Everyone has a sledding hill in Norway.  Ours is at the end of the street.  Especially when it’s a sunny Winters day you’ll find all the neighbours up on the hill playing with their kids.  Snowmen are made, jumps are moulded, and somehow in all the chaos, an advanced, intermediate and kiddies track appear.

It’s a [...]

The Sun is back, but “King Winter” is not about to loosen his grip on Norway just yet. This February has been one of the coldest in decades, so I thought this is a good time to share some personal experience on how to deal with the cold weather when you venture outside.
Dress up!
The obvious [...]

‘I’ll be away’ is starting to be a pain.  I’m organising a festival at the moment and to make a festival happen you need people, lots of people.  However, this time of year is the ‘I’ll be away’ season.  Spain, Brazil, Thailand, Africa, Sweden and France are just some of the places my friends, family [...]

Great Uncle caught a 6kg cod in the Alta fjord.  He stopped by the farm to give it to Farmor and Farfar.  We all sat in the kitchen watching Great Uncle gut and fillet it with expertise.  And of course, the fish-out-of-water Aussie had her camera with her.

Cod is a prized fish in Norway and [...]

Moose has always gone out on the farm in the middle of Winter with just shorts and no shirt on, and sometimes without shoes!  And I always profess that he is absolutely crazy!
It just so happens that last week I found myself in the middle of a paddock in just my pyjamas!  Boy, do these [...]

On the farm we make sure there is enough wood for the fire to last the long Winter.  Around the farm there are clumps of trees at different heights.  This is because firewood takes years to grow and so farmers have to prepare sometimes ten years in advance planting small groves of trees for future [...]

This is always a controversial topic in Norway.  There is currently a documentary series on national TV that presents the issues of being an immigrant in Norway: Det nye landet.  Last week the documentary focused on Norwegian men and ‘import brides’.  It is commonly known amongst Norwegians that Norwegian men import brides because Norwegian women [...]

Lilu wants to join Pappa in making snow angels.  She dives face first into the snow – doh!

Not to worry, she has three more months of snow to get it right.

And licking off the snow is just as fun!

People always complain about how expensive Norway is, especially Norwegians.  However, Norway really knows how to put on a sale.  I have never seen things cheaper on sale than in Norway.  In fact, we rarely need to buy clothes full price.  There is always a sales clothes-rack with 50-70% off somewhere in each store.  Quite [...]

Every university has bike racks to allow students to save both the environment and their money. But what do you do when the snow is three feet deep and riding your bike suddenly seems less desirable? Tromsø University had a simple solution: Install a ski rack. This one at the entrance to the Medical faculty [...]