F = FJORD

According to Answer.com's Dictionary, a FJORD can be defined as:

A long, narrow, deep inlet of the sea between steep slopes.

[Norwegian, from Old Norse fjördhr.]

The one below should fit that description fine.


The picture is from Sørfjorden, a side arm to Hardagerfjorden in Norway. We are at Lofthus, in Ullensvang, looking straight south towards Odda. The snow on the mountaintops to the right is the glacier Folgefonna.

I once had the chance to spend a little time aboard the ketch ("galleas - Hardangerjekt") "Loyal", seen to the left in the picture. As you can see for yourself, it is a beautiful sailing vessel - in fact, it is the sister ship of "Gjøa" that Roald Amundsen used to discover the North-West Passage. It was originally built in 1877 in Rosendal in Hardanger, but has recently been fully restored.

The ship "Loyal" also has its own website.

Do you want to see more fjords? Just look at the top of my Blog - there you can see several of them. It is my daily view.

PS I am rather busy at the moment, so it may be a little while before I can return any visits - but I will!

"Bridges between" - an update

I have posted an update concerning the final rules for our project "Bridges between" on my other Blog.

Keep it simple in Sky Watch Friday

- and I think I did.

E is for the Eiffel Tower

I am sure that I'm not the only one with Eiffel as a choice for an E in this week's ABC Wednesday, but at least it is my view of the tower. We will start with the ordinary post-card view taken from Place du Trocadero across la Seine.



Then a few facts:

• Builder: Gustave Eiffel
• Architect: Stephen Sauvestre
• Raised: March 31, 1889
• Height: 324 meters
  
• Weight: 10.100 tons
• Number of steps 1665 (not counted by me...)

Of course, the tower can be viewed in a variety of ways: Here is one taken when lying flat on my back on the lawn beside the tower:


When we have got so far, we have of course to get up to the top. After a bit of waiting at one of the feet, we enter a double-decked lift which takes us up to Deck No. 2. From there it is a single lift to the top. That of course means more waiting - but it is worth it. If you take a look at the video, you will get a feeling of how it is to take two lifts in succession 300 meters up into the sky.

And when you have finally arrived - this is some of the view that awaits you:



Next stop - your travel agent.

Drifting ducks

I always carry a least one camera when I'm out walking. I have a dSLR which I prefer to use, but lets face it - it can be a bit inconvenient to carry round at all times. Therefore I have a small, compact camera that is always hanging in my belt. In that way I can "get" a subject when I see one.

Today I was not the only one out. This little group of ducks where drifting along peacefully while I was standing pondering about "Life, the Univere and Everything" on a quay. It was the job of a few seconds to include them in "Everything".

An Award from the Dog House in Detroit

I seem to be in a steam at the moment. Just as I was finishing Thank You for another award and forwarding that and several others - up pops my E-mail with another Award from Detroit Dog!

What else can I say but thank you - and post a picture of a couple of dogs!

PS I'll just have to do something about that Blogger profile...
PPS And see whom might be worthy of a suitable forwarding?

"Blogging with a purpose"

I have become the lucky recipient of a new Award, this time from Dick In Eye on Texel. I am very grateful for this, both because I admire his blog very much and because I do indeed feel that my blogging serves some purpose.

There are certain "rules" for this Award. The most important one is to nominate five other persons who has not had this Award before. You can read more about that here.

So In the bast Academy Award style I can say: "the nominees are:"

ArneA
Marie
Imac
Gerald (Ackworth Born)
Edmund (the Explorer) Nesbitt

----------------------------

At the same time as I am distributing these awards, I will also distrute two other awards that I have been a little slow in pasiing on. The first one came from GAWO, A Norwegian MC-girl, and I will pass it on to five other people who have taught me a lot:

Michele (The Earth and Weather Space)

Oldmandlincoln

Vaggelis (Evlahos)
Lara
GMG (Blogtrotter)

---------------------------------------

I got the third Award from Michele (Rock Mtn. Girl) in Canada. I will pass it on to five other people who have a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek in their blogging :

GAWO
Anemone

Annie

Anna-Lys
Outhouse Capital of Canada


May they enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed their Blogs.

Look up in Sky Watch Friday

Look up - LOOK OUT!!

D is for Drainpipe

Drainpipe - Defined as a Device Dealing with the Daily Downpour that is Doing its best to Drown us all.

One water tower for Dot

Dot in Georgia has asked for pictures of water towers. The local one looks like something left over from WW2. However, someone once tried to do something about it.

PS The picture was taken two years ago with my Mobil-phone, Nokia N70...

More wet flowers

It is Mother's Day in Norway today. Most people keep such things at the private level with flowers, cakes and so forth. A visit to the graves of departed parents is also common. The tulip on the picture were placed on the grave of my mother-in-law by my father-in-law yesterday. The drops are dew, not rain.

A feeling of spring

The calendar on my wall reads February 10. The thermometer reads 8 degrees C. It has been a foggy morning, but the sun is coming through. My "personal" calender reads March 10.

It is going to be a glorious day.

(BTW, I found these berries from last year this morning)

One snowdrop

Found this morning: One snowdrop

"Bridges Between"

This is the English name for our new theme. The rules are:

• The first Monday in each month - starting March 3
• Try to keep it bi-lingual
• Try to use Mr. Linky
• Keep our own roll-calls in the sidebar if possible
• Everyone comments on all the other posts
• Suggestion for English name: "Bridges between"
• Widest possible interpretation of the name

Further comments can be found on my other Blog.

A reflection of January in Sky Watch Friday

In the still of the pond.

C is for Cognac with Chocolate

C is a letter with many possibilities in English, but I will not waste your time with the whole menu. I will go straight for the main course:

C is for Cognac with Chocolate!

Cognac is according to The American Heritage Dictionaries:

A brandy distilled from white wine and produced in the vicinity of Cognac.

Sounds a bit dry, so to speak, but anyone can perform a Google search and come up with a book or three on the subject. If we continue to Hennessy in the Wikipedia Encyclopaedia, we find:

Hennessy is one of the oldest and most famous manufacturers of cognac, a type of French distilled wine, or brandy. The company was born when the Irishman Richard Hennessy, who had been a mercenary for the French king, was compensated with land in the town of Cognac in France in 1765 and started a trading business, initially sending liquor back to Irish friends and relatives. His son, James Hennessy, expanded the business into the brandy production with which the town is now synonymous. The business was renamed James (or Jacques) Hennessy and Co, a name the company retains today.

That at least establish that they should now what they are doing.

When it comes to Chocolate, the same dictionary says, among other things:

A small, chocolate-covered candy with a hard or soft center.

That sounds about right, but is somehow missing the taste. However, there is again Google which leads us to this:

Heimdal Chokolade

In Heimdal Chokolade's store in 'The pink house' you can observe how genuine homemade chocolate is produced. This is the country's only home-producer of chocolate.

Have a cup of coffee while watching the process and perhaps having a little taste!

The shop is open when the sign is out, usually it follows the opening hours of the other stores in town.

That should make anybody's mouth water. If you wonder what town it is, then it will be a pleasure to tell you: It is Arendal, on the southern coast of Norway.

PS I feel that C is for Coke just doesn't fit in here...

PPS If you miss the Cigar, it is because I don't smoke!

"Building Bridges" - evaluation process started

Some of you may have noticed that a small group of Bloggers began a new Theme ("Broer som binder" in Norwegian - "Building Bridges" in English) last Friday. We are now starting an evaluation process after the first round. This can be found on my Norwegian Blog, but we'll try to keep it at least bilingual.

Down Memory Lane

I have been playing with my new scanner again. This time I have used some slides that goes back to the winter of 1975/1976. At that time we lived in a small village called Hattfjelldal, in the county of Nordland in Northern Norway. There lived slightly more than 1600 people in the whole municipality - today the population has shrunk beneath 1500. The village is bordering on Sweden, which of course led to a lot of shopping on the other side of the border.

The municipality has got its name from this mountain top, called "Hatten" (the Hat) which is 1128 m high. I never made it up there.


The river Vefsna runs through a large part of the area. Here I have caught it before it froze completely over.


One of the most noteworthy things about the area at this time of the year was the climate. While we were there we had between -30 and -40 degrees C for weeks on end. -15 was considered mild and usually coincided with snowfall. And snow we had - around 3 m at the centre of the village and 4 m several other places. It made driving somewhat special...


Since this is south of the Arctic circle, there was never a period without sun. A combination of sunset and fog from the river before it froze over led to some spectacular effects.

Launching of a Sky Watch Friday Rocket?

Are we witnessing the launching of the first Sky Watch Friday satellite?

I am afraid not. It just the TV-tower on Mount Ulriken, the highest mountain surrounding Bergen, that has been caught between wisps of fog and a sinking sun.

A pity...


PS I do not have another Sky Watch Friday picture on my Norwegian Blog. However, we are testing a new theme about "Building Bridges" if you want to have a look. The text is (for now) mostly in Norwegian, but the bridge is British...