keeping tabs on Helen: January 2014

Christmas 2013, and a good start to 2014!

It comes yet once a year, and should be celebrated.

Do I mean the shortest day, and the beginning of longer days?

Well, that also, and here is a photo taken on the Winter Solstice.

Yet it is Christmas that I mean to post about here: Christmas in Norway :)

I have had Christmases with kind people in many lands now, in Canada, in New Zealand, in Iceland... and in Norway. Wherever you are, the magical ingredients are good company, good times and good food. In Norway, we can also enjoy good snow (or at least wish for it, as some years the snow can be a bit lacking at Christmas). This year, there were all the components for a good Christmas, as snow had been with us since early October!

Being in Norway over the New Year period for many years now, I have also come to enjoy the rom-jul ('between Christmas and New Year-period'). This year I spent Christmas with Per, at the family farm = local ski trips, great company, and immensely good food! And the rom-jul was topped off with a trip back to Målselv and some snowy skiing to an hut inland... and yes, I couldn't resist, and I borrowed a husky to accompany us: Snehvit ('Snow White') A real princess, this dog, with her snowy-white coat, positive personality (for people, huts, and...er, reindeer!), and clear enthuiasm for pulking (and sneaking into the hut, at any opportunity ;)). Thank you, Sanja, for loaning us Snehvit, and thank you, Weather Gods, for being so kind to us!

Enjoy the photos. Some people maintain that the 'dark-time' is drear and depressing - as you can see, it is a most beautiful time of the year!

And every day now is lighter and lighter...

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My two trusty New-Years trip companions, man and dog!

And the constant company of the landscape itself...

You can see here that the sun hasn't forgotten how to colour the sky,

even if she is determined not to show herself!

Packing our gear to leave from one hut... Snehvit is reluctant to pull the pulk, and seems to opt for the softer option of trying to cadge a ride: oh! if only dogs could talk...

Snehvit's clear fascination for huts, i.e. being inside huts soon became clear to us! As dogs are strictly forbidden in most Norwegian huts, then she soon had to learn of the disappointments of life...

"Wow, a hut, out here? In the middle of nowhere. Game ON!"

"Well, we've arrived, now it's just to go inside and stoke the fire for me, no?"

"And whilst you're inside in the warm... ahem! REMEMBER ME?"

Positive-reinforcement of negative behaviour as we have to travel down the valley and towards flocks of reindeer ahead of us. Snehvit thought this was simply the best!

I don't believe she has ever pulled so hard, or with so much conviction!

"Ah! I spy with my little eye: REINDEER AHEAD"

"Always check for reindeer, they can be hiding behind every single stone or outcrop!"

If a husky is not racing, they are either snoozing, or... rolling....

A sequence of shots of Snehvit and me, taking it easy, waiting for the one without the dog!

Letting them overtake you...

And then playing catch-up!

...hours of fun!

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"Another hut. Another possibility..."

Happy New Year to you all!

No dog like Dovre, no horse like Hera

2013 has been a great year, but also one of great losses.

In spring my dear Uncle Eric passed on, which was a sad time for everyone. We had hoped he would be around for a family reunion planned in the summer but that was not to be. Uncle Eric and I had become pen-pals for the past few years; a real pleasure for both of us, I feel. There is nothing like writing or receiving a letter - I realise that facebooking and blogging falls short of the mark there. However, I do hope that electronic means are some compensation for not seeing people as regularly as you would like, and not writing as often as you should...

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June 2013 saw also the passing of my dear friend and dog, Dovre. For those who never met him, rest assured he was a husky-ambassador, and as kind and generous a canine as one could wish for. Taking on a dog who is retired from sled-dog racing means you get a trained and a fit dog, yet one set in his own habits (although not untrainable, decidely stubborn to what he likes best!), and, alas, rather worn in the teeth, hence a companion for only a very few years. Dovre was with me for 3 years, and lived until almost 14 years old, which is rather a grand age for any hound, especially a husky. He is buried in the birch woods, on a mountain slope overlooking the husky-farm where he was born. Not many huskies live to his age, as many working dogs like him are disposed of (often simply shot) at about aged 8 (or less). This is reality of the sport of dog-sledding: it is a business, after all.

During his 'retirement' with me, Dovre got to learn what it was to come inside a house and enjoy a warm place beside the fire. He was spoilt, as all dogs deserve to be. And I got to learn the pleasures of being a dog-owner!

Thank you, Dovre, for so many good times that I can't possibly post photos enough. Here are but a few...

Including these photos of Dovre racing in his youth, from Stig-Martin Arctanger's excellent book, 'Finnmarksløpet', a race which Dovre was a veteran of.

(See http://www.finnmarkslopet.no/front.jsp?lang=no for more details of this annual race)

If there is an after-life for dogs, I hope that Dovre is there, chasing reindeer!

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Sadly, on the land where Dovre was laid out to rest, there was a tragedy just a few weeks later. My friend, Ane Elene, whose family own the land, had two strong and kind Icelandic horses: Odin and Hera. Sadly, Hera succumbed suddenly to a bad bout of colic. Two days later, and after a great fight for her life, she had also passed on.

As Winston Churchill once said, "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." Of Hera, that was very true.

Ode to Summer '13

In Northern Norway you get spring, then summer... blink or you'll miss it, and then it is suddenly autumn again.

This blog entry is late, so late that the leaves have left the trees and the white stuff is back again....

Indeed, so late that it is 2014!

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As a synopsis, I graduated and left my books behind for a spell - essay writing was replaced by job application writing. Summer flew past, with a visit home to the UK, for a family reunion, which was totally fab. And then, more applications, more waiting, and more hoping. I was now qualified as a Lower/Upper secondary general science teacher... yet not a job on the horizon yet...

But we never know what is around the bends of lifes many roads.

And, seemingly many moons later: I got a JOB OFFER and so, I find myself in Nordreisa kommune, a little further north from Tromsø and a little less people. If you look at a map, Storslett is positioned between Tromsø and Alta. Sort-of. The mighty Reisa Elva (Reisa River) and 100km long Reisa valley serving as a natural route to the sea. Historically, it's the meeting place of Kvensk, Fins, Sami and Norwegian. A right mixed bunch of people have settled here over the years... thought it might also suit me fine then, also ;)

The place I live now is a reminder to me of Canmore, Alberta, and Glenorchy, New Zealand. An agricultural oasis, between mountains and sea. As the expression goes in Norwegian, "I like myself here."

I work here, and cycling to work (or skiing!) is manageable and a sheer joy:

So, after moving here in August it was simply a case of settling in, and watching the leaves begin their hasty senescence and departure from the trees.

....in anticipation for winter (which has come!)