Thursday 14th January 2016

Wednesday

Let me get this straight, there was nothing wrong, per se, with the hotel. It was warm, clean and friendly. But it was functional. No soft edges as it were, and so like all hotels no matter how nice it seems, it still is not home. The Dag was all the things above, but had an air of an institution, linoleum floors, fire doors and bright lighting. It also had very odd window fasteners, some kind of metal toggle thing that once opened seemed beyond the wit of man to get them to lock again. Or beyond the wit of this man, anyway.

I woke up with the alarm, and the room full of reflected light through the curtains from the snow outside. It feels too cold in the room to get undressed for a shower, so I get dressed, go down for breakfast, which is fine enough. You really can't beat a bacon roll made with Nordic crispy bacon, but my Danish colleague told me the bacon was very salty compared with Danish; who knew?

We program the sat nav for the factory and set off on the 5 minute drive through what counts as rush hour traffic in Skien. We find the factory, apparently over-large for the size of town. We find the reception, book in and meet our hosts.

Through the morning, day breaks and we see that the town is surrounded on three sides by wooded and snow-covered mountains, looking incredible. But no time to think about that now, we have work to do!

At the end of the meeting, we go back to the hotel and Henrik and myself decide to go for a walk before the light totally fades.

Clearing roads seems to be a hit and miss, and ploughing seems only to take place in the middle of the night, when the scraping of the roads wakes everyone up.

I guess there was about eight inches of the white stuff, and I am sure the town is fine enough on a summer's evening when you are sipping mint juleps beside the harbour. On a dull, freezing day in January, it wasn't that picturesque to be honest.

Still took shots though,

Dominating the town is the fairly modern church, which in the best urban traditions was locked.

Down the high street to the harbour, past shops which seem to have no customers, but their lights are burning bright inside anyway.

The harbour is quiet, just an ancient tug is tied up beside quayside bars and restaurants which I am sure is splendid on summer's evenings.

Looking out along the fjord it seems to be a typical Scandinavian view, with a red wooden hut on stilts in the foreground and houses built onto the hillside melting into the dusk into the distance.

We walk back into town, look at the small lake created by a lock and the pleasure boats tied up and covered with tarps, protected against the winter chill. An illuminated sign above an office block declares it to be minus 5 degrees, and looking around, what was left of the day was fading fast. We look onto the shopping mall, half is empty, but the rest seems OK. But nothing to tempt us to spend any cash. We were almost tempted by a tourist tat shop, but like everything in the country it was eye-wateringly expensive!

That night we go back to the steak place, but have plates of ribs instead, and end the night with very sticky fingers and full bellies. Back outside it is too cold to linger, so we hurry back to the hotel to get our heads down as we had to be on the road at five the next morning for the long trip to Oslo airport. Or one of the Oslo airports, hopefully the right one for our flights.