Following yesterday’s successful barbecue raiding party, today’s weather was complete pants. (Inger & Helge: “pants” is a colloquial expression for “very bad”.) We resorted to our now normal pattern of lazy morning with breakfast in our conservatory where we listened to the rain pattering on the glass roof.

Whilst on the narrow boat, Helge had been writing a blog of their trip – in Norwegian, of course. He’d been posting this through an Internet connection via international calls on his Norwegian mobile phone. (Ye Norse Gods! I’d love to see his mobile phone bill when it arrives.) All of which gets us around to the fact that he had his laptop with him and, having been given the key to our wifi network, spent some time in the dining room surfing. (Incidentally, a Norwegian keyboard is an interesting piece of kit with three special keys for Å, Æ and Ø, which seem to be regarded as additional letters as opposed to accent marks.)

He had clearly been reading my first two “Viking Invasion” blog entries of their visit because he shortly appeared back in the conservatory asking if I could explain “rape and pillage”. Ah! OK, so we got that concept across by resorting to a little ancient history.

It is a testament to his command over English that that was his only question after reading two blog entries. A further testament to both Inger and Helge’s English is that, when in our company, they converse with each other in English. Occasional bits of Norwegian are used but only when checking English vocabulary with each other.

Helge was soon skimming through an old issue of National Geographic. That caused us to search for an explanation of the difference between “cooperate” and “collaborate”. Before long we were thumbing through the dictionary to distinguish between “truck” and “lorry”. The dictionary turned out to be of little help.

In the afternoon we were to drive them over to the hell that is called Stansted for their trip back to Bergen. That meant packing, followed by the grand weighing-in ceremony for the “particularly large suitcase together with its various associated other cases and bags”. We had managed to simplify matters slightly by donating from our loft a large “Explore!” hold-all, enabling several smaller bags to be combined. Having had no fewer than three people grab various bags and leap onto our bathroom scales, the bags were declared to be within weight limits ±0.1 kg.

Prior to departure, Inger and Helge had graciously offered to treat us to lunch so we zoomed into Woburn to visit the Loch Fyne restaurant. After a very pleasant meal, the ladies could not resist a last chance for yet another raid, this time on a gift shop followed by the Woburn china shop. That left Helge and I dangling around outside, of course. While dangling, Helge spotted a small sign displayed outside the local newsagents.

“What does that mean?”, he enquired.

My heart sank; it read:

Motorcycles brought for cash.

“That means that you should be teaching them English”, I replied.

It’s no wonder that the English are dreadful at foreign languages when they can’t even master their own.

Using only a single crowbar, I managed to cram everything into the back of our car and we were soon off to Stansted via our mostly predictable 90 minute cross-country route. The rain stopped as we approached but, with impeccable timing, started again just as we clambered out of the car to drag the luggage to the terminal. The terminal was a complete zoo but we managed to park Inger and Helge on the end of what appeared to be a check-in line destined for Bergen before embarking on our 90 minute drive back home.

We won’t be learning so much English, now.

Late last week, our neighbours, Paul and Liz, returned from a l-o-n-g trip to their house in Spain. We hadn’t seen them since May when we scarpered off to France, so we thought it would be fun to get them round for dinner and introduce them to Inger and Helge.

The weather seemed as though it might break with current tradition and be pleasant enough to fire up one of the barbecues. After our habitually lazy morning, however, time could have become pressing for shopping and preparation. Jamie Oliver to the rescue; his Jamie’s Kitchen publication has a few marinades to liven up kebabs of various kinds in about an hour. We chose one for lamb one for chicken in an attempt to introduce a bit of variety. Being Jamie, the recipes were somewhat eclectic but a traditional Greek salad and a green salad seemed like reasonable accompaniments that weren’t going to clash and we were soon off with Inger and Helge on a raiding party to the local Tesco, just to complete their English cultural experience. No holiday in England would be complete, after all, without a manic trip to a rugrat-infested Tesco. (I cannot wait for school to start again. School really is the only thing that makes life bearable for civilized human beings.)

Sometimes, the words “free” and “range” on Tesco chickens are as rare as, well, hens’ teeth, to pick an appropriate metaphor. Such seemed to be the case today. Finally, after about ten minutes searching, I found what appeared to be Tescos single example of a free-range chicken hiding behind a several examples of its flabby, battery-raised cousins. Since he who hesitates is lost, I swiftly grabbed my prize and prepared to defend it, if necessary with my life, while I went in search of Carol and our shopping trolley. Having subsequently selected a couple of packs of traditionally outrageously expensive English lamb neck fillets, I used these to hide the free-range chicken lest another crazed, discerning shopper spotted it and developed designs upon it. I needed my Viking bodyguards but they were off on an independent raid of their own.

Nonetheless, we protected our booty successfully and escaped unscathed whereupon it was back home to give our plunder the Jamie Oliver treatment. Having got the marinades prepared and slathered over the meat, Paul and Liz seemed a little behind schedule so I decided to smoke them out by firing up some particularly noxious Big-K charcoal briquettes. All briquettes on sale in England seem to produce noxious fumes but these produce enough evil-smelling smoke to hide the Bismark. Our other poor neighbours were forced to close their kitchen door, for Lord’s sake. Fortunately, that’s about it for the briquettes from hell and they are now nearly all gone. It worked, though, Paul and Liz soon turned up bearing gifts of booze so it was out with the drinking horns once again.

Inger and Helge, being excellent at English, were soon nattering away with Paul and Liz while the longship galley slave (guess who) threaded various bits of marinated meat onto various skewers prior to incinerating them.

The weather was kind, remained dry and relatively warm, so we actually managed to eat outside. Good Lord, that’s the second time this year!

I suppose it is inevitable that, when there is an accumulation of the fairer sex (accumulation being defined as more than one), the Olympic sport of cross-country shopping should come to the fore. So it was today that, after a leisurely breakfast lasting most of the morning, we took Inger and Helge over to Milton Keynes to attack the shops in MK Central.

My first disappointment was that our usual “free at weekends” parking section had been changed into a paying section. Drat! This is something I find particularly objectionable – an area that exists to support businesses in their endeavour to encourage Joe Public to part with his money, then having the temerity to make Joe Public pay for the privilege. Even more irksome, though it’s really the same syndrome, are events such as the annual “Arts and Crafts Fair” in the grounds of Woburn Abbey. The “fair” exists purely for vendors selling mostly clutter and future gatherers of dust, yet it once again charges the hapless Joe Public a princely entrance fee for the privilege of parting with yet more cash. But I digress, park we did and off we went.

I was heartened to discover that, not only is the female sport-shopping gene universal, but the male shop-only-when-absolutely-necessary-and-as-quickly-as-possible gene is also universal. While Carol and Inger were as happy as pigs in … well, you know what … minutely examining almost every garment on every rail in Marks and Spencer, Helge was soon as bored witless as I was. Being a seasoned campaigner, Helge found two chairs, one either side of the fitting rooms, and he and I were able to sit like a couple of bookends while the ladies continued their raid. I noted another chap accompanied by two male rugrats all three of whom had resorted to sitting on the floor under a clothing rail. In a shop the size of a small town, there really should be more than two chairs available for the almost countless bored male hangers-on. Maybe I should go into the shopping chair rental business.

Eventually the frenetic clothes selection came to an end and we escaped with only minor damage to the wallet. After a relatively brief stop at an Arts and Crafts shop (arghhhh!), which at least didn’t fleece us for to park, we headed back for a very late lunch and some well-deserved medicinal vino.

Modern Scandinavian invasion forces also seem to use technology to raid stores. While yours truly was preparing another leg of New Zealand lamb for the trusty Weber grill, Inger, sharing with me a love of cookery books, set about thumbing through some of my cooking library. Before long, temptation got the better of her and a computerized raid began as she set about depleting the stock held by “amazon.co.uk”, there being no convenient “amazon.co.no” for her to use.

OK, so it seems the pillaging still exists, now where’s the rape?

Since she was about 13 years old, Carol has had a Norwegian pen-friend, Inger. She and her husband, Helge, live near Bergen in Norway. Today, they were finishing a two week trip around the Avon Ring in a narrow boat rented from Bidford Boats and we were off to collect them.

Unfortunately the boat was being beached at 9:00 AM and it’s a good 90 minute drive from Leighton Buzzard to Bidford, so an uncomfortably early alarm started the day at 6:00 AM. To be completely accurate, as is often the case when an alarm has been set, an even more uncomfortable fitful hour of tossing and turning waiting for the accursed alarm to go off started the day at 5:00 AM. Nonetheless, somewhat invigorated by an espresso, we set off at 7:30 AM to find the boat yard.

What a foul morning it was weather-wise. It was certainly a good day not to be driving a boat. I felt sure that the forecast had spoken about showers but this was wall-to-wall rain. Carol had been planning a leisurely return trip through the Cotswolds to show Inger and Helge some more of our attractive countryside and villages but anything was going to be very hard pressed to look attractive on such a day.

After two wrong turns, one over a particularly appealing old Avon bridge and another down an otherwise promising-looking dead-end, we located the Bidford Boats boatyard and an only slightly damp Inger and Helge. Having been expecting one suitcase each, as it turned out there was just enough room in our car’s boot for a particularly large suitcase together with its various associated other cases and bags. Carol would not have been happy leaving the car with an obviously fully laden boot so perhaps the rain didn’t matter so much.

We did drive back through Broadway which, as a mark of its charm, was still managing to look attractive despite the appalling weather conditions. Maybe the yellow Cotswold stone manages to look sunny even when it isn’t.

Having arrived home after our Broadway diversion, we unloaded the boot, much to the relief of our car’s suspension, before popping off to a local pub/wine bar/restaurant for lunch. We decided upon the Grove Lock by the Grand Union Canal, as if Inger and Helge hadn’t seen enough of canals and narrow boats during the last two weeks. That did the trick – the rain ceased and the sun put in an appearance. At least our planned Spanish evening meal of tapas and paella wouldn’t now feel totally out of place.

We got out our own drinking horns to continue the reunion party at home while Carol introduced Inger to the traditional English pastime of shelling fresh peas on the back step. This was a new activity to Inger; it seems peas come only frozen in Norway. (I was tempted to suggest that everything comes frozen in Norway, but gamely resisted.)

No rape and pillage these days, then?