Cabin fever

535Christine’s parents arrived at the end of the last week and this weekend we all decamped to a hytte that we hired on the coast not far from Fredrikstad. The accommodation was basic (no running water and a compost toilet) but still very comfortable. From what we could understand from the (Danish) owner in his broken English, it is probably hired out for less than a month each year and is used by himself for the rest of the time.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great on Saturday but we still made the short trip down to the beach where a veritable flotilla of small boats had launched for a sailing competition. Everyone made it out for a run although we could have done with a map. There were paths everywhere but unfortunately the majority of them just lead to one of the other myriad of cabins littered through the forest.

On Sunday the sun was out in force. We didn’t, as the owner suggested, make it to the nearby WW2 Torgauten Fort for the guided tours although Sue did have a nose round later in the day when it was still open. Christine and I went for a run along the coast stopping for the good views from Blåsopp.

Unfortunately it wasn’t long after we got back that I started to feel ill. My nose had also been running which I put down to the copious amounts of tree pollen that we could see settling on the car but, as the day wore on, it was joined by a pounding headache and then an unsettled stomach. With a couple of ibuprofen I just about felt well enough to head down to the beach with Christine to watch the sun set over the water.

Come Monday morning I still felt pretty bad which was a real shame as it was Emma’s first birthday (of which more in another post). However, after an hour or so sat outside in the sun on one of the cabin’s many verandas, I started to perk up. Probably just as well as I was the only one who could drive the hire car.

We stopped off at Fredrikstad for a couple of hours on the way back to Oslo. We had a nice lunch and then just wandered around the perimeter walls of the old town. It was very quiet but perhaps, as it was a Monday, all the main tourist attractions were closed.

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