Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Not surprisingly.......I went looking for colours.

Can you remember the day in Florence when I felt like the words had all left me? The city overwhelmed me (this was my first visit), I walked around with the silence of the Tuscany hills behind me, the anticipation of Venice ahead of me. I felt Florence was hard to get into, hard to breat, hard to take in.

Then I decided to do my favorite pasttime - go collecting colours. Suddenly I saw Florence with new eyes.

Have you ever tried doing a "colour harvest"? Try and I know you will be surprised.

Without special colour awareness I would never have seen the lovely purples in the second photo, though I am quite sure I would still see the icecream, and probably also the lovely blue bike. What do you think?

Two young boys sat in fron of this window. You should have seen their eyes when they watch me photograph the display. Golden memory.

How many orange shoulder bags can you have?

I am challenging you to do your own colour hunt today. And please tell me about it.

If you make a blog post, let me know the address, and I will link to it.

Let us colour the world!

Photos:

1-7 from Florence

8 salad made by Francesco

9 glass made by Afro Celotto on Murano

Last photo: Mauro among his colours

Tuscany hills in the mist

The day was misty. My suitcase with warmer clothes was still travelling somewhere in Europe to reach Tuscany, so I was cold. But cold and mist could not take away the sense of beauty, the sense of a loving God who was there with me.

I borrowed a thick wollen scarf, wrapped myself tightly and went out to walk with God. He knows the way, through sun, through rain, through mist. Through cold days and warm days. He is there, ready to steady my steps.

God is the artist of life. He knows how to show his work, colours through greyness, love through sorrows, the purpose of life. Being.

Worn, wrinkled, old charm. To see God in every line.

  Showing your natural beauty. Be proud of it.

To walk with God. Every day.

A blessing.

The photos are from my days in Tuscany, at Santa Maria in Ferrano. There will be more from this place and from my days there.

The celebrations continued through the day

This boy and his father passed so fast it was dificult to get a good photo. But as he is so cute I want to share it anyway.

We watched two long parades during 17th of May, there were three different parades downtown, but we left before the last one to go home to prepare a dinner party.

Between the two parades we had coffee, cake, icecream and chocolate in Torgeir's flat. We invited some friends to come with us, they had three Italians from Terracina visiting Trondheim, so suddenly we had Italians there to celebrate with us. Not bad on Norway's Constitution Day.

Then, after coffee, after some time in a warm flat (the day was terrible cold), we went out to watch parade two.

The first parade was for school children, the second one is for "everybody", all different kinds of groups and organisations.

I love watching.

I love the music....

....and the colours....

....and the people....

....and the food. Well, may be not the food, but a warm sausage is actually quite nice on a cold day when you are hungry.

  Most of all though, on a day like this, I love my city and my country.

   On our way home we passed a band playing outside a hospital.

My parents came for dinner. So did Torgeir, Ingrid and Marius (Øystein was invited to have dinner with a friend) and also three exchange student, Sonia and Mattia from Italy, Martin from German. We had alot of fun speaking different languages, following my father's motto: it doesn't mind if you understand or not as long as you have fun!

A cavalcade in red, white and blue

17th of May (Syttende mai) we give all what we have and a little more....... Are you ready for a photo cavalcade?

In the early morning two sisters are on their way downtown. One to have a hotel lunch with her co-group of law students, the other to watch the parades. Only the oldest one has a bunad yet, the youngest one will get one for her confirmation next spring. 

A korps (brass band) has been maching and playing in the neighbourhoods in Trondheim since day break. Now they arrive downtown, ready for the first parade.

Another band is ready to start.

The whole city is dressed in red, white and blue, the colour of the Norwegian flag.

Waiting for the first parade to start. The first one is for all the school children in the city.

Then it is finally 10am and the chief constable of Trondheim starts the first parade.

Then a few Trondheim's flags...

...................

The cavalcade will continue tomorrow. I'm too tired now (it must be because so many Italiens have spiced my day.....more of that also tomorrow)

The light the night before.......

Happy Birthday Norway. It is Norway's Constitution Day today. Schools are off and a whole nation is celebrating. Between the parades downtown today we will have coffee in Torgeir's flat. Last night we went there with the cake, with icecream and everything needed, and then we took a walk in town. Summer has arrived, at least for a few days, and people were out on the streets, sitting in coffeebars and in outdoor restaurants. At 10pm the sun was still out, shining with an orange light, painting buildings brightly.

Slowly the sun went to sleep, leaving magic on her way.

A tivoli, next door to Torgeir's house, was already closing.

.

Almost 10.30pm and the Student's House is bathed in sun.

....and then we drove home, up to The House in the Woods.

:::::::::::::::::::..

The bunads are ready. I ironed the linen shirts last night, mine and Ingrid's Marta doesn't have a bunad yet, will get one for her confimation next year, Terje doesn't want any.

Tomorrow's post will be red, white and blue.  

Living the Garden Life

Spring has been so late in Trondheim this year. Three days ago the last snow melted from The Blue Garden! the 13th of May! We have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting.........

I am not a very good "waiter", not at all. But I am a great jubilator!

Yesterday I could praise spring out in the garden, together with the birds, together with Terje. We started with a visit to the garden center, then we drove home and spent the rest of the day out in the garden.

A whole day working in the garden means alot of listening to the growth of the spring flowers, the leaves on the roses, the lilac buds.......the grass growing. No smelling of the roses yet, too early for that, but I saw the first butterfly. And I dreamed a lot of garden dreams.

We ended the garden Saturday with a barbeque. This Sunday morning starts with breakfast out in the garden.

How do you celebrate spring?  

To hike or not to hike........and to plant a tree

 The morning was bright and sunny. The air was mild, with a promise of summer, though still with a chilly spring wind. We packed our backpack right after breakfast, and went out for a hike, both os us ready to breat in as much as possible of the fresh air.

I have a goal for the summer, to climb a special mountain, and for this I need exercice. Alot of it.

The area close to our cabin is filled with narrow, old  roads, made for the lumberjacks, and it has become a kind of game to find a new way every time we are out. A game I love. You never know what you meet along the road, what you and up.

Like this boat placed right in the middle of nowhere. Far from the sea and with no old Mr. Noah to be seen.

Or the smell of newly chopped wood.

 When we finally sat down with our coffee, up the hill, there was an old man there, planting trees. Tiny, tiny little cuts of firs. As always when we meet people near the cabin, I present myself with my maiden name, Wigum, and it worked this time as well "are you the daughter of Odd Wigum". Then the old man kept on; "I am sorry I am sinning today" We didn't get him at first, but then we understood, he was planting trees on ascension day.......

 

For me he was doing God's own work, planting trees, and how can that be a sin? I am sure God was there with him and with us, breathing on every little tree cutting.

Back at the cabin terracce the day was still young, that's the advantage of being a morning bird. We had the first barbeque of the season, and the first rhuburb soup, with chilli of course, and herbs from the cabin herb garden.

And I sat in the sun for hours, reflecting on life and on tree planting.

 
"If I knew I would die tomorrow I would still plant a tree today" from Martin Luther.

Our cherry tree has survived the winter. Now I am dreaming of planting a plum tree. 

Follow this link and you will be taken to the rhuburb and chilli love story from last year.

 

 The sweet, sweet cabin life.......

Help! I need new shoes

Help!

I need new shoes. And I mean really need it!

Why am I not like other women who loves to buy shoes?

Why didn't I buy any shoes at all in Italy, instead I walked, walked, walked on my old, ugly though very comfortable ones?

   I need to go shoe shopping after work today.

Please wish me good luck.

A wild boar is not a bear and venison is not a live animal.

We came to the cabin some time in the late afternoon yesterday. Terje found our two water buckets and went to get water while I unpacked. But only seconds later he came back; "what is this noise?" We both went out on the terracce to listen, a strange string of noises, something between a pig and a dog.........hard to describe. Close at first, then we could hear the animal walk away. We never saw it.

Later I wrote on facebook:

The first thing meeting us when we came out to the cabin was a strange noise we've never heard before. We both agree it must have been a wild boar! Now I don't dare to leave the cabin alone.........What shall I do during the night when I need to go to the toilet?

My parents phoned us on Skype: a bear, is there a wild bear at the cabin?????? And also several people commenting on facebook misread boar for bear.

My father could calm me down. No, it can't be a wild boar you've heard, it must have been a deer, a buck desperate for a doe.

I went back to facebook and wrote that the wild boar was probably not a boar at all but a venison.......... Then Margaret could tell me that venison is the meat you eat, a he-deer is a buck:-)

So much for tritrans translation, hahahahaha.

I love languages and I love to learn; English, Italian, French, German........but some times I wonder; why can't you all learn Norwegian? It would be so much easier for me to write my blog and my books then.......

   

and then I met Miss Garnet.......

This time I did not bring with me Sally Vicker's Miss Garnet's angel, a book I usually read every time I go to Venice. I didn't need to bring it, I know the book all so well.....

I did not bring the book, but I met Miss Garnet herself.

She was sitting at a small coffee table in one of the many piazzas in Venice, with the shadow of one of Venice's hundreds of churches falling over her. When I spotted her I looked for a free table close to hers and there I sat down with my cappuccino.

Miss Garnet was painting when I first saw her. Something shapeless in bleak colours. A small woman, few colours, moving like a sparrow. Her palette was most of all grey, at first sight. But as I sat there, breathing in a sacred moment, her pelette changes, into something eternal.

 After a while she finished her painting, carefully she packed away her paintbox and her brushes, a pen and a bottle of ink. With even more care she used water from her water bottle to remove colours and inkstains from her hands.

Miss Garnet was not alone. Another British nameless miss sat next to her, helping Miss Garnet to pack away her things, giving a helping hand to remove an extra sustainable inkstain.

When her job was done Miss Garnet found her little diary and wrote a couple of pages. Then a few postcards. The nameless one licked the stamps and glued them on the cards.

I sat there, mezmerised, wishing with all my heart that I could be able to read Miss Garnet's words, even wanting a copy of her painting. I would frame it and hang it in my studio to praise the women of this world who walk the paths less travelled.

The women who let their grey hair grow and the women who colours their hair - not because the world tells them to, but because they have made their own desicions. The women who travel the world with an open mind, with their heart into what they do, and what they do is always what their heart tells them to do.......

 

I had finished my cappuccino now, but I couldn't make myself to leave my table.The two old ladies left theirs eventually. While passing my chair Miss Garnet looked at me, offering a secret smile, and then a blink with her left eye - as she knew my thoughts and wanted to let me know that we are allies along the path.

 

 
I kind of collect coffee table stories. Not actually planned, but looking back through my blog I see that I have quite a few of them.

Photos: all photos except the last one are from Italy. The last one is from The Blue Garden.