When I tried it with butter, everything changed

The services on the first Sunday in Advent are always a bit of fun. As well as the lighting of the first Advent candle at the start of the service and switching on the Christmas Tree lights outside afterwards, the focus of the services are very much on the children - Trine gives a wee presentation about the life of Christ and afterwards the 4 and 6 year olds are given books. It’s also very good practice for me as the language is much more my level so I can understand more than usual. And another plus is of course the little celebrations afterwards with lots of sweet things to be consumed. The helpings of risgrøt offered at Herøy were very circumspect so I foolishly got excited when I arrived in Dønnes and discovered that Hot Dogs were also available so thought I’d treat myself. And then I discovered that the helpings of the risgrøt were huge - I didn’t sleep well that night.

Throughout the month there were lots of rehearsals and concerts to be played for - I was very flattered to be asked to play in Bjørn’s band for a couple of Christmas gigs. Who’d have thought I’d end up playing A Fairytale of New York in church in Norway? The lyrics were in Norwegian so I don’t think they were as controversial as the original ones. At least I don’t think they were - I never asked on the basis of “ignorance is bliss”. We played a whole selection of Christmas songs - many Norwegian but also other classics such as “Jingle Bells” (and I have to say I was quite proud of most of my country-flavoured keyboard solo), “Blue Christmas” and the band even indulged me with some progressive rock and we did my favourite Christmas song “I Believe in Father Christmas” by Greg Lake.

I also had the pleasure of playing for various other concerts - with Dønnahorn at the start of the month and then with Eva’s string orchestra just before Christmas. The string orchestra concert was at very short notice - I got asked to play on my way for a swim and didn’t make it to the concert venue until about 15 minutes before it was due to start. Not even sure if anybody past the actual players heard me. Katya, Sabine and I also did a Christmas themed concert in Norvik Kirke - a mixture of Bach, Tchaikovsky and even Rossini’s Cat Duet. Katya sang a couple of Ave Marias which seemed to go down very well - some of the audience were moved to tears at the end.

Another part of the Christmas tradition here is that the young kids (4 or 5 year olds) are invited to the church for Julevandring (?) each year. A wee nativity play that both us staff and the kids take part in. In my first year, I was merely Angel No. 1 and was tasked with greeting the kids as they arrived in the church. Nothing has been said but my impression was that after that first attempt it was decided that Graeme was perhaps not the most welcoming face was so was “promoted” to Angel Gabriel. Funnily enough, according to Andy Hamilton’s radio 4 sitcom “Old Harry’s Game”, Gabriel’s actual name IS Graeme, but there was a “typo” in the Bible. Maybe I was fulfilling my destiny :-)

Anyway, my task was to don the outfit, including fairy lights and to hide upstairs in the organ loft. At the appropriate moment, I was to stand up, switch on my lights and announce in a loud voice “Fear not, I bring you tidings of great joy etc etc” In Norwegian obviously. This was definitely not in my normal comfort zone but, and risking immodesty here, I did try to throw myself into the role and do my best “angel impression”. Sadly my sudden appearance and dramatic interpretation of the text was somewhat undermined by my neighbour’s lovely daughter shouting out “Hi Graeme!” Bless.

We also had the Herøy school service on the 20th and it tickled me that the service was all over and done with before sunrise (round about 1030 this time of year). I put some thought in to what to play at the end of the service and discovered a short piece - Variations on Jingle Bells and I figured it might appeal more to the troops than my traditional In Dulci Jubilo BWV 729, JS Bach. Of course the downside of choosing Jingle Bells is that when one immediately hashes up the opening line, everyone knows. Despite this inauspicious start, things did get better and there was a show of appreciation at the end which is always gratifying.

I’m not usually great at Christmas or birthdays but this year I’ve tried much harder to be “normal”. I bought myself a tree (chosen on the basis I liked its name - “Yggdrasil”) and various Julenissen (Santa Claus) - particularly proud of my one with the extendable legs. As you can see in the picture below, I think it’s quite an attractive set up. And of course nothing says Christmas like a battleship Tirpitz in the background.

Christmas week itself was very busy - originally I had one day off on the 28th but for whatever reason things got moved around so my first day off was actually the 30th. And of course the time consuming part isn’t so much the services, they all tend to be quite short, but the travelling between. Christmas Eve started at the care home in Herøy, followed by a dash up to Dønna for 2 services in different churches. Of course when I say dash, I still had time for a coffee (or two) and cake (or two) before I left.

The longer days are the ones that involve ferries - on the Friday we were in Løkta and on the Saturday Husvær. Both these services were followed by the Juletrefest - a lovely tradition where everybody gathers round the tree and walk round singing Christmas songs. Katya lives on Løkta so it seemed a pity not to take advantage of all the rehearsals we had had for our concert so instead of an organ prelude we treated the congregation to an aria from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. This appeared to go down well but my colleagues had also heard that Katya had started a kids choir so they were also invited along and obviously completely upstaged our cultural item!

My major abiding memory of that day though was my car alas. As I drove onto the ferry, all the lights illuminated on my dashboard in various shades of red and orange. I can assure you that the last thing you want to experience when attempting to turn the car around when boarding a ferry is for the brakes to stop working. My car only stopped with very vigorous pressing of the brake pedal. It has to be said that I don’t think it could have chosen a more inconvenient moment to go on the blink. Everything is closed and I needed the car to get to all the various services I had over the festive period. I like to think that if it had happened in July or such like I could have coped but in December? Bjørn and Bård could not have done more to help me - for which I’m very grateful.

The 28th December was our (Liv-Helga and I) jaunt to Husvær for Andakt and the Juletrefest. When Liv-Helga asked for directions, for some unfathomable reason, they seemed to think “Graeme will know” was good advice. Liv-Helga did have it typed into the sat-nav and just as well - my one bit of advice “oh, there it is, take this road on the left” was fortunately ignored as it was nowhere near the right destination. I had remembered from last year’s visit with Bent that keeping the Andakt bit short was of prime importance as the Fest was the important part I so knew not to prepare a prelude and postlude. I genuinely loved the importance placed on this tradition - we arrived and were given a list of songs with the number of verses to be played. I recalled the harmonium being one of the better ones I had to play but goodness me it required heck of a lot of pedalling to keep the noise going. Still, a pleasant time was had and much food was consumed during the break. There was a small panic when we checked the ferry time back to discover that you had to phone to make sure the boat turned up. One shudders at the thought of having to wait 14 hours for the next one. Liv-Helga came very well prepared for the trip with Thermos, cups and cake which certainly softened the blow of waiting for the ferry. Mind you, I fear I must have been spectacularly boring - “oh, you’ve not heard of Babylon 5….”

Despite all the busyness around Christmas I still have generally managed to keep up my other routines. I’ve started going for a swim on a Saturday morning which does tend to get the weekend off to a lovely start. But of course I immediately undo all the good work by having a coffee and Twix. The other mainstay of my routine is my visit to the cafe in Sandnessjøen. Bless their cotton socks - they do look after me. One Monday when I arrived and put in my usual order (the entire conversation - “Usual?” “Ja, takk”) I went to where I normally sit but alas it was already occupied. The place is usually quiet when I arrive so it was no problem finding a 2 person table to sit and spread my stuff out on. But by the time my coffee arrived, the invader of my usual seat had departed. Despite my protestations that I was perfectly content where I was, the young lady would not take no for an answer and began to move all my stuff - my comfort was her prime concern! And they even gave me a Christmas present at my last pre-Christmas visit.

I have eaten extremely well over the last few weeks what with Christmas lunches and friends generously feeding me. A lovely meal was had with some traditional poems for Advent was had at Solveig’s and she also fed me again after the wee mini concert I write about below. And after the New Year’s Eve concert Jens v kindly invited me to join his family for some Turkey - a traditional New Year’s menu in Norway. As always, the diet starts today!

All the best for 2025