Norway

Spent Wednesday in Årnes with Jim Stirling and family - great to see them again. Pictures of Stirling Station coming.

I flew to Oslo. It was 3°C when we landed and some fog had developed. Jim picked me up at Gardemoen Airport and said that the day before has started foggy but cleared into a beautiful day. Well, it did so again, and I had the chance to relax on Stirling Station with Jim and Edel, Espen and Tina who was home from school for the 'potato harvest', a week in atumn when it was traditional for all hands to help lift the potato harvest from the ground. They are not growing potatoes on Stirling Station, but there's no shortage of animals! I've seen some changes since last time I was there - the place has so many things to do and see - a wonderful day out especially for kids.

Jim ran me back to Gardermoen, but not before he had a chance encounter with an excavator and a truckload of topsoil it had lifted from the roadside. The topsoil will come in handy for projects Jim has going on around the farm.

I wore the hat through the airport at Oslo - there may be a picture. It has an effect on people.

Had 30 minutes to check some email for NOK 59 while waiting for the flight. I love the wooden floors of the Scandinavian airports - the lighting is stylish and effecting, and the leather-upholstered seats I was sitting on were made of wood mounted by a matt stainless steel on some rendered concrete stands. Lovely effect. And of course tastefully framed billboards of Mads Mikkelson wearing the latet H&M gear were visible through most of the airport.

From the airport at Oslo back to Copenhagen is a 60 minute flight, and within 10 minutes I had my return train ticket to Malmö where I caught up with Ross who'd had found time amongst his meetings to go shopping at H&M!

Set the alarm for 6am. My flight was at 8.15 - I'd not checked and seemed to recall that it left at 8.30, so was cutting it fine because the trained pulled out of Malmö at 7.02am - they do run precisely on time fortunately - and by the time I got to Kastrup it was 7.30am. I saw on the board that my flight could check in at positions 32-39, each being fed by the one long line snaking its way back and forth in front of 4 open check-in positions. I stood in line for 10 minutes knowing that my flight would have left before I got to the head of the line, so I pulled out of the line and went straight to the Business Class check-in (I'd not been able to see this for the sea of people lined up in front of Economy, but my Star Alliance Premier status affords me this option.)  I'm sure I'd have missed my flight if I'd had to wait in Economy. As it was, there was still a long way to go - there was a sign at security advising that the wait in that line would be 7 minutes; and from there, once unbelted jeans are rebelted and the laptop is back in the backpack, there was a long walk to what must be the furthermost gate at Kastrup, D104. The flight was boarding when I got there.

I'm typing this onboard a Spanair MD-83 - the flight is nowhere near full and I have an empty seat either side of me. I hadn't realised that this would be a codeshare flight with a Spanish airline, so it was a pleasant cultural surprise to read of fabulous Latino destinations in the Spanorama magazine whilst being served breakfast by the Spanish crew.

The magazine also has a feature on Aging rock stars - Los viejos rockeros nunca mueren - Old rock singers die hard. The article rounds up the usual suspects to say what? I'm not sure, apart from the fact that the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, The Doors (albeit without Jim Morrison) were still going strong. It draws a bit of a long bow inluding Sting in there - he's only in his early 50s. But it points out that we have a group of musicians who don't retire in this business - after the death of Johnny Cash we had James Brown, and Ray Charles about whom there was a recent bio-pic. It finishes bup by saying " . . . the most relevant in rock history aren't its heroes, either dead or alive, but the freeing attitudes the injected to successive generations of fans. Their haircuts and jeans, but also their young spirit and pacifism, under that motto: "Make love, not war". A picture of a bare-footed guitar-playing Sting is captioned: "Sting says he makes love daily thanks to yoga".

It is beautiful weather in Basel - about 20°C and it looks like there has been rain recently. The conductor on the train spoke in French, though most people in this region speak German.

I met up with David and Alec at the hotel where they were having lunch. The church is pleasant and we'll hear how good the organ sounds tonight!