Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

House Fun

 

There are many favorite words in my vocabulary. Among them - house fun. Say the words; house fun. Doesn't it sound so much better than house work! I learned the word from my friend Gabi in Germany.

I am having a House Fun Day today. I have started dusting, and first out was my Santa Maria and baby Jesus collection. House work is dull, somthing I haveto do because I have to......if you see what I mean. Now I am housefunning. It is fun!

I pick up each Maria, dust it carefully, remember where and why I bought it, look this one is from Finland, my first travel abroad alone after the boys were born, there is one in stone from Eritrea, I remember the tiny little shop where I bougt it, more than 10 years ago, and look at this big one, bought in Haiti, I couldn't resist the chocolate brown baby Jesus face, the smallest one where Maria is wearing a crown, lol, the baby she is carrying isn't Jesus but St.Olav, our own familiar saint who died here in Trondheim, without him there would be no Nidaros cathedral.

  The painted egg is from Praha where Terje and I spent some wonderful days......

I look around in the livingroom. Where shall I dust next? Memories flowing, love and laughter is around. I hum, I sing. Terje comes over to give me a hug, "Good luck out cross country skiing" - I kiss him back. "I'll have coffee ready when you return, and I have a Saturday coffee treat for us, Autralian chocolate, which came in the mail yesterday,from Dagmar."

  Upstairs I can hear Marta and friend Inger Lise waking up from a long night. Later they will go downtown shopping. Ingrid is still asleep. She is finally better and I have promised to wake her up before I take the girls downtown. She feels good enough after her bronchitis for a visit to the city, and we will have a mother/daughter trip.

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Dusting is almost done. Now the floors need some cleaning. My house fun continues...........

My just after breakfast walk in Kolvereid, the smallest city of Norway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Year of a Traveller, January, with updates....

 

A four hour's drive north yesterday, would take me through the small town where I studied to become a teacher 30 years ago. I left home earlier than planned, to have time to stop and look at old, familiar places, to look at changes, to browse around. It felt sad to leave two sick girls, one with bronchitis the other with "only" a bad cough, but knowing that they had each other and their dad, there was no choice for me. I had to leave on a two day's work trip.

  Levanger, the city where I studied, is a charming city, situated on the edge of the Trondheim Fjord, with its old wooden houses intact. The politicians in Levanger have had a strong intention to take care of their qualities and made Levanger Cittaslow (Slow City). They also built a shopping mall outside the town and then it didn't take long to make Levanger a sleeping beauty. One by one the shops closed down in the city and moved to the new shopping mall.

Coming to Levanger on a cold winter morning, it felt like coming to a dead place. All the beautiful, old wooden houses were still there, but the people to give life to the city had left. I walked around for almost an hour. Feeling sad. Feeling empty.

  I did find a few shops open though, and the yarn shop brightened my mind several levels. Colours and textures do that. In a shelf I found a long searched for birthday present for Marta. "I have wanted to buy this for my youngest daughter for a long time" I told the woman behind the counter "but I have found it no where". The lady smiled. "I did some reorganisations in the shop yesterday evening" she said, "it was meant to be found my you" :-)

Surrounded by shelf after shelf of soft wool yarn, colours everywhere, my fingers cried out to me, one by one - we want to move, we want to dance, knit, purl, knit, purl.....I looked down at them, at their eagerness, I thought of the hours of driving ahead. I had been driving alone to Levanger, but from there on and three hours north a colleague was going to drive with me, and he had promised to be the one behind the wheel on the wintry roads.Three hours in the passenger seat that day, even more hours the next. Yes, I neeed yarn and needles.

 

There can never be enough handknitted wool socks. I am knitting, the driving hours pass quickly and my fingers are happy, happy.

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Do you have memories of old places, now changed?

---------------UPDATE----------------

I've had breakfast and I am ready for a morning walk to exploire the smallest city/town in Norway, Kolvereid. Google just taught me that Kolvereid has a Men's Choir :-)

--------SECOND UPDATE_______

A lovely morning walk in the tiny city, a drive, a ferry ride and more driving, and we have now arrived in the next town, Namsos. This one is bigger and shopping could be a possibility. My colleague is out walking, I am sitting in the basement of the main church, where our course will be tonight, warm and cosy with my knitting and a book. Life can be good in the middle of long work days.

 

Photo: Kolvereid after breakfast this morning

NOTE: the girls are feeling better. marta will go back to school tomorrow, Ingrid still needs some more time.

Tomorrow I'll show you photos from my morning photo safari. (I love to be a "tourist" in my own country)

Following the seasons, Lent will soon be here

 

Lent will soon be here, and with it comes a demand for my book. It feels good to know that I have written a book, and it has created a dream in me to write more. I lit a few of my rainbow Lent candles last night. It was dark and icy cold outside. A fire was burning in the old Jøtul down in the basement, wrapping both the livingroom and my studio in warmth. Terje was out skiing with a strong head flash light. the girls were doing homework, in between coughing (Ingrid went to the hospital yesterday to get some medicine for her bad bronchitis). The house was nice and quiet. Ideas for another book found their way into my head.

When I wrote my first book I spent some time in Italy andAustria, for ideas and for writing time. When I wrote the children,s Advent Blog I wrote most of it in Italy. I am making plans for more writing.........Where shall I go?

Three years ago I visited a small, remote place in Italy called Castelpetroso. There I did my Stabat Mater walk, which I share in photos and words in "40 dager - fra karneval til oppstandelse" (follow the link and flip to page 57++ to see the photos). Last Autumn friends of us went back to Castelpetroso, and this time they brough my book with them to give to the monastery there.

"Am I world famous now?" I asked my friend when she came back home with photos for me. "Oh yes, sure you are. At least in Castelpetroso" was her smiling answer.

   

Teatime with sick daughters (Blue Café yesterday)

 None of us got much sleep last night, up in her bedroom in the attic, Marta was coughing badly, down in the basement Ingrid's coughing was even worse. Today they have both been home from school, and as it often is with choughing, it is better in daylight. Fortunately.

Both girls slept long and then they spent the morning planning dinner and starting their own blogs. Marta is an easy learner, so when Ingrid was busy preparing the food, she found the white table cloth I usually use for my food photographing, unwrapped it just like I do, and took series of photos. Both girls are laughing. For years they have teased me for my blogging and for my food photographing, now they are both walking in my footsteps :-)

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Not long ago I bought several packets of dates at the grocery store. Left overs from Christmas, still soft and sweet. I love dates, but there certainly is a limit of how many I can eat at a time, so I had to find other ways to use them. Sick daughters are in need of comfort food, even though they feel well enough both to cook and to blog, so I decided to make a plate of cookies. The smell from freshly bakes cookies is always a very good medicine

The dates gave the cookies a very nice, sweet taste, and to make them even better I added some Norwegian Santa Sunniva Liqueur, therefore the name; Santa Sunniva Cookies.

 Santa Sunniva Cookies

 

5dl white flour

1 1/2 dl sugar

200gr salted butter

 

cut the butter into small pieces and knead the dough together by your hands

 

add about 20 sliced dates and an egg cup of liqueur

make round cookies

press them down with a fork

 

bake at 200C for about 15 minutes

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My choice of music this time is a little different. Not any of the old classics, but charming Josh Groban with a collection of evergreens. Not a music I listen to every day, but for a cookie baking night it filled the kitchen perfectly :-)

There is a church.....

 

There is an open church downtown Trondheim, Vår Frue, Our Lady, Notre Dame, Santa Maria. The church is open 24/7. Open for silence. Open for talks. Open for laughter and sorrows. Open for prayers.

The open door is God's invitation. Come, I am here to listen to you. Come, I am here to comfort you.

My feet and my heart find the way. Often.

 

The Fishmarket in Trondheim, Ravnkloa

 

Since I was a little girl I have loved visiting the fish market. The smells, the colours, the life. The fishmarket here in Trondheim used to be alot more busy than now. These days I ususally go there on Fridays after work, and then it is a quiet place. Fishmonger Ketil, who grew up in the street next to mine, has alot of time available for talking, and we both agree - people today eat too little good, quality fish.

    

Yesterday Terje and I went out grocery shopping together, and instead of only visiting the local supermarket, we went downtown, with Ravnkloa as our main goal. The place was more busy on a Saturday, and I enjoyed watching what people bought, imagining what they were going to serve, imagining parties or romantic dinners for two.

 

We ended up buying cod, two different types, one for Saturday night's paella, one for Sunday dinner with lefse and "rogn" (shown in last photo). The week-end is a feast, two days in a row with fresh fish from the fish market.

 

We are making plans for a trip to Italy. On my list is the Rialto fish market.

 

The paella recipe will soon be up in The Blue Café

--------------------UPDATE--------------------

Recipe for cod paella is now up.

A soup for Marta

 

Marta got a brace the other day, now she has two, upmouth and downmouth, and for a few days it is hard for her to chew  normal food. Thursday was New Year's Ball Night at school, and it is easy for an almost teenager to feel sorry for herself when she can't enjoy pizza with the rest of the gang. She knows and we know that this is only temporarily, soon she will use her braced teeth to eat normal, but she knows and we know that for some days now it is my pleasure to make special food, special brace face food :-)

    

When I was in India, I was served soup for supper every night. Often made on vegetable leftovers from lunch. I loved these soups, and learned alot of new soup ideas. I used some of them to make last night's after dance practice soup for Marta (and for me and Terje, though for us it was not after dance practice, we took our dance much later ;-).....)

It is so easy. I took a look in the bottom of the fridge to see what I found - potatoes and onions are always there, and in between there was some leftovers from a califlower (I must go grocery shopping today). I peeled the onion and the potatoes, boiled potatoes, onion and califlower for 20 minutes, let it all go into the kitchenhelper, back into the pot with some of the boiling water, salt and pepper.....and there we were.

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a couple of other braceface food ideas:

(recipes and more ideas in The Blue Café)

     

To keep a marriage alive

 

I have a yahoo email address, and during this first month of the year I've been presented with alot of news and good ideas on the yahoo news page on how to keep your marriage alive, or how to keep your lover or your sweetheart, how to make romance during the everydays. This has started a chain on thoughts in me. I have been married for almost 29 years, my husband is my best friend, my husband is my lover, I am still in love with my husband. We do have our share of grey everydays when life is busy and marriage becomes a routine, through our 29 years life has not always been a walk on the rainbow, we've had ups and downs, we have ups and downs........yes, thank God, we HAVE UPS AND DOWNS. The downs can be a struggle, but they give a perfect background colours for the brush strokes of UPS.

 

It is always too easy to take each other for granted. We often do. But how do we avoid the serious traps?

Sharing a piece of cake a cappucino and a caffe latte is often our solution. The piece of cake can be cheese and salted biscuits, the coffee can be a glass of wine for me and some non-alcohol beer for Terje. The sharing is what matters. To sit down together, to see each other. Chatting or silence. A hug. A kiss. Eyes meeting. To know that we walk together. Not always side by side, but always together.

 

We went to the movies the other night. Before the film we shared cake and coffee. And love.

Simplicity

 

Show me your way God, and create in me a willingness to walk it