Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

So much to share. Can you wait for it a couple of days?

I have too much going on now and can't take time to blog.........

But I can promise an explotion of colours and words......soon.....

 Just a little story though:

We had planned to celebrate the night of our 30th wedding anniversary at Flor og Fjære, a flower island and restaurant out in the fjord near Stavanger. A few days before the day I got a phone to tell us that the dinner Monday night was cancelled due to too few people. "Could we go for lunch Tuesday instead?"

"Oh no" my first reaction was disappointment. "Monday is our wedding anniversary......." Terje and I had to talk a little back and forth, change some other plans and in the and I phoned back to tell that we would go Tuesday for lunch.

To our huge surprise, when we came to the dessert during lunch on Tuesday, this arrived at our table:

We don't mind, and keep on walking through the doors we like.....

Doors can be as big or small as they like. We don't mind and walk our paths anyway! In love! Through gray days, through the rainbow. Through laughter and tears.

 
Luckily I brought several baskets on this trip. Now they are all filling up with travel tales. They might be shared......some day.

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Thanks for all the good wishes yesterday. We had a lovely celebration in Stavanger in the night and keep on celebrating today.....

I DO!

On June 28th 1980 I said the two most important words of my life:

I DO

I could say them again any time!

Happy 30th anniversary Terje!

Breakfast with farfar, the coffee is on its way

Breakfast in the morning sun. Girls still asleep but looking forward to a day sunbathing. Coffee is still missing but on its way.

Oh what a beautiful morning........

oh what a beautiful view.......

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My travel genes are dancing these days. Day by day we are exploring the area surrounding our summer village, tomorrow we start a travel up along the western coast of Norway, all our kids will travel with us to Croatia in August (last tickets were booked yesterday) and flight tickets for an autumn break in Paris is booked.

Some links to show you the beauty of the western coast, Vestlandet:

A garden at Sandane

Part 1 of our "roundtrip"

Part 2 of our "roundtrip"

Part 3 of our "roundtrip"

Part 4 of our "roundtrip"

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Old wooden hotels of Norway

 

 

Travels then. Travels now

I have been reading Daughter of the Desert this week, about the remarkable life of Gertrude Bell. I always read with a pen in my hand, and have been underlining sentences through the book. For exemple about her packing, and what she brough with her on her desert expeditions. Not only clothes and food, but a bed, furniture, a bath, china, crystal, silver, a library. Not to forget her camera and the many plates for photos.

We took the girls on a drive yesterday, I guess many of you will recognise these houses from last summer. The girls were busy with their cameras, shooting hundred of photos, and I had to think of Gertrude Bell and her photographing. She took throusands during her expeditions around 100 years ago. She used to bring with her two cameras, they must have been heavy! And then the plates and the work to develope the shots!

Gertrude was a remarkable travel writer. Finding a place to stay in Baghdad in 1917......she put up her two writing desks and filled all her vases with flowers.....

 
......she rented a house in Mount Carmel, filled the room with mimosa, jasmine and wild  flowers, and did her lessons on the diningroom table under a chandelier in which there was a nest, the birds constantly flying in and out of the open window.....

I have filled my father in law's diningroom table with my computer and my books, like I have done for all the 30+ summers I've been here. I can't actually say I am having my lessons, like Gertude did when she studied Arabic. I do my blogging though, I write letters to friends worldwide, I write and I read. (And I DO plan to start learning Italian in the fall.....) Or may be I CAN say that I am having my lessons........I have started to study Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, a brick stone of a book  about the former Yugoslavia. I am preparing for our upcoming trip to Croatia in August.

Like Gertrude Bell I bring a lot of books when I travel. More so this time as we are travelling by car and I have no limits. Gertrude had some books she always brought with her in her travel library. Like a complete Shakespeare.

My New Testament always travel with me, and in the summer my books about old wooden hotels of Norway. Herodotus should go with me on every trip, though I forgot it this time.......

It feels good to travel today. Convenient. And it feels lovely to dream myself 100 years back in time, going along on a camel on one of Gertrude Bell's desert crossings.

Thank you Marta for your photos.

Happy travels.

In the kitchen with farfar (grandpa)

Almost all the food on farfars table is homemade. A box with oatmeal biscuits on the kitchen table is everyones favorite. The last thing Ingrid asked farfar bafore she flew home on Monday: "can you please bake me some havrekjeks". 

Marta and Tiril, with farfar as their supervisor, baked a bunch of biscuits last night. As soon Torgeir heard about it (on the phone) he said: oh, will you please bring some home for me as well"

The girls will bake more biscuits today, we will bring boxes home, but best of all........Marta and Tiril now know the recipe and can bake it whenever they want :-)

And if you ask, may be they'll even share the recipe with you.  

Time for coffee

Woke up to a grey world this morning.....well, I guess we can't have sun all the time, and as we all got a little sun burnt during the past days it is good with some rest.

I had read somewhere that a new fajance museum would open in the nearby town Egersund, and after lunch we headed there. To my disappointment the museum wasn't open yet, will not open untill Saturday. So instead of a museum walk we did a walk in the town. Looking at and into small shops......

......and stopped for coffee and hot chocolate.

Like so many other towns and cities, the center of Egersund is slowly dying, more and more stores moving into huge shopping centers. I do not like this development and never visit a mall if I can avoid it.

 
Marta and her friend love the malls though. Teenaged girls can shop for hours :-)

   So we shared the day, walking in the town first, then had some coffee and ended up in one of the malls of Egersund.

I love summer holidays!

Our baby girl is growing

Our baby girl is growing too fast. She is longer than me now, and longer than her big sister. Next spring her confirmation is coming up and today we have been to Stavanger to order her bunad.

Having a bunad handmade for your girl costs a fortune. It is worth every single "krone".

 

 

Route Rally Monte Carlo......

Sun bathing has first priority for the girls these days, but coming from the land of several layers of clothes, they can't be in the sun all day. This morning we decided to go for a drive to Tronåsen, a road from time long, long ago, steep, steep, with hairpin bends almost unimaginable.

As we are six people we had to drive in two cars. Terje, Ingrid and father in law in one, I, Marta and Tiril in the other. I and Terje as drivers. Before starting the steep road up to Tronåsen Terje stopped asking me if I wanted to drive first or last. Actually I think he was not sure if I would dare to drive the steep, narrow road. I have been there before, several times, but always as a passenger.....

I guess challenging me was the best thing he could do. Of course I could do it. Of course I am not afraid of heights...... And coming directly from a morning reading about Gertrude Bell and her adventures, I had no choice.......did I?

Marta and Tiril both had their cameras ready, shooting at least 100 photos each during our drive. What amazes me most is that the road doesn't look steep at all on the photos. Why have strong heart beats here......

Or, does it look a little steep after all.......

Sure it looks steep, it is steep, and Marta is a good photographer.

On the top we stopped for coffee, father in law's chocolate cake, and more photos. Finally it was my time to use the camera.

    
An information board on top tells more about the Tronåsen route. What I like most is to read that from 1931 and for several years, the Rally Monte Carlo started in Stavanger, and the steep Tronåsen drive was a dreaded part of the start. How I would love to keep on, all the way down to The Riviera, following the 1930-cars.......

From the top there was only one way......down of course.....

Finally down it was time for more (family) photos......and some fun...

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Heading for our summer village

14 hours on the roads yesterday took us down to our summer paradice. The small village of Moi, in the south west of Norway, where our family name comes from. Lindland.

The sun is shining, and we are enjoying our days.

Blogging will probably be slow the upcoming weeks, but I will still be here daily, and who knows.....there might be posts worth reading and commenting to :-)

Our family name, Lindland, is not a common name up in Trondheim. For the time being there are only six of us, Terje, me and our 4 kids. Before arriving at Moi we pass signs to Lindland a couple of places (not the places where our name comes from though), and Ingrid has wanted a photo of one for years. Yesterday we finally stopped for a photo, almost in the middle of the road, and got several while trying to avoid the passing cars.

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See you later :-)