Norwegian National Day

Norwegians are celebrating their National Day at 17. mai. That's a big day with parades and celebrations and it's spesially a big day for children with lot of activities.

We didn't really have a nice weather for celebration in Longyearbyen. It was snowing and blowing and even the dog find it best to stay on the lee-side of his snowhill.

Dogs weren't welcome to join the parade. I can't really understand why they couldn't join on the end of the row with "små og store", but we respected the wish and didn't join at all. 

Instead we had a dog-friendly walk. It was blowing and snowing, but anyhow, we need to have a walk every day regardless of weather.

It's not yet really summery in Svalbard, but at least winter is over and it's spring. We have parked our scooters for sommer even though the toughest are still driving.

Tree hugging

We are out of the house every other week while we're working in Svea, so that gives limitations what kind of plants I'm able to have at home. If it wouldn't be like that I would love to have a total garden on my living room!

Last year I shortened all of my yucca palms so that we were able to see out of the window again.

Then I didn't cut my dragaena. I was counting it was still having good enough place to grow one more season. I was wrong...

Actually I should have cut it already before it reached the roof, but I didn't manage to do it.

After cut I measured the length of the plant: it was about 3,50 meter. I think that was pretty impressive thinking about that the plant has been growing in the arctic. We got the plant in early 2006, so it was now about seven years old.

I put the top of the plant straight to the pot, so we'll see if it manages to start to grow again. I did the same with yuccas last year and none of the died.

As I'm having now mostly just non-flowering houseplants,  I decided to buy some new ones with flowers. I'm counting to that these will survive even they won't get water every day.

I bought also one Hortensia, even though it's having higher water requirements.  I'm not so sure about how it will survive alone over days without water.

Moods of spring

After a short week in Svea it was nice to come back home and enjoy a week off in Longyearbyen. We got a really nice days with spring weather.  

Now we were having a better view over the town - last week everything was  just foggy.

With this kind of weather it was nice to have a walk with a dog around the town. There were a real  feeling of spring everywhere. Snow buntings were singing, little oaks were busy by the mountains sides and a polar fox were howling somewhere close by.

Waiting for better weather

My work week in Svea usually starts on Thursdays. Last time I got some ekstra days in the town because all the local flights were cancelled. Finally on Saturday forenoon we got a flight and the work week started. Even though work week started couple of days later it finished as normal on Wednesday. I didn't complain too much about a shorter work period!