Simon and Henriette chose Berle
They packed up the children and moved from Bergen to Berle, at the very foot of Hornelen. With the house came a hilltop, with a view over Berle and the fjord.
With the house came a mountain. From the plot at Berleneset you look out over the whole of Berle, across the Frøysjøen, to Kinnaklova and the islands west of Florø. Simon Fonn Storevik, 40, and Henriette Olsbø Frøyen, 35, took the children and left the city for this.
From a flat in Bergen to a house on the headland
Both Simon and Henriette studied in Bergen, and afterwards they settled at Landås, a quiet district up the hillside from the centre. As students, Simon says, the big city is the easy choice — it has everything, and everyone is there.
Then the small-children years arrive, and the maths of the city changes. «Life changes when you have small children,» Simon says. «You understand how expensive the city is for anyone who wants to buy a house, and you start to want something other than the urban. For us, we had reached exactly that point when the house in Berle came up on Finn.»
A teaching job each
The move came with work for both of them. Simon has a job as a teacher at Hauge skule, out on the islands; Henriette teaches in Svelgen, the municipal centre. Their eldest, Hans, starts first grade this autumn and will ride out to Hauge and back with his father every day.
The younger boy is called Jonn, and there is a third child on the way — so come February the family in the house on idyllic Berleneset will be five. Henriette is from Svelgen, with both her parents from Bremanger; Simon is a Bergen native, a schoolboy from Møhlenpris. In recent years the family had spent a good deal of time at Henriette’s family cabin in Rugsund, and it was during those holidays that they grew fond of the area.
You want something other than the urban. We had reached exactly that point when the house in Berle came up.
— Simon Fonn Storevik
A garden, a boat, and a few sheep
Simon likes to cook, and he has already made a kitchen garden on the big plot, where he plans to grow a range of vegetables. The next plans are a boat — for fishing, or simply for being out on the fjord — and, in time, a few sheep.
Much of that is harder to put together in a city flat, and ordinary here.
