An old letter about Maridalsvannet: part of Oslo's water supply lake.

Dear Mary-Jane

    You like the chair that is a harp !1957 ( Kr. 9500.- at an auction at Christmas 2004 in Oslo), perhaps when you sit on it the harp begins to play your own melody instead of squeaks and groans like a wooden chair! The effect is god enough in a blurred photo as it gives the object a life of its own. Erik knows the chair well but not much about the creator either, we shall see if we can find out something for you, perhaps the spelling is not Scandinavian enough as the name Jorgen is with the line through the o, making the sound oe as in French.

    We decided today, as the sun shone through holes in the clouds lighting' the peeping hill' Kikut, with its snow and grey-stone patterns floating on a sea of white valley clouds, that we should go to our favourite place at the other end of Lake Maridal, just to the back of the view. At 10 am. we set off seeing a notice as we came to the lakeside road saying 'Look for the many moose in the area just now', we saw none but we did see their footprints. (see below). In that photo the roe-deer's prints are there too and the snow having melted then hardened round them leaving them looking like printing blocks. Another had a moose valentine card, a frozen heart shaped track. The next photo is of a 'cubist' branch. We do so love being there when the sun shines on the ice and the trees newly decorated for Spring- catkins russet against the acid yellow of the lichen that grows on the aspen trees there. The surface of the lake is still frozen although I am not sure I would venture out on it any more-but as you will see the ice is still quite thick. Slowly the ski-tracks that go over it into oblivion fade and finally dive to the water. Listen there is the Yellow hammer and the Chaffinch singing loudly and by the rivers edge are many types of duck and two Yellow Wagtails, dancing from beaver fallen trees branches and into the forest, there's the buzzard on the very top of the tall fir tree, but no moose or roe deer to be seen, are those the tracks of the beaver over the meadow there? Not any people to be seen in the area either, except for the first( a weather-worn old man browned by his former visits) of the little gathering of OAP's that are always to be seen at one point on the edge of the wood further back, there they have built up a fireplace and taken ancient chairs and hung this and that in the trees nearby, when we went back there were a group there enjoying the sun.

    Before we went out- there was such a silence, the electric clock with the battery was all that was heard, its so very still here, of course it can be extra still at the moment as most of the occupants are way up in their mountain huts; the town is still too with nothing open, so never come to Oslo at Easter.

    Back to the walk as we went along the coast of the lake seeing so many fascinating things, just what we love, remains or hints of long ago such as the piles of broken bricks at one point, or the plastic bags that have become decoratively strung up in the many shaped driftwood (which if I lived in a bigger place here I should want to take with me), pink granite boulders, grey stripes of small tree trunks, pinned down saplings ready to whip up when the snow melts, a kind of paradise for us. I feel it must be a bit like the place Uncle Phil loved when he went on holiday with a friend sailing on Lake Winnipeg, early on he even met Indians there. 

    We drove home again and saw that they were making a new platform for the people waiting for trams, it reminded Erik of some thing we both saw in Oslo because he said- They are making it easier for the 'rag man' to get on the trams- thinking of a 'bottle collector' with an old rucksack (rypesekk= grouse sack-the old grey or khaki type of sack of canvas with a thin iron frame) on his back full to the brim with used bottles his knees bending as he approached the tram, he could hardly walk for the weight, he put his hands onto the two bars to get onto the tram but his hands slowly glided down them, his knees giving way at the same time, slowly descending to the ground- it looked so very comic we couldn't help laughing and have never forgotten the sight. Not to mention the other time when a drunk man was driving his car and collided with the tram Erik was sitting in, the police arrived and said something like drive the car away, when he promptly drove the car into the tram again with a wallop -the occupants of the tram roared with laughter that was so comic.

    Love from Ann