Da Rekerie Ooterie is finished.

With less than a week until our Shetland visitors arrive, there has been panic to finish our various garden projects.
We don't want to let Shetlanders think that Norway hasn't any horticultural capability.... Maybe somebody can explain what 'horticultural' means. It's just something I picked up, supposedly connected to gardening, which is a grey area to me.
So the last of the plants have been planted, the last of the Butinox has been applied, and it's looking as good as it is likely to be.
Including the damned parasol......

And, in case you can't see the finer detail, here's a zoom shot of a little Squirrel who got his nut. I love this little guy, got him as a birthday present, and I can assure you that the marks on the fence below him are just a result of bad painting, He didn't have a dose of the runs.

Yun's aa fir enoo..
Going to bed before 'she who paints fences' reads this.

Poor Satellite Reception

At last I've got to the 'bottom' of the problem, literally.
I think I've mentioned the occasional interuptions to my satellite reception before, but tonight I have photographic proof of the cause.
This is the normal view of the satellite dish, at roughly the angle the signal is received from.

As you can see, there are no obstructions to the signal.
But, add a smallish Trowie to the equation, and my X-Files suddenly stop, and "No Signal" is displayed on the dreaded blue screen.

I guess this post will get me, at best a slap round the ear. And at worst if there are no more posts to this blog, at least you know the reason why.

Ducking for cover now,,,,
A'm geeng.
;) :) LOL

Honey, the wonder car.

Honey the Honda never fails to amaze me.
I bought her 2 years ago, sort of by accident, since we were actually just walking past the car dealer on our way to another shop. She cost 16000 kroner (about £1500 at the time, although more like £1700 now since the £ has sunk in value so much).
Within the first 3 months Honey suffered a small lighting failure, which cost about 700 kroner to fix. Then in August 2008 I had to have a bandage put on an exhaust leak, that cost about 900 kroner, (that bandage is still holding, so worth the money).
Since then, 2 light bulbs and 1 litre of oil, that's it, until this week.

She was due her mandatory EU Kontrol test. Similar to the UK MOT test, but only done every 2 years, so perhaps a little bit stricter. I fully expected her to fail for something, after all she is 20 years old, but since the only thing I could see wrong was her tyres which were near the limit, I replaced them, and headed to the testing centre today.

The test goes over all the same things as an MOT test, but the old girl came out with flying colours. They couldn't find anything wrong, so she's clear to continue giving me motoring pleasure for another 2 years.

Here's Honey looking rather proud of herself tonight. Maybe I should think about giving her a wash, she's only had one of those since I bought her.

An interesting little point about this particular model of the Honda Accord, which I found out when I did a Google search shortly after buying her. In one state in America, this model was the most likely car to be stolen because they were in such demand.

Anyway, looking good for a 20 year old.
:) :)

Da Mön

The Moon looked good tonight as it crawled up over the mountains at Tresfjord, so I couldn't resist trying a few pictures.
I really need a better camera, but here's what I got.

The first one is using a 'night scene' setting, and it's very accurate to the image, as seen.

The next one was using the 'Auto' setting, and although it's nothing like what I saw, It's still fairly amazing for what is now a very outdated camera.

The full moon isn't for another couple of days, so if the weather holds I might be lucky enough to catch a pic with a better mountain scene. Guess it will be another case of 50 shots, and hoping for a good one.

Yun's aa fir enoo.

Garden improvements..

Considering the weather we're having at the moment, perhaps watching TV would be a better way to spend my time, but since I don't have much time off work just now, and the garden needs work done, poor little me has to do it no matter what the weather, when I do get a some time spare.
One of the main projects at the moment is to create a path round to "Da Sitterie Ooterie", our patio.

 This bit of the path is still under construction, but the first part is finished.

One slight snag with the path is that it goes in front of the satellite dish.

This causes a problem when I'm watching my Sci-Fi programs. There's nothing worse than a program freezing due to signal loss when a peerie Trowie walks past the dish.
So the solution to the problem was to create a mini sitterie ooterie, in front of the door. This has become known as "Da Reekerie Ooterie", in other words, 'the smoking area'.
Well, I managed to get it finished today, with the completion of a fence to hold back a bush which is threatening to take over the whole garden.
I'm fairly chuffed with the result, and I love the little table and chairs which we bought the other day for only 400 Kroner (about £45).

 The bush behind the fence is starting to bloom now, a month later than last year which shows how rubbish the weather has been. When it does bloom it's an absolute explosion of vibrant yellow. I'll try to post a picture of it when it's at its best.

One of the next little projects I have to do is to make a couple of signs for "Da Sitterie Ooterie" and "Da Reekerie Ooterie". I just fancy doing that to confuse Norskie visitors. ;)

Onywye,
Yun's aa fie enoo.

Wood is cheap in Norway

Well given the number of trees, you might think so. And in reality the prices at the DIY centres aren't too bad, but not as cheap as I found today.

We went to town to buy some wood for a little garden project we are working on. The Coop Bygg store in Molde is a fairly new store, and I think they were trawling the bottom of the employment barrel for staff when they employed the young chap who served us.
I had gathered some lengths of wood on a trolley, when 'she who has the overall plan for the garden', managed to find some 50cm x50cm wooden tile thingies that she wants me to do something with, so I piled 9 of them on top of the lengths of wood, and proceeded to the payment point.

This young guy, fresh out of nappies, and about 10 years away from a real shave, looked like he knew what he was doing, and since I try to avoid language confusion, I just stood there with bank card in hand ready to do my bit.
After plinking on his computer, scanning some labels with a bar code scanner, and looking less intelligent than I had originally thought, he came up with a price of 362 kroner. I did think "That's cheaper than I thought it would be", but I didn't know what price the wooden tile thingies  were, so I assumed they were cheaper than I had feared.

So, trolley to car, which was already full from other things, and out with the crosscut saw. Standing in the car park I cut the wood to the sizes I needed, and which would fit into the car. But all the time I was thinking, "Wood really is cheap in Norway".

Only when we were at the ferry terminal did I remember that I had put the receipt in my pocket, so we had a look.
Now, we had bought:
9 wooden tile thingies
25 metres of 50mm x 25mm wood
10 metres of 50mm x 75mm wood
10 metres of 25mm x 100mm wood

The receipt said:
7 wooden tile thingies
10 metres of 50mm x 25mm wood
5 metres of 50mm x 75mm wood
And absolutely no mention of the 25mm x 100mm wood.

Maybe I'll have to be honest about this and return to the store the next day I'm in town. But this guy was so far wrong that he'll likely loose his job if I do that, so I suppose the best I can do is say nothing and hope that the poor chap learns his job before his employer goes bust.

I'll certainly shop with them again. Just in case I get served by the same person. ;)

By the way, there will be a forthcoming blog about those damned wooden tile thingies. They're part of the plan for the 'Reekerie Ooterie". That expression will be explained when the job is done, and I post about it.
;)

Looking forward to.... Willie Nelson 2K10

Just a few weeks now, and this is what I'm looking forward to.

 London, 11th June, then Langesund 15th June.

Willie Nelson is 77 years old, still performing like a rock star, still touring like a rock star, and while he's on the road he still drags his little sister Bobbie with him. Bobbie is only 81, and for the forthcoming European tour, she's shipping her own piano across from the US.

Willie Nelson and Family, and the family tag means what they consider family, it's the band that has been together since before Outlaw Country became popular.
Willie's long time drummer, Paul English, who I've had the pleasure to meet a couple of times, has recently suffered a minor stroke, so I hope he'll have the sense to pass on this tour, but these guys just live on the road, giving pleasure to fans like me, so I will not be surprised to see Paul at the shows.

Not that I have a serious fanaticism about anything in particular, but if you don't like Willie, it might be a good idea to avoid my blog for a few weeks. Although, I'd have to ask, WHY?
And offer a few morsels of incentive to stay with me. Such as:


Onywye,
Yun's aa fir enoo,
mair sharn eftir.
;)