Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

A Night with the Sun

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Some nights are not for sleeping, but for breathing life, for embracing beauty, for living, for being together.

Our night at Vega, a small island along the north-western part of Norway, was such a night.The main purpose of God's creation? To show beauty. That's why God created us with all our senses. To enjoy creation.

_________________________________________________     Note: every time we see the midnight sun we are reminded of the American tourist who came to Norway to see The Midnight Sun. Back in the US he claimed his money back from the travel agency; the sun he had seen at midnight was not another sun but the same sun as the one which met him every day back in his homeland.......

Back in the hotelroom there was a soft, warm light, and the sun continued her dance.

The good, sweet life

     It is a long way between camping in a tent and staying in a luxury hotel like the old wooden historical places along the western coast of Norway. Tenting has its charm, but after a week at a cabin without electricity, without indoor water, I am in no doubt about what to chose.

Last year I bought a book about old wooden hotels in Norway, and since then it has become a passion to visit at least one of these places every summer.

     Union hotell is a perfect place to live the good life. The owner, dressed in gold, and all his helpers spent all their time making sure that we had a good time, all we needed to concentrate on was to enjoy every minute of our stay. A simple task!

     We ate a four course dinner based on lokal food, and afterwards spent a long night out in the garden with our coffee. I brought a book, Terje brought a paper, but it was so much easier to enjoy the snowcovered mountaintops embracing the hotel valley, accompagnied by steep waterfalls pregnant with melted ice water. Late, after the sun went to sleep, all the guests at the hotel gathered in the lounge. The owner had a basket filled with stories and anectdotes to tell, young Henrik played the piano, Mariann song old Norwegian songs. In the middle of the room was a coffee table filled with colourful books about the mountains and fjords of western Norway. We went to bed very late.

     Union Hotel has a fasinating story, from the time, more than one hundred years ago when British and Continental adventures and royals came to explore the nature of Europe's outpost!

.....I hope to write an article about the hotel.......some day. Untill then, all you are given is this post :-) Hopefully it is a seedou can plant. Let it grown, and one day the plant might take you all the way to Norway. May be we meet next year, in one of the old wooden hotels?

When life offers you roses.....

......don't hesitate to accept. Love and beauty are where you least expect it.

On our way to Union Hotel, we stopped at Molde, also called the city of Roses.

     The Union Hotel post will come soon.

But, what about breakfast?

     "Marta", Terje asked, "do you want us to bring a tent when we drive south. Then we can go camping just like in the old days?" "A tent!" Marta looked at Terje with questionmarks in both her eyes. "How will we be able to eat breakfast then?" She sat for a while, and then continued; "Oh, I know, we can buy precut bread in the grocery store....". Terje and I looked at each other and had a good laugh.

Time changes. When the three oldest were small we always camped when we travelled. Some nights we were extravagant and slept in a tiny cabin on a campsite, all five of us squeezed in, but those nights were rare and expensive. A night at a hotel was totally out of question.

Marta's life is different. Now we can afford other ways of travelling. Sunday the three of us were busy planning our trip up along the coast of northern Norway, and the computer was a main tool to find hotels and guesthouses. It was during our planning Terje and Marta started to talk about a trip they will make later this summer down to the south of Norway to visit grandpa. I can go with them only the first few days as I must go back to work. "Poor" me, work this time means 8 days in Mexico at the international HIV-conference, and when this "hard work" is done I'll fly to Rome to spend a few days there with 4 girl friends. So tenting will not be for me this summer :-)

Photo: breakfast table at Union Hotel. Terje and I spent a night at this historical hotel last week, but that's a story for tomorrow.

Mountain dairy

     When I was a girl my parents wanted to build a cabin. They started a search for land which ended up in building the cabin at Aure, which is owned by me and Terje today. But before deciding on Aure they searched out several places. The first choice to be made was a choice between mountain and seaside, and many things drew them to the mountains. One time they found a place where they wanted to build, and my father once took me with him to search out the land.

We came to an old, old mountain farm a couple of hours south of Trondheim where two old, old brothers lived. Before driving further up on the mountain to the cabin plat we were invited in for coffee, and while I sat there watching my dada and one of the old, old men drinking coffee from old, old broken cups, a saw a small girl outside the window. She was fair and beautiful with long brades, but os, so shy. As soon as she saw me she ran away. Had I really seen her, or was she a creature from an old, old troll tale?

     The old man took us up to the cabin plat, and while he and my father walked around discussing plans for a cabin I walked my own ways. I couldn't get the fairy girl out of my mind, and started to make up a story of her living in a mountain dairy. As days and months passed the story grew, and a dream of becoming a writer rooted in me.

I never wrote my mountain dairy story, but when we passed this stone huts last week the story came back to me, and with it a stronger than ever urge to keep on writing, to keep on dreaming.

Note: the fairy girl? yes, she was real. She was the daughter of a "girl" and a "boy" who both came as farm workers to the two old, old men. They fell in love and their love story resulted in two fairy kids, a boy and a girl, both with a magic beauty directly from the land of Norwegian fairy tales.

Challenges along the road

     The county of Møre og Romsdal, where our cabin is situated, is a county of bridges, tunnels, ferries and steep mountainous roads. Here Terje's has framed my head with one of the bridges along the Arlanterhavsvegen (Atlantic Ocean Road). Atlanterhavsvegen is about 8 kms and crosses 7 bridges. The work on this road started in 1983 and was opened in 1989.

     Leaving our cabin we wanted to take a detour home for a very special visit, which I will write about one of the coming days, and this detour sent us on 4 ferries the first days, and also an endless number of bridges and tunnels.

     It is hard to rank sights during our two days on the road, but Trollstigen is a touristic favorite, and has been so for many, many years. Terje is a civil engineer, with roads as his speciality, so this was a paradise trip for him. And being on his side it easily became a paradise trip for me as well.

     Trollstigen is steep and narrow, and as we drove down, me in the passenger seat, my toes went all numbs, reflex made them try their best to help Terje keep the car steady.

My listmaker

     A week at the cabin is easy to fill with activities. I mended the roses, Terje spent the week as a carpenter. And in between we enjoyed the sun and the view, island visits and nice meals.

     Making lists is a passion Terje and I share, though when I make mine in fancy notebooks, he use the first and best scrap of paper at hand. This time he made a new wardrobe in the master bedroom, where he and his dad had been a few days before to set up a bed my father in law has made, especially to fit the small cabin bedroom.

     The list was kept on the middle of the dininroom table, handy for notes every time Terje found out he was in need of something. And every day meant a new visit to the material store in the village.

     The wardrobe doors are still undone. A smal cabin without electriciry is not the best place for carpenting, so my father in law will make the doors in his workshop. Then the only things left in the master bedroom is the finishing design, the mistress hands to stroke the room - a task Terje has left to me.

A cup of tea, and one more.....

     Sometimes writing makes its own breaks. With a cup of tea in my hands I let the words travel their own ways. Some are for writing down, some are for flying to the moon on laced wings. In the early hours of the morning I make myself a cup of tea and sit down to play along with words and sentences.

     On the table beside my cup of tea is the mail from the week I've been away. Among the letters is one from a dear artist friend is the US.... Just wanted to share this blessing I experiences today while on my way home. It's the little things that chatch you off guard and lift you up.....and in the letter was a poem made of winged words.

My travel tales are still flying around, but some of them are about to land, and the first one will be up later today.

Circled by the rainbow

     The rainbow, my main sign of hope and faith, circeled our days at the cabin. Terje and I have spent a week alone, one of the first times since our oldest son was born 26 years ago, followed by three siblings. A new epoque in our life together is starting with our four kids growing up. We embrace it with open hands and fall in love yet again.

We came home a few hours ago and will be on the road again Sunday morning for The Land of the Midnight Sun. I have loads of Along the Western Coast of Norway - stories to tell you.....as soon as laundry and watering a dry garden is done.

Photo: from cabin terrace

Who am I?

 

I am a wife, a mother, a daughter a sister. I have lived more than half my life. I look back on a long line of strong and beautiful foremothers. I have a job, I am a gardener, a cook, a reader, a writer, an artist.......

Who am I?

It depends on who you are. Do you meet me with curiosity, open eyes, a willingness to see? Do you have expectations in me? Do you see the strong woman and the uncertain girl? Are you willing to let me be ME?

There is a clothes shop here in Trondheim which is called Namaste. I have been told that this means "I see God in you". I am wearing a blouse from this shop today, and the small tag in the neck reads NAMASTE.

Open your eyes today and see God in the people you meet. Be curious. A stranger is a friend you don't know yet.

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I look forward to meet you.

Photos: from my collection of Russian dolls.

 

Who am I?

It depends on who you are. Do you meet me with curiosity, open eyes, a willingness to see? Do you have expectations in me? Do you see the strong woman and the uncertain girl? Are you willing to let me be ME?

There is a clothes shop here in Trondheim which is called Namaste. I have been told that this means "I see God in you". I am wearing a blouse from this shop today, and the small tag in the neck reads NAMASTE.

Open your eyes today and see God in the people you meet. Be curious. A stranger is a friend you don't know yet.

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I look forward to meet you.

Photos: from my collection of Russian dolls.