Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Grandpa's helping hands.

Marta and Terje has been away during the week-end for a family celebration. And again Marta and grandpa have spent favorite time together. Easy to see where she has got her creative fingers from.

I am out travelling today, and taknig photos, gathering words for a report later.

A Gardener's Year - March

Being a gardener in Norway means that you must live on dreams many months of the year. I have been hoping that my garden post for March could bring some colours, but it is not to be!

I woke up to heavy snow this morning, and it has been snowing all day.Though I know that life still is there somewhere, covered under the white blanket. And in the kitchen sill life has started to grow.

While waiting for warmer days and colours, I spend time following Karel Capek through his gardener's year. Here is some of what he has to say about the gardener in March:

.....Instead, he curses because the soil is still frozen or has frozen again, rages in the house like a captive lion in the cage when his garden snows up, sits by the stove with a cold.......humiliated that there is no way that he can help overthrow and finish off this tyrannical winter. If he could attack it with a hoe or a spade, a gun or a halberd, he would gird himself and go into battle, uttering a victorious war cry; but he cannot do more than wait by his radio every evening for war reports from the Meteorological Office, savagely blaspheming against the region of high pressure over Scandinavia.....

I am not denying the beauty of the snowcovered garden, but.....

Booktalk on a Sunday 7

My mind is occupied with food today. Every Sunday in the church of Norway has it's own focus, and today, in the middle of Lent, the reading is from the story where Jesus gives food to more than 5000 people, blessing and sharing a few small breads and fishes given by a small boy. My Lent table will get a blue colour this week, the fifth week of Lent.

Being a book lover and a food lover, I have of course a collection of books about food. Traditional recipe books can be okay, but my favorites are those who focus more on the culture of food, the area where the food comes from, the artist behind the recipes. I sometimes get lost in the growing world of food blogs, where my favorite is the Swedish/Italian Lucullian delights, and, still a fresh apprentice,  I have alot of fun exploring out how to make my own food blog, The Blue Café better. The camera is now never far from our kitchen or our diningroom table, and when my family hear me call out that dinner is ready, they look at each other agreeing that they still have five minutes before then need to be settled: "Mum wil shoot her photos first".

But this post is supposed to be about books, and I'll take you on a walk through a very special bookshelf of mine where I keep my cookbooks. And during the walk we'll stop to open up a few of them.

Our first stop will be in Great Britain where the Norwegian-British author Roald Dahl lived. His children's books have been and are favorites in the Lindland household. Together with his wife Felicity, Roald lived in Gipsy House, a home open for family and friends, a home where the kitchen played a man part of their life. Memories With Food and Gipsy House is a beautiful book about Roald Dahl, his family, his childhood and the pleasure he finds in being together with his wife, their children, grandchildren and friends. A favorite pleasure for this big family is to sit around the table, eating and drinking. The book is written by Roald and Felicity, their family and their closest friends, it contans beautiful, colourful photos and also funny, charming illustrations by Quentin Blake (who has also illustrated Dahl's many children's books). I love to find ideas for my Blue Café in this book, but most of all I love to sit down, reading about the life at Gipsy House, finding immense delight in the words, in the many photos and illustrations.

Our next stop will be in France, in Giverny, where we meet the painter Claue Monet and his family. Monet invites us to take a seat around his table, serving us some freshly baked spice bread, letting us taste his favorite white wine before taking us on a walk in his garden. The garden walk takes a long time since Claude has so many flowers and hidden spots he wants to show us, and when we finally return to the house, greeted by the fantastic smell from the dinner ready in the kitchen, waiting to be served on the famous, yellow china, we suddenly feel how hungry we are, and we dive into a fantastic meal, framed by laughter and stories.

I am realizing that this visit to my foodbook shelf will take more than one Sunday, but before we end our book travel, in Venice as usual, we sit down with a cup of coffee and The French Kitchen. I keep on reading Joanne Harris's books through this Lent, and have now almost finished Coastliners. Food plays an important part in many of her books, so reading her cookbook dedicated to the French Kitchen, with her many stories as a background, is giving me alot of joy. An extra bonus in The French Kitchen are the many wonderful photos. A perfect coffee table book, where I can dream myself deep into stories told by the images.

Venezia

Being in Venice is for me walking, walking, walking, preferably without a map, preferably "getting lost", since that's the very best way to find hidden treasures and quiet calles without the thousands of tourists which visit La Serenissima daily.

During one such walk my husband and I came over a small, totally crowded bookshop. The shop was just one small room with books everywhere, from floor to roof, leaving only a tiny little space for the owner and his table, a table crooked with books. A rainshower hit Venice just as we found this shop. The owner bacame busy covering the table with books right outside his door, Terje and I slipped in through the door in search of smell, textures and dreams found in the thousands of books. There, hidden between novels and travelbooks, I found Sally Spector's Venice and Food. Sally, who now lives in Venice has written the book and made the great aquarelles and drawings you can find on every site. I could have written alot about this book, but now I need the rest of my Sunday to actually read my books, not just write about them. And also to take Ingrid (we are home alone this week-end) to an Italian restaurant for dinner later.

See you for more booktalk next Sunday - and in the comment section here!

Houses are like words....

Sometimes I wonder where it comes from this fascination for old houses. Seems like I can't pass one without shooting a photo or making up a dream of days gone.

I remember as a girl I made up a full story of a family living in a house very much like the one on the photo. Father, mother, girl, baby boy, grandpa. Even today I remember what the girl looked like. For several years my dream was to write a book about the girl, but the words only lived their lives in my mind, never finding their way through the pen down on paper.

I have my first manuscript written and sent to the publisher. Now new words are finding their way to my imagination, new ideas are flowing. I love this prosess. The hard work of writing sentences down, organising them, make them showable for readers haven't started. Words live their own life, filled with life and love.

I wonder what I find if I open their doors and walk into their rooms.

Sunday Scribblings

When home alone......

I don't know what you do when home alone, but I know what I do! I cook!

Terje and Marta is away for the week-end to celebrate my sister-in-law's 50th birthday. I was unable to go with them because of work duties. Most of the week-end, even through meals, I will be at work, but today I came home in time to eat dinner. When you are alone it is too easy to just prepare something the simple way, so I decided to treat myself with a Thursday night feats. (You can read about it at The Blue Café)

And a perfect dinner deserves a perfect desert. Coffee served in one of my Venice cups, accompanied by an Ernest Hillier Ginger chocolate, Mozart's Don Giovanni in the background. And when dinner was finished and dishes done, the night was still young for hours of reading.

Show me the Rainbow.

The period of Lent is a period for focusing on hope for the world, hope for creation, hope for the future. The rainbow is God's gift to us, a gift of hope.

Through Lent I set up my rainbow table, giving each of the seven weeks of Lent it's own colour. Staring with red, moving on to orange and so on. I have candles in the different colours, I plant seeds which will be my rainbow flower bed in summer, I cook in connection with the colours.

I have developed this rainbow calendar for my upcoming book, based on an idea by a friend. And the idea is to help celebrate Lent, a period when giving and sharing are the main focuses.

The photos shows my red table from the first week of Lent, and my green table from this week.

The Flowermarket.

I had some extra time in Oslo yesterday morning before my meeting started. The weather was mild and sunny and smelt of spring, so my feet automatically took me to the flower market where a few outdoor sellers had opened their stalls.

The flower market in Oslo brings back good memories. 23 years ago Terje and I lived in the countryside a few hours north of Oslo. Torgeir was 2 years old, Øystein was just a few months. Through his work Terje had to spend two weeks in Oslo, and the boys and I didn't want to be left alone in our small village and followed him, staying with Terje's brother and wife. The grown ups went to work every day, my two boys and I had the whole days for ourselves. With no family nor friends to visit, the days could be long for all three of us, so almost every day we took the train from the suburb into the town center. The favorite place to visit for both me and Torgeir was the outdoor flower market. He ran around, enjoying the flowers, enjoying the open space perfect for an active toddler, enjoying the flower sellers, pointing out flowers he wanted to bring home to his aunt and uncle. I followed with the pram with a sleeping Øystein, gathering bouquets of memories.

First photo is a flower seller in Terracina, second is from a small flower stall in Rome.

Nature's own cathedral

Creation surrounds us. It is for us to open our eyes and see.

During my week at Lindisfarne last Fall I learned about the thin film between heaven and earth which we found there. This was an eye opener to me, and I now realize that this film can be thin anywhere on earth, opened by our prayers.

I am in Oslo today. Am visiting good friends and spend the morning in their beautiful home before going to a meeting later. Heaven is close in this home.

The photo is from our skiing during cabin week.

Have a break!

During busy and interesting work days I tend to be engrossed by what I am doing. I feel that the work gives me the energy I need, though some nights when I come home I am too tired to manage to rest.

Take a break. Smell the roses. Enjoy life! Sit down and do nothing! This is an artform of living I strive to master.

Life is so rich, and it is so much more than running around believing that the world will stop as soon as you stop. Take an extra break today, enjoy beauty, enjoy silence, enjoy a cup of coffee, love and friendship, enjoy TO BE.

Both photos are from breaks we took during our skiing days at cabin.

Booktalk on a Sunday 6

Last Sunday I promised you a booktalk filled with treats, and that's what I plan to give you today. It is still winter and snow for cross country skiing here in Trondheim, and the others are out taking part in the annual "Children's Day of Skiing" at Granåsen. Marta will cross country ski 10 km with her cousin, another cousin will walk shorter and  visiting from Lofoten will watch. And Ingrid is out having skiing fun with friends. The whole big family will come here for an Italian dinner after skiing, so alot of my day will be spent in the kitchen, but in between I have a pile of books on the livingroom table calling out my name.

Cabin days are in many ways reading days for me, and I have a growing collection of books in the bookshelves there. For many years my favorite cabin books have been Frances Mayes's books about her buying and restoring a house in Tuscany. I have read the books over and over again, and still read at least a few chapters every time I am at the cabin. I did so this time as well, but at the same time I dig myself deep into books from France.

I think it started with Five Quarters of the Orange, which I mentioned already last Sunday, and from this I went over to Kristin Espinasse and her Words in a French Life. Kristin has a blog, A French Word a Day, which I have followed for quite some time, and last year I bought her book. I love reading bits and pieces from it about her expat life in Provence with French husband and two kids. Kristin's pen is so funny, and reading her stories also help me to refresh some of my French - which is a goal and a challenge actually.

A couple of years ago I found "the French version" of Frances Mayes's Tuscany book. I found them in Carol Drinkwater's book about her Olive Farm in France, and over the months her books have also become a kind of favorites. Last summer I bought her Illustrated Olive Farm, and love to sit back in a comfortable chair, or out at the cabin tearracce, looking at the many photos in her book, reading a chapter here, a chapter there. I will never buy a farm in Provence or a house in Tuscany, but I love armchairtravelling with Carol and Frances, I love imagine myself as the owner, I love planning trips to Italy and France, and I love to actually travel there.

I had one more book from France which I enjoyed during our cabin days, Instructions for Visitors by Helen Stevenson. This book has been laying on my bedside table at the cabin for months, and this time I actually started to read it. Only a few chapters though, so I don't have much to say about it yet, but I look forward to pick it up again at Easter when we go back to the cabin.

Venezia

Count four weeks from today, and Terje, Marta and I are in Venice. My Venice reading for the moment is from the anthology by Michelle Lovric; Venice, Tales of the City. As I said with Henry Lames last Sunday - everything is already written about Venice, it is the city easiest to visit without actually going there, and Lovric shows alot of this in the anthology. Frances Trollope, the mother of Anthony Trollope (which I plan to write about in a future Sunday Booktalk) once wrote: "There is a freshness of wonder that attends every part of the progress through this floating world", and another time her words were: "Have you swam in a gondola?.....If you have not, there is a wide difference between us", and yet some more words from her pen: "The senses are so dazzled and almost bewildered, I think, on arriving here, that we are tempted at first to run (or rather swim) up and down, staring at one thing, peeping at another, and endeavouring to find our way about the strange new world, much as a cat does on arriving at a new abode"

I have a secret (!) dream to one day write something, (a book?) about Venice. And to you my faithful reader, I might one day have a small taste of what I have already written here.......

Untill next Sunday - Happy Reading!