Joanna Lumley in the Land of the Northern Lights Page #3

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is luring me uphill.

'This is as strange a sight

as you'll ever see -

'thousands of headless cod

hung up on poles. '

Do you speak English? Sorry?

No? English?

Polish. Poland.

You're Poland? And you? Poland.

Three Poland? Yes. 'It seems in Norway, like

in the UK, it's the Poles who do the work,

'but I've never seen Poles

on poles before. '

Um, how many fish?

I don't know. You don't know.

'Within a month, nearly five million

cod will be hung out to dry here.

'We know the Vikings invaded Britain with

Lofoten dried fish in their knapsacks.

'Back then drying was about the only

option for preserving protein.

'It's more of a surprise to me that this delicacy

remains one of Norway's most profitable exports. '

Smells of fish, but not a bad smell. Just a

pretty sort of all-pervasive aroma of fish.

Thank you. Spasibo.

HE REPLIES IN POLISH

What's that?! It might be

something terrible! Goodbye, guys.

'As I was pottering around, I bumped into a

man who turns out to be A's lord of the manor,

'Sigur Elingsen'

I am born here. Yeah?

So I'm the fifth generation and my grandson is

going to take over. He's working in the summer.

The seventh generation on this spot.

When you say working here,

you own this? Yes.

You own A? A and Tind!

And Tind! Yes.

And how many rorbu do you have here?

Because the fishing is good. Yeah.

We are the closest spot to the Gulf Stream

and that's where the best fishes are.

This has been going on for hundreds

of years. More than that. Really?

'Fish facts are fascinating, even for

a fake fur-wearing vegetarian like me

'who doesn't even feel comfortable with leather.

What about the catch I'm after, the Northern Lights?'

Will I see them, do you think, here?

Not now.

I think it's not cold enough.

And, eh...

No, it must be colder. Yeah. And

then it's flashing all over the sky.

It's absolutely marvellous. Is it?

The great thing about A seems to be,

probably because we're so far up,

the light comes in a different way.

So colours seem really... fresh washed.

Everything seems

so clean and sharp.

And the other thing I love is

the conjunction of colours.

They have these dark red houses

with the most beautiful,

light, warm, sax-blue

window frames and corners.

And then white round the windows to bring in as much

light as possible. It's a fashion going out in England.

A lot of people have brown wood round the windows.

Don't do it! Paint your brown windows white.

You'll have a much happier life.

I'm going to do the boulders now.

I want the white to look white,

so I'll give it more energy.

This is a very cloudy, stormy sky

with that slightly yellowish green.

I think there always comes a time in anything

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