This ole house

It’s been slightly longer than I anticipated since I last posted but better late than never.

May started with the Mayday holiday and Sabine invited me for a wee jaunt up one of the local hills to take advantage of the fine weather. Hard work but worth it for the views and some lovely little lakes that were quite tempting to go for a wee dip into due to the warmth but common sense prevailed. Inevitably we got lost on the way down and ended up taking one or two kamikaze routes but we got down in the end. Lots of lovely cute lambs in the fields which we admired while feeling a tad guilty about the fact we were going to have lamb at Solveig and Einar’s in the evening.

It has been a busy few weeks what with one thing and another but the biggest new is of course that I seem to now be the owner of a house here in Norway. The whole process has dragged on a lot longer than I would have liked due to the difficulties of selling my flat in Dundee but goodness me it seems to be so much simpler here. In fact, it seemed so simple that I got in touch with the lady at the bank because I was sure I must be missing something important. Before one can look at places here in Norway one has to have a note from the bank saying that Mr Stevenson can buy a property up to the value of x. I duly made my appointment with the bank and said I’ve got a deposit of “y”, I’d like to buy this property for which they are asking for “z”. The lovely lady asked how much I was paying in rent, tapped the keyboard and said, yep, we can offer you that and you’d just be paying the same as now. I was stunned by this and asked how long was the term - 30 years came the reply. I was flattered with the optimism of my longevity but asked if I could have it a bit shorter and again it seemed to be no problem . And that was pretty much it - there was the haggling of the price - they wanted “z”, I offered “a” and, and this may come as a shock, we settled on a point half way between. The rest of it was just done by email etc. The particularly amazing bit was the move in date. I’d originally plucked a date out of the ether and on further contemplation asked if I could move it a little earlier and this was agreed. Later on I thought an even earlier date would be even better so, following advice, I just emailed the seller and asked him. He said yes, I texted the lovely lady at the bank, she said yes, and voila, all was done and I took the keys on the 16th May.

If I’m honest, the property is possibly on the slightly too large front - 4 bedrooms, 2 lounges etc but I love the location. It’s literally across the road from the apartment I was renting so still very close to the ferry and being slightly higher up means I have a lovely outlook. The house does need a lot of work - but I’ve got a new roof and windows for the living room on order so I’ve at least made a start on the important stuff.

Sabine also bought a new house at the same time and it’s thanks to her that the place is so well furnished. The owners of her new property left a lot of furniture so I very gratefully accepted that. There’s also a wonderful flea market across the water where I was able to pick up some bits and bobs including a rather natty chest which I’m very pleased with. Jen very kindly came out for a few days to help - and we have a great few days touring the local furniture shops buying bits and bobs and then organising the place. Jen did an amazing job and all modesty aside I think the place is looking rather natty.

People have been so very helpful - helping me move stuff from Sabine’s, donating useful items etc Also with Jen’s help (ie she did most of it) it was nice to be able host a wee do for just some of the people who have been so kind to me since I moved here - making me feel very welcome/ feeding me/ listening to my attempts to speak Norwegian. Was just remembering today poor Laila having to listen to me saying that I was wearing underwear, just so that I could use a new word I learned.

The following week I was delighted to finally welcome the kids out for a visit. We were very lucky with the weather - it was warm all the time and only the Friday could be described as coming close to “bad”. On the Tuesday they participated in the tradition of coffee in the shopping centre in Sandnessjøen before a wee walk round the town and up to see the gun turret. In the afternoon they joined us on our Tirsdagtur up Røsdalsfjellet. It always starts bang on 5pm, not 4.59, not 5.01 and if you’re not there on time there is no sentimentality, they just start without you. We were 2 minutes late so Stein started without us. 20 minutes into the walk Solveig said oh I think I see Stein at the top. If I’m honest I was a tad cynical about this but a wee while later, this 71 year old came running past us at high speed, barely stopped to say hello and tanked on trying to beat his best time. Compare this to me who always feels knackered by the time we actually arrive at the starting point.

Wednesday we took a wee trip to Løkta to walk through the Troll forest while Thursday found us on s trip to Mosjøen to try the zip wire. TBH when one arrives in Mosjøen and parks across the road from the line it doesn’t look bad but later….. Mosjøen is also home to the Helgelandstrappa - the world’s longest stone staircase (built by Sherpas no less). This is also on my list of things to do and though I knew there were a lot of steps (over 4000) I thought it wouldn’t be any big problem as we trekked up a couple of hundred of them to get to the zip line. But goodness me that confidence was misplaced - after about 25 steps one could already feel it taking its toll and the thought that kept you going was the fact you didn’t have to walk back down. We passed a chap sitting on them on the way up the and we (Martin, Jonathan and I) said hello while Amy and the guide actually spoke to him and it transpired he was Forfar - what are the odds? For anybody reading in Norway, it’s roughly the equivalent to being from Stavseng and bumping into someone from Bjørn in deepest darkest Scotland.

Once we reached the take off point we had a long wait for the brake check at the other (slightly disconcerting how long that took if I’m honest) and that really didn’t help the nerves. Traumatising would be a good description of one’s feelings. Once everything was ready it then required a heck of a lot of courage (well for me at least) to step off the platform. But once you had conquered that fear it quickly settled down and was quite a gentle ride down to the other end. Well worth it. I’m now looking forward to going back over the summer at somepoint and conquering the staircase but will arrive with a slightly more realistic view of how hard and long it’s going to be.

After this we headed back to the island where I had suggested we take part in the Torsdagkopp at Innebandy. Teams of 3, so we took turns to rest and suffice to say we weren’t in any danger of running away with the prizes. Only 3 teams were there (so realistically we ended up 4th) and I think we lost every game bar 1 (photographic evidence attached). We almost had an extremely honorable no score draw in 1 match but in the last few seconds of the match someone who wasn’t playing (you know who you are if you’re reading this) and we lost with the last hit of the game.

On the Friday we had lovely time up in Stavseng having coffee and cake with Laila and Åsmund before I took the kids to see Dønnes Kirke before meeting Solveig who was going to take us up to the very North of the island look at the remnants of some German WWII fortifications. I was really looking forward to this as for some reason I had been unaware of them until quite recently but alas the weather wasn’t great so we took some long range photos before heading back to the warmth of the cars.

I was actually working on the Sunday but it was the Hagen service - the annual outdoor service at the location of a village that had been abandoned after avalanche fears. It’s preceded by a lovely walk to the area (alas no sign of my Mariners baseball cap) and followed by a barbecue.

Thanks to all my friends who fed and watered us while the kids were here - it was very much appreciated.

Obviously I’ve still been at work throughout all this - May is a very busy time for festivals with both church and National Day on May 17th. I also had a weekend of playing for the Helgeland Prokectkor concerts in Sandnessjøen and Nesna. The concerts went very well and both sets of audiences seemed to really enjoy them. I love travelling by ferry to places but the downside of course is that your timetable is very inflexible so I (and Øystein) had to get the first ferry out on the Sunday morning and last ferry back in the evening. A very long day. That being said it was fun to visit a new island and try out a new organ. What a fabulous organ loft there was too - it was very expansive and even had room for an office. Also space for a couple of very comfortable arm chairs, one of which I promptly fell asleep in (between rehearsal and concert I should stress). A lovely selection of music from Ola Gjeilo and Purcell to Pink Floyd, Queen and, much to my pleasure, a wee ditty from possibly my favourite musical “Chess”.

Sabine and I reprised our Nordvik Concert in Herøy and we had a 500% increase in our audience which was very gratifying. At my suggestion, we tried Take 5 again. Following the horrors of our previous performance without rehearsal I sat down to make sure I was actually prepared this time - PTSD kicked in at about bar 5 as the horrors of how badly I must have played it the first time. The actual performance seemed to go well this time and we finished at the same - intentionally. A big improvement on the ferry performance.