In Norway the MOT or APK is called the ‘EU kontroll’ and strikes fear into the heart of motorists all over the country. Or so I thought. When we bought Damae’s van it came with a fresh EU kontroll that was valid for two years.

Well, would you believe it, two years have passed (what a busy time we have had) and this morning I took Damae’s Syncro in to the NAF (Norwegian AA /RAC/ANWB) garage in Nedre Gol for its test.

Just a little to my surprise it passed first time. “Bra bil” said the gentleman who had checked it over. I thanked him, took a big sigh of relief and drove back to work.

Another first for us in our Life in Norway.

It has only taken six months, but now Damae has her nice shiny new Norwegian driving licence. This means that she can now drive outside of Norway again for the first time since the 26th of August 2011.

We are both glad that we decided not to try and swap our driving licences at the same time. Although six months is not an unusually long time for the RDW to get its act together, it is somewhat longer than normal. I phoned the RDW at the beginning of January to try and find out what was the problem. The lady at the RDW maintained that they had processed the request from the Vegvesen in Gol a month after they received it.

I discovered on the Placement forums that sometimes the RDW sends the documents back to the wrong Vegvesen office. We have no idea as to what happened this time and to be honest, no interest in finding out. We’re just glad that Damae has a full driving licence again.

In light of the long delay, we have decided to wait until after the summer holidays to start the process of swapping my license. As we mentioned before the Norwegian temporary driving licence only permits you to drive in Norway and not abroad. We never know when we might need to nip to Britain, Holland or Croatia at short notice.

Still, it is good news is that is one more thing can be crossed off our “leaving Holland list”.

Trees create all sorts of emotions in people. People love them, hug them and defend them. Other people get scared when they can’t see the wood for them and get lost. Then there are all those folk tales that parents tell to their children about bad things that happen in ‘The Forest’.

I remember the public sadness when most of the Elm trees in the UK had to be felled in the 1970s due to Dutch Elm disease. I’ve read many a tale of people trying to stop local councils in the UK from chopping down trees in residential streets, even when the trees themselves are rotten inside and pose a threat to life and property. Then there was the outpouring of sorrow when a hurricane reduced the town of Sevenoaks to a mere Oneoak.

There seems to be a very precious view of the rights of a tree in the UK. Sometimes it seems that they are more important the people. Perhaps they are.

Here in this part of Norway things seem a little simpler and more practical. A tree is a tree. One day it will die or be chopped down. Trees are farmed here, rather than worshipped. They are chopped down and cut into little bits for keep us warm in winter. Trees are turned into houses, huts and boats, cups, cutlery and sandwich boxes.

In recent months there has been a lot of clearing of trees along the Rv7. This has been all in the name of providing better views for passing motorists and in some cases improving road safety. The authorities have also cleared forests of trees to make way for a new by-pass near Noresund.

In the last couple of days three men with chainsaws have been cutting down all the trees behind our house. This doesn’t benefit us directly, we won’t get more sunshine or more light. All we get is a clearer view of the architecturally rather uninteresting council flats just up the hill from us.

However, on the plus side, it should reduce the quantity of dead silver birch leaves that collect outside our house in Autumn: leaves that try to force their way into our home each time we open the doors. The tree felling itself is quite a fascinating process to watch. These guys know what they are doing, (although I have to confess that I haven’t yet heard them shout “Timberrrrrrr!”).

We’re hoping that once they have finished on the trees behind us, that they will start on the trees that block our view.

Before you start to protest, just take a look at our webcam picture. Count how many trees you can see in the picture and let that number sink in for a while.