Easter

Finally!

I've been so busy lately I've started messing up, breaking keys, forgetting to lock doors. Not good!

A week off sounds just right, I thought I'd have more time a couple weeks ago when I was home alone for a week, but no such luck. One day I worked eleven and a half hours - not so unusual for a lot of people, but very new to me.

What I don't like about Easter is having to go skiing. I fear I'll be more wobbly than usual this year, because something I am looking forward to is happening the night before - a show put on by the soccer association. If I've ever been to one of those, it must have been years. Can't wait!

German sues Easter Bunny

A German man has taken legal action against the Easter Bunny for grievous bodily harm.

Karl-Friedrich Lentze, from Berlin, has filed a complaint with prosecutors, accusing it of causing addiction to chocolate which leads to heart attacks, obesity and strokes.

Lentze said: "The Easter Bunny is a sadistic and unscrupulous offender who preys on people's sweet tooth.

"Find this evil bunny, handcuff his paws and remove him from shops in time for Easter."

Public prosecutor spokesman Christian Avenarius said: "We will act upon the complaint with speed and diligence."

Ananova.com

Easter skiing in the valley.

A ten minute drive from our house we find this - a picture perfect place where we go skiing. In summer we drive up here to go for a walk - a long walk - in the mountains, during winter there's snow everywhere.



I ski once a year and this is where I do it.


I hate skiing. I do. I suck at it. I don't want to get out of my bed, put on lots of clothes and walk around in the snow all day, worrying about going downhill cuz I know I'll hit something; a person, a tree or simply trip over my own skis.

Nowhere to go but forwards.

But when we get there it's not half-bad anyway. The sun is shining and it's a beautiful day. It's always like this - I hate skiing until I actually get there. And I'm well aware of it - I told my parents I won't like it until I get the skis on my feet, then I love it. It's always like that. I just hate getting ready, that's all.

One of the places we go hiking in summer.

I hate hiking too. Until I start walking. I love being outside, you just always need to prepare to be outside. You need to prepare for everything, unless you do like Hobbes in the last post. A lot of the time it doesn't take much to be happy. I'm happy when I'm outside. But often it takes two tractors and a bulldozer to get me out there.

A cabin / hut / little house on the 'seter'.

I've tried to explain the Norwegian concept of 'seter' before... Basically they were places where someone in the farmer's family, usually women - a 'budeie' - stayed during summer, or went during the day to milk the cows. Now they're used as places where people build small cabins and go to get away from home for a weekend, or stay longer during summer.

Another 'seter'.

We went past four 'seter's on this trip: Hjortedalssetra (Deer Valley Seter), Storesetra (The Big Seter) Bruasetra (Seter of The Bridge) and Grendasetra (Grenda Seter - a 'grend' is a small area of a town). Where you live in the town - which farm your land used to belong to - decides where your family has or can have its cabin.

A lot of snow - a roof and a chimney.

We went past a cabin with ski tracks on the roof. There's usually a lot of snow this time of year and some places can be hard to get to. You can't get up here with a car or even a tractor - you ski!

Taking a break - bring cocoa.

We sat down and had lunch, afterwards my dad said the children were to go play while my mum and he had coffee - that's how it had always been. So my sis (who is 11) and I grabbed the things we sat on (plastic something or other) which we put in plastic shopping bags, and went up a hill. And another hill. Takes a while when you sink down a foot or two every step you take. You don't walk on snow, you walk in snow. Then we sat down on our plastic covered plastic and tried to see how fast we could get back down. After a few times, the snow had gotten hard and we went fast, even got a jump in there and we went uuuuppp-we-go-and-thud! down again.

Looking back as we're going down.

Our behinds soaking wet and our shoes full of snow (at least mine were) we put the skis back on and started the journey back down. I didn't crash even once! I probably look like a Dane when I start out (they really don't ski), but then Norwegians aren't born with skis on their feet for nothing. I think I managed pretty well.

The first thing I asked my dad when we got back where we started?

"Wanna go again?"

Ice outside

I wanted to play basketball today. But there's so much ice on the ground in the driveway, I decided to go out and see what I could do to get it off. No one seemed to like my idea of putting hot water on there; the temperature drops well below the freezing point in the evening and therefore it wouldn't have been a good idea. I rounded up my siblings and we went into the garage to find whatever would get ice off stone.

The ice was really thick some places and thin others; we got some off but when the sun went down it didn't seem like it had worked at all. Not like we thought we'd get it all off in just an hour or so, I just get these ideas sometimes... My sister and I used brooms to get the snow and ice away so we could see how much was left. We found a footprint, a weird one, my sister went into the hallway and threw shoes outside, I checked to see if they were the ones that had made the weird print. We felt like archeologists for a few minutes - archeologists trying to hit each other with shoes. We never did find the right ones though...

Just three more days till spring is supposed to be here - can you believe it? It's March! The winter is almost over. Spring... flowers, leaves, grass! I can't wait!

It's amazing how tired just being here makes me - I didn't get up until lunch time today, although I spent quite a while in bed between waking up and getting up, just dreaming... It's not even midnight now and I'm exhausted! Maybe it's because I can't sit still when I'm here.

I should be reading, two months till exams, but I just can't concentrate - for some reason my mind is anywhere but here. If you want to be with someone but the distance between you makes it impossible, it's always good to have dreams.

Sis is in the bathroom

My sister locked me in the bathroom,
I picked the lock with the tweezers.

Then she wanted to be locked in the bathroom
and now she's trying to pick the lock with the tweezers.

I left her to it - hopefully she'll be out by dinner time.


I just got home for Easter last night.
Have you seen my kitten?
Click and enlarge.