Dealing with the Cold

So even though we live almost as far north as the Arctic Circle, the temperatures here aren't normally extremely cold during the winter. Except this year. Many people that have lived here for over 35 years have told us that this is the coldest it has ever been here for the longest period of time. Temperatures have held around -12 to -14 Celsius (7-10 degrees Fahrenheit) for the past three weeks. The snow that came just before Christmas has still not melted, and the Norwegians are actually complaining that it is cold. Even our saltwater fjord is freezing.

Someone came up to me the other day and said "I bet you wish you hadn't moved to Norway with all this cold weather, huh?!?" I responded "This would be a warm winter in Ohio!"


Still, there is one issue with it being this cold - it is too cold in the mountains for natural snowfall to occur. We are supposed to go skiing in two weeks, and there isn't much natural snow at the ski area we are going to. I do understand they are trying to run the snow-making machines, though, so there is some hope. At least Sidney has all her ski-wear ready.

The first week back at school for Sidney and I has gone well. Sidney needs to get off her own pace and onto the pace of the rest of the class, but that will come. The student I work with is integrating into the classroom now and has done very well with the other students, so I am able to help with some of the other kids as well. I think the boys find it pretty cool to have a man in the classroom with them now.

I am also trying to learn my lines for a pantomime I was recruited into participating in. I play the Demon Pestblight in a panto version of Jack and the Beanstalk being performed by the British Amateur Theater Society here in Stavanger. The performance is at the end of January. Hopefully I will have my lines down by then! I am sure there will be lots of great pictures to come from that!

Christmas Play

Here is the video of the British International School of Stavanger's production of "The Very Bossy King", starring Sidney as a sheep. She was one of the servants, but tended to wander a bit too much, so she was changed to a part where she had to sit still. Notice at about 11 minutes into the video, Sidney falls over into the kid's lap beside her because she was swaying too much.



This is our first attempt at a video posting on the blog, so hopefully it will work okay.

Kimber was in London, so she could not attend the play. She should be getting back any minute now.

We are getting ready for our big Christmas trip to South Africa. We will be spending most of the time with Bill, Regina and the kids in Pretoria, but we added a trip to Cape Town in at the last minute. Many of our friends and colleagues here that are from South Africa highly recommended it, so we researched the side trip and opted for two nights in Simon's Town. One of the highlights of the area is Boulder Beach, home to a colony of African penguins! We may also get to see some whales in the area, though the season for the big ones usually goes through November.

The highs in Stavanger are going to be below freezing just after we leave, and the highs in Johannesburg are going to be around 82 F. We will think about all of you suffering through winter in the northern hemisphere!