Silly Billies Return to Roam

Its been hard to find time during the week to write up my blog, but finally I have a chance to sit down on the couch and do so! Last weekend was the Wing Orienteering Club 'storsamling' (social gathering) in Oppdal and since then we have been so busy working, biking in the snow and ice and eating lots of yummy food I have had no time to write anything. On Friday night before we went to Oppdal Helen picked me up and we went over to Lene's for a girls' sushi night - which was a delicious affair indeed. Lene has some beautiful porcelain and a very stylish flat. We made some yummy sushi and had a very enjoyable time - so I had to include photo of our meal in this post. The next morning we hopped up quite early and made our way over to the Dragvoll campus to catch the organised bus to Oppdal. It was a beautiful morning because it was snowing lightly and thin white powder was settling over the countyside. By the time we reached Oppdal it was white everywhere. There is a p...

After posting a very funny picture of Chris lying zonked on the beach in Portugal I have another amusing photo to add - this time of the bung thumb, or the 'claw' as it has later been named. Chris arrived home from the ARWC in Portugal 2 weeks ago, feeling pretty tired. After many hours sleeping for the first few days he started to feel better, but noticed that his hand was still very sore from crashing his mountain bike about half way through the race. Wisely he decided to get it checked at the doctors, but to our horror they decided he had torn the thumb ligament and needed surgery immediatly to reattach the ligament to the bone. So the following Tuesday Chris became part titanium (well, very small part - like .00001 percent). So now he is stuck with a very unusual looking claw cast on his right hand that has to stay on for 6 weeks, meaning he can't ride a bike, and skiing is dubious. However, after a brief mourning period he has realised that the timing isn't so bad ...

I just can't resist putting this photo on my blog! Nike finished in 2nd place after leading for the majority of the race - so they were a bit disappointed, but philosophical too....and very pleased to finally be able to get some sleep!

While the mornings in Trondheim become more and more frosty and the lakes frozen solid Chris has been busy in Portugal competing in the ARWC with Team Nike. It sounds like it has been a bit warmer there - but still quite cold, even for Portugal. They have been racing since Sunday, and it sounds like it has been really tough with minimal sleep and fast racing the whole time. I have been so busy working and going to Norwegian that I haven't had much time to follow the race online - but from what I can tell it is the most difficult race to follow ever! The website is not frequently updated and no one seems to know how many points anyone has! Apparently Nike snuck under a culvert to avoid an 'out of bounds' area - sounds like a Chris tactic to me! Nevermind, Nike has had a few very close shaves to not miss out the 'cut offs', including one where they made it with only seconds to spare. I have been in touch with Cris, who is supporting them with his friend from Germany, ...

After being asked by Swedish multisporter Martin Flinta to come and race the Swedish Adventure Race Champs (combined this year with the Raid Uppsala) Chris decided that sounded like fun and I decided to tag along too. Fortunately through Aaron I managed to find myself a teammate to race the shorter women's class. So on Thursday we started to get organised with the plan of heading away mid afternoon. By 7 pm when it was dark, cold and raining we were finally ready - we decided to postpone our departure until Friday morning. The drive to Uppsala is pretty long - especially driving on the slow and windy Norwegian roads. We drove over a snowy pass, then down down down until we were on the flatter faster Swedish roads. We stopped to look at a crater formed by an asteroid thousands of years ago. 'The Crater' (Snowy hole in Swedish forest = highly unusual) Strange bear thing we passed by Finally we reached Uppsala, and Martin's girlfriend's brother's house where we w...

Kyvannet Because my last post had so many snowy pictures, I really feel like I missed showing you how pretty the autumn has been! We have moved into winter so fast it has taken me by surprise. Today was a beautiful crisp sunny day so I wandered down to our lake and took some pictures of the autumn colours before they all drop off into the lake! In some places the edges of the lake are already beginning to freeze. What a pretty spot to live beside, especially when the sun is out! But enough of this pretty photography - we are about to head away on a mission to Uppsala for the Swedish Multisport Champs!

After several weeks of cold rainy weather and the odd patch of snow and ice, the autumn holidays are finally upon us. Twiddling our thumbs on Friday night we eventually decided a pleasant walk in the hills was on the menu. So we called on our regular partners in crime - Helen and Ally. Unfortunately Helen was away, but with very little arm twisting (just a hint of the word whiskey) and we had persuaded Ally of the virtues of our plan. By 3 pm we were tootling down the motorway towards Størjdal, then through Selbu and into the bomveg to Vekta. We had very sensibly decided skis would be silly.... this was an autumn trip! However, the white landscape before us suggested otherwise. Snowmobile tracks compacted the snow for the first 50 metres, then it was plodding though knee deep snow with the occasional treacherous swamp hole to watch out for. The valley had become a winter wonderland already, the lake was frozen and everywhere was white. We trudged along as the sun sank lower on the hori...