Fire on Norwegian cruise ship, MS Nordlys

Ready to board the MS Nordlys
May 27, 2005

When I heard about the fire on a Norwegian ship, part of the Hurtigruten line, I thought the name was familiar.  So I looked at our pictures and sure enough, that was the ship we took with Todd and Kristy from Bergen to Trondheim on our first trip to Norway.  Our overnight trip was trouble free, something that should not be taken for granted.  We barely noticed some rough seas during the night.  These Norwegian cruise ships do not feature a lot of entertainment.  As the commentator on the loudspeaker system told us "The entertainment is out the windows".  This year Norwegian television set a record for the longest live broadcast as they followed one of these ships up the coast of Norway from Bergen to Kirkenes, a trip of five and a half days.  They did it in June so there was no darkness during the nights.  We followed it via the internet for part of the voyage and even saw Todd and Kristy on the dock at Kristiansund as they came down in the early morning hours to welcome the ship, and wave a Saskatchewan flag!

This was an exciting day for Kristy and Todd as Dan and Helga Ledene arrived in Kristiansund this evening, just in time for a meal cooked in the "new" kitchen.  Kristy wore her bunad to the airport to welcome them.  Tomorrow they are driving up to Geiranger while the weather is nice.

This was an eventful day at the Johnson farm too as our new energy efficient furnace was installed.  It didn't take Duane and Wayne long to get the old one out and the new one put in.  We have a two speed fan so the air circulates at a lower speed when the furnace isn't heating.  When we built our cedar log house in 1979 this type of fan was recommended.  I was glad that our air conditioner checked out okay with the new furnace so we don't have to replace it, at least not this year.

It's been a breezy day, a bit on the cool side after the above normal temperatures that we had last week.  There was frost on Tuesday night and perhaps last night too.  The denim quilt covering the tomatoes kept them safe, at least until the next frost hits.  I like them to ripen on the vine if at all possible.

I spent part of the day going through books on the living room shelves.  A few will go to the garbage, a very hard thing for me to do with books.  But geography textbooks from the 60's are not very much in demand!  I packed up a peach box full of books to give away so the shelves look better now that they aren't so crowded.

Now it's soon suppertime so this will be it for today.