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For a while today I thought I might have travelled back in time. During a conversation with Marthe, who was revising British history earlier today, I enquired as to what century Norway believes we are in. Her response caused much controversy and dissension among the Norwegians, with one group claiming the official line is that we are in the twenty-first century while a rival faction asserting that the orthodox view is that here, in the present day, we live in the twentieth century. Now, it still isn't clear what the authoritative definition is and, try as I might, I just couldn't explain the logic of the system with enough beef to win the crowd. Tine left convinced that even though the system says we are in the twenty-first century, it is not a logical conclusion. To back this up she reminded us that you wouldn't say a baby was one year old if they had only been alive for six months. Yes, of course this makes no sense.

Sam, my younger brother, then made a good attempt to be king of the nonsense when he admitted that he calls oranges, mandarins, clementines and nectarines all by the name "orange". Who knows what he calls a pumpkin. It doesn't matter because Tine stole the show with the unexpected, bizarre utterance, "mandarins are dead". Is anyone able to either confirm or deny this?

Sam arrived today along with Lucie, who was more than a little bit excited that it was snowing. On the way to meet them it began to fall and I remarked that she would be wetting herself when she saw it. Apparently that is not a common metaphor in Norway so I did my best to clear up any possible confusion. Sam and Lucie will be here until Monday and despite their apparent exhaustion it looks like it could be a busy time.

This evening we were hosted by the wonderful Magny Livden and her husband John Øyvind. Magny runs her own business, producing home-made soap in their converted garage, and has kept me amply stocked since the first week of my arrival in Arna. Perhaps she took pity on my thoroughly un-Scandinavian complexion but, regardless, it truly is the finest smelling stuff this side of her freshly-baked bread. Do the right thing and order some from her website. Handmade soap is the perfect Christmas present, I hope.