Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Time for the rose hips

Last summer we found two small wild roses near where we usually go for fishing. Terje helped me move them to a bed in front of the cabin, and this summer it gave us roses. The first thing I saw Thursday afternoon when we arrived were the rose hips. They greeted me - welcome to the cabin, we are sorry the week-end is cold and wet, but forget that, look at our colours, look at our beauty. Nature needs all season, it is for you to hug them all!

I was tempted to pick a few branches but decided against it. Sometimes beauty is best just where it is created. For the birds and the deers to enjoy.

More than 100 years ago, in 1905, Edith Holden writes her "The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady  (the title she hersafs gave her book was "Nature Notes 1905). On October 12, 1905 she wrote:

There is some find timber in the park itself, a grove of Birch trees looked lovely - the tiny leaves on the pendant branches looked like showers of gold. The rabbits were scurrying about everywhere; and I saw flocks of Thrushes and finches busy with the Hawthorn berries; I heard a Woodpecker laughing somewhere among the trees. The birds are beginning to sing again now; I heard several Robins on my way. I discovered two Sloe-berries on a bush and brought them home in triumph. The Knapweed and pink Campion are still in bloom, the latter very small and plae and I noticed a great many blossoms of the Procumbent Speedwell in one field.

Edith Holden has a beautiful painting for rose hips, or is it the sloe.berries.....

Phots: from my cabin rose garden

Rain gives us another kind of week-end

Rain is giving us another kind of week-end. Instead of long mountain walks, instead of fishing, instead of gardening......we are bound indoors. Well, not totally bound. We can of course wear raincoats and wellingtons and fight the rain, but........

....we stay indoors, listen to the rain on the roof, read, study (Marta has a mountain of homework to hike, Ingrid Elise has tons of law books to study), play games, talk, have fun, eat well.

It is goods to be together, good to have time enough.

And early, early this morning, still in the dark, by candlelights only, while the others were still sleeping, I found the quiet and peace I needed to write anouther chapter for my book.

Rain, rain, rain.......

Terje, Marta, Ingrid and I are at the cabin. It is raining cats and dogs, but it doesn't matter here we are, cosy indoors, a fire, candles in every corner, Dad and two daughters playing cards, chatting, laughter, humming.......and I am knitting socks.

The simple life is very often the good life!

Happiness through lazy days

 

It is the last day of vacation, summer is coming to an end. Looking out my window this morning, all I can see is rain, rain, rain.  So instead I open my memory chest and wrap up sunny sunmmer days from the cabin.

 

Long, lazy days when we live close together. No need for many words, the language of love is in the air.

 

You drink your coffee, you go fishing or you travel to the land where dreams come true.

My memory chest is full and easy to open.

 

Photos: from Aure last week

Top of the world

 

A cabin summer is going towards its end. Today we are driving home, to electricity, to showers, to running water, to a flashing toilet, and to everyday life. Yesterday had to be enjoyed to its better end.....a mountain hike with good friends was the solution.

 

The weather was perfect. Just enough sun to get tanned, just enough clouds to feel comfortable, just enough wind to keep most of the bugs and moscitos away.

Terje is fit as a fiddle, Marta climbs the mountains as a goat, our friends are fit, fit, fit......I realized during our hike that I am not trained as I once was. Somewhere, before the top climb, I had to force myself. You will make it! Of course you will"........I did! And it felt wonderful.

 

Now when I come back to The House in the Woods and to working days I have a goal - I'll keep on walking. I'll keep on hiking.......

 

Yesterdays hike ended with dinner with our friends, in their cabin........until late, late, late.

 

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Facts: we climbed Bjørnskardliknubben at Skardsøya, 390 meters over sea level.

Menu: califlowersoup made by chef Aasmund, pancakes with blueberries for dessert

And this place uses to be SO quiet!

The village not far from our cabin, Aure, is usually a very quiet place. Untill yesterday and today. Now it is wonderfully busy with World Cup on roller skiing. Teams from several counries. 

 

I walked from the cabin to the village after lunch and there I met Terje and Marta, they were coming from Trondheim.

My days alone are over, I love my company!

 

Alone, though not lonely

 No Marta is playing in the forest around the cabin, no Terje is chopping woods. I am all alone. I miss my dear ones, but never a minute have I felt lonely. I have my words, my thoughts and my books. I have my knitting, my walks and my cooking. I have my silence.

Everybody should experience time away from time to time.

Marta and Terje will come today. Oh my, I am looking forward to have them around. To love and be loved!

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Note: I am sorry I don't write you back for a few days. My laptop's battery is charged on a solar/sun cell battery, and it is too low for a my use........but I will be fully back.....soon

By the way, the new Trondheim through all seasons is updated daily, even though I am not in Trondheim right now.

Exporing the countryside

 

Being all alone at the cabin for a week, means that I do alot of "new" things. I am here to work on my book, and for hours every day I sit down to write. But this book needs alot of reflecting, and the best way to reflect is to walk.

We have only one car, and the car is needed back in Trondheim, so while we often drive to a starting point for our hikes when we are here with the car, this time all I have are my two feet.

 

The other day my afternoon walk took me in a new (to me) direction, and suddenly I found myself in a fairy tale, in a secret garden. There must have been a farm here once, but now there were no tracks of the old farmhouse, nor of the barn. But the orchard was still there. Alot of old, old fruit trees, heavy with fruits. Apples and plums. And a few shrubs with berries.

  

I sat down on the old stone wall for a long time, my mind wandering back to once upon a time.......

 

The raspberries were almost overripe, falling down. I ate alot and decided to come back the next day to pick some for jam.

The next day came, and with a backpack with a thermos and some sandwiches I walked back to my fairytale. There I met the local farmer and I asked him very carefully: "Is it okay to pick the raspberries, they are falling down anyway?" Well, unfortunately it was not okay. The very nice farmer told me that they belonged to some cabin people, and they might come this week-end to pick them. "But enjoy this place" he went on "walk down to the sea, fish if you want to, and have your coffee"

 

Coffee from a thermos flask, two pieces of whole grain bread with butter and brown cheese, a bottle of water..........no restaurant could have served me any better lunch.

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Some of you are asking about the cherry tree. I posted a photo of it in My Year in the Worldthe other day.

Dead heading.

 

I've been dead heading the cabin roses. In spite of a dry summer the roses at the cabin are overflowing us with scent and beauty, and by removing all the dead heads the remaining ones, and the ones yet to come, will keep on blooming for weeks. We might not be here, but the beauty wil still be.

 

It might be time for some dead heading in my life as well. Days and nights all alone, with all the time in the world for thinking and reflecting........I am looking at my life, the way I live, the way God wants me to live........and I know that there are still alot of new roses to bloom.....several old ones to dead head.

 

With great care, with God's love, I try not to cut away the new buds. And I try to hold on to old beauty.

A Place where Inspiration Flows.

 

One Easter day in 1994 I sat on the cabin terrace with my mind wandering. I had brough a huge box of fabric scraps out to the cabin and wondered what to do with all the beautiful pieces of fabric. It was a lovely sunny day with alot of boats out on the fjord, and suddenly I knew. I would make a boat quilt.

 

In an old quilt magazine I had seen a pieced boat, so I found a pencil and a piece of paper to draw one in a size suitable for my quilt. Then it was time to draw the pattern in the back side of the small fabric scraps, to cut and to sew. The whole quilt is handsewn.

I finished the quilt 15 months later and named it "Min båt er så liten" (My boat is very small) - from apopular Sunday School song.

 

 

The cabin terracce is for me a place made for creating. It is where I meet my muse, it is where I run with wolves, dance with angels.

I am spending a week alone at the cabin. Writing. The words, which have been impossible to find ever since I left Venezia, are here waiting for me. They flow through my heart, keep on to my fingertips and find their way out to be braided together as sentences, as tales. Hopefuly eventyally the braids kan be knitted together to a book.

 

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Sorry I totally forgot to tell you about the postcards from the Festival. The young boy was not to be seen anymore, so I have only two cards. They will be mailed to Anne and Beverly. Will you please email me your addresses.