Snowfall, Shopping & a Swim

This morning I awoke to the night's newfallen snow and more coming down. I'd postulate it's our last of the year, but I can still see plenty of snow on the mountains across the fjord and we're planning to go skiing Thursday in Voss. We'll see how it goes. I couldn't figure out how to buy lift or train tickets online so we're just going to wing it.

After getting a little bit of work done the kids and I headed out for a walk in the snow which continued to fall. The first flowers to pop up through the snow here are snøklokker, and a number of our neighbors have beds of them. After that it was a pleasant walk through the woods and Zara finally noticed the playground just past Langegården. Considering the number of times we've been by the farm that's pretty hilarious. We did a two cartfull shop at the Kiwi, which was a crazy idea but I figured there were three of us to carry groceries. The cupboard also got pretty bare during the juledager when everything was closed for days on end so I didn't want a repeat for the påskedager. It's a five day holiday here that starts Thursday with skjærtorsdag. Then Friday is langfredag and Saturday is påskeaften. Easter Sunday is 1. påskedag, but then Monday is 2. påskedag! After that with these two teenagers at home we'll be lucky if there's a crumb left in the house!

After shopping we rode the bus home and by then the sun had come out so we decided to go swimming. Mind you most of the fjord behind our house is still frozen, but there's a stream that comes down by our place so there's an opening. The ducks and other waterfowl often come over because of that. The funniest of these is the dipper, a little bird that flips over the rocks where the stream meets the water while bobbing up and down dipping it's butt in the water. The dipper is actually the national bird of Norway believe it or not.

So we put away the groceries, got on our swimsuits, and headed out to the dock. Sometimes I just have to laugh at how crazy awesome my life is. Jumping into freezing (literally) cold water with my kids is one of those. Remember kids, we can't stay in too long because you guys could get hypothermia. I don't think any of us were in there for even a minute, but still it was incredibly invigorating. We ran back toward the house, but to waste the warm sun here in Bergen seems tantamount to blasphemy so instead of drying off with my towel I laid it down on the deck and began to sun myself on it. Surprisingly, Maxwell and Zara laid down with me and we had some good silly time together making vitamin D. Travel ads here talk about getting vitamin D. It's pretty hilarious. Zara went inside after a little while, but Maxwell and I stayed out and had popsicles. In swimsuits. In one degree celsius weather. In the sunshine. It's amazing how warm the sun can feel after a dip in freezing water even if the air itself is nearly freezing.

Eventually we went inside and got dressed so Maxwell could play Fortnite with his American friends who were just getting up and I moved out onto the patio to type this in the sun.

There are gulls standing on the ice now and songbirds in the trees so it must be spring. But the clouds are rolling in again, so I'm going to leave the patio and go inside. Maybe we'll make a fire.