The last day in England

So is it here. It feels really weird, and I am really sad.

The last few weeks have been quite busy. Giving away things we don't want to bring back. Trying to get in touch with the agent or landlord for the house did appear to be an easy task. The landlord is regularly travelling to South Africa, he was there when we moved here, and again when we are leaving. After a week of emailing and phoning, we finally got hold of the agent, who promised to call us back, but never did. When I called the office again, two days later (after Tollef called the day before, and had a message left for him that it was urgent -again), the agent had gone on holiday! After a lot of phoning, I finally got the mainentance guy to contact another guy who is somewhat involved in the letting, and could squeeze in a short meeting at the house to go over it and pay the deposit. There, we had to talk to the actual landlord on the phone (which he answered, to my surprise) about the deposit, that he meant was a month and a half, not two, as the contract stated and we actually paid. He trusted my word (and the contract) though, so we got the whole deposit back, save from the rent for the last month.

Last Monday, we made a short trip to Bristol and Swindon. First, we got some things for a friend of mine that is moving back to Norway. It was a bit more than originally planned, but we managed to get it all in the car, and continued to Swindon to leave some leftover things for my cousin. Back home, we "only" had the job of sorting out what we needed for the two weeks until the moving company arrives in Norway, and what we should just throw away. Selling the car also didn't go easily. I dropped by a couple of car dealers, but they didn't want to give me much for it, so I tried privately. Daniel had offered to sell the car for me if I didn't get rid of it, but today, the last day before going back to Norway, I sold it to another car dealer, quiet cheap. It felt kind of good to get done with it, at the same time it was the last thing to get in place before I was all free and ready to go back, and I don't want that just yet.

Tollef and Odin left on Friday, because dogs aren't allowed to fly in weekends, appearantly. And then it was practical for Tollef to go the same day to be there when Odin arrived. Luckily the flight and all went well. As the house was transferred on Friday, I am staying on Denton house for the last two nights. It's easier, both because I don't have a car any longer, and my employer is away tonight and tomorrow, so I will have to look to the horses a bit more than usual. The last thing I'll do before going to the airport is taking the horses in and feed them in the afternoon.

There's a lot of last times. I went to the city centre for the last time, with it's old buildnings and currently quite full with tourists. I had a last milkshake in my favourite milkshake bar, before I took the bus back to Denton. I have walked Elsa, the house labrador, for the last time over the beautiful fields. I will miss the animals, people and the atmosphere here so much. I always thought I couldn't live on the countryside, but this year makes me think I might enjoy it. And I will definitely be back here, some time.

Karianne

Two final visits

While we are now in the middle of packing up all our things and preparing for the move back to Norway, I haven't written anything about our two last visits.

My father and stepmother came over for my birthday, getting here two days before and leaving the day after. We went what has now been established as the usual route with a visit to Denton house, a trip to the city centre and so on. In addition, we decided that making a trip to a garden centre we had visited earlier would be fun. As suspected, my father was quite happy to wander around there and they ended up buying some anti-squirrel cages which we'll be bringing home for them, as they are somewhat large.

On my birthday, I got the kitchen machine I have been wanting for a while, a choice between a mountain walking trip or some power tools and later in the day, my mother told me I would get to buy a leather coat. As my father is quite interested in birds, we went to the Cotswald Falconry Centre. Keeping birds of prey is legal here in the UK and so we have seen a bunch of both the birds as well as the flying shows they do with them. Still, quite good fun.

Just two weeks ago, my brother and sister came visiting. They were supposed to be here a few months ago, but an icelandic volcano and an ash cloud made that not happen. They got here in the evening and we had a meal and managed to get through an impressive amount of our alcohol stash, which is just as good, since we are going home soon.

We originally had planned to go to Blenheim Palace, but ended up going to Windsor Castle instead. Very large grounds and impressive amounts of armour and weapons, but we are getting a bit jaded in that it is just yet another palace, cathedral or castle, even if they are very, very impressive. My siblings did some shopping in Windsor before we headed home again.

We also spent some time in Oxford itself for more shopping and of course a visit to Denton, complete with a pub visit in the nearby village before we put them on the coaches to Heathrow and Gatwick.

Isle of Wight and more

The 1st of July, after breakfast, we headed south again. First stop was in Winchester, to see the cathedral, and have lunch. We also dropped by a nice old sweet shop, and of course, Shakeaway. We also went by Currys and Jessops, to look for a new digital camera for me. The "old" one kept eating batteries on a large scale, and the power-button constantly turned on when I had the camera in my pocket (which didn't help on the battery problem). After a lot of back-and-forth thinking I landed on the Panasonic Lumix ZX1. The model is discontinued, and thus on clearance in a lot of stores - as long as they have any left. No luck in Winchester, but the guy said they had some left in Portsmouth, where we were going a couple of days later.

From Winchester we drove through the New Forest, to Brockenhurst. The nature reserve was very different from Exmoor and Dartmoor, but still very nice! Getting close to the Ford Park Stables, we saw wild ponies grazing on the roadside and further in on the fields. Arriving in the stables, we waited a while until the girl there could see us. Meanwhile, I had a look at the horses there. The stables were very nice, but a couple of the horses were very skinny, and I decided not to do my booked ride if the horses we were going to use were as skinny. Not to worry though, the group from the previous ride came in, and all the horses there were well fed and looked healthy. I got a medium-sized gelding called Bailey. Tollef and Odin had a walk on their own, while two leaders, me and to beginners hacked out in the New Forest. One of the leaders tok me off the track for some trotting and cantering, and we got to see more of the wild ponies, and some cattle that was also grazing there.

When we got back from the ride, Tollef and Odin waited impatiently, and we drove on to the Lyminghurst ferries to the Isle of Wight. We reached a ferry earlier than we had booked, but it appeared to not be a problem, and we literally went straight on board, instead of the expected half hour wait. Apart from that they didn't have "svele" (a Norwegian pancake/waffle-like dish that they have on the ferries in the western parts), the crossing was nice. We checked in and set camp on a camp-site not far from Yarmouth, were the boat landed. Being dinner time, we ended up on a nearby pub. The food wasn't very impressive or cheap, but at least it was enough.

On Friday morning, we started out going to Newport, the capitol of the Isle. The city centre wasn't very exciting, and the photo stores were out of the camera I wanted. On the way out, we dropped by a Sainsbury's and got lunch to have at our next stop, Carisbrooke Castle. The castle is known for its donkeys running the watermill to get water from the well. They all have names starting on "J", as that was the letter king Charles I used to sign with, to fool his enemies. He was a prisoner there, and also got his head stuck in the bars on a window, in one of his three non-successful attempts to escape.

From Carisbrooke we drove south to the coast, and along the southern coastline up to the western end with the "Needles". They are chalk peaks just at the end of the island, and there's a theme park on the best view spot, with a sweet factory and fun rides. We got there just before closing time, so we just took our photos, grabbed some sweets and headed back to the camping site. There we had a takeaway meal from the local shop (they were better with pizza than Maroccan lamb...), and watched the evenings entertainment of Morris dancing.

The next day, we started off on the Garlic farm, where they grow several different types of garlic. Of course they also sell a lot of products made on or from garlic, and we got some sauces, garlic butter, bread, and even a beer. I didn't really feel like garlic fudge... Then we went on to Fishbourne and the ferry to Portsmouth. The weather was nice and clear, and I am sure there must have been hundreds of sailboats in the water between the island and the mainland. We also passed some sea forts that were used for protection against the Germans in the WWII.

In Portsmouth, we left Odin in the car (parked safely in the shadow, with enough water and his cooling fan running), and walked towards the city centre. We miscalculated the distance, and it wasn't much of any interest for the first couple of miles. There we had lunch on "Kraken Awakes", a café/night club place that had really good food. I had real home made tortillas with chili con carne, very special and tasty! After lunch, we walked to the shopping centre of the city, and I finally got my camera, after using my mobile the whole weekend (and being over all impressed with the results, though!). We had ice cream, before we found a bus to go back to the car and Odin. Then we took Odin for a walk on the marina, enjoying the sun, watching all the boats go by.

After a while, we left Portsmouth and drove towards Gosport, wherever that is, and the camping site for the night. We've been to better camp sites, but at least it was only for a night. Instead of going somewhere else to eat, we went to the onsite restaurant. The food took 45 minutes to be served, and it wasn't even good... in the meantime, Odin had growled at two other dogs where we sat outside the restaurant, and probably wasn't too comfortable either (wish I could have him growl at the waiter instead!).

The last day of our last weekend trip, we started out on Porchester castle. It appeared to be an interesting property, and we climbed a lot of steep stairs to discover the history of the nearly thousand year old castle. Possibly our last in a while... Then we went on to Swindon, to see my cousin Arnstein's new place there, as he is working for Honda this year. The apartement was very nice, a lot nicer than the one in Bath. We all went to have lunch on a nearby pub, our second in Swindon in short time! Being quite tired, we went off straight after the lunch, and headed back to Oxford.

Probably being our last longer trip here in England, it seemed to be a lot of "lasts" this time. It just appears to me clearer and clearer, that we are soon going back to Norway. There are some things happening first, a visit from Tollef's siblings, a board game convention, a BBQ, and hopefully some nice, English summer. But in the moment of writing, there's three weeks until we are back home in our house in Oslo. It feels like we just came here, still we have travelled and seen a whole lot of cities, towns, villages, castles, ruins, cathedrals, pubs and England.

The Southwest

Our year in England is going towards an end, far too soon. We have just spent the last week on our long longed for trip through the South of England. We had put the South off towards the summer, in hope of good weather and views from the famous coasts of Devon and Cornwall. And what views, both over land and sea! If I didn't love England before, I certainly do now. There is a lot of beautiful landscapes in England, but the moors and hills in the South was absolutely stunning.

Day 1

After I was finished at work on Friday, we set off towards Bristol, to deliver some Norwegian brown cheese to Veronica, and eat dinner, before we continued south to Wells. Setting up camp on a site in a hidden village (after having some breathtaking views coming down over the hills), we realised that Tollef's camerabag was left in Oxford. Just a short 2 hours drive back to Oxford, it was still to far to go back for something not really vital for the trip, so we had to do with my compact camera for the rest of the trip. During the night I had quite bad backpains, assumingly from lying on the ground, and the wind had made quite a lot of noise with the tent, so we decided to fasten it a bit better for the next night. Not the best nights' sleep.

Day 2

After a picnic-breakfast, we drove in to Wells to see the cathedral and walk through the town. A very typical southern English town, with a nice marketplace and cute old-fashioned shops. We bought some lunch to have a picnic in the Exmoor National Park. We also found a nice a postcard with a cow and Glastonbury tor (tower) on it, which we bought for my sister. Heading off from Wells, Tollef decided we had to walk up to the tor, so we drove to the village and parked on the bottom of quite a steep hill (for England). It was a nice walk up, and I am sure we had the view of most of Devon from the top! Odin loved it, of course, running up and down the hill around us.

We had our picnic on the Glastonbury tor hill, and then we went on through the Exmoor National Park, which was another stunning view. It was slightly like Norwegian Highlands, with heather (lyng) and rocks, though it was a bit greener. We decided to go over one of the "mountain tops" in hope of seeing any of the famous wild Exmoor ponies. We saw only a few on a distance for the first part, but on the way down again we saw a quite large group of young horses and a couple of foals. Further down in the valley we stopped in a village to have some local made ice cream before we continued for the day's intended destination; Tintagel. Arriving in Tintagel, we camped on a site with a nice view of the Cornish cliffed coast, and the sunset in the Atlantic Ocean. Windy, but very pretty.

During the day, the car had problems starting several times, it seemed to get worse the longer we had driven, and I got quite worried. Asking the attendant on the camping site, she reminded us it's Sunday the next day, and we just crossed our fingers our car would keep on going until Monday.

Day 3

That night, my back hurted so much I had to move to sleep in the car half way through. I didn't really sleep well, but better than nothing. After breakfast and packing up the car started all fine, and we went off to discover Tintagel Castle. While we had breakfast, the "Strawberry Man" came calling, and we bought a basket of strawberries for lunch.

The castle was pretty much ruins on a cliffy island, but the walk and story was very nice. Odin had his backpack on, carrying some dog treats and our strawberry lunch, and got quite a lot of attention from other tourists. A German lady was quite surprised that he had actually walked up the steep rocky stairs up the cliffs, that I haven't carried him on my arm. Unfortunately my German isn't good enough to express my offense on that comment! We sat down to enoy our nice strawberries, but it appeared that Odin had shaked them almost in to strawberry-jam, and his backpack was all sticky. Lesson learned...

We had lunch in the Tintagel Village, which is pretty much a tourist place, but very nice. From Tintagel we drove quite far south, to Penzance. Before we left, I got into a camping-shop and bought an air mattress, hoping to finally get a good nights sleep. On the way we shopped some food for bbq on the campsite. The place was very nice and had accessible power outlets to charge our mobiles and laptops. We just had our food and settled inside the tent when we had some severe rain showers.

I slept better that night, but was still stiff in the morning. We had reservations on a hotel in Torqay from Tuesday night, so I really started longing to get past that last night. The car had been troublesome and even gotten worse during the day, so we decided to find a garage in the morning, after going to Land's End.

Day 4

The next morning, everything was quite wet, but we didn't have rain, so it wasn't that awkward to do the packing. It was still quite grey and windy, so we put on rainproof clothes before going for a walk on Land's End. Of course that kept the rain off, and before we left we had blue spots and sun in the sky. We saw rescueboats and a sign telling the distance to London and New York. The weather, of course, made it impossible to see that far that morning. There was also a farm with pigs, goats and hens, and Odin got quite excited about the pigs.

The car had stopped again while Tollef tried to park on Land's End, so we got the car going again, deciding to go directly to a garage in Penzance to get it fixed. We got a tip about a garage a bit outside the town, and went there. They took our car in, and had a good idea about the problem, and would call us when they had checked it out. We packed out backpacks and brought Odin, and took the bus to Penzance.

Within the time we got to Penzance the weather was quite nice, and we walked along the marina from the bus station. There, we passed a harbour for sailboats and smaller boats, that was completely dry on the low tide. It looked very funny with all the boats lying on their sides or keels. We walked up through the city centre, and had a light lunch at a Wetherspoons (pub chain), before we had a sun-break writing postcards on a bench on a pedestrian street.

We walked further up the pedestrian street, and found a pet shop, the second I had seen that day. We dropped by for a chat, Odin got some treats, and I bought some more for him. After walking another 20 minutes and going for an ice cream break, I realised my wallet was gone. We traced our walk all the way back, through backstreets and mews, to the pet shop where I last used it. No one had seen it, but just as we talked to the pet shop man, a guy called me and said he had found it. I was really relieved. It didn't have much cash in it, but all my cards from different places, it's a lot of hassle to get new ones.

After getting my wallet we just had time for an ice cream/milkshake break on the marina, before catching the rush-hour bus back to the garage. They had fixed the car, and we made the drive back north without any problems. From Penzance we drove to Healy's Cornish Cyder Farm, where they make cider and other fruit-based drinks and jam. Very nice place, except from the horses, who appeared very thin and not happy at all. The other animals looked healthy and well cared for, and they had a lot of piglets just being born the other day. We ended up brining a lot of cider and some strawberry wine, before heading towards Newqay.

In Newqay we set up camp on a very nice site with loads of rabbits running around. We were quite happy that Odin had had a good walk, first on Land's End and then in Penzance. After drying and setting up the tent, we went in to Newqay for dinner. It appeared very much like any southern tourist town, just with less open restaurants and shops after six in the evening... We walked a while, before we decided to resign and eat on the first pub/restaurant we had seen, of course. The food was good enough and the TV without sound, so it was nice.

Day 5

Waking up to another sunny day was very nice, and the tent was mostly dry when we packed it in the car. My back was still stiff and hurted a bit, but this was the last night in the tent for this time. After breakfast we went back into Newqay and to the zoo. It was nice enough, but not very impressive. From there we headed further north towards Wadebridge and the Bee Exhibition Centre, who had a nice exhibition about bee-keeping. We had cream tea with honey (of course), and bought some honey and mead to take back home. On our way back to the main road we also stopped by Sharps breweries, who has some nice beers.

Driving through Dartmoor was, at least from my view, the best part of the trip. It appeared vast, like the Norwegian highlands, but with granite structures and rock formations spread around. On the moors around the roads we saw wild Dartmoor ponies and sheep grazing. We saw quite a lot of ponies, and also came quite close up on them. First, there was a few grazing just on the road edge, and we stopped to take some photos of them and some nearby grazing ponies with foals. A bit further down we came upon a parking lot with several ponies on and around. One stood right in front of a car, and there were several mares with foals and youngsters around. They didn't mind us cuddling one of the foals at all, and seemed quite used to tourists. One of them even tried to get in the car when we were leaving... I wouldn't have minded bringing it, but the car was too full already!

On the other edge of Dartmoor, we had a lovely salmon dinner in a nice restaurant. They also had a gift shop, so I bought a booklet about the Dartmoor ponies. From there it was just an hours drive to Torqay, "The English Riviera", and the Bute Court Hotel.

Day 6

The hotel, though being only two stars, was very nice. We got a big room on the ground floor, probably because they tend to put dogs in accessible rooms. I still god a bad back from sleeping in a bed, but less bad than the other nights, at least.

After a nice English breakfast, we walked along the marina and over to the Living Coasts-centre, where they had penguins, seals, coastal birds and fishes. The penguins were walking free in part of the centre, and some of them had chicks, the latest had hatched that same day! Apart from being there along with three school classes, it was very nice. Because we made a gift aid donation, we had a free hot drink in the cafè afterwards. Even though it was sunny the wind made it a bit chilly, so a cup of hot chocolate was very nice.

We had lunch, and then headed back to take Odin for a walk through the city centre. Torqay was even more than Newqay like a tourist resort like the ones they have on the Canary Islands or similar places. A lot of beaches, shops, eating places and of course surf shops. The largest drawback was the big hill we had to walk over or around to get from the hotel to the city centre...

Before dinner we sunbathed by the hotel pool, and Tollef had a short swim. Though the sun was quite warm, the wind was still keeping the real heat away. We had also noticed a garage next to the hotel that did MOT's (EU-test). Ours were soon due, so we got an appointment in the afternoon. Everything was fine, but they did point out a couple of things, like an oil-leak that the garage doing service on the car a couple of weeks ago should have fixed (together with the part that the garage in Penzance had to change). I'll have a talk to them just after the weekend, getting some money back for service not really being done...

Day 7

After a week on holiday, I finally had a good nights sleep, having built up with spare pillows to halfway sit up when I was sleeping... Tollef was supposed to go diving this morning, but the diving-people didn't get in touch or answer the phone, so Tollef and Odin walked around the bay and the cliffs outside Torquay, while I had an easy morning by the pool.

The pub right by the hotel had really good food for lunch. After eating, we went to the nearby Torre Abbey, an old abbey having been a private residence for several hundred years. It was very nice and had remains from quite far back in time. In the evening we had a nice dinner on Beefeater, and after that mostly relaxed, being quite tired from a busy week, and decided to go to Exeter and then home the next day.

Day 8

It's always quite weird when holidays comes towards and end. You kind of get used to being "elsewhere", eating out, discovering new things and places, and do everything om a day-to-day basis. But we had quite an eventful week and felt very ready to go back home.

First, we drove the short way up to Exeter. The cathedral is well known, and was very nice. The city centre of Exeter is a lot of pedestrian streets, so we pretty much strolled through it, enjoying the sun, and in time, a nice lunch.

On our way back to Oxford we decided to have dinner in Swindon, and take the opportunity to drive through the magical roundabout. That is a large roundabout with 5 small roundabouts around it, the middle one being anti- clockwise in direction. Very funny and a bit confusing. We had food at a nice local pub, before heading on. Appearantly we were lucky with our choice of time and directions. The radio reported of queues and traffic delays on many of the main roads, also in some parts of Oxfordshire that we might have come through, if we hadn't chosen to go via Swindon. Contrary to many others, we didn't strive to get back to a certain sport event starting, but it was really nice not having to queue to get back home.

A nice, maybe the best so far, week exploring England. I love it!

Karianne

Tea and stuff

A small by-the-way-post.

For christmas we got a giftcard on "Champagne tea" on The Old Parsonnage Hotel, one of the older and not cheaper hotels here in Oxford. The week after going to Liverpool, we finally found time to go, and had a delightful afternoon tea, with a glass of champagne, and the best scones I ever had! Thank you, Marit!

When we got back from London the 17th of May, I didn't take my bunad off before going to Denton house, as I figured that Waveney (my employer) would like to see it. She absolutely loved it, and the day after, Tollef took some photos of me that I will give her before I leave.

Karianne

May, part two

Monday 17th was the Norwegian constitutional day, and we went to London to celebrate. I dropped Odin off on Denton house in the morning, and we took the bus in to London, both dressed in our new traditional clothing, bunads. On our way to Southwark park, we met up with my friend Veronica who lives in Bristol, and went on to the park together. There, it was about thousand Norwegian gathered for the day, and quite a few in bunads. Even both in my "hometown" one, Romsdalsbunaden, and the one I got myself, Hedmarksbunaden. We went in a parade with a 10-person marching band, and had Norwegian hot-dogs and ice cream. There were speaches and a lot of chatting. We met Anne-Marie, who also lives in Oxford, and I also met Eva, who is from the same area as myself in Norway. We became quite tired after a while, so we decided not to go to the evening party, and had dinner on a pub together with Vero, before returning to Oxford. Then to Denton house instead of home, for staying there for the week to look after the house again.

This time we stayed almost a week, and had a lot of nice weather to enjoy the garden, and to have a barbequeue. I spent some time reading and relaxing in the garden, and got a good sun-burn on my back. It was a busy but very enjoyable week on the English countryside. A couple of days after we went back home this time, we were going to Yorkshire to take up on our earlier planned trip. With the very nice weather, camping was also a lot more tempting now. I was a bit in doubt whether to go, because Daniel, that was supposed to help out in the stable, had been ill for a few days, but assured me he would be fine with working when we were in York.

In York, we went to see a few of the things that we missed last time. The Minster looked to me less grand and more modern than many of the others we've seen, but it has a lot of history to it. We also saw "Barley Hall", a medievel great hall that really wasn't as interesting as I expected it to be. We climbed the Clifford Tower to get a view over York and surroundings, and had tea, scones and ice cream in a cafè, before we went back to the camping for some rest before dinner. After dinner, Tollef met up with a friend in York.

During the first whole day in York, I felt a bit cold, but thought it was because of my sunburn. Tollef also had a cold again, so we decided to book in on a B&B for the last night, staying just one more night in our tent. Once again, we ended up on a Campanile hotel, the same as in Cardiff and Runcon/Liverpool. The interesting thing about these is that they look identical, no matter where you are. The reception building with the restaurant is lying in the same direction (and distance!) towards the building with the rooms, and even the colour of the floor carpets and tiles are the same!

The next day I was even worse, and appeared to have a stomach bug, but we still decided to go on with some of our plans. We drove up through Yorkshire moors and to Goathland, which is known as the village of Aidensfield in the TV-series "Heartbeat", or "Hjartet på rette staden" in Norwegian. It was a really nice place, and the moors was really different from any other places we have seen here. We were almost ran down by a huge flock of sheep on the way down to the village. Afterwards, we went through Withby and saw the abbey there, when I got so ill we decided to just stop in Scarborough to have lunch (or, Tollef had while I slept in the car), and go to the B&B. We stopped at a superstore for some pain relief medicine, Ritz crackers and Coke, and camped in the hotel room for the rest of the day. The next day, we talked to NHS direct (National Health Services) on the phone, and the nurse assured me it was "just a nasty bug" and told me to drink enough and take som paracetamol for the pains. Tollef packed and sorted out everything, and I got myself together and in the car for the last 3 hours drive back to Oxford, and straight to bed.

Not the most successful trip, but now we are looking forward to travelling the south of England, and Wales. A map of where we have been to is presented here: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=105059154577559329202.00048274e49f983658653&z=6

And the gallery is regularly updated with pictures from our trips, and from our local surroundings, now turning into spring and summer with all its bloom: http://www.simira.net/gallery/Oxford-2009-2010/

Karianne

May, part one

May was a somewhat eventful month, even with not much success on the travelling part.

The first weekend we stayed at Denton house, to look after everything while the owners were away. Elsa, the Labrador of the house, recently had a surgery, and was rambling about with a cone around her head, hitting everything in her way. We took it off whenever we were with her, but poor Odin quickly learned to stay out of her way. It was a nice weekend, even though a bit cold and rainy, so we didn't get to enjoy the garden very much. Also, primarily Tollef, but me too, got a cold, so we had to postpone our planned camping-trip to Yorkshire the weekend after.

Instead, we made a daytrip on Sunday 9th, to Haywards Heath and ACES (Athletic Canine Dog Society). There we met a crowd of people with athletic bulldogs, bullterriers, mixes of those two, and the occasional lurcher and smaller terrier breed. Odin got to try weightpull, a sport where the dog is up to pulling as many times his own weight as possible. As not being trained for it, Odin "only" pulled the wagon itself, weighing about 100kg. The wagon is on rails, so it's not that hard to pull when they first get it startet, but that is hard enough in itself, and takes tecnique and focus. Very fun, and definitely something that we want to do more with Odin. We also tried running a 100m sprint after a lure (being pulled by a wire with some motorized device), and Odin did quite well. We look forward to the next meeting in june!

That week, I had to go to Oslo to sort out the house, as the tenants were moving out. I also took the opportunity to visit the breeder we are hoping to get a puppy from when we get back in august. A very nice meeting, and we also talked a lot about UK, since she had lived in Scotland as a child. The dogs were very nice, and the puppies were soon due to arrive! I also had dinner with Michael, who is looking after the house for us until we get back. And also turned the attic up side down to find some of the things I needed to bring back to England. Quite a lot done in very short time, before I got back to Oxford.

Saturday 15th, it was the Cuddesdon Fete, a local gathering to collect money for mainentance the local church roof. First, we met up with Per and Marianne in Oxford and did some sightseeing, before we went to the Fete together. It was a lot of food, games and dog shows. We got in a dog show with "musical sit" (almost like "musical chairs, just withour chairs and having the dog sit instead of yourself), and went out of the game first, as Odin was more interester in the cute bitch beside us than he was in listening to me. We also got to se some Morris Dancing, finally!

Karianne

Liverpool and Chester

Some time ago we went to Liverpool, and Karianne asked me to write the blog post about that. I've been putting that off for a bit, but figured it was about time to actually get it done now.

We had decided to stay in a small place somewhat outside Liverpool, called Runcorn. Found the hotel quite easily. Same chain as when we went to Cardiff. They seem to be based outside town centres, but are reasonable hotels with ok rooms and wifi.

The first day, we went into Liverpool and down to the docks. Parking was easy to find, and cheap. The docs were beautiful, except for a big road going alongside. After crossing said road, we passed a big yellow duckmarine, which are DUKWs, a type of World War II era amphibious transport, basically a waterproofed truck with a boat welded on and a propeller added. The yellow ones are painted bright yellow, this of course being a play on the yellow submarine Beatles song.

We started by going through the Beatles museum, having their early life stories retold and saw some of their early instruments before moving on to their trip to Germany and later the Cavern club and becoming famous. All in all quite interesting, even if it was somewhat expensive.

Afterwards, we picked up tickets for the next duckmarine trip and found some drinks to wait us over until lunch. On the way in, I'd spotted a brewpub and declared lunch to be there. The duckmarine was manned by two crazy men, going about the city, telling stories about the various buildings. We had a splashdown and went for a small cruise on the various docks before returning to dry ground.

We went to lunch at the Baltic Fleet brewpub. Their food was good, their beer was better. I had one of their smoked porters, which was really pleasant. Afterwards, we were getting somewhat tired, but decided to see at least one of the two cathedrals in the city, so we headed up for the Anglican Liverpool cathedral. In a way, it felt quite different to other cathedral's we've been in. I don't know if it was the height, the layout or something else, but I enjoyed walking around, taking pictures.

Visiting churches and cathedrals for a non-believer is always slightly odd. I enjoy the art and all those bits, but I don't parttake in the worship/belief bits. At the same time, I want to show respect to the people who do believe and not end up disturbing them or causing offence.

After the church visit, we just went back to the hotel for a small nap and then first out to a grasslands area on the other side of the river for a walk around there with Odin. Afterwards, we started looking for food and both of us wanted pizza. We finally ended up in a small fast-food joint and had some decent-ish pizza after going across the bridge to Liverpool once more. While we'd both enjoyed the view, it was beginning to be enough now.

The day after we went to Chester. That is, we first went to Chester Zoo. As Odin was in the car, we parked under a tree and went to make sure he was fine a couple of times during the visit. We saw quite a few animals of various kinds, most of them seemed to have at least adequate space and weren't too unhappy. Lots of zoos are like that. Not great, but not crap either.

Afterwards, we went to Chester and wandered around a bit. Looked at the cathedral from the outside, Karianne found a milk shake shop (which was just good, not great, apparently). Then we went to see Chester Fort, which was closed, before heading off to the amphitheatre. They are doing a fair bit of reconstruction work there to make it work as a modern amphitheatre. It will be interesting to see what it looks like and how it works when it's finished.

All in all, a short, but interesting trip.

Tollef

Ashes and Brighton

The second last weekend in April, we expected a visit from Anja and Kristian, Tollef's sister and brother. We were all very disappointed when the ashes from the volcano erruption on Iceland made the trip undoable. We really hope to be able to have the visit at some later point. As the weather was still incredibly nice, we decided to go to Brighton on my day off. Apart from wanting to se the famous Brighton Pier and the Prince Regent's Royal Pavilion, we both have people we know there, through software development and boardgames.

We didn't get on the road as early as we wanted to, but arrived in Brighton just after noon. We walked through the city centre to the Royal Pavilion and had a guided tour around the building. It was very special, more like a Indian/Chinese/Eastern palace than an English castle, which is of course why it is so special. The Prince Regent was not known for his modesty, and the decorations throughout the building was impressive, with dragons, phoenives, and bright yellow, red and green colours.

After the Royal Pavilion, we had lunch at a pub in The Lanes, old market streets of Brighton, and the main city centre from before Brighton became a popular tourist city. After lunch we met up with my friend Helen, and we walked down to the pier for ice cream. All the fun rides were moved out on the end of the pier, and it looked rather scary with some of the high and fast rides out over the pier edge. It was quite crowded but very nice to be close to the sea and all the nice views. Not very far from the Brighton Pier is the remains of the West Pier, that burned down some years ago. It looks like a skeleton pier and a bit of a special site compared to the other one. Out on the pier we met a couple of Tollef's friends from Debian, and as Helen left ut, the boys went for beer, while I got Odin. We caught up with them on a nice pub and had a drink, before Odin and I walked to a nearby park to relax in the sun.

Before leaving us, Helen was kind to invite us to dinner, so we set off from the city centre to her place, a very nice house outside Brighton. The food was very good and a nice change from the planned pub food, and we ended up leaving a bit later than we intended. A car accident just on the way out of Brighton delayed us for another hour, and we came home about midnight, rather tired after a long, but very nice day in Brighton.

Karianne

Leo and Coventry

Time flies when one's having fun and the sun shines.

Coincidenses made it so we didn't have any more dogs from Barking Mad for a while. The week after Easter (when most English people still have holidays) we had Leo staying with us, a small Working Spaniel. Odin was bullying him a bit from the start, but after a couple of days they were the best friends, running and playing together in the fields and at home. Leo had to lose a bit of weight, so we used the exceptional good weather and had long walks every day. When we were not outside, Leo laid on the sheepskin beside me in the sofa.

On Saturday I had a day off, and we decided to go to Coventry to see the cathedral, which is supposed to be exceptional. Having seen a lot of old and grand cathedrals, I was a bit sceptical that a post-war one could really be that grand. The cathedral is build right beside the ruins of the old one that was bombed to pieces in WWII, and it actually is very impressive. Apart from the cathedral, there is not much particular about Coventry, but it is a very nice city for shopping and just walking the city centre. After having done just that (mostly the latter part), we got the dogs and walked to a nice park, where we relaxed in the sun for a while. It was really warm, and it showed on the dogs as well. Reminding us the importance of bringing enough water everywhere we go, and to park in shadowy places.

Karianne