Happy Christmas

... althought it's almost New Year now. Hope you all have had a great celebration and got lots of lovely presents. I certainly did. We left Oslo for Ålesund and the island Sula on "little Christmas Eve", and spent Christmas eve at my uncle's house eating lots of lovely food and unwrapping mad amounts of presents. With 11 people present, there were a lot of presents to open! Think we got everything we wanted.

Yesterday we drove to Lillehammer where we are now. Torkjel has spent the day cross country skiing whilst I went shopping with my mum. We have eaten lots of lovely food, and spent a fair bit of time relaxing. I'm just recovering from a boring cold, and hope I'll stopp coughing soon.

Only got 25 days to go to mye due date for the birth now too, so time is flying! Going for another check up at the health centre over New Year. I am certain the baby is in breech position, but on the last check the midwife reckoned he's turned. We'll have to see who's right I guess, but I'm not convinced. Obviously hoping he's turned though.

Got three days to go at work now, before my maternity leave. New Years eve is my last day of working. Guess I'm celebrating the start of my maternity leave with a New Year. We're off to Marianne and Russ' flat to celebrate which will be nice.

Knowing myself there won't be any more posts before New Years Eve now, so HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone!

Tragedy

It's not been a great weekend here in Oslo. At least not night until Saturday. I got woken up at about 3.30 in the morning, hearing people shouting in the streets. I thought it was people on their way home drunk, making a lot of noise, so turned around and thought I'd go back to sleep. But it didn't stop, so after a couple of minutes I got up and had a look outside. I then saw some people across the street, crawling and jumping out of their window. After a few seconds, I realised the building was on fire, and several people turned up in the windows across the block of flats. There were more and more smoke coming out too.

After a couple of minutes, the fire engines turned up, and got their ladder up and helped people out from the windows on the higher levels. It was all really scary and I got pretty shaken up. Eventually there weren't any more people in the windows, they were all rescued out - I thought. I went back to bed after some time, and slept for a couple of hours. In the morning, when I watched the news, I found out six people died in the fire.

51 people were in the building, six died and another 12-13 were sent to hospital. Not much fun watching that, but I realised pretty quick that there weren't anything I could do to help. Now they're speculating whether someone started the fire deliberately. It started in the stairway, which is why people couldn't get out that way, and had to be rescued out the windows.

The picture attached, I took on Saturday afternoon after they'd closed most of the windows. But it shows how near I was. Really hope I never experience that ever again!

13 days until Christmas eve

Okay, it's 11th December today, and my last post was 2nd November. I'm officially becoming lazy when it comes to blogging. It's not that I haven't got anything to write about, just that my brain seems to have problems remembering to actually go into this site and tell the world what's going on.

It's now 13 days until Christmas Eve. Officially that's not long at all. Fortunately I've bought most of the Christmas presents I planned to, which I'm very happy about. The thought of fighting through busy Oslo shoppers nearer the big celebration is not particularly tempting with a growing tummy and feelings of almost fainting whilst queuing... So I've been pretty good for once.

I honestly can't remember everything that has happened since last time I wrote. Who would? I've not done as much travelling as before last time, but a few things has been going on in Oslo too. Last Sunday we went to Gamle Logen in Oslo to see "Piken med Svovelstikkene" (The Little Match Girl Passion). Torkjel's sister did the main act, and she was impressive as always. After the performance we went to Enebakk for dinner and a chat with T's mum.

There has also been girls evenings and other happenings in the last month. I've been busy doing stuff a lot of the time really. Guess I have to use my chances to do stuff like that now before the little one turns up. Less than six weeks to go until the due date now, so time is flying!

First of all it's Christmas though. We're flying to Ålesund (Langevåg) to celebrate there, but got to be back in Oslo to work from the 29th. Looking forward to Christmas now. Other than that my maternity leave starts 1st January. We're celebrating New Years at MO and Russ's which will be good. Sounds like a nice evening is in plan, so looking forward to that too!

Anyway, that's a mini update from my exciting life (or not?). Hopefully I'll remember to write some more before Christmas. If not, HAPPY CHRISTMAS to you all!