Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The umbrella day

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I have just given yesterday a new name. Not Syttende mai, May 17th, Norway´s Constitution Day, or Nasjonaldagen as we also call it, but The Umbrella Day, paraplydagen!

Celebrations from dawn till dusk for the 5 million people of our countrty. For the 175.000 inhabitants of Trondheim, the celebrations went on in pouring rain, with not one single break.

It started in the morning with the intricate work of dressing up in our bunads.

Actually for me it started two nights ago when I ironed the linen bunad´s shirt, a work which takes hours, which I never will master fully, and which  feels like a kind of Sisyphus work, as the wrinkles comes again as soon as we touches the shirts to put them on..........

Patient father´s hands are good to have.....

...... loving boyfriend´s fingers too.

The parades went on as usual, in spite of the pouring rain.

One parade in the morning where every school child took part......

......another one at 1pm with the NGOs, sports teams, student groups, international friends, scouts, dancers........well, more groups than you can imagine.

Our mayor Rita Otervik, in her regional costume.

 

The  whole day filled with brass band music.

 

 

 

Our friends from Keren took part, Habteweld with his flute. Can you see him playing?

Wet guests from Scotland,

Thai dancers living in Trondheim.

 

Marta´s cheerleading group, Nidaros Nixies.....

And like this I could go one and on and on and on......

 

The day was wet and cold.........and filled with smiles and thankfulness.

May 17th is a day to celebrate that we live in peace in a free country.

 

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In the afternoon we followed our traditions and opened the house for family, and for friends of our kids. Innherredsodd for dinner, a local kind for meat soup, coffee and cakes for dessert.

Ingrid and two of her friends, Martine and Kathrin.

Øystein´s friend, another Øystein, came in a car which Marta simply had to be taken out in. A little rain, what is that? When they had to stop for red light, Øystein simply opened his unbrella and covered Marta. That´s what I call an Unbrella Day Gentleman :-)

 

The photo walk

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I went downtown with my camera, to search for the colour spring green. 
The first leaves are showing, but they are still so small, so small.

As a teenager I was active in the cathedral congregation. Once, I must have been 15, one of the priests asked me if I could visit an old homebound man who lived alone. I could do some dusting in his tiny appartment, and do grocery shopping for him.
Soon this old man and I developed a very pleasant habit. As soon as the dusting and the grocery shopping were done, we both sat down to have lunch together. A simple lunch of bread with salami, coffee for him, milk for me. And then we talked. Well, he did most of the talking, I was the listener.

While looking at the tiny leaves today, I remember he always told me in spring that when the leaves were as big as mouse ears it was time to celebrate Norway´s Constitutional Day, May 17th. 

Every spring, when the leaves on the trees start growing, I remember his words.

The old man died when I was 19.
I will always remember my weekly visits.

I took a series of "waiting for the green" today, and posted a few of the photos over in Trondheim Through all Seasons. 

The weather was so nice, sunny, though quite cold, and my walk continued for a long time. I have lived almost all my life in Trondheim. For years now I have been out on a weekly photo walk. Still there are still so many places where I have never been before.

Or where I haven´t been in a long, long time.

My walk today took me to Skansen. When I was a child we took the ferry from here when we went to visit my great grandparents. It is many years since the ferry stopped coming here. So much have changed, still there are so many memories left.

Lunchtime came and I sat down at a restaurant with a huge scrimp sandwich.

Eating. Looking out the windows.

I let my memories float.

10pm in Trondheim, after the concert

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Trondheim skylines and a little bric a brac

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I decided to do something different on my Saturday morning walk last week. To look for colours, shapes, angels I had not yet photographed. To surprise myself. To see my beloved city with fresh eyes.

And surprise myself I did.

The most wonderful patterns, laces and rainbows appeared.

How can I have missed the playful mixture of colours up this hill. My eyes see the hill almost every day. It makes me wonder what I really see. How much I miss. Then comes the lace pattern made by the bare branches. I have made posts about bare branche laces before. Now it all felt new, again!

The day was cold and windy. Not many people out so early on a Saturday morning. I was not the only photographer though.

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Skyline and bric a brac

    

I am probably pushing the meaning of these words outside their lines. Can I call the first of these two photos a Trondheim skyline? The second a bric a brac?

Of course not. Still I do. Still I can.
I love playing with words. Especially in English.
And I guess I fall into a lot of traps.
English is not my mother tongue. Norwegian is.
No matter, I love to play with English words.

May be it is high time to read A.S.Byatt again. She is the queen of words. Or Frances Mayes. She is the princess.
My copies of their books are read to pieces. I  buy new, but never in a millon years will I throw away the read to pieces-ones.

But I am talking too much.
This was supposed to be a post about Trondheim skylines. And about bric a brac. I love those three words put together, though I have no idea where or when I first heard them.

Here is what wikipedia says about them

Items of low value? No, their not. Not in my understanding of the language.

Bric a brac - curiosities along the road.

But back to my Saturday morning walk.

I am sure you all agree with me that Trondheim si the most beautiful city in the world :-)

With or withour bric a brac

Old and new.
Glass, wood, brics........yes, brics a bracs.....

 ....and surprises around every corner.

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I could go on and on and on.......

....and might continue with a few more photos and words in a post tomorrow.
Or I might find something else to blog about.....

......like the amazing low sun I photographed outside the cathedral yesterday.

 

Blogging is a passion. And there is always too much to blog about. To share. 

Christmas down along the canal, or a list of New Year´s resolutions.

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As so often my feet took me down to the canal.

It is quiet there now during the short days of winter. A perfect place for strolling with thouhts and dreams. 

This New Year´s Day, like every New Year´s Day of my life, at least since I learned to write at the age of five, I am going to make lists. Not that I necessarily follow my lists, but making them is so much fun anyway, and a great help to think back on my life, to set the course of days, weeks, months to come.

I am almost always the only woman down by the canal. Old men are working on their boats, chatting, sharing a cup of coffee, fishing, walking like me. A few middle aged men. No young ones. No women.

I walk with my own thoughts. Never saying hi, never talking to anybody, though sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to start chatting with one or two of the old men. Listen to their stories, may be be invited over to their boats, share their coffee.

This will never happen I guess.

Befriending one of the fishermen.........yes, while walking and dreaming and reflecting I knew I had made a first bullet point on the list of things I want to do but don´t have the corage to, or lack the ability to, or...........

Several of the old boats along the canal are for sale. Next bullet point - buy a boat, move in there, at least for part of the year.

I start to play with my list as I walk, and dream and reflect. Soon the list is long. Some of it might come true, some will not. Never in a hundred years.

The list makes me wonder about the limits we set for our lives. And how we easily live inside the borders which line the limits.

Now I know what the headline of my New Year´s resolution lists will be: Climb the fence which frames my life, at least once.

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On my way home from the canal I passed an East Europen accordion player. His music was happy and quite good. I stopped, took out my purse and gave him some money. Not because he begged, just because he brightened my day. "Thank you and New Happy Year" he smiled in broken English. Walking on, a thought stuck me. My husband´s birthday is coming up in a few days and I am giving him a party. What if I ask this accordion player to come and entertain the guests................but then the doubt came.....what will the guests say, is the man clean, is his playing good enough, may be he is a criminal and will come back later to rob our house..............

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I am not going to invite him. May be I am wrong. May be I am a coward. Or what?

Dirty river after the storm, still filled with beauty

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The storm is over. There are other storms to come, but hopefully they will not be as strong and furious as Dagmar.

After staying indoors for a couple of days, it felt wonderfully refreshing to come out for a long walk. Terje went up to the hills behind The House in the Woods for cross country skiing. I headed downtown, for my favorite walk, along the river.

 

I must have hundreds of photos of the old ware houses, thousands. You have seen many of them already.

None of them are the same though.

The colours of the houses may be, but the river, the trees, the air, the sky is always different. 

The river is dirty brown now, after the storm. But when the ware house bend down to look at herself in the river mirror, the colour of the water changes.

Mirror, morror in the river.....

I am booking flight tickets and hotel for an upcoming travel with my girls. A big city of Europe. The travel genes in me sends rushes of longing down my spine. 

Deep down though I know with all I am that Trondheim is the city of my heart.

Of my love.

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Today Torgeir and I will take a book browsing tour in the city. And then Torgeir has promised me to take me on a sushi lunch.

Lucky me.

Two on the morning photo walk

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Saturday morning. Time for my weekly photo walk. This time not alone. Marta wanted to come with me.

Marta bount herself a digital camera for money she got for her confirmation. She is a busy photographer.

 

How I loved this beautiful morning to show her some of my favorite places to shot photos.

A glorious morning.

A glorious daughter.

A glorious city.

We both agree.

This is something we want to do again.

Next time in another part of Trondheim

A Saturday morning as I love it

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Saturday morning. Marta has cheerleading practice, Terje is renovation another room in The House in the Woods. I put the camera, a book and my diary in my purse and head downtown.

On Monday I am going back to work. I am back to normal.

I sit down for a caffee latte. The city is still quiet, the waitress is busy dressing up for halloween, the young waiter can´t take his eyes away from her. 

At the harbour a fisherman is selling the early morning catch. 

I walk into the fish market and buy some halibut.

A grey sky. A Saturday morning in late October.

 

In a shoe shop window I find remnants from last weekend´s Trondheim Open Art Show.

Ladies in pink. I wonder what they are up to.

Could have been singers in Die Csárdásfürstin, but they are not. I know because Terje and I saw the operetta Thursday night.

A lonely booth at the market place......

....no, there is one more. A woman selling lefse. I buy some. Knowing that they will be perfect with a cup of coffee after Sunday´s family dinner.

 

Father and child feeding the ducks near the river.

My Saturday morning in town is over. At the French bakery I have bought two small cream puffs. At home I know that Terje is looking forward to his coffee.

Later I start preparing the halibut......and who knows, there might be photos and recipe in The Blue Café........

Courtyards to explore

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Given that there has been no more postpones, I am at the hospital today. A nose surgery which hopefully will give me better breathing. Better sleep at nights.

I am not dreading the surgery. I am dreading the pain which I know will be there afterwards. And the claustrophobia I know will come when I will be unable to breathe through my nose the first days afterwards.

I have been collecting images of secret corners and courtyards of Trondheim. Images found while following the lesson lovingly learned by Mauro.

When I wake up from anesthesia I plan to visit the hidden treasures in my mind.

It will be a special pleasure to meet you there as well :-)

Looking forward to your comments.

Rangoli for Trondheim

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India is in focus in TRondheim this week. The University hosts an Indian Cultural Week, and reminders can be found everywhere in the city.

 
Outside the cathedral I stumbled upon a group of children from Trondheim International School the other day, busy making Rangoli, a 5000 year old Indian Folk Art.

 
Traditionally the art was made using sand and stones in different colours.....

 
in Trondheim they reuse old materials from buildings.

 
Children were making Rangoli several places in Trondheim. Outside the cathedral the huge, famous rose window became an important inspiration.

 

 

 
Some of the children were too busy to build, with no time to lift their eyes.

Inspiration coming from other sources.