Thursday 8 September 2022--Breakfast is included with my room, served downstairs at Veiholmen Brygge. It's not until 9:00, though, and I'm up at 7:30, so I go out for a walk around the village. It's small...I see just about everything there is to see before breakfast. Run into a gent out for a stroll, and have a nice chat. He tells me it's been a very rainy summer--the week since I've been in Norway is the first stretch of sunny weather they've had.

I take an early nap, then go for another walk to see if I've missed anything. Not much. Pick up a couple of cans of beer at the Co-op and relax on the balcony, enjoying the sunshine. Then go out looking for dinner. Langbordet i OlsenNaustet ("the long table at Olsen boathouse"), billed as a restaurant and pub, looks like the best place to eat and hang out, but the sign on the door indicates that shoulder season hours went into effect on August 15, and the place closed up altogether on September 1. The restaurant at the Havkroa Hotel isn't open this evening, nor the one downstairs from my room, either. I go back to the Co-op and pick up small packages of sliced cheese and roast beef, crackers, and a couple more cans of beer. That's dinner.

There's nothing to do after dark but watch television, which I rarely do when I'm traveling. Last night I found BBC news, and heard that members of the royal family were gathering at Balmoral. Tonight, I flip it on just as a "Special Announcement" slide comes on, and I immediately know that Queen Elizabeth has died. Elizabeth was born three days after me dear old mum; that isn't really significant, of course, but it's always made me feel a sort of association, and I find myself thinking of Mom's passing, three and a half years ago. Time flies.