The whole daylight saving thing took us a little by surprise this weekend. Suddenly we have an hour more to our day which feels strange for me because I still catch myself working out the 'real' time. But we are losing daylight fast here, so we'll take every extra hour we can get. Sunrise is close to 8am and sunset around 4:30pm. The kids and I are spend as much time outside as possible.
Today our walk took us out via forests and beautiful farm lands in search of treasure! Our loot: rocks,leaves, bark, moss and a beetle!The kids ran ahead to roll down some hills and when I caught up Joshua said, "Mom, the field looked really nice from far away but once we got here it wasn't nice at all." The grass was definately greener but what we couldn't see were all the stones and rocks.
It is not a new analogy, but being in a different country and reading some of the rather sad posts people put on Facebook about South Africa, Josh's comment got me thinking. It is so easy to complain about everything that is wrong in a country when you are living there, and even more so when you have left. Every country, no matter how green the grass seems, has its stones. Norway is an amazing country, but South Africa is home.

We have the opportunity to step out of life as we know it, for three months, and go on an adventure together as a family. Brett is on a research sabbatical and the kids and I get to tag along! We are in As a little town about 25km south of Oslo, hence the address for this blog Hurleys at 61ºNorth.
We are one week into our adventure and perhaps we should call this post ' Surprises, exploration and autumn skies'. It is beautiful here.The house borders the forest and we are having such fun exploring the area. The Norwegian people we have met have been friendly and so accommodating when they realise that we don't speak Norwegian.Fortunately for us, many Norwegians speak English as a second language.
Buying food is an adventure in itself. I am not sure if I was buying lean mince, extra lean mince or pet mince! We have had pleasant food surprises, like lomper and flat bread and some unexpected surprises like finding the tuna set in some jellylike stuff. Whatever the outcome, we are trying everything!
 Apparently they are having an unusually mild autumn.We are taking full advantage of the good weather and spending most of the day outside before the cold sets in...until then it is long walks,yellow leaves, autumn mists and 8am sunrises."Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"
Norwegian word for the day: As (it should have a little circle thing  above the a) pronounced like 'horse'...without the 'h'. Will post some pictures soon.