A quiz. What was 0% in January 2022, 0.07% in January 2023 and 0.21% in September 2024?
The answer is, amazingly enough, the percentage of the population of Dønna who came from Dundee. I had the pleasure of meeting Rebecca and Owen who moved here in September. It has been a great joy to sit and bemoan the lack of a decent cup of tea here in Norway. There is a huge selection of flavoured teas here but not a “bog standard” cup a la “Typhoo”. Something with a bit of oomph. I’m aware that this is, of course, very much a first world problem!
As mentioned in last month’s post, our trio (Katya, Sabine and I) had our debut at the Fishbase factory in Bjørn. This was a precursor to our “official” debut at a concert in Nordvik Kirke. Between the 3 of us were doing a monthly series of lunchtime concerts in the church and this was to a start of. There is a limited repertoire of music for alto, clarinet and piano but by pretending that the clarinet was an olde fashioned oboe for baroque music and, to my eternal shame, judicious use of the transposition button in the electric piano we were able to put a programme together. Of course I then forgot to press the aforementioned transpose button and accused Sabine being horrifically out of tune. The “big” piece in our programme was “shepherd..” by Schubert. In last months post I mentioned my worry about a performance being interrupted by a car driving through the audience. It wasn’t a car that interrupted this concert but Katya’s poor daughter. Katya lives on Løkta and due to the vagaries of the ferry times it means they have to come to Dønna at 9am and stuck here until 4pm. When you’re 5 years old with nothing to do except listen to classical music that’s a long day.
However, it was the most magnificently timed concert interruption I have ever had the pleasure to witness. Between the 2 main sections of the Schubert there is a long clarinet cadenza and that was the moment that Katya’s daughter had had enough. I’m sure it was no reflection on the playing. As Sabine spied this, she played slower and slower until mother and daughter were reunited for a reassuring cuddle. Long held note while the cuddle went on and once happiness was restored we moved seamlessly onto the last section. It was almost as if it was choreographed.
What wasn’t choreographed was a fly dying and crashing onto the piano. Not feeling the love from the animal kingdom these days.
During September, thanks to the assistance of my youngest, I managed to get a lot of my belongings transported here. He very kindly went into my storage room and weighed and measured all the boxes and bits of furniture in preparation for their transport. My admiration for his efficiency in using stickers to note everything was only slightly marred by his occasional habit of putting them in spectacularly inappropriate places eg slap bang in the middle of the monitor screen rather than the large plastic border but what can you do?
Much excitement was had as I unpacked things at the other end. My bookcases, electric harpsichord, some of the Stevenson family archive and of course some of my books and CDs. Many a happy hour was then spent sorting out the aforementioned books and CDs - my idea of heaven. As I unpacked i came across one of my favourite bits of family memorabilia. Back in the 1950s my mum’s dad had written to the BBC about a piece of Karg-Elert that must have been played on the radio. He obviously had asked if he could get hold of a copy and they wrote back saying of course we can lend you our copy but cannot give you permission to copy it. I still have that letter attached to an obviously v illegal (at the time) photocopy of the piece. It’s out of copyright now so can tell that story in the knowledge the Murray family won’t be sued.
Also included in the delivery from Dundee was one of my Lego-type battleships that i had purchased during lockdown. An excellent answer to the question of what to put on my 3rd window sill and a v pleasant way of spending evenings as nights start to draw in. Much to my distress though, of the 1503 pieces mentioned on the box, only 1502 made it across to Norway.
And now for a weather update. As Autumn approaches, it is just relentless rain. I suppose we can’t complain after such a fabulous summer but thank goodness I got the roof done. Dread to think what it would have been like. One of the few dry days we had was, very fortunately, the day we had a service in Løkta. As always, one is at the mercy of the ferry timetable so there is a fair amount of time to kill after the service but the rain stayed off long enough for Helga and I to go on a very pleasant walk to visit the museum - a bit of the island I hadn’t seen before. Lovely walk and it’s always good to work off the vast amount of cake one has eaten at the kirkekafe.
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