Tuesday night running resumes

August 19th, 2008

Having driven through the pouring rain (and crawled through the roadworks on the M27) it was a pleasure to arrive at a sunlit Wilverley Plain for my first Tuesday night run of the year. It made a nice change for an hour long run not to involve half an hour running up hill followed by half an hour running downhill and also to have something other than solid rock (or bilberry) underfoot! Even better was the fact that I could buy six pints (admittedly three of which were shandies) and a corresponding number of packets of crisps and still get change from a twenty pound note!
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Return to the wilderness

August 17th, 2008

664We were glad to find our house still standing when we made it back home – particularly as we never quite got round to sorting out the insurance whilst we were away. It was a little obscured by the grass meadow growing in the front garden though. I could just about tackle this with the Flymo but the back garden was another matter. Time to purchase a strimmer!

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Ha det Oslo

August 15th, 2008

The day finally came for our departure from Norway. The apartment inspection was fairly cursory – undoubtedly a good thing but still annoying when you’ve spent a lot of time cleaning! We then drove to the airport and returned the hire car for the final time. We were flying BA as their midday flight was the most convenient. We weren’t particularly impressed by the “fast” bag drop which took over 45 minutes. The check-in staff did, however, manage to move my seat. I was on a separate booking to Christine and Emma and had the mistake of checking in first only to discover that I then couldn’t change their seat online.

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Fan error

August 14th, 2008

I opened up my ageing T42p laptop last night to be greeted by the ominous message “Fan error”.  A quick Google using Christine’s machine revealed that I could bypass this warning simply by pressing escape. This set my mind at rest to a certain extent as a) it meant I could see that I hadn’t lost any data and b) I could copy off the information I needed for the next day. If this was going to happen, it couldn’t have happened at a much better time as I had just returned from my last customer engagement in Norway and was intending to spend today in the IBM office (where I have managed to borrow a machine – thanks Kristin!). Next week I’ll be back in Hursley where hopefully a quick repair can be arranged.

Elk sighting

August 12th, 2008

I went for a run up to Holmenkollen this evening. My route back wasn’t quite as I had intended as a large area has now been fenced off below the existing ski jump where they have started work on one of the new ski jumps for the 2011 World Ski Champs. At one point I accidentally ended up inside the fence and about thirty metres from an elk and her two calves, presumably having found an unusually quiet location so close to habitation. Sadly I had no camera to hand.

The Last Lunch

August 10th, 2008

661Along with most of the rest of our belongings, the baby carrier will be picked up by the sipping company tomorrow so we decided that, despite the rain, we would take our last family walk in the Nordmarka. We drove up to a deserted Frognerseteren this morning and walked to Skjennungstua for lunch. Having seen only a couple of people on the way there we were a bit concerned that the hut might be closed but we needn’t have worried – it was doing a brisk business when we arrived. The Norwegians are obviously late risers at the weekend as we could probably have sold our parking space when we arrived back at Frognerseteren!

Oslo Tourism

August 8th, 2008

655With some of my vacation still to go we decided to be tourists in Oslo for 24 hours by purchasing an Oslo Pass. This entitles you to free entry to a whole raft of local attractions. Many we have already visited on previous visits to Oslo so the following is not a definitive list of Oslo’s greatest attractions.
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Back over the mountains

August 5th, 2008

646Sogndal was our decision point: should we continue north to Geiranger or start the journey eastwards back toward home. Geirangerfjord is supposed to be perhaps one of the most impressive fjords in Norway but we decided that we were all fjorded out and opted to take the tourist road over the mountains to Lom instead. This route is definitely worth making part of your itinerary – particularly when the sun is out as it was for us. The views across the Jotunheimen mountain range were stunning.

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