Welcome to our Blog and Happy 2010

Hallo everyone, and Happy New Year

We hope you all had a wonderful christmas and a good start into the new year.It has been a long time coming but we are finally launching this blog and hope you will find it interesting to read. It is a great way to keep in contact without having to write many e-mails with the same information over and over again. Hopefully the photos will give you some insight into what it is like over here. It has taken me some time to work out how to create a blog and I have learnt a lot since the first entry. There are still a few  more things I would like to learn about creating a more interesting layout for the blog, so the learning will continue. Thank you dear Catherine Campbell  (Delivery Suite, WWH ) who has given me many tips on how to work the blog. I often think of you and you will be one of the first people to read it. Here are some helpful  hints for those of you who have never been on a blog site before.

When you first arrive on this site I would recommend to save it under " Favourites " so it will be easy to find it again. The site always opens on our last entry and you will have to scroll down to get to the beginning of the entry. When you have read the page and you want to read an earlier entry go back to the bottom of the page where it says "older post ".You will be able to go back to our earliest entry by hitting the "older post" button every time you have read a page. Another way to get to a particular entry is to click on a specific title at the " Archive " collum on the right hand site. If you want to have a closer look at any of the photos just click on it and it will enlarge to a bigger size. Click on the "back" button and it will go back to the original size. The blog begins with my first entry in October 2009 which shows the photo of the wood pidgeon in Belmont. Please register yourself as a follower if you wish and send us your comments. We are looking forward to your feedback. I am planning to write a new entry every  one or two weeks and have a few more tales to tell.

Happy reading from Meta and Phil

The northern Lights event

The next few weeks were consumed by setting up daily life in Tromsdalen , meeting more new neighbours and getting to know local customs . Phil got an invitation to meet with the the members of the Tromso " Kiwiclub" which is a group of New Zealand men who are married to norwegian women.

The group meets reguarly to uphold  the kiwi custom of having a  good old yak and a yarn over a pint of beer in the pub. Phil enjoyed meeting the group and learned lots more about norway and in particular life in Tromso. When he came home late in the evening, there was another special event unfolding in front of our eyes. We were about to go to bed when Phil took a look outside the window and there they were:

                                     

THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

I jumped out of bed in my pj's and a coat and into the cold. We could not believe our eyes as the sky was alive with lights which were constantly changing in shape colour and intensity. There were shades of green in big lines over the whole sky. Sometimes the colours were pulsating  or changing into an oval which looked a bit like an UFO. The lights were big and bright and at times it seemed as if they were coming at us. I recently read about the Sami people who believed  that the northern lights were a god and that one shouldn't dare to point at them otherwise it would come and get you. Having seen the lights I can certainly relate to that idea. They are definetly one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life and if you want to get an idea  what the lights looked  like just check out  the following link: http://www.virtualtromso.no/no/tourist-information.html

Finn and Luca at school

Here are Luca  and Finn in their classrooms. Annie is Lucas' teacher and Luca likes her very much. There is also a picture of the first song Luca has learned to sing in norwegian.

Finn has found some new friends in his new class and spends a lots of time playing soccer during breaks.