Siri Wigdel

The raw Nordic landscape is beckoning, even though the weather is unusually cold for the time of year. We seem to be having The Four Seasons in one day, each day. Thick slow snowflakes were falling while we went for a short walk by Refsvatnet to Thorsnes today. We are taking it easy, trying to consider poor Mr.Jones who has caught a nasty chest cough (which he blames entirely on Denmark of course, see blog from Day 3 and 4). We finished off with Søndags middag (Sunday dinner) at Preikestolen Fjellstue, the fairly new mountain lodge complex, which forms a kind of ‘Basekamp’ for walkers to the famous Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock) mountain, which we felt no need to climb today, as Mr.Jones has been there before, in thick fog, some years ago. He doesn’t express an eager desire to re-visit on a clear day, which Mor tells him is so much more exciting, as then you can lie on your belly and look over the edge and peer down into the fjord which is 1000 feet below. She has of course previous experience of this spectacle of raw nature, where she must have held on to 100’s of school pupils feet as they were allowed to go up there with school classes in the ‘gode gamle dager’ (in the good old days), before some nasty official (yes even in Norway) invented health and safey rules about what is dangerous. But if you have a stomach for heights and you like wild camping, this is a place that should definitely be on your bucket list. Ida (sister), Mor (mother), Mr.Jones and I enjoyed dinner overlooking Refsvatnet behind the snowshowers, and 3 of us decided to have the Komle (large potato dumplings), which is traditional Norwegian food, but not usually on a Sunday. Sister explained to Mr.Jones that it is traditionally served as a Torsdagsmiddag (Thursday dinner), but we should have it, as its on offer. It is made of raw grated potatoes, mixed with flour into a kind of dough and then boiled in a big pan, with salted and sometimes smoked lambs meat. It is traditionally served with boiled potatoes (yes more potatoes!!) mashed swede (as in the vegetable, not the people) bacon and a large fat sausage. It is lush! And even better the next day, when you slice up the komle and fry the slices in a frying pan. One of Anya’s (daughter) favorite Norwegian meals, but Seb (son), not too keen, so meals are alternated depending on who’s visiting when. When you live abroad for many years, you miss the strangest things and tastes especially. I can see why recipes and foods have travelled across the world and been adapted. I am relishing eating tradition while I am here. Yes, potatoes in all their shapes, Brunost (brown cheese), dark bread, Mor’s homemade kjøttkaker (large meatballs), and a huge variety of cakes, all washed down with copious amounts of strong black coffee on tap, all through the day. Goodness, moving house is tough! That was our weekend, inbetween packing boxes, distracted by reading old fairytale books, playing the re-discovered school recorders, dancing and singing old folkdances like ‘Kjerringa med Staven’ (sister on piano and Mor on guitar, with Mr.Jones singing as instructed by the retired music teacher ‘kjerring, kjerring, kjerring’…., we have been changing clothes and shoes a lot, to see what fits, what to keep and what to give away to the local Fretex shop (the Norwegian Salvation Army shops). The only problem is that every time we drop something off there Mr.Jones finds himself another Norwegian knitted jumper, so the car will definitely be filling up with all sorts for the return trip…., we will need to stock up the larder back home in Wales with brown cheese and other traditional foods, such as herrings, caviar and brown sauce (gravy)…