Northern Lights….what a fantastic display

On Wednesday night between 10 and 11pm there was a fantastic display of the Northern Lights; the best many people can remember here!!

I stood in my garden watching the beautiful colours and patterns in the sky, coming from every direction (even in the south).  After some time I realised I should be taking some photographs but unfortunately by the time I had fetched my camera and located my Gorilla Pod the best of the display was over.  However, here are the best pictures I was able to take

In this final picture the light was so bright that it is actually over exposed with a 15 second exposure!

The sun has returned

Yesterday was the first day we have seen the sun since early December.

Today while out on a ski trip with some guests I took these pictures on Solberget hill.

Here are some pictures I took from the top of the fire-watching tower

Here is the cabin where we ate lunch

Three Churches Walk

Thank you to all my family and friends who visited me during my recent stay in England.

While there, I did the “Three Churches Walk” with my friends Sprock and Tony.

We began our walk from the church in Gazeley, the village where I used to live.

From Gazeley we walked the public footpath across fields

to Moulton village church

From Moulton we followed the footpath to Dalham village and then up the hill to the church.

We left Dalham and made our way back to Gazeley.  We walked a total distance of 11kms and with warm, sunny weather  it was a great day!

Another trip to England

I’m leaving for a one week trip to England tomorrow, so will be writing here again in about 10 days.

New Year in the forest

When I lived in England I celebrated Christmas in the forest, but now here in Lapland we celebrated New Year in the forest near Solberget Vildmarksbyn.

There were 28 of us who gathered at Solberget at 23:23.

The children travelled on Reindeer and sled while the adults walked behind

It took us about 15 minutes to get to the location in the forest (which we had created earlier in the day) where we would celebrate the New Year.

There was even a snow reindeer sculpture

The party commenced with ice cream and warm punch for everyone

We sat around the camp fire talking and singing

We left the party at 2am, but it continued long into the night.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 69,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.