Warm Houses

Norway, February/ March 2009

I was just down in the workshop in the basement and was reminded of what people so often ask in Britain. "Is it always really cold in Norway?" I explain that no it isn't and that in the summer we can have more than 30 degrees Celsius on warm days, though on a rainy day it will be much less. The basement is cold, but houses here are built to cope with all aspects of temperature and weather in a much more efficient way than where I live in the UK.

I'm off back to Leeds tomorrow and will be missing my chair. We just had reading-week in College. I spent it home in Norway celebrating my father's birthday and skiing. -and reading. Though I didn't read anything school-related. I read about aviation news, strategic air defense, cooking, Christian books and training. And I listened to Lisa Nilson. Thank God for all the good music that has come out of Sweden over the last hundred years.

Yes, I'll be missing my chair. It's perfect to sit in while reading and the house is warm. No running to the wardrobe to get extra clothes. If it gets cold -and it does- I go down into the even colder basement and fetch some wood. I chop it up with an axe and cut pieces of it that I can light up with. One of the woodburners is situated three meters from me when I read. No fancy and beautiful but cold window panels of my UK apartment to freeze me down on cold days. But plenty of birch wood planted by my great grandfather Harald that burns evenly and produces much heat.

Norway can be cold, but I'm always warm.