Travels in Norway

The day after Jen left was the day of the Dønnahorn concert in Solfjellsjøen. It was an Oscars themed concert and the venue was decorated with both movie posters and band uniforms. Back in Dundee, I used to direct Angus Choral Society and one of the highlights of concert day was the lovely meal in the few hours between the last rehearsal and the concert. The downside of this was that the last thing you wanted to do was then go and do a concert. Ellie and I (well mainly Ellie) had come to the conclusion that the ideal thing would be to have the concert earlier and then go for the meal. I was delighted to discover that this was exactly was Dønnahorn did. The concert was at 5pm (and like everything in Norway, when the say the concert is at 5pm…) and afterwards we adjourned up to Dønnes Gård for a meal. Suffice to say the food was fabulous and felt very satisfied afterwards! But back to the concert. The band played really well - thanks to Sabine‘s efforts they always seem to peak at exactly the right time. It was a fun programme - a highlight for me personally was playing the James Bond music but there were some other fabulous tunes to get involved with. The whole thing was very professional - lights/ sounds and ran very smoothly.

As well as the meal afterwards there was the bonus of kaffe og kake both before and at the interval. Going back to the first Covid lockdown in 2020 I started to eat much more healthily and managed to lose 19 kilos. I think I looked pretty dreadful for a while (my face looked very drawn) but the body has since adjusted. I’m very aware that kaffe og kake have been a big feature of these blog posts - and to be honest have been a tad worried that I may have undone all that good work. Not worried enough to actual stop eating the cake obviously but still... A few weeks back I purchased a set of weighing scales but it took me until yesterday to tentatively step on them. Pleasantly surprised with the outcome - not great but certainly not as bad as I feared.

Later on in the week I had an overnight trip to Levanger to pick up my new car. It’s an electric one - Nissan Leaf. Lovely not to have to pay the exorbitant fuel prices but dear god the stress of looking for chargers on the way back….

My original plan had been to leave the rental car in Bjørn, catch the ferry to Sandnessjøen, bus to Mosjøen, go see and Top Gun at the cinema then get the train to Lavenger at about 1 in the morning arriving at some point around 6am then going to find a cafe somewhere. On the bus I came to the conclusion that this was probably a very stupid idea and that the more intelligent plan would be to forego the movie, get the evening train and spend the night in Levanger. There appears to be only one hotel in Levanger itself and it seems that I booked the last room leftl. A lovely room with 2 tables and chairs nice TV, comfy beds etc but alas no sugar for my coffee. Obviously one has to pay for luxury like this so I made sure to get value for my money with x trips to the breakfast bar in the morning.

Because I still don’t have a Norwegian BankID (see previous posts) I had to arrive as early as possible as we had to go together to an office in the town centre to reassure officialdom that I was who I said I was. The good news was that I discovered the car dealer was only a 20 minute walk (in beautiful weather) from the hotel. The bad news was that I didn’t discover this until I had been walking for about 45 minutes. I had initially typed in just the postcode and eventually got suspicious of my surroundings and only then typed in the actual address. I had walked within meters of the place about 25 minutes earlier. If only there had been a clue like a pile of cars outside or something, Oh wait…..

Much to my (pleasant) surprise everything went very smoothly. The dealer was very pleasant and even the trip to the official office was v quick. We arrived back and all I had to do was sign a few documents and the car was mine. A pleasant surprise was that the dealer took care of everything - finance/ insurance. I had a suspicion that the bank would just laugh at me - you‘ve been here how long and you want money?? But they have the car as co-lateral so if anything goes wrong. So they then drove the car round the front for me, shook my hand, handed the car keys to me and left me to it. 5 minutes later I’m back in the place apologising for the fact that I have no idea how to switch the car on. Oh the shame.

Very swish though. Cameras and everything. Traditional reverse camera angle but a slightly disconcerting one from above. Feels like I‘m being tracked by my own personal satellite.

The trip from Levanger to Stavseng is around 400 km (and a ferry ride) so I was well aware of the need to charge at least a couple of times. The first stage of the journey was absolutely fine as I made my way up the E6. The sat nav had (allegedly) directions to nearby chargers so followed that religiously. I ended up coming off the E6 and investigating new bits of Norway which ended up being v stressful. It would seem that when the range is down to about 15 km the numbers disappear and you get 2 flashing dashes. In a panic I ended up plonking myself by a garage and asking them if they knew where the chargers. They gave my directions (and after double checking that it was as close as they said) managed to reach It before the battery finally died. Fortunately Laila’s son in law had passed on some apps that I apparently would need and they came in very handy. I texted Laila to tell her the good news and when I told her where I was she replied “that sound[s] strange… we never use that”. Roughly paraphrased - “ what on earth are you doing there???” Nonetheless, with battery fully charged and a light heart I set off again. Of course I used a fair whack of the charge actually getting back onto the main route but future stops were much more straightforward and spectacularly scenic.

In a follow up story, I was regaling my colleagues with my excursion and how I ended up miles off route. When asked where I ended up I said I couldn’t remember. They laughed and said, haha, at least it wasn’t Namsos. And inevitably I said - oh yes, that was it!

Thanks to Martine Antonine for Dønnahorn concert picture