uvær

Monday, 9 February 2015

The Norwegian word for weather is 'vær',  and the word for a storm or really bad weather is  'uvær', which I like to think is kind of like the opposite of good weather..it's un-weather.

Anyway - Norwegians don't let 'uvær' put them off doing things. They have a saying that 'there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes'. But of course when it's said in Norwegian it sounds a lot better as it rhymes (you'll have to take my word for it)..

Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dålige klær 

So that means that even though it's blowing a gale and all the chair-lifts are closed and the roads nearby are closed that shouldn't put you off going out for a training x-country ski like Harald and Linda did yesterday..

And while they did that, Lars-Henrik, Bjørn and Linn were out on the downhill slopes the moment they opened, and they didn't leave them until they were thrown off at closing time (there were a few tows open despite the wind).  Jon and I caught up with them for a few hours at either end of the day but we did stuff with the kids in the middle - I'm not sure we would have lasted the day in the wind in any case!..

And today we all went out for a mountain x-country trip. It was hard going because it was cold and windy and some of us were struggling with comfort and motivation. We didn't quite make it to the cafe we were aiming for (great disappointment for Jett) - but we got a good long trip out in different (and more exposed) conditions to Lillehammer.

And I am sure Harald has some better photos of the trip which I'll post another time but what I wanted to say is that despite it blowing a gale in some parts of the mountain, and being really cold,  there were TONNES of people out for a ski trip. It's just what you do. And if the weather is crap, you do it anyway but with more clothes. 

And here's a nice photo of Bjørn, who runs a military style alpine ski-ing operation. He's up early making breakfast for his crew and makes sure they are all out the door in time to be the first in line for the tows (which takes some doing). And needless to say, no-one leaves the mountain until the tows close or the mountain blows away.

For Bjørn and his kind, there is no such thing as 'uvaær'.