Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The gardener prepare for the winter months.

It is dark when I walk to the bus stop in the morning, dark when I come home from work in the afternoon. My daily garden walk is a memory from lighter, longer and warmer days. The garden is going to sleep, just like the bears, through the winter. Though the sleep will be filled with dreams of another spring and another summer. I am a dreamer, and a Nordic gardener is forced to live on dreams months of the year. Dreams of seeds to buy, dreams of new beds to make, dreams of colour combinations to try out and dreams of laughter in a garden which never goes to sleep.

Though being a gardener still is something you are all year round. I still fit in my daily garden walk, if only to feed the birds and the squirrels. I read garden books, I visit garden blogs, I buy garden magazines, I write letters to other gardeners around the world, I draw plans for what we will do in the garden next summer, and I write invitations for my BIG 50th which will be celebrated in The Blue Garden next summer.

Photos: the playhouse is ready for Halloween. While I write this, Terje and Marta are busy in the kitchen making a pumpkin ready for trick and treaters. And through the house flows the fragrance of freshly baked sweet rolls which will be our treats for those who come.

Secret Gardens.......

Is there a secret gardens in your life? A place you have all by yourself? A place where you invite your friend or your lover?

A place where you make things grow. Where you let beauty flow.

A secret garden gate can be opened with the right key.

Use the key and let people see your love. Share your beauty.

Photo: from the botanical garden in Padova. Yes, I know I have promised you more from that garden. Patience dear friend :-)

It is about love

Sunday morning in town. Walking, sharing words. Walking quietly.

Passing a bridge over a full river.

Enjoying the beauty of the city where we share our lives and raise our children.

Feeding our souls at the art gallery.

The autumn day is chilly, but inside the café I can put my scarf on the table while Terje order a cappuccino and a caffee latte.

Warmed by the hot drinks and each other's company...

....we again pass the river. Heading home.

It is about love.

Booktalk on a Sunday 27 - Victor Hugo

Marta is reading Victor Hugo in school. This week the short story about the poor frog which was tortured by a group of boys was on the list (I don't know the English, nor the French title of this story)

It took har all day and ALOT of tears to reach the end of the story. How could the boys be so evil?

Hugo's point is that the boys are not evil boyss. They are quite ordinary, nice, but for some reason they end up, together as a group, to hurt the frog fatally.

Marta and I had a long talk about this Monday night. How is it that people act bad against each other? What about the way we behave? May be we hurt other people, consious or unconsious - the pain given is the same.

My grandpa always gave my books for my birthdays. When I was 8 I got Nobody's Boy by Hector Malot. In bed on my birthday I opened the book and read the first sentence "I am nobody's boy" (I am an orphan - was the Norwegian translation) "Mom", I cried from my bed "what does orphan mean?". My mom came into my bedroom to explain for me, I started to cry not being able to stop, and in the end my mother had to hide the book for me for several years. (Later I read it many times and loved it)

I am thankful that Marta reacted with tears when she read about the frog and men's wickedness. She is able to feel mercy. To feel love. Even for the smallest of God's creation. I am not afraid of tears. I am afraid of indifference.

Victor Hugo wrote alot about the poorest people in the society. But he also wrote other books. After reading Marta's short story I have started to reread one of the first books he wrote, when he was only 19. The title in French is Han d'Islande, and funny enough it is about the small island right outside Trondheim, in the Trondheim Fjord, Munkholmen. Hugo never visited Trondheim, but he read about the place, and the story about one famous prisoner there, Griffenfeldt, trigged his mind. I love reading the story and the way Victor Hugo's everyday life with French aristocracy is mixed up with half Norwegian names and settings.

Visiting one of Trondheim's antiquarians earlier this week, I came over a beautiful, hardbound Danish translation of hugo's classic Notre Dame. Of course I couldn't resist it :-)

Yes, it seems like I am on my way into a Victor Hugo reading period. next on my list is Les Miserables.

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A bright pink digital camera was bought yesterday. Now Marta is planning to be guestblogger here one day to say THANK YOU to all of you for your support.

Photos: from Lindisfarne last year.

Chicken Paella

It is Friday night. Work is over for this week and I find myself in the kitchen enjoying some extra cooking. Though inspired by the French and the Italian kitchen, alot of my cooking is traditional Norwegian. But today I took a trip south of France, to Spain and the land of the paellas.

Though paella is often served with fish and seafood, I decided to go for a chicken one, with onion and sweet pepper.

To celebrate the week-end, I did a few extra touches on the table, and added white wine to the paella. Terje plays cageball after work every Friday, and is starving when he comes home, so it is easy to find my way into his heart through his stomach.

Chicken paella

fry diced chichen in a rich bath of virgin olive oil

add salt and pepper

fry an onion and two sweet peppers (a red and a green)

fry the rice in the olive oil left in the pan

add chicken broth and white wine

boil rice and chicken for about half an hour

add onion and sweet pepper before serving

give huge helpings

second and third helpings tells you that love is achived

We ate the paella with warm foccaccia bread right from the oven, richly sprinkeled with Mauro's Portugese Sal de Flor, and drank Terje's home made blackcurrant lemonade.

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This is my post from The Blue Café last night. More about Padova and the botanical garden later. Today I will be busy in The Blue Garden with winter preparations.

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Blog of the week: My choice for next week is a blog many of you know already, Corey in Provence and her Tongue in Cheek blog. She has one of the best blogs there is out there (in my opinion), and many are naming her mother of all bloggers.

Visiting Padova

During my Venezia week I took the train west to Padova one day. Leaving the train at the station I had no map of the city and no idea which direction to go. I had seen photos from Padova in my guidebook and knew that beauty was somewhere, but.......

For some reason I was hesitant to ask the locals about directions and wandered around quite some time untill I finally sat down with a morning coffee latte. And with the coffee came my courage. I asked the waiter where I could find the market place, he smiled and told me it was just around the corner, and all at once I was there :-)

Many of my friends say: "how can you travel alone" "aren't you afraid" "I could never do what you do".....

Lonely travels have opened a totally new world to me, and it is my way to push my boundaries. Travel litterature is my passion, and I can swallow in one bite old books written by female travellers. They were so brave, and nothing could stop them in achieving their goals. I feel like a little country mouse compared to them, and during my week in Venezia I decided to push my boundary a little more and take a day trip out of the city.

Firenze was on top of my wish list, but I soon realised it was too far away to go for only one day. Instead my choice fell upon Padova, which is only 45 minutes away with the train.

Even the name, Padova, was almost unknown to me, and I knew nothing about the city. Nothing about the lively markets, about Caffé Pedrocchi or the huge cathedrals (there were several of them) filled with prayers and art.

I bought a guidebook, and with the help of the book, page after page of this old city opened.

All afternoon was spent in The Botanical Garden of Padova, but that's a story for tomorrow (may be.....)

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What is going on over in The Blue Café and The Blue Garden today? Welcome over to take a look.

A Day to Collect

I wake up and know that this is going to be a collectable day. My kind of day, a day to collect.

After weeks of rain, dawn comes with a multipink sky. As the sun rise, the neighbour wishes me a good day, the lady in the bus seat next to me meet my eyes and smiles.

A letter long waited for arrives, a group of migrant birds passes by, four white busses in a line looks like a pearl necklace, a sparrow drinks from the fountaine, an old couple sit close together on a bench, hand in hand.

The radio plays Josh Groban My husband comes home from days away.

I collect such days. Such memories. In a blue glass bowl they swim together. One and one. A school. Like smiles in a puddle.

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A gardenwalk before dinner in The Blue Garden.

Spoiled with Taco Pizza in The Blue Café.

My heart danced while watching.

The weather is not too cold for flowers yet...

....softly flowing.....playing hide and seek.......

....showing........come look at my beauty......

.....it's your turn......

....these colours will bloom all year.....

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KIA-Trondheim has been working among refugees in my town for 20 years, and celebrated this on Monday. For two days now KIA-Norge/Norway is in town for its annual meeting. Today I will be elected leader of the national board. Wish me good luck!

KIA means Christian Intercultural Work (Kristent Interkulturelt Arbeid). The dancing girls warmed our heart during the celebrations on Monday.

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There are still a few white daisies in The Blue Garden

Enjoy a quiet hour after breakfast in The Blue Café

While waiting - an invitation.

Advent......the word makes my shoulders fall down, it puts a bright smile on my face.

Advent......the time of the year when I give myself extra time.

Time to light a candle. Time to for reflection. Time to play a cd. Time to dream. Time to be with friends.

Saturday December 1 is the first day of Advent. Hereby you are welcome to an advent party in Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods that day. Mark it with a purple candle in your calendar.

The doors will be open for everybody. I am only asking one thing. The ticket you need to unlock the door is a word about how you will make the world a better place this advent and this Christmas - and as a hostess gift I would love a Christmas book suggestion.

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Advent has a very special place in my heart. If you look in the archives for December 2005 and December 2006 you can follow my previous advents. (nb - when you click on these links you will be taken to the last day of December, in order to come to December 1st you'll have to scroll down to the bottom of the page)

Photo: outside my front door this morning.

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By the way - you never know what friends and food can lead to.......

Eating fish in Uppsala

I spent three days last week in Uppsala in Sweden, on a seminar on HIV/Aids and Theology. Uppsala is the birth town of Ilva from Lucullian Delights, and when I told her I was going there she pointed out a restaurant I "had to" visit, Hamberg Fisk. Tuesday night we were free to go out and eat by ourselves, and I dragged with me another Norwegian and three Danish friends, telling them that I knew about a wonderful fish restaurant.

The restaurant was small, with just a few tables, and looked like it also was a fish monger during the day. As soon as I opened the front door to ask for a table I knew I was at the right place. The fragrance of fish, the anticipation of a fish meal, made my mouth water and my tummy smile.

As I said it was a Tuesday night, and all of us only wanted a main course, so when the menue came that's what we looked for. 6 different main courses were listed, and though Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are quite similar languages, some of the words are very different. We all needed the waiter to explain the different courses for us.

In the end I decided to go for "Tub garnard with potato-`västerbotten`cheese crème and chantarelles"........and the little food elf which is my inner voice was right. Every single bite was a treat for the tastebuds. Tasting even better as it was swallowed with a shared bottle of Argentinian Chardonnay/Malambo Cherin Blanc.

Thanks Ilva, I will ask you agan next time I need your restaurant advice.

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A hug to all of you for the comments yesterday. Marta is a big smile :-) and wants to thank you all.