We had booked a night at the St Giles Hotel in Feltham which is near Heathrow for December 30th for two reasons. Firstly they provided car parking at a very reasonable rate, and also our return flight from Oslo on that date was not due into Heathrow until 10pm. As we had planned to call in to see Peter and Mary for lunch on New Years Eve it made sense to stay over. The taxi from St Giles to Heathrow Terminal 3 was L15 which was pretty reasonable. We had bags of time up our sleeves mainly because we were a bit worried about the confusion that was current in Heathrow with a few days of thick fog which severely restricted flights.
We always seem to find plenty to do at airports, and on this occasion we bought a new digital camera - a Sony Sureshot - Super little pocket sized camera with 7.1 pixels and lots of gadgets!!
Baard and Sarah met us at Oslo and we drove 120kms down to Fredrikstad where we had booked a hotel for three nights. Checking in we found that the allocated room did not have any lights! New room - into bed and slept like logs.
Baard picked us up at 11am and showed us the sites of the Old City - a 17th century walled city of remarkable beauty. Being Christmas Eve there were no shops open (hooray) and few people about to interrupt our sightseeing. Back to the hotel with Baard telling us that he would pick us up again at 4pm to go to Rade where his parents live and where we were to have Christmas dinner.
What a night!! Baards parents Freydis and Rolf were lovely people and superb hosts, and the presence of Baards brother Are together with Grandparents Mor Mor, Farfar and Farmor made it a wonderful occasion.I love the names given to Grandparents- Mor Mor is Mother's Mother, Farfar is Father's father etc. After a great meal we assembled to "Open the Presents" - a function which took some time as everyone had given something to everyone else. Rolf was my sort of bloke, keeping the drinks flowing!!
The next day we were picked up at 11 to drive over to Rade for lunch - en route visiting the marina where Rolf keeps his lovely double-ender cabin cruiser -it was on the hardstand for winter and we will have to try and get back in the Summer months to go out on it! Smorgasbord lunch with crab and prawns etc - food food and more food!See the photo above. Back to the hotel - another good nights sleep and looking forward to the train trip to Oslo and then up to Gol where the Hansen's Cabin is.
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