Apr 8 - Easter and more Skiing

I had a rather quiet Easter. The weather has been atrocious (even the locals say its the worst Easter weather in ages) - had heavy snow falls early, then it warmed up enough that it turned to heavy rain - melting lots of snow and flooding everywhere. From what I follow on the news, the emergency services have been flat out rescuing people lost skiing in blizzards, caught in avalanches, and later floods and mud slides - real great! Ah well.

As for me, well on Thurs 27 Mar, I went to afternoon coffee with a group from the English church (we were going to go skiing, but weather was too bad). Fri I did actually go downhill skiing with Ursula and her two daughters, whom I'd met through the church. We went to the nearest resort, about a 1/2 hour drive away called Vassfjellet. Its only a small resort, but with a pretty decent slope and runs. I had quite a good day - the weather varied from snowing to sunny, and in the breaks was quite nice. Unfortunately Ursula's younger daughter fell and twisted her ankle round lunchtime, so didn't ski after that which was a shame. Both I and her older daughter kept going till mid-afternoon. So that was good - nice to see what the resort was like. They had 5 lifts, I only used 2 - both T-bars, and long ones at that. The vertical drop was, I think, about 400m, not bad at all.

Sat 29 Mar I mostly stayed at home, apart from going out to the shops to restock supplies (otherwise the shops were shut from Thurs to Mon, so that was the only chance). Sun I went to Easter Mass at the (Norwegian State Church) Nidaros Cathedral in town - its very impressive, and was nice to be in a service in such an atmosphere, even if I couldn't follow the details, the general form was familiar. The service was being broadcast live on National TV (as was the Fri & Mon services also). So the music and choir were in fine form. Also they had a lot more lights on than usual, it was good to see detail thats often in the dark. After that, for something completely different, I went to the Cinema and saw "Star Wars". That was good fun - it must be well over 10 years since I last saw it in a cinema - it IS impressive on a big screen with a full sound system. After that I walked over to Ursula's house, where she was hosting a fairwell tea for a couple who're sailing round the world, and have wintered here in Trondheim. They were due to leave Tues. In retrospect walking was a bad idea - took me 40 min to find the place, and despite having a pretty good coat on, my trousers and shoes were totally soaked and I was very cold. Ah well - borrowed a change of clothes whilst we got mine dry. Otherwise had a very pleasant evening, just eating and talking. Mon was also very quiet, stayed at home and read - and also watched the baptismal service at the catherdral on TV. As for the weather, the rain hasn't let up all weekend (still hasn't - though its back to snow now).

Then it was back to work - I gave a lecture on Wed 2 Mar to my colleague Svein's students, to cover whilst he's away. Once I got there it went ok, but there was a major panic when the bus didn't arrive (it was an 8:15am lecture - by 7:55 I was **really** worried, so sprinted over the hill to get to another bus route with a more frequent service, and caught the 8am from there - very winded - its a steep hill between and a fair distance!) In the end I was 10 min late, but still had a pretty full class, so that was good - though it took a while for me to cool down & stop sweating, aarrgghh!!! I HATE it when that sort of thing happens - of course its the only time I've ever had problems with the buses here ....

The rest of that week was spent revising my talks for a visit to Ericsson's research labs in Stockholm the following week.

On the weekend I did lots of skiing. On Sat 5 Apr, I skied from just near home all the way up to Estenstadhytta and back by myself. Had a very good run and was quite pleased with myself as its about a 12km or so round trip and a couple of hundred metres up - a good workout. On the Sun I went skiing from Lian, at the end of the tramline over the other side of town, with several people I'd met through the church. We skied to Grønlia and back, about 10km total, in varying weather, but enjoyable. Finally Mon afternoon was so nice and sunny, that I knocked off work at 3pm, went home, and skied to Estenstadhytta and back again. So a great few days skiing there!


[Mar 26] [SSP97 Diary] [Apr 18]
Lawrie Brown / 26 Jun 97