Snow go

Well the best laid plans - had hoped to have a good few things finished and then push off down to Flekkefjord to join the others.
Don't get me wrong got plenty done, the tiles are finally up in the kitchen but not grouted yet (I can't take the credit for this as i decided to get somebody in to finish it off for me, oh the shame.) Plenty more packed and done so the idea was to hire a little car and set off down to Flekkefjord early friday, one problem is that it decided to snow overnight. Ah how bad can it be? - set off and after an hour of driving at 60kmph i decided to turn back.
Norway more or less closes down for 5 days over Easter and it seems that the snow clearing men were no exception, at best the drive to Flekkefjord is 6 hours, i didn't fancy 8 hours of driving in 20cm of snow.





Hire car on the right, TFW on the left.

Package holiday on the banana boat

Easter hols.... and while Silje and Maud have headed off down to mormor and morfar in Flekkefjord i have stayed behind in Oslo to pack the contents of our flat into boxes and move it up to my workshop.
Sounds easy eh.... been in this place over 8 years now and it is astounding what gets stuffed away in every available space in that time and if the packing isn't bad enough the 4 flights of stairs down can be a real killer on my ageing knees.
There in lies the beauty of the banana box.
Now let me tell you..... you just won't find a better box to do your moving with.
For starters they are free, they are strong, they come ready assembled, have built in handles, they're not too big so you can fill 'em up and even my spaghetti arms can still lift them,
what more do you want?

Over Christmas when TFW didn't move for almost a whole month i wondered why on earth i bought this thing, well now i know, TFW, in conjunction with banana boxes, is, well, the dogs do-das of a moving car.
Take out the rear seat bases and fold the backs down and you have a van and thanks to the hydraulic SLS (self levelling suspension) it takes all the weight without pointing the headlights to the stars and still retains it's silky smooth Mercedes ride. Ha!





You only realise how much stuff you have when you have to pack it all up and carry it down some stairs pack it in the car and un-pack it at the other end.
This is a drop in the ocean of what is to come.
Less than half of my collection of bb's is shown here, still i think i better get some more.

Green traveller

Last weekend was the annual ski trip with my work. Has to be said that for us it wasn't really the success that last years was.
We decided that Maud was big enough to travel on the coach this year, but with it being a 4 hour journey up to Geilo from Oslo it was always going to be a long trip.
All started well enough but as we started winding our way through the hills Maud went ominously quiet. I suspected that she wasn't feeling so good and sure enough about half way into the trip she lost her lunch in a big way. Didn't quite manage to catch the first eruption so I got a lap and a hand full of puke along with some of it finding it's way to the heater by my feet, ahhh can't beat that heated up sick smell.
After the driver found somewhere suitable to stop we had a quick wash and mop up and were soon on our way again, after a couple more rounds of the same Maud was empty and settled back to enjoy the last hour of the journey.

The calm before the storm.



Not too sure about this balcony lark are you sure these thin planks can hold my weight?


Fully recovered from the previous evenings goings on Maud sets about pelting me with snowballs.
I have to add here that it was Maud herself who wanted her sunglasses on her head.

View

We did however get one of the best rooms in the hotel as we got a balcony. The view when we woke up in the morning was pretty good.

It's real II

Well if you think i was looking forward to seeing the new flat, then you can imagine i was even more excited about this,... it's been an exciting week.

I am super proud to be able to introduce you to - Mauds sibling.

He / she is a bit modest and really didn't want too give to much away but the nurse thought that maybe, just maybe, it is a girl.
The due date has been set to 08.08.08 which would be a cool birthdate by any standards.

Can't think of many things that match up to the feeling of seeing your childs heartbeat while still in the womb, weee wow or wow weee - whichever you like.
Everything is tip top with little baby, next ultrasound in 14 weeks.

Shame they couldn't give me a video of what we saw today, too bad for you, the ultrasound pictures below will just have to do.

It's real

We have only ever seen our new flat on a piece of paper so to say that i have been a bit nervous about finally seeing what we have actually bought and where our family is going to live for the next few years is a bit of an understatement.
'Oooh blimey what have i done?' has crossed my mind a few times but i needn't have worried..........
YES we got to see our new abode today and i was very pleased indeed. We got to go round pointing out small defects so they can fix it all up for our completion date of 8th April. There were of course a few things, we managed to fill one of their natty 'New Flat Preview' forms anyway. Nothing bad just a few scuffs here and there and a kitchen cupboard door which looked as though it had been dragged behind the lorry on it's way from the factory.
These poor guys have to listen to 62 other flat owners over the next week or so pointing out everything they lay their eyes on. I'm just glad we were the very first to have a viewing.

Didn't really get much time to snap pictures after our fault finding hour we really had to get to work, so here are a few. The blue bits of tape you can see are the things we want fixing.

Hallway..



Open living space...
we will probably put up some sliding doors and a wall to block off the veiw of the kitchen but that will happen after we move in.



Maud takes a breather out in the gangway, that is our front door on the left.



en-suite bathroom ..
there is another slightly bigger one for Maud. hehehehe.



View from the end of the balcony, always disappointing these shots, your eyes are so much better for seeing this kind of stuff, you can see The Oslo fjord believe me, click on the photo and see for yourself.
The wires will go, all part of the building process.
The high voltage wires and pylons in the middle distance will disappear in the coming year too, the council just have to dig the trench and chuck the cables in, no big deal apparently.

Blow out !

Maud suffered her first puncture in two years of pram driving, high speed blow out on the way to nursery, scary stuff, luckily for us i managed to control the resulting slide and come safely to a stop in the gutter. The culprit - a drawing pin.
So it was off to the workshop to make good the damage



A puncture repair kit is something i have - somwhere - could i find it when i needed it. No, ah well it'll turn up during the move, and then disappear again.
Had to buy another.

Spring fashions

Day-glow raincoats - this seasons fashion you heard it here first.
A b'day present from uncle Tim, she won't wear anything else now, luckily the weather is co-operating and it is actually raining.