91Èȱ¬

Less than 24 weeks to go, then the nights will be drawing in again.

Sigh.

The wind is howling again,
Skiddying around my house.
Rain attacks, from every angle; a hostile sky
Leaves me, stuck inside. Moping. Hoping. For sun.

It is dark;
So dark.

More rain. The wind drops.
But false hope; it starts again.
And rain attacks, attacks, relentlessly attacks.
The sun is buried behind angry running black clouds.

It is dark;
So dark.

I'm learning Norwegian. It's part of my sort-of resolutions (except they will last 20 months and not 12) to do a variety of things I have failed at before; one of them is "learn a language".

Early days, but so far so good. The basic rules of Norwegian are surprisingly easy. It also helps that many of the words are similar, or identical, to their English component.

I like white wine and potatoes = Jeg liker hvitvin og poteter.

Olag comes from Norway = Olag kommer fra Norge.

Norwegian also seems more internally consistent than English; they don't bother with stupid things such as apostrophes (which the large majority of people in the UK can't grasp anyway, and those who can often get anally retentive about).

There's an added bonus. Learn Norwegian, and you're partway there with several other languages. Take a gander at these:

English: I come from Norway
Norwegian: Jeg kommer fra Norge
Danish: Jeg kommer fra Norge
Old Norse(!): Ek kem frá Noregi
Icelandic: Ég kem frá Noregi
Swedish: Jag kommer från Norge
Faroese: Jeg komi frá Norra

English: What is his name?
Norwegian: Hva heter han?
Danish: Hvad hedder han?
Old Norse: Hvat heitir hann?
Icelandic: Hvað heitir hann?
Swedish: Vad heter han?
Faroese: Hvat eitur hann?

English: The rainbow has many colours.
Norwegian: Regnbuen har mange farger.
Danish: Regnbuen har mange farver.
Old Norse: Regnboginn er marglitr.
Icelandic: Regnboginn er marglitur.
Swedish: Regnbågen har många färger.
Faroese: Ælabogin er farvufíkur.

English: This is a horse
Norwegian: Dette er en hest.
Danish: Dette er en hest.
Old Norse: Þetta er hross/Þetta er hestr.
Icelandic: Þetta er hross/hestur.
Swedish: Detta är en häst.
Faroese: Hetta er eitt/ein ross/hestur.

After Norwegian is mastered, to some extent, I will have a crack at the more difficult Finnish. Figure that when you have got the hang of those two, then you can have some grasp of some of the lingo in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Hungary, Iceland and the Faroes. That opens up lots of possibilities.

(That means "I am looking forward to the summer").

Yet again, it's another nice start to the day. Here's an older picture (that's my hoose in the middle), but the weather is pretty much the same:



Through the last week I've been getting calls and emails from people on the mainland. "The weather here is bad, so it must be terrible where you are. How are you surviving?".

Erm, no. The assumption that the weather here in the Outer Hebrides must ALWAYS be worse than on the mainland is Total. And. Utter. Twaddle.

True, we have our rainy days. And weeks. And sometimes months.

But we also can have long spells of glorious sunny weather. Whereas in a mainland city, sunny weather may mean 38C, smog, water shortages and general discomfort, here it usually means, well, warm - and no traffic, pollution, heatstrokes or water cuts. There doesn't appear to be a Gaelic word for "smog"(?) - which is not a surprise.

I guess if your quality of life is oriented around having a range of high street stores nearby to shop in at will, then you are better off in the mainland city, and not on a Scottish island.

Just in the summer killer heatwaves on the mainland - an event that now seems to be annual - I definitely know where I'd rather be (38C is *not* comfortable or functional). And when the southern half of the UK is turned into sub-Sahara desert, Scottish islands might turn out to be the most desirable places to live in for most people...

Morna,
Digital Sands

Hey, just noticed that one of my earlier postings on this blog has appeared in The Times. See bottom of:



How bizarre. Must have been a slow news day...