Is it really so bad to say “xxxxxxxxx”?

The school holidays have started. Now there's a sentence I didn't think I'd be writing when I was into my fifties. That being said it is a fun challenge to try and learn a new language at this stage in my life. I've even had dreams about learning Norwegian. Even weeks later I remember dreaming about practicing the dreaded various verb tenses with my teacher. I am particularly proud of the fact that I got the verbs right even while my teacher was telling me I was wrong, (I checked when I woke up).

My teacher, rather optimistically if you ask me, thinks I should be aiming to do my first proper assessment at the end of October. Panic! As part of putting in more effort, I found a new Norsk podcast to listen to which is aimed at people like me and the first episode after the introductory one was about how to swear in Norwegian. The title of this post was in fact taken from this podcast but discretion prevents me from typing the word out. Haha. Fortunately I don't often myself getting angry enough to want to use these words. Generally the only times I mutter darkly is when I'm playing the organ and make a mess of something. Unfortunately, l almost always play off my iPad these days which takes my grimace as a cue to turn the page. And then I grimace because my page has turned early which makes the iPad...etc. The other side of this of course is that I'm so used to using my iPad that on the rare occasions when I'm using paper music I can be seen winking at the music and then briefly being surprised that the page hasn't turned.

When I was still in Dundee directing Discovery Bach, a familiar sight would be me scrawling out some programme notes 2 minutes before going on. We reprised our Lokta concert in Dønnes Kirke in June and as always I had decided that I would do most of the talking but as always had left it to almost the last minute. I remember sitting down with Trine armed with my ipad for Google translate, ny notebook and pencil ready to write it all out. But as I sat down and started testing out what I wanted to say it dawned on me that I might actually be able to "busk" it. And I did. I'm not under any illusion that I said anything spectacularly interesting but I was able to welcome everybody say a few things about the pieces etc all in Norwegian. Came away feeling really quite chuffed with myself. And the concert itself wasn't too shabby either I think :-)

I have bought myself a Norwegian cook book to try and improve my repertoire of dishes. Being a fairly unsophisticated chap at the best of times I found a student cook-book ("for a full stomach") which I thought would suit me perfectly. One of the reasons for buying this rather than continue with downloading recipes from the net was that everything would be geared (measurement wise etc) to what I'd be able to find in Norway. I've still not been able to find a bag of lentils that I used to get in Tesco's for my soups. Obviously some of the recipes I've had to refine a bit to make them more palatable for simple old me eg "kylling i øl" became "kylling i 2 cans av Coke Zero" (which was surprisingly good) and if I can't find certain items I just miss them out altogether and hope for the best.

I was here last year for the May 17th celebrations but this time I was only playing in one of the churches so was able to take part more fully. At these Norway Day services, they like to have the band in accompanying the hymns and playing the preludes and postludes presumably to add a a bit of pizzazz to the service. We then adjourned down to Solfjellsjøen and to the school hall. First there was a parade round the town led by the band and afterwards the was food and a little concert. I was asked to do a wee solo (Sabine warned me that in advance not to go for anything too sophisticated - moi?sophisticated?) and also played for the community choir as well as a wee girl. I have to say I don't think the wee soul was overwhelmed with my accompanying. I was just given the chords and text and a video showing this big production number from something like "Norway's got talent" However we started together and finished together and seemed to agree on the number of beats per bar so....

A couple of weeks ago was the annual Herøydagan and I took part in the Kulturkveld as well as playing for the Pride March as they passed through the church as part of the parade. Quite pleased with my selection of "Toccata on "All you need is love" for that. Kulturkveld on the other hand? They asked me just to play one piece so I thought I would play that masterpiece "Combat Naval" by Daniel Steibelt. Why that piece you ask? It tells the story (and has notations on the score to describe the action at many points) of a Naval Battle between Britain and the Netherlands. This battle became known as the Battle of Camperdown with the British fleet being led by Admiral Duncan, a native of Dundee. Nice local touch (to me) I thought. I carefully wrote out all the words, translated them into Norwegian and tried them out on my colleagues: much acclaim was received - "err, maybe just say them in English Graeme?"

So I pottered along to the sound check and I was waiting my turn I noticed 2 things: 1 - the programme was much "lighter" than I expected eg shortly before I was to go on somebody was singing "Jolene" and I had been allotted (as had everybody else) 4 minutes. The piece itself was about 12 minutes and on top of that was the introduction which was important to give context to the whole thing. To keep within the time limit I'd have had to go on, talk, play Rule Britannia, and walk off again. My fault for not asking slightly more detailed questions about repertoire. I had downloaded a pile of Ragtime Music so after the rehearsal I returned to the Church and just put together a "mash-up" of a couple of ragtime tunes to fill out my allotted 4 minutes. Wasn't my finest performance by any stretch of the imagination but did get introduced as "the one and only Graeme Stevenson" so that was nice :-)

I was fortunate enough to be offered space on rib cruise with Ingrid, Jorg and their daughter Anna and it ended up being a lovely day out. It was cruise out past some of the islands with the ultimate destination being Sansdundvær. We passed various islands which had evacuated fishing villages and a cormorant colony. We actually went ashore at Sandsundvær - this island was hit by a flood in Janaury 1901 and 34 people were killed. The "driver" of the rib talked to us about all we saw and it was very clear, even though I rarely understood anything he said, that he was a very good talker. When I'm listening to people talking in Norwegian I can sometimes follow what it was being said but if I start to lose my way I end up zoning out and not take anything in. The first episode of the first Norwegian podcast I listened to had quite a large section on the start of the 2nd World War and the German battleship Admiral Blücher - knowing a bit of the story I was really able to focus and was quite chuffed about how much I was able to follow.

Things are a bit quieter here over the summer as far as work is concerned - we don't have staff meetings or services in either of the old folks' homes but still have the Sunday services in various locations. For those of you who saw my "summer in Norway" picture on Facebook, it's worth noting that those services got cancelled so got completely drenched for nothing!

Sabine and I have taken on a project of performing all the Bach cello suites (on clarinet) and Organ Trio Sonatas over the summer so once a fortnight we play in one of three churches. I start each concert with a piece based on the melody B-A-C-H (B-A-C-Bb) including one of my favourite pieces from when I first started playing the organ - a Fugue by Merkel. I had lost my copy many years ago - imagine my joy when I discovered a copy sitting in my new office in Herøy. Frustratingly, a couple of days after finalising the programme, I opened a random book on a random page that had been left by a previous organist in Herøy and it was a Fugue on B-A-C-H by a Norwegian composer! Nuts.