NORWAY

Blåsjø Water Reservoir located in Ryfylke and Setesdal. Blåsjø is Norway's largest artificial lake, and kept in place by 11 small and larger dams.

I spent a very chilly couple of hours on the first day of Advent, watching the sun slowly rise on the calm water of this fjord.

A flower of cold beauty and a symbol of 'the wilderness and wetlands'. Also known as the 'bog star', it isn't actually a grass at all, belonging to an entirely different botanical class. It isn't a common flower, although possibly many people would miss it as it is so tiny.

Commonly known as the sickener, emetic russula, or vomiting russula gives you some idea of the effects of eating this fungus. I think the red colour is enough to warn one.

The difference in high and low tide in southwest Norway is very small, and if the sea has been quiet there are often fine lines composed of small shells and other bits and pieces left along the strand-line which show up very clearly on the sand. This is just such a one. It is possible to find some real treasures here.

The first day of advent, a cold still day, waiting for the sun to rise on the Fjord

Taking a walk from Ølberg to Vigdel, I was stopped in my tracks. There are always cattle grazing here in the summertime, but I have never seen them with a bull before. I sat down and waited until he stopped staring at me, then very slowly got up, and turned away, hoping that all would be well. Maybe his mind was on other things.

1945 Jack Brightwell, Ed Foy R. Nugent and G Parkin Remember these New Zealanders They died but freedom lived.

Helleren is a large cliff overhanging two houses at the end of the Jøssingfjord, on the southwestern coast of Norway. The houses were built in the early 19th century and abandoned in the 1920s shortly after the first road was opened. The houses are preserved as they once were, as houses for poor families subsiding on a combination of farming, sheep herding and fishing. These 2 houses are now part of Norway's open-air folk museum.