Cold comes to Norway

But we are prepared. First some very rainy days in Bergen, but the wet no problem, lots to see.
Excellent Ship Museum and good art galleries. We walked along the damp grey streets and found some excellent places to eat at not too astronomical prices.
Here a lovely pic by the painter who taught Munch; a wet scene in Norway:

 I feel the northern wind and quiet rain...
Returning home we took the ferry from Bergen to Stavanger and enjoyed a day's watery journey and had some fine fjord views.

Dramatic effect of light over water. Below, lighter and greener ...

So we wended our way home to Stavanger, heads filled with "cool" pictures, and happy memories of succulent codfish meals, as shown below:

To the right is the menu, in genuine Norsk, and I enjoyed not only the "plukkfisk" which is shredded salted cod mixed with mashed potato, but also the "persetorsk" which is shown above. This is cod marinated in salt and sugar and then pressed (whence the perse bit in the name of the dish, I assume) and then I believe, either baked or steamed.
Delicious. The two of us ate for the equivalent of about €40, which included a small glass each of splendid home-brewed dark beer.

Back in Stavanger we watched the huge misty evening creeping in from the lakes and softly covering all the low houses and dripping from the bare branches of the still trees. Next day the sun was swallowed at around 3 p.m. into a white sky. No more sunsets. 

Then quiet night and no dogs bark.

And this is autumn in Norway

Went for a wonderful warm quiet walk around one of the many lakes here in Stavanger.
The scenery utterly photogenic!!
And as the walk was about nine kilometers we are feeling pretty fit.
For the rest of David's stay here, the forecast is rain, rain and more rain...

To our delight we found a solitary cormorant, perched on a boulder in the lake.

As we walked round the lake the light changed continually, until at last there was the most glorious sunset.

 

Then we reached home and beheld the full glory, evening light across the water.

Halloween 2018

More children on the streets in Amsterdam (and England too, I hear) than ever before, and mumbling "trick or treat" without knowing what this means (I asked them, but of course many of the little ones don't speak English!)
But they made a goodly show in their costumes as witches, vampires, skeletons and ghosts ... and I fed them tangerines and pepernoten (which are small crunchy cookies tasting of ginger) and it was nice to see so many young people in our somewhat ageing neighbourhood of Amsterdam.
Here's me and a splendid pumpkin carved out by one of the neighbours:

And here is a close-up of the pumpkin (much admired: thank you Chris, neighbour from the US who has lived across the road for several years)

Just behind the pumpkin you can see the edge of the step leading up to my front door.

So nice to join in the pagan traditions, even when they have returned to Europe via the New World ... curious...

A few days later we packed and set off for a few weeks in Norway, visiting Judy and Christiaan and the grandchildren.

And here we are in Stavanger, in a wide clear world, full of wind and water.