Thoughts on the weather!

Looking out of the window this morning at 9 am, I suppose I ccould have been excused the, quite logical, thought 'why on earth did I bother to get up this morning?'

The cloud was low and it was literally pouring drizzle! Or as the Norwegians call it 'yre'. Yre (pronounced 'oo-re') is not to be confused with 'duskregn' or misty rain, lettregn (light rain) or even småregn (a bit more than light rain!), 'yre' is a Norwegian phenomenon where the clouds come down and rain quite heavily on you - nothing at all misty about it!

In fact, the Norwegians here on the west coast have quite a few words for rain, and I am sure there are many more to be learnt in the various dialects! I particularly like 'striregn' which describes the rain that comes at you sideways, and 'styrtregn' which is the type that bounces back up off the pavement and over the tops of your wellington boots.

Imagine a boat that is sinking, and you are bailing it out for dear life - that is the word used to describe torrential rain: øsregn. I suppose we have the same kind of image in english when we say it is bucketing down!

The rain today is in no way showery (there are words for that too). It has settled in nicely as they say, kind of wall-to-wall rain. So there won't be any 'opplett' or 'let up' today - that magical time when the rain stops for more than 2 minutes and you can get to the shop or take the dog out.

By the way 'opplett' is not to be confused with the english phrase 'it's clearing up'. In England when it rains, it stops (eventually) and the clouds are blown away. Here it rains, stops for a bit, and then you can literally watch the next front come in over the nearest mountain/coastline and judge whether you will be back home before it reaches you and soaks you to the skin! Yes, it seems as though the Norwegians have a word for every weather phenomenon.

I am now off to look at snow words - apparently the Samer or Lapps have 300 words for snow: new snow, old snow, snow that reindeer can walk on, snow that reindeer slip on, snow that is good for snow shoes. powder snow,  snow with ice crystals in, snow that has thawed once and then frozen again, etc. etc. .........


P.S. Breaking News! Bergens Tidende our local paper has a shock horror story today! A multi millionaire (in shipping) from Bergen, Torunn Økland, is selling her house and moving to ..... France. Why? It isn't the taxes, lack of choice in the shops or economic problems that are forcing her to sell - no it is the weather!  Ahh, if somone born and bred in the area can't take it what chance do any foreigners have. I imagine there will be some acerbic comments to that story, and a closing of ranks by those who say there is no such as bad weather, just bad clothing!

Mind you, with a house like this with its own private marina, I personally think I could quite get to like it here anyway!!