends were really supportive; some were indifferent; some thought we were (are) mad and some tried to get us to move to Bristol instead!

We've known T & E for nearly 13 years, in fact I met T shortly after Jim and I got married - we worked for the same organisation doing the same job; me in Exeter her in Bristol.  And now Jim is god father to their eldest daughter, M, and the kids call each other their God families.

We've tried to persuade them to visit Norway before we bought the house, but the timing didn't work.  Until this year, when they said yep, they'd love to come out and visit during our 2 week trip.

So whilst Grampa was wallpapering the dining room, the kids and I were making our friends room as tidy and as pretty as we could; stringing up fairy lights, making beds, hoovering the walls (cos they're made of wood) and collecting wild flowers.

I had one moment of complete 'Oh my god they're going to miss the flight!' when I texted T to find out where they were.  She replied 'Still on the M25, check in at 6pm', only it was already 5.40pm! Confusion reigned for a while and I couldn't understand why Jim was looking so relaxed.  'But it's almost 6!', I wailed, 'they'll miss the flight!'  

Eventually I realised the flaw in my thinking, it might well be nearly 6 in Norway, but it was only nearly 5 in the UK, and of course they'd have enough time to check in etc.  (They didn't have a huge amount of time once they'd made it through check in and security, but that's a tale for another time!)

So Saturday dawned slightly cloudy, and Jim and I decided to brave the solar shower (in honour of our friends coming later) - with extra hot water in mine, but it was still on the rather cold side! He managed to perfect the art of showering naked in the front garden whilst not being seen across the valley (he wishes....) or by the postman (luckily they only deliver to your box mounted on a post nearby and not on your house in Norway)

(Ha bet you thought it was going to be a photo of Jim showering! No, just the kids watching him shower!)

Our guests are lovely old friends of ours (aka Broadsword or Danny Boy not sure which) and whilst we wanted to pull out all the stops to show them what our little piece of Scandinavia has to offer (they are Nordic Virgins or norgins / virdics as we like to say.....which is course complete bollocks as I've never used that expression in life before and it's highly unlikely ever to catch on....) we were also very aware of the lack in facilities....however....as far as I'm aware no one fell into the composting loo or touched the seemingly endless abundance of wolfsbane growing everywhere (thank you Edd for the identification).  ...although the kids did manage a tandem toilet stop, turns out the 2 adjacent seats are fun when you're little.....yet to be tried in adult life (unless i just wasn't invited...?)

We managed to explore the mountains, discover waterfalls, explore an old mine (don't worry it was a guided tour - Olavsgruva, highly recommended), visit Røros and the church (which by the way in case I haven't said before was the inspiration for Disney's Frozen church in Arendal!). We even managed to insult the French, which is something one should never pass up on holiday (ok...so it wasn't a full on insult, but more of a jokey little fun when in the mine and we sent the French in the wrong direction.....oh come on you know you would to.....btw they were fine and made it out safely...at least I'm pretty sure that was them I saw leaving....)

One of the great delights of having friends on holiday (and grandpa as well) is that as well as the hard work demolishing the huge area of rose bay willow herb which was occupying the majority of the garden area (by hand sytheing I would hasten to add, albeit it was less Poldark more Trumpton...) it was the fact the we were able to have some great get togethers and share what to date has been quite a eccentric dream of ours which others have often thought we were crazy about. 

One such evening was a great BBQ (in norwegian called a grilling) at which I finally got to use my newly purchased Espegård Bålpanne (posh hanging fire pit) which I had been coveting since our original norwegian trips........this is jim now in case you hadn't realised.....

I made some new benches from old barn structural timber which had been lying about (let's hope I don't need that at some point) and then we (aka the chuckle brothers) set about erecting a temporary canopy in case of rain (which of course never came as the sun shone, like it did most of the time!).

The canopy, benches and fire pit were almost worthy of a feature spread in country living (well 'country hanging out' maybe, if they don't do that periodical then they should...I might publish that myself .....one thing at a time). There was the the 9 of us plus our great friends Morten and Lill from the village, who we were finally able to say thank you to in style. There were also 2 of their granddaughters who had travelled from Trondheim on the bus on their own (2 hour trip....they are 9 and 7....imagine doing that in England!!!!) they were very excited about meeting Maisie again and she even had a play date down at their place earlier in the day. We also had a late night visit from Arvid and his wife (the original owner of the house) who popped over to say hei! And make sure we were ok!

We drank the very lovely bottle of champagne Grampa bought Jim for his 40th that I carted all the way to Norway in the ugly suitcase (have we mentioned the ugly suitcase before?!) during mine and Neds epic journey last October!

So it turns out the language of children's games is universal and knows no boundaries with them playing musical cups, loom bands, bracelets, stickers, endless cartwheels (oh dear god the endless cartwheels.....) and colouring and we even got to the bottom of norwegian cluedo which they had just discovered!

It is with some sadness though that I must report that the language of adults is not so universal. Whilst I always thought I was doing quite well with my Norwegian, it turns out that on occasion (many recent occasions it seems) that the reason my request for a bag at the supermarket was always greeted with amusement was in fact because I had been asking for a sausage and not a bag.....easily done. pølsen = sausage ......Posen = bag. If in doubt ask a 9 year old to explain.......oops. 

Wallpapering

So Grampa came with us this trip, and he was given the job of wallpapering a wall in the dining room.

The dining room faces south and east; beautiful views, but the room is really quite drab and uninspiring.  Jim and I spent almost 3 months deciding on wallpaper for it - loads of samples (which the kids thought were great for drawing on), we eventually found the desired print in Laura Ashley - not somewhere we usually go. 

So the day before our friends arrived Grampa set to work.  12 hours after starting, at 11pm he finally finished (and yes he did have breaks, we did feed and water him and I even did the washing up instead of him!)

We're quite chuffed with the result!

Gamle Bybro, the Bryggen and an unexpected journey.

I was explaining to a friend today about how Jim and I miss things when we go to cities. In Bergen we couldn't find the old Wharf; in Oslo we missed quite a lot, and we even managed to lose the Eiffel Tower in Paris once, so it shouldn't be a surprise that on our first trip to Trondheim we couldn't find Gamle Bybro and Bryggen (the Old Bridge & the Wharf).

As Grampa was with us we decided to take him into Trondheim and show him around (and not just IKEA!). 

After a couple of wrong turns, we found the Old Bridge, and then beautiful old timber buildings along the wharf. 

We were really lucky as the weather was beautiful (it had been very rainy in Norway for weeks before we arrived) and the kids were able to run around and make lots of noise - if you know our kids, then you know this is a Good Thing!

We then looped back around and went to see Nidaros Cathedral - the mostly northerly gothic cathedral. The kids then found the old cannons, so whilst Jim retraced him steps to find his phone, they were happily blowing things up, shouting Kaboom!

Now something you may not know about Trondheim is that it's the technological centre of Norway, and the city provides free Wifi, which is great when waiting outside yet another outdoor shop for Jim!

IKEA came next, and with full tummies and car boot, empty bladders and wallets we headed home, only to face another Stengt sign, but this one came with a diversion sign and a Man! A slight map hiccup, a detour around a housing estate (very nice too), back to the man to ask for directions, we found the diversion route which, instead of following the river valley, took us up and up and up over the mountains, past farms, beautiful pasture lands and waterfalls before finally winding its way back to the river valley.

The next time we headed to Trondheim, Grampa stayed home - I think the last loop in IKEA almost finished him off!

Arrivals

We arrived here on Monday, well technically Tuesday, following what was fairly a straight forward journey (if you include the HUGE amount of tourists on the road.....oh wait that's us too and the obligatory search at security) until 10 minutes before the gate number at Gatwick was called. The flight was delayed. Not by much - 20 minutes, but when you consider that the flight would now arrive at 11.50pm and we'd arranged to collect a hire car, it was enough to cause mild concern.

The kids, I think, were quite happy as they finally managed to play the big connect 4 set in the children's area, but Jim and I were getting more tense with each passing moment (well me really. Jim was going to sleep on the plane & I had to stay awake & look after Maisie and Ned, and also had been told to STAY AWAKE on the drive!).

The flight was called, and we boarded and we left about an hour later than scheduled, but the pilot put his foot down, or whatever pilots do, and we arrived half an hour later than planned. Although given the car hire situation it didn't really help matters, so Jim scooted through immigration on his own to get the car rather than waiting for the bags with us.

So 20 minutes later, 4 hold bags gathered, 2 pajama clad children, 3 adults, 7 carry on bags and one plastic carrier bag we were crammed into the hire car and off we set.  Only to fail at the first hurdle! The main road to Trondheim, the E6, was closed. Properly. Barriers across the road, big flashing red lights closed. Stengt.

After a brief few minutes heading along the road in the wrong direction, we turned around and following a short discussion (ahem), we went back to the garage at the airport and obtained directions.  We set off again in the wrong direction, but ended up in the right direction (if you see what I mean). Turns out one of the main tunnels was closed, so we had to go over the top!

The rest of our journey was uneventful, and we finally arrived home at 2.30 Tuesday morning. Shattered, but happy.

The one question remained, why don't Norwegians use diversion signs?

Packing

As we don't have mains water in Norway, or indeed a washing machine, we have to bring all the bedding and towels home with us, so since April it has been washed and vacuum packed and sat in our bedroom in an IKEA bag, to which we had added random items that are coming with us.

Jim then started packing the non clothing items about 3 weeks ago and then got out the other bags to take.  So our bedroom has been sort of like an obstacle course!

Today we have finally finished packing, well apart from toiletries and food for the journey.

We bought a bag weighing device which is invaluable, so each bag has been packed and weighed. Then re packed and weighed. Then re packed. Then weighed again, and in some cases re packed and weighed. Again.

There are 3 adults and 2 children travelling.

We have 4 hold bags (each weighing just under 20kg), and 2 suitcases, 1 hold-all, 3 rucksacks as carry on, plus another one when Jim's dad arrives tomorrow! Not to mention the inevitable Boots carrier bag from the airport!

Oh my god!

And the thing is, it's all essential. 

On the plus side when we come home we'll only have 2 hold bags......