Auntie Solveig

This is Reidar's aunt Solveig, his father's eldest sister, and one of two survivors of a flock of six children. She was born in 1915, and has her 94th birthday in November. We went to visit her the other day, in an immaculate flat in Oslo, neat and smart and full of flowers. She lives alone and does all her own cleaning and cooking. She walks to the local shop to get what she needs, and jumps onto a tram when she wants to go downtown.

She served us an elegant lunch ( the butter was done in little curls on a cut-glass dish) with no end of dainty things to eat on bread, and we sat at the table for two hours. Later Reidar showed her some old photo albums and she was able to identify people that were dead before Reidar was born. So more coffee and home-baked cake. We were there over six hours and she never seemed to get tired. What a remarkable woman!