Kittens Expected.

It's all been a little bit chaotic the last few weeks and it's been difficult to find time to post. So, there's lots to catch up on, including a pigs update, more uses for courgettes, a trip to the lake district, preparations for winter and so on.

However, something very exciting has happened so I will skip all these posts and jump to the present for now.

More than 2 years after we purchased our first Bengal female, Anitra, with a view to breeding from her, we have finally had a successful mating.

Asia, our 2nd girl who we purchased and exported with us as we left England had a season during our weekend at Niksters and Frans wedding (August 20th). This was only her second season this year. The first being early in the year, which did not lead to a successful mating. It would appear that this time, pretty much left to his own devices, Vegas, our stud boy, has done his job and has truly become a man.....

Before we left for our Lake district trip weekend before last, we noticed some subtle changes in Asia, enlarged teats and slight rounding of belly. Unlike most folk that believe their cat is pregnant until proven otherwise, we have become used to disappointment, so we thought not to much of it. On our return, Asia, was even more rounded and definitely had an increased appetite.

A quick feel suggested that there was something in there, outside the norm. Again, experience said that it couldn't possibly be, so Mrs Longship racked her veterinarian brain for other possibilities. "False pregnancy" and "Pyomertra" were among the many words mentioned. But there was definitely something and Asia was in no way under the weather.

Yesterday, our minds were finally put at rest. Mrs Longship took Asia to the clinic and a quick scan showed the presence of probably 3-4 happily wriggling kittens, expected due date 23rd October.

So, this means 2 things.

1st, we will hopefully have Bengal kittens for sale, ready around Febuary next year, any one interested (bearing in mind we are in Norway, although we will be happy to arrange export) can get in touch through Starsprung.com
.

2nd, Vegas has proved that he is fertile and can do his job, so we can now seriously consider him for use for limited outside stud. Again Starsprung.com if you are interested in using Vegas.

AS you have gathered, I have finally managed to get the cats website up and running. See all three of our cats there, including the new "gallery". The link is also in the side bar.

On the road again.

So, it's taken me nearly as long as it took me to grow my spuds, but finally the Landy is back on the road after a spate of problems with oil pressure. It's great to be able to use the old Girl again.

For all the oily details read my report on More Power, the blog.

The picture enclosed is from the winter during my time living at Mrs Longships Uncles farm outside Bergen. Lovely place, but it rains all the time (Hence the mud....).

Culinary Uses for Marrows and courgettes #4

Pasta Tomato Sauce.

Chop up in chunks and use in any bolognase type tomato sauce.

In this case a very tasty home made variety by Mrs Longship.

The Harvest

Despite the late start, the vegetable garden has been and still is a remarkable success.

We have been eating salad leaves, coriander, marrows, courgettes, radish and sweedes amongst others.

The first bulk harvest to be taken was the potatoes. A Main Crop variety called Laila. Now, these were not in the ground before mid June, but all the same, due to the long days (and perhaps copious amounts of cow manure) grew at an incredible rate. In fact, they grew at such a rate that I was sure that there was going to be all stem and no tuber. They flowered in early August, not more than 7-8 weeks after planting. They were duly dug up about 3 weeks ago and as you can see, despite the late planting and the relatively small area of ground, the harvest was very satisfactory. To use, Laila is a very tasty Potato, holds it shape well when boiled without going floury. The smaller tubers were excellent in Jamie Olivers Potato and Avacado Salad. (From The Return of the Naked Chef).

The other achievement of note is the sweetcorn, the first to cobs of which were devoured last night. Unknown variety, but looks like we will get a good harvest assuming the earwigs, which seem to have taken an interest, don't manage to find their way down into the main part of the cobs. Straight of the plant and into boiling water for a few mins. Serve with a knob of butter. Lovely....

Culinary Uses for Marrows/Courgettes #3

Spicy Mexican BBQ'd Marrow and Onion Kebabs.

This recipe (well the marinade at least) came from the highly recommended "Classic Barbeque and Grill Cookbook" by Marlena Spieler

The occassion was a Cowboy party, which liking to be different, we attended as Mexican Bandits. So you can see that even our food was in keeping with our role for the evening.

The combination of garlic, chilli powder, paprika, cumin, oregano, tequila, lime, olive oil and coriander worked excellently on the duck we took with us, and certainly helped the kebabs, but I guess it going to take a lot to make marrows and onions exciting.

So, good marinade, but the vegetables kebabs were lacking some what in variety.

The Kid Sister has risen at last.

Finally I've got a chance to write my blog...
A few weeks ago my friend and I had the pleasure of spending a week at the Viking Longship Zoo. It was great to see Mr. Viking Longship and Mrs. Longship again even though a certain stag week end and work problems meant Mr. Longships time with us was limited...
We had great fun cleaning out the pigs, taking The Big Tom for a walk and of course plenty of time spent shopping in the various towns and Oslo of course. One night however ended up being a bit of a extreme night out...
Mrs. Longship was on call that weekend but we decided it was time to check out the nearby night life and so it was planned we'd head out in tonsberg and should Mrs. Longship be called out then we'd be deserted until she could find us again. However this was not to be the case. A quick visit to the surgery was called for before our plans could get underway. This was all well and good until a phone call came about a very sick ferret. The ferret was brought into the surgery and since Mrs. Longship couldn't find the source of his problem she decided it was time to forgo our night out and operate. My friend was delighted to play nurse but unlike my big bro I decided it wasnt the thing for me so i sat out on that exercise. It was about 11p.m. by the time the poor wee might was all back together again and since we didnt fancy a night in the surgery and it wasn't fair for his owners to take him home in such a state we brought him home instead. Curious looks from Peggy and the cats were called for as we set up a cage for him in the master bedroom... Thankfully the ferret lived through the night and next morning we went back to the surgery to his owners. All of whome were delighted to see him looking perky again...

Culinary Uses for Marrows and courgettes #2

Chinese style crispy courgete sticks,

This time Mrs longship found this in one of our many cookbooks.

Simply mix an egg white with some cornflower to make a sort of batter, add some chinese five spice powder (or similar), coat you courgette sticks and deep fry until crisp.

Very tasty indeed, although I would advise making the sticks quite thin so that they crisp up and don't end up too soggy. The carrots that she did in the same style were also excellent.

Freedom, at last....

but not entirely welcome to begin with.

It seemed so easy. Finally we had an electric fence generator which worked. All we had to do was connect the fence up, add a temporary extention to the already built fence to create a fence "runway" from the barn to the pigs outdoor enclosure, plug the fencer in and open the door.

The above tasks were duly completed in the correct order, and hey presto....... Nothing. Against our expectations the pigs didn't seemed that bothered with the oppurtunity of running in the meadows which was presented to them. In fact, the idea of being out of ther humble pen seem daunting.

The first attempts of extraction involve coaxing with food, this got us about as far as the door. Then there was man handling, lifting the front legs and dragging the back, with much squeling (us and the pigs!!!) to boot. The result, pig gets to grass patch, pig runs straight back to pen containing compainion.

We got a little further on subsequent attempts, pig through fence and on the lawn, pig in barn on wrong side of fence and so on.

In the end, success was achieved by carrying both pigs, one back from another excursion to the lawn, and one from the barn in quick succession. When we finally had both in the right place at the same time, all was well and they began to look like they were going to enjoy the great outdoors.

Culinary Uses For Marrows and courgettes #1

It's that time of year again. We, no doubt in conjungtion with many other kitchen gardners, are experiencing a glut of marrows and courgette which requires some imagination to deal with without becoming fed up with the sight of marrows.

Being the public spirited person I am, I will proceed to share with you out there, the various ways we find to liven up this repetitive vegetable over the coming weeks. No idea how far this'll get, I expect to get to at least 10 recipes.....

So for a start, this was completely made up from what was available in the fridge/garden and turn out very good indeed.

Marrow stuffed with yellow curry mushrooms.

Fry up some mushroom slices, onions and carrots in butter, adding a couple of tablespoons of your favourite yellow curry paste after a little while, on this occassion I used a jar as I couldn't be bothered to start from sratch). No need to go tooo mad, just make sure that everything is softened and covered in the butter.

Cut slices of Marrow, about 1-2 inches thick. With a knife carefully remove the inner core/seed from each slice leaving the outside ring of flesh and skin.

Lay these slices in an oven proof dish (with a lid) and fill the insides with the yellow curry mix.

Bake in the oven (with the lid on) at 220c for about 25 mins or so.

The spicy flavours of the mushrooms complemented the marrow very nicely. We serve this with Salmon rooled in chilli, lemon grass and coriander flour, with a cocunt milk sauce. However, for you veggies out there, a couple of marrow slices is a meal on it's own.

Scottish hotels, Dunoon, Edinburgh and Prestwick

O.K. It's all been happening in the last couple of weeks, pigs, hay, woodworking, potato harvesting......, a stag weekend and a wedding. All in all lots to post about, so I best get started.

As a result of the stag weekend I had occurance to spend 3 sucessive nights in different Scottish hotels. All of which were note worthy not all for good reasons

Our choice of stag activities took us to Quadmania in Scotland, a full review of which can be found on more-power, the blog.

The Friday night saw us staying at The Cothouse Hotel. near Dunoon and only a couple of miles from Quadmania. This charming little hotel, was very welcoming, the food was excellent and it had a satisfactory wine list. I thoughroughly enjoyed the garlic mushrooms and the huge plate of haggis with a sauce of neat whisky. The large selection of Scotch Whiskys was also explored with great relish. The rooms were comfortable, and the breakfast was excellent. I asked for everything from the Cooked Breakfast options, and was duly treatened with the washing up if I didn't clear my plate. It was tough, but I rose to the challenge. The cothouse had that certain personal charm that only a small hotel can have, and large hotels never come near. Prices where very exceptable. If you are spending a night in the Dunoon area, I can highly recommend the cothouse.

Saturday night took us to Edingburgh, an exceptional city for a night out, it must be said. However, exceptional is not one word that applies to the Edinburgh Holiday Inn. This displayed the typical impersonality of a large hotel with a good helping of incompetance and high prices to boot. When we requested a shower curtain, which was missing from the bathroom, the porter told us that "Shower curtains were out" leaving us to soak the bathroom floor each time we had a shower. Reception was chaos both at check in and check out and the main doors, seemed to trigger themselves to open before they had finished closing, making a very irritating, repetitive noise for the crowds waiting for the incompetance of reception to turn it's attention to them. Next time, we will book early and avail of one of the countless other, cheaper, and no doubt better hotels in the Edinburgh area.

Sunday left me on my own in Prestwick before my RyanAir flight to Oslo Torp. My hosts were the "North Beach Hotel". Perfectly acceptable, very good food, and excellent if you play golf. Prices reasonable. Recommended, if you are travelling out from Glasgow Prestwick Airport in the morning as it is right beside the train station which is 1 stop and 2 minutes away from the airport.

Birds of Prey

During the last few weeks I have seen a large bird of prey in the area around the bottom of the lane.

On one occasion sitting on a road sign as I drove past and on another flying over the car at low level. During a discussion with the real farmers dad, I asked what was the largest bird of prey in the area, this he replied was a "Musvåk" which translated is a "common buzzard"

Now, during our time in Cumbria we say plenty of birds of prey, but I don't remember seeing such a large beast close up, although I believe Cumbria also has a population of buzzards. I would guess that this birds wingspan is between 1.25 and 1.5 Metres and it's body is a similar size to a small goose.

Can any of you out there enlighten if this sounds like a Buzzard and if so give me some glues as to how I can identify it better should I see it again. I would say that I will endeavour to obtain a photo, but I think this is unlikely.

All in all, a bit of a worry for future plans of keeping chickens, reckon that a fully enclosed run will be required.

Ice Exports

I figure that I had best complete the journal of our previous visitors stay before our next visitor, "Kid Sister" arrives this evening.

This post is inspired and partly written for "the good cumbrian general practioner" (tgcgp) who came to trace the steps of his ancestry prior to our moving in party in May. It seems that tgcgp's Grandfather made his living exporting Glacial Ice from Søgnfjord to the British isles. Now, you may wonder how all of this relates to the visit of the thoughtful Scotsman..... I can explain.

During the course of our house warming party, tgcgp found himself chatting to an attractive young Norwegian lady, the golf course owners Daughter. One who he was infact already aquainted with (as well as her sister), although he may or may not remember (new years eve, waltzing in the kitchen, pianola and all that......). After his exciting travels he was obviously keen to share his ancestry with those present (ed. verbally, of course).

During our vist to the golf course and their farm, we were shown to the "Stabbur" (little building for food storage and meat curing). This now served as a museum of items from the long history of the farm. Private museums are something quite common, it seems, in Norwegian farms, this is not the first we have seen. It was a great privelage to rummage through the small upstairs room, finding all sorts of things including weaving machines, ancient ski's, tools, bags etc. Remembering the conversation with tgcgp, we were informed of the prescense of a couple of Ice Saws. The photo of one of which is enclosed, with a couple of "golf goons" for scaling purposes!!!

When you've stopped looking at our legs, you will see that this saw was obviously designed to shear of huge chunks of Ice before the were packed in Sawdust and wood shavings for transport to the UK (and presumably other destinations). I am informed that using this packing technique the blocks of ice would keep for "a good time"....

Can those of you who may be seeing tgcgp in the pub tonight, pass on news of this post and tell him how to get to it....

Book Review #1

One of the few advantages of using public transport is that you have a little "quiet time" to enjoy some high quality (or otherwise) literature.
On this occasion I decided that I would read the few books that have been sitting on the bookshelf for years and that we have transported accros the sea although I hadn't yet read them.

The first being, "Terminal Man" by Micheal Crichton, Acceptable but so umemorable that I only realised that I had read it before when I was half way through. Certainly wasn't worth reading a second time.

The second being Joseph Wambaugh, "Lines and Shadows". Now, it is quite commen for me to read sentences more than once to attempt to extract some hidden meaning or to digest the ramifications of what I have just read. With this, however, I ended up reading sentences and even paragraphs multiple times just to extract meaning, which when finally grasped seemed disjointed and often meaningless within the context. After 2 Chapters and many headaches I gave up. For me this was simply unreadable, but realising that you can't just take my word for it, I turned to 2 other intelligent creatures for independant opinions. As you can see they only needed to read the first page before deciding that there was better ways to amuse themselves with this book than read it!!!!

The third (and possibly last for a little while as it is difficult to read books whilst riding a bike (alternative to bus)) was "Stalking Horse" by Terence Strong. This came with a single glowing reference from the "Yorkshire Times". It seems that Yorkshire men are indeed to be trusted and this proved to be quite unputdownable. Not the best book that I have ever read, but the short time that the 500 odd pages were consumed (not quite lit. like the last book though!!!) was an indication of the desire to know more and find out what happens in the end.

Dog eats Blueberries.

Last Sundays outing took us to Hurum golf course, near the picturesque seside town of Holmsbu. The purpose of this outing was to visit Mrs VL university friend, who happens to be the daughter of the owner of the Golf course.

Whilst myself, the thoughtful Scotsman and the owners daughters man enjoyed 18 holes of golf, Mrs VL and the owners daughter took a stroll through the forest with Peggy, our 3-legged hound.

At this time of year it is common for such outings to be punctuated by a stop to collect and enjoy natures offerings. One such delight being wild blueberries. Peggy is always on a strict diet of only low calerie food to keep wieght of off her back leg. However, she is a crafty hound and has been known to supplement her measly intake with chocolate from under the christmas tree, dog buiscuits (whilst staying with a friend she opened the cupboard door in the middle of the night), scraps from the compost bin and so on. On this occasion it seems that she has turned to nature, as you can see from the photo's she has learnt to pick her own blueberries......

More Power, The Blog

is now in the Friends and Family Blogs list.

The re-creation of a previous attempt for two of my mates and myself to keep the world informed about our motoring exploits and experiences. This time by the power of the blog, reckon it should be more successful than our previous website.

Find links to other great motoring sites and keep an eye on "made us laugh today", currently featuring two muppets in a Ferari.... Priceless.

Oslo City Hall, A Correction.

The Thoughtful Scotsman has e-mailed to point out some inaccuracies in a previous post.

Oslo "Rådhus" was in fact designed in the 1920's which TS reckons is Art Deco, I decline to comment as I have already demonstratred my ability to get things completely wrong. It was not completed until the 1950's, however, due to the war and German Occupation of Norway.
The officiall opening was on "Oslo Day" 15th May 1950, coinciding with the 900th anniversary of the foundation of Oslo.

With such a wealth of information out there on the www, there is no excuse for such errors.I can't promise it won't happen again though.....

Warm and Cuddly (and slightly wet).

Yesterday evening on my way back from a trial of my two wheel, emmission free alternative to the bus,which I havn't used in ages, I stopped off to talk to the real pig farmer (a.k.a. The real farmers wife).

AS often, the conversation continued after the real farmer turned up, tales of our first week with pigs,their recent holiday, the lord Mayors dayghters new dog (at least abscence of) and so on....
During this time Mrs Viking Longship had begun the pre bedtime routine of seeing to it thatthe various animals are in the correct locations and suitable watered and fed. One of these tasksbeing to fetch our Bengal Stud cat "Vegas" in from the "Raspberry Cat Chalet" to the downstairs wash room, which currently doubles as a stud quarters. On an aside, I hope to have the cats web site www.starsprung.com up and running again soon, those of you who are interested watch this space.

Now "Vegas" is one who likes his routine. For some reason he has decided that he will not pass water whilst in the confines of the Cat Chalet. We have even installed a larger litter tray for him, but he still will not use it. So, normally, you fetch Vegas in, having a little "I've been out on my own and want some fuss" cuddle on the way, and as soon as he is inside he empties his very full bladder in the stud quarters litter tray. That cat can pee for what seems like 5 minutes. After this He is often allowed to have a run around in the kitchen and living room as the empty bladder significantly reduces the risk of spraying (although he doesn't seem too fussed by that in this new house, perhaps as cats have not lived here before).
On this occassion, as he was typically cuddly, Mrs VL decided that she would cary him down the 100 or so metres to where she was undoubtly certain she would find me. On seeing my big cuddly boy, I of course wanted to take him and share in the warmth of his cuddle too. After a little more discussion I became aware that Vegas seemed even warmer against me chest and almost sligtly damp. So there was I left holding a water cannon of a cat as he emtied his very full bladder with t-shirt soaked in nto so pleasent smelling male cats pee, much to the onlookers amusment.

The kind words from The Real Farmer being "It's just as well he didn't do that 5 mins ago when he was lying on your head, it would have gone right in your ear and I would have wet myself too laughing....."

Pesto and Pasta

After the late start, the vegetable garden is finally in full swing. We are beginningto enjoy mixed salad leaves, spinach, raddish and the typical sudden excess of courgettes is looking imminent. The potatoes which had to wait until the middle of June to go outare also looking due to flower very soon.

Last nights dinner was something of a first. Home made pesto using home grown basil. At least, the basil started out life as one of those horribly overcrowded pots you get from the supermarket. My previous experiences being that you use them once and then they wither away. On this occasion, I had a little space to fill in the 1st terracethe veg garden so I took the basil out the pot, broke it up into about 6 clumps and shovedit in the soil. For the first few days the basil really didn't seem sure if it could cope with this new found freedom and hung on the edge between life and death. But now after some weeks it is growing at an amazing rate of knots.
I easily collected the "3 good handfulls" that Jamie suggested and left the plants lookingnone the thinner. A quick session with the pestle and mortar with the addition of roasted pine nuts and garlic, blend with Olive oil, parmesan cheese and a little lemon juice. Season to taste, and hey presto, pesto.....

I can thoroughly recommend it (both planting out shopped basil and the pesto).

Oslo, The magical mystery tour.

This weekend, on account of our visitor, it was neccesary for us to step into the real world and remind ourselves why our quiet and peaceful world is so much better. Where better to indulge in this opportunity to clarify the stark contrast of our rural life than on the streets of the capital itself.

It was a grey day all in all, the greyness being added to occasionally with a spot or two of rain and equally occasionally broken by the suns rays glinting through gaps in the cloud. This weather was pretty good for us as it reduced the dehydrating and jading effect of the night befores Thai banquet served with a suitable quantity of homebrew and washed down with an equally inapropriate quantity of Ardbeg.

After the hour long drive we arrived in the capital at about 11:30 a.m. Our purchase of 3 Oslo Cards for 195 Kr promised us access to most Museums and attractions and free transport on buses, trams, tube and trains inside Oslo. Always a worth while investment. Whilst most likely only a moderate financial saving the time and effort saved in not paying everywhere you go is worth the cost alone.

Our first stop was the reptile park. The name doesn't give any clues that this comprises of the 4th floor of the small building in one of the main streets. The lack of size and absence of parkland is a bit of a let down. However, the array of snakes, lizards, multicolour frogs (blue, lime green and orange...), spiders and even the odd alligator (who amazingly co-habits with two large terrapins and a large catfish and doesn't seem the least bit interested in eating them) are excellently presented and most interesting. Enough to please, not too much to overwhelm.

Next was a trip up Karl Johanns to the subtle and understated castle. A magnificent building but not quite on a par with the national monuments of the UKs royal family. The Thoughtful Scotmans was understandably apprehensive about getting his photo taken standing beside the guard on duty, so it was up to Myself and Mrs VL to brave it out beside some-one who looked barely out of school and was equipped with a machine gun.

The city hall was our next host, it's' dull brown 70's architectural statement on the outside gives no indications of the breath taking splendour of the main hall where the nobel peace prize is handed out, or of the Munch room with it's almost lifesize Munch painting "Life". The splendour and detail of the full room murals depicting Urban and Rural Norway would require days to take in every detail and the decor is a clear indication of the way that the wealth of oil has breathed new life into this once poor country.

After the city hall we took a short boat trip over to Bygdøy, to get a flavour of Norways ocean going history in the maritime museum, then on to the Viking ships, one of which is almost perfectly preserved after being buried with it's dead owner (to assist in the journey to the new life) by people very skilled in natural preservation techniques.

T'was a good day, with good company in a beautiful and cultured filled city, capped off by a quick swim in the fjord at the Viking-in-Laws chalet.

Blog News: Links Found in Sidebar...

Amazingly, I have managed to modify the blogs sidebar and add some links without mucking everything up.

So, to begin with we have.

News from beyond the north wind. A friend of ours from our previous life in Cumbria and some of his local associates. The man who suggested I should blog myself. This blog is well subscribed and heavily published with top quality content. Everything from book reviews, the wonders of the Cumbrian and Scottish mountains, local and global rants and much more. Sometimes serious sometimes hilarious, but always something for most to enjoy.

,

Petrol Art. On mans love and experiences of all things motor shared in photographed art for all those with a passion of the automotive world. See his (and our) experiences at motor events around the UK (and the world), with pictures of the sublime to the rediculious. An essential viewing for all pertolheads.

and

The Deep North. Been at the "small-holding" game longer than us, probably just as mad and nearly as far north......