Missing the sun

Pictures taken last Sunday which was the last time the sun made an appearance around these parts.
November has been grim, rainy and very dark. I'm ready for snow now if this is all winter has to offer. Give me freezing temps and blue skies. At least snow makes everywhere look brighter :)
We also discovered Mathallen in Oslo which is a mini version (ish) of Borough Market in London and it certainly makes the grim food situation her in Norway a little bit brighter :)

Cosy

We have experienced every possible type of weather this past week but the worst was a hail storm whilst I was at work which melted slightly,froze over only to be covered over in snow within the next few hours causing me to call Henrik to come and walk me home from work as I could not get up a slope as I'd forgotten to bring studs for my shoes! You forget during the summer just how hard winter can be here.
For the moment I'm enjoying the cosiness of winter, the candles,wrapping up warm, the amazing sunrises and sunsets. I'm learning to embrace it :)

The last of autumn

We said goodbye to autumn last week when a whole load of snow and freezing temps descended on us. I'm hoping snow this early means we are going to get an early spring and not that we are now going to have snow on the ground for 5 months (like my first winter here!)
By the way, is anyone else getting insane amounts of spam comments on their blogs recently? I had 21 of the damn things today! grrrrrr

Good things in Norway

  I know I complain about Norway being a bit backwards (in some things like Sunday opening!) but I also realise that in the grand scheme of things Sunday opening is really not important.
What is important is living in a liberal country where you are allowed to marry whoever you want regardless of sex, you can adopt a baby in a same sex marriage and it also became the first country in the world to enact an anti-discrimination law protecting homosexuals. Not so backward after all.
The upcoming election in America is a terrifying election, I can’t even fathom having a man like Mitt Romney in the White House. This is a man far more interested in Taxes than human rights. Scary.
I'm happy to live in a country where I pay stupidly high taxes but people can openly be who they want to be :)
That's a great thing.

friends & winter

When I'm having a "Norway sucks" period it helps to have friends from home visit as it forces me to show them the good stuff here, and of course time with your best friend is always a huge boost. As well as friends arriving, winter also arrived with a bang, a little to early for my liking but whad'ya gonna do?

Sunday

Ah, Sunday. The day in Norway where nothing is open apart from 7/11 and garden centres. The government here think it's fine to shop for plants on a Sunday but nothing else. Sundays are for walking in the mountains. Enjoying the best thing that Norway has to offer, beautiful scenery.
But man cannot live on beautiful scenery alone!
 I'm looking forward to next year when hopefully Norway will have a new government that will drag this backward country kicking and screaming into the 21st century!

Hej hej Sverige!

We needed a little escape from Norway so we drove three hours to Gøteborg for a little Swedish adventure. I treated myself to a proper winter coat and I'm still feeling very guilty about the £600 I spent on it! eeeek! Once it's -15c I will stop feeling guilty but for now that amount is killing me!
Saturday was my day,shopping and wandering around the city and Sunday was Henrik's day, wandering around Marstrand and Carlstens Festning
Oh yea, and we bickered for most of the time, which of course always makes a weekend away a bit more fun!

So-long cottage

Autumn is well and truly here with some mornings a chilly -3c which is just too cold to be staying at the cottage, so on Sunday we closed up for the season. I always feel a bit sad when we do this esp as we had a crappy summer weather wise so did not get as much use out of the cottage this year. Oh well, only 7 months til its warm enough to return (that seems sooooo long.Damn nordic winter!)
We spent our last weekend there under many blankets,wearing thick socks and eating tomato soup and apple muffins. Time to embrace winter. We will travel to Gøteborg at the end of the week for a little break and to stock up on new winter gear. Any Gøteborg tips are welcome!

Høst

You'd think that after two years in Norway my norwegian would be fantastic? Well, it's not.
I'm pretty lazy about speaking it and will speak english given any opportunity. My understanding of the language is good and I often have conversations where the other person is speaking norwegian or swedish and I reply in english. I'm not gonna stress about the language. I have a job, I talk to the kids in norwegian and I think that eventually I will get there....
There are 3 words at the moment that I keep mixing up
Høst=autumn
hoste=cough
hest=horse
 On Friday I went to the doctor and started off speaking norwegian with him until he started to laugh.
I was telling him that I have had a bad cough for a few weeks only instead of saying cough I told him that I had a bad horse! I switched to english right away!
Please tell me you all make mistakes too when speaking another language?

England

Hello people! Sorry for the blog silence around here but we have been holidaying in England for the last week. We are now back in Norway and I'm 3lbs heavier and my bank account is £500 lighter!
Henrik turned 37 in England, so many cakes were eaten. We ate roast dinners with yorkshire puds, baby-back ribs from Waitrose (they were to die for) Ploughmans lunch, fish n chips, drank Crabbies,Guinness and shandy. I bought 5 pairs of jeans (I never buy clothes in Norway if I can help it) lots of winter woolies, huge amounts of medicine (these are crap in Norway too)
I spent time with my family and my best friend (and Sock the boxer) and enjoyed everything that England has to offer.
I'm slightly pissed off to be back in Norway but this always happens to me after a trip. It will wear off again,  it always does.

In the countryside

1. I've been trying to eat healthier and go to the gym more but could not resist this little cinnamon swirl that Henrik bought for me. I have no willpower....
2. I sorted out all my mugs/cups today as I'm running out of space. These are staying, but many more are being given to the fleamarket. I think I may have a mug obsession.
3,4,5. We went to a cute farm today and picked sweetcorn, ate grilled corn smothered in melted butter (ooops, another thing I'm not supposed to be eating!) You could also pick your own flowers which I did as flowers are shockingly expensive here (what isn't expensive here?) but these were cheap.
6. On the way home we drove alongside Tyrifjorden and passed by Utøya. I feel choked up every time we pass this island.

The weekend

This weekend was half spent at the cottage, and half at home. The cottage is getting a wee bit chilly now at night but we are hoping to be able to visit throughout September as I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to summer yet- sob!
Fleamarket season started up and as well as visiting many this weekend we have also been travelling around finding nice neighbourhoods we think we would like to live in as we are hoping to put down some real roots here soon and buy a house. Even though the jury is out on whether we will stay in Norway we still feel we should buy something soon.....
We have now been living here exactly 2 years. I'm still adjusting to this country and I don't know if I'll ever love Norway, but for now I'll keep on trying :)