June was full of fun things - the highlight of course being back in Scotland to see my daughter graduate at the University of Glasgow. There was a lovely ceremony in Bute Hall on the Thursday afternoon where I was able to watch Amy go up on stage to get her degree in German. The whole ceremony was very well run and the only thing I found a bit disappointing was the lack of music beforehand or even during - particularly as there were music graduates and an honorary degree for a composer. That being said, the organist did stand up at the start of the ceremony to teach the assembled crowd how to sing the Gaudeamus as the procession came in. It’s an excellent idea and one I’d thought about doing at the University in Dundee. The only thing that stopped me suggesting it to the powers be was the worry that they might actually agree it was a good idea and make me do it.
But the important thing of course was seeing Amy graduate - she’s worked hard over the last 5 years and had to endure the stresses of the pandemic at the start. Very proud father. And as when Martin graduated back in November, a bit of dust did seem to get in my eye.
On either side of the time in Glasgow I had a fabulous time catching up with friends and family. I ate far too much while I was there - within 12 hours of being back in Dundee I had managed to tick of a number of eating targets: something deep fried and served with chips; haggis and Irn Bru. Happy times.
Costa Coffee’s profits will have received a little spike while I was there though one visit was almost cancelled as I thought I was about to be arrested. Many moons ago Sabine had given me an old £5 note which has sat in my wallet as I always forgot to spend it. This time I did remember and went to use it in a newsagent in Broughty Ferry. Newspaper and chocolate bought I went to pay for it - firstly it took me an embarrassingly long time to actually remove it from my wallet under the watchful gaze of the shopkeeper. He looked at it v strangely, and i thought to myself this can’t be good - the Queen didn’t die that long ago - surely they still take notes with her face on it. After a few moments he handed it back and said, sorry we don’t take this. Of course what had happened is that I had forgotten that all British money is now plastic. On the plus side I’ve got a little bit of tinder for lighting a fire when it starts to get cold again.
As well as catching up with friends and family while eating and drinking, I managed to fit in a bit of culture. During the weekend, Dad suggested that we go to visit a library. I have to be honest and admit that my immediate thought was “hmmm” - but it turned out to be a fabulous little trip into deepest Perthshire. Innerpeffray Library was the first free public lending library in Scotland, it opened in 1680 and continued lending books until 1968. Our guide was very interesting and it was amazing to be told that we could look at any of the books and indeed touch them. Always being interested in my family history I asked to see some books that might have the village that my gran on my father’s side came from and lo and behold the guide brought them down and allowed me to browse through them. They also had a wonderful collection of little books (see the gallery below).
The day before Amy’s graduation I went to visit the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum with Jen. Such a fabulous building and I do love wandering around the various galleries. There is also a free organ recital every day which was fun to listen to as well. I’m sure I’ve met the organist before but for the life of me I can’t remember where.
Before I arrived in Scotland I had a weekend in Bergen to meet my Aunt Linda (my mum’s big sister). She was on a cruise from Sweden to Norway and the dates were very convenient so I stayed for a couple of nights. I’ve been to Bergen many times now but this was the first time I had ventured out of the airport. It was strange being in a place where things were open again on a Sunday. On the subject of weekend opening times, I’d had to get the very early ferry on Saturday morning to Sandnessjøen which got me in 2 hours before my bus to the airport. No problems I thought, potter around for an hour, sit in the cafe for an hour and Bob’s your uncle. But being the weekend nothing opens till 10am! At least the shelter at the ferry was open so I could sit for a little while.
I was delighted to discover that the tram (which I had randomly chosen as my method of travel into the city) terminated only a couple of hundred of meters from my hotel. I had to walk past a fanzone that had been set up to watch the European Championship so was able to watch the evening matches in the company of a few hundred Norwegians. I was disappointed that the Scotland match was only shown on the small screens round the tents rather than the big ones but on the plus side when the inevitable disaster struck it was on a smaller scale. Bless my new Norwegian friends, I received a number of condolence messages but I reassured them that this was exactly what us Scotland fans have come to expect.
I managed to visit a couple of museums (the Edvard Greig and the Maritime museum) as well as just generally potter around the city. After reading about it at the Maritime Museum, I did make a bee line to the Cathedral to see the cannonball that it still in the wall of the Cathedral. It ended up there during the Battle of Vågen in 1665 between the English and Dutch.
I had a lovely time meeting Linda (and getting my new Seattle Mariners hat - thanks Ian!) for a meal and we met up again on the Monday morning for a coffee before I headed to the airport.
I’ve had my little electric car for 2 years now and two of the questions that have bothered me since purchasing it were a/ what happens when you burst a tire (as this model doesn’t come with a spare - thanks Nissan!) and b/ what happens when the battery dies. The manual itself isn’t any use as I seem to have a German one. Sadly, I finally had to deal with both problems at roughly the same time - firstly I had a slight “incident” (ie a large pointy rock hitherto unseen) when parking at Solveig’s which destroyed a tire and then just as I was about to drive down to Herøy to replaced aforementioned tire, I discovered that the battery had died. But my friends here are so v kind to me - Solveig lent me her for car for the evening as she was going away for a few days and then the next morning Bjørn brought down one of my winter tyres to temporarily replace the bust one. And then the next day Bjørn came and helped me again with the battery issues. Fun fact about electric cars (well mine at least), when the battery dies in an electric car there is no charge left to open the charging point. However it transpires (after lots of fumbling around under the bonnet to pop the charging point) that it wasn’t actually the “big” battery that was knackered but the smaller one. The moral of the lesson, is that when the beeps at you as you leave, check that it isn’t something important - I’ve been on tenterhooks ever since when I leave the car for any length of time.
I am quite happy trying to chat away in Norwegian in most places, except the car place. Even in the UK I feel out of my depth - in fact it’s not “feel”, I AM out of my depth. Anyway, I phoned the car place in Herøy and tried my best in Norwegian but before I got very far, the man on the other end of the phone said, “are you the organist person?”….
That being said, once again, and I hate to boast, I was complemented a couple of times on my way to Scotland about my Norwegian which is always good for morale. But I do always remind myself that we British don’t have a great reputation with languages so that fact I could string more than 2 words together…. Funnily enough I do find myself thinking in Norwegian quite a lot. Every time I went to a hotel in the UK to ask to drop off/leave my baggage I did find myself practicing how to say it in Norwegian.
Work on the house continues, bits for my roof have started arriving and I’m hoping that I’ll have a new roof by the end of the month and I’ve not got internet in the house. Unlike in the UK, it all appears to be done by WiFi so one gets an aerial rather than a box to plug in. It was a lot cheaper to install it myself and as the previous owner had used the same provider it was actually surprisingly simple - all the holes were in the right place. Wasn’t particularly pleased initially with the reception and Steffen kindly offered to come across and check. Even before he had crossed the road he said he could see the problem - I had the aerial pointing towards Sandnessjøen whereas it should have been pointing up the road ie I was 90º out. Much better after that.
Another nightmare I had with technology was that my btinternet address went down and of course all my emergency back up information was out of date. I phoned them a number of times and seemed to be able to convince them that I was who I said I was but because I didn't have a UK number anymore I still needed to speak to "someone else". I gave them my dad's landline number and Jen's mobile number (with their permission I should add!) but with them being only to say "anytime in the next 3 days" the chances of me being in the right place were not good. Eventually I decided that the simplest way would be just to buy a burner phone from Tesco's so at least I could be got hold of at any time. I rushed into Tesco's before I visited St Mary's to pick one up and refused the gentleman's generous offer to fit the SIM card (and there may have been a light hearted conversation about me pretending to be a spy). Inevitably, later on in the afternoon as I struggled to insert the SIM card, after experiencing great difficulties in getting the back off the phone, BT phoned and I got my email sorted out. An abashed Graeme went back to Tesco's next day, hoping that it was a different chap serving, to ask for help fitting the SIM card. It was the same guy.
Over the European championships a few of us have been alternating households to watch the Scotland and Belgium games - being a Scotland supporter I instinctively knew that the maximum times I’d have to host would be 2 (I was away for the 3rd game)! The first match was terrible on a couple of points - Scotland were obviously “not good” but also my internet reception wasn’t great so the picture kept buffering. The next match we watched was up at Sabine’s in complete clarity on Norwegian TV so I thought I needed to do something about mine. I though I had a smart TV but apparently not and I was unable to get Norwegian TV on my Firestick. I figured that as the 3 large windows for my living room cost half of what I thought they would I could afford to by a new TV. This was done and I set up it all up with all the appropriate subscriptions etc so can now watch much Norsk TV and hopefully improve my listening skills. At least that’s what should have happened. What has actually happened is that I discovered that TV-2 has every “Only Fools and Horses” episode so all I have learned is how to say “you little plonker” in Norwegian.
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