Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

From the breakfast table

The House in the Woods is busy these days.

Breakfats with Maouro and his family in the garden.

Marta's friends sleeping over one night, the next night and the next and the next there are one, two three or four cousins sleeping in Marta's room.

Brother Frode and my sister in law from Lofoten are staying.

Brother Børge and family from Iceland are coming today and will stay while we travel to Croatia this afternoon.

The House in the Woods is a B&B and I love it!

Tale from the breakfast table this morning (brother Frode is the one who has planned and booked our first week in Croatia and Bosnia and now he is eager to know if we like his choices):

Brother Frode: You know Britt Arnhild about tripadviser and all those pages giving points to the hotels and guesthouses. This night I dreamed that you do it the other way round. You have a huge blue notebook where you write down the name of all your guests and give them points!"

Me giving points to the guests. Hahahaha. I would give them all top points:-)

We are leaving for Croatia and Bosnia in a few hours, for two weeks. Hopefully I will be online from time to time.........  

But before that I need to pack and then make pizza for lunch for "a whole gang" (I need more fingers to be able to count them all.....)

Where to spend a day with Italian friends? Røros of course.

After brunch in a sunny Blue Garden (hi, did I forget to take photos......), we headed for Røros, the UNESCO Heritage mining village two hours south of Trondheim.

Røros is a place where you easily can get yourself lost.....in charm and beauty. Mauro has bought a new camera for his visit to Norway, and didn't stop taking photos......well, he did stop a few times, but that was when he had problems figuring out how the camera worked, or when he wanted me or Baraba to shoot a photo of him.

 
I tried to do some serious old log house photographing, but somehow my camera seeked out Mauro again and again. Or was it not my camera........

.....my camera or not, looking through my photos today, the day after, I love those I have of Mauro.

Time flies when you are having fun with good friends.

After the Røros walk and having lunch there, we drove out to the cabin of Terje's brother and sister in law. There Irene, Mauro's daughter met her paradise, the little dog Winnie.

Careful at first it didn't take long to become friends with Winnie, and soon Irene's laughter filled the cabin.

Family and friends. Do we take our blessings for granted?

A stranger today might be a friend tomorrow.....

Do you really see the people along your paths? Do you meet them with curiosity? With an open mind? 

My two men :-)  

Last photo shows Mauro with a block of copper from the old Røros copper mine. It is a lot heavier than it looks like :-) yes Mauro, you ARE a strong man!  

The transformation. Friends from Venezia

I knew something would happen when I kissed the frog. A prince came, in the form of Mauro, the glass blower. And he didn't come alone. Together with him came his wife Barbara and their charming little Irene.

Quite by chance Marta, Terje and I walked into a small workshop in Venezia a few years ago after we looked through the window and saw the owner sitting inside making glass figures. Little did we know then that it was the start of a lifelong friendship.

There is a tower in Trondheim, once used by the national radio- and television company, now a restaurant. The floor in the restaurant rotate and after one hour you've seen Trondheim from "all angles". A perfect place to take out of town/out of country guests.

Serving pizza to Italians. I know I take a chance, I know it can never be like pizza in Italy. Still, I have done it before, we did it today, and it works. And how can in now with a view like this!

First pizza, then ice cream. My heart melted looking into these beautiful eyes.

We hope you enjoyed your first day in Norway Mauro, Barbara and Irene. It is a pleasure to have you here. Now we are looking forward to tomorrow.

I am kissing the frog

There is a frog on my table......

...I kiss it.....

...and I wonder.....

Will anything happen?

Will the frog transform?

Prayers

A friend is fighting cancer.

Fighting hard.

Orange flowers fill my prayer basket. A glass angel on my desk, transparent with two small orange dots on her dress. The orange flowers, my prayes are given back to God, The Creator of all things.

I have no words. No comfort to give.

Prayers. Faith. Hope. Love.

Why God? I cry.

I Am. He answers.

Of course we had coffee.......and a lot more we did as well

What a week-end. What a cabin week-end. Terje, me, Marta and two cousins, Mathilde and Embla the first two days, then 5 more from the Wigum family came out all Sunday. My parents, my brother Børge from Iceland, and my two young nephews, the most charming young boys walking on two shoes on this earth.....

 
We had coffee on Saturday in the small cafe which I have baptised "roses and apple blossoms". The cake Terje and I had this time was out of this world. Almost too beautiful to eat.....and I can tell that it tasted just as good as it looks.

The room next door to the cafe was open and a young woman from the area had an exhibition with some of her knitted pieces of art. Marta dived right into the net and magically transformed to a mermaid.

 
The artist's name is Ane Vik Eines. Ane has her own very creative blog which you can read here.

 
On Sunday we were back to the river slide. The river had much less water but was still perfect for both sliding and swimming.

My parents were busy photographing their grandchildren.

 
Then we, my parents and I, left Terje and Børge there with the five cousins while we drove in to Todalen. We had read about a summer exhibition in the old school house in there. Paintings from the 1940ies, from the area.

 
The woman who showed us around had stories to tell, about the area, the houses, the people who used to live there. We were even shown a painting of her old horse from her childhood, her sorrow when the horse died.

My father is always a great listener, though most of all he has his own stories to tell.

 
The room could still show some of the old class room atmosphere.

 
I wonder what life was like here when the house was filled with pupils.

Back to the cabin to eat on the terrace. Heading back to Trondheim late at night, stopping somewhere on the road to fish.

I am saving the memories of a cabin week-end in my heart.

Three cousins in a water slide

Close to our cabin the rivermakes a natural water slide. better than any artificial one. And best of all, this one is free and can be used whenever you like.

With all the cold rain we've had this summer the river had more water than we've ever seen there before. And all this water was icy cold. Did that stop the girls?

Marta was the first one out, her cousins soon followed. Terje was ready to jump out as the resque hero any time. I sat on the stones licking sun with a book and a cup of coffee. Didn't read much though, it was too much fun watching the girls.

 

Three cousins are sharing fun, creating mamories together. Thursday night Kamilla will be with them, and they will be the perfect quartet.

Diamonds in the water

Full Moon Cabin Night

Cabin week-end with three cousins. Marta 14, Mathilde 13, Embla 11. Missing Kamilla 12 but she is on her way to Trondheim, from Lofoten (up north in Norway) and will travel to Croatia with us in a week. 4 cousins. Lucky, lucky girls.

Three cousins picking blueberries under the full moon. In the light Nordic summer night. Then in to eat the blueberries with milk and sugar, while playing Kortskalle, a boardgame where you guess who you are and where you are.

So much laughter. So much happiness.

The cabin is quiet now, it is my morning bird time. Some time during the middle of the night I woke up. There was still laughter from the girls' bedroom.

Travel memories and a basket full of thanks

I am looking through thousands of old photos saved on cds, and when I found these two of Marta feeding the birds outside Notre Dame in Paris from the summer of 2003, I had to share them with you. Our friend Marie-Noëlle told us that there was a man outside the cathedral who was a friend of the birds and as long as he was there with the child, telling the child what to do, the doves would come to eat from their hands. So they did :-)

We are going back to Paris in October, but that's not what I had planned to write about today.

Actually I had no plan at all, rather then throwing out a huge hug to the postcard writers out there. There are postcards in my mailbox every single day these days. You are incredible!!!

Today my special thanks go to:

Vicki in Washington, Petter (a friend from Norway), Hetty in The Netherlands, Katy in Texas, Fran in England, Robin in South Carolina, Bonnie/SomePinkFlowers in Florida, Kristi in Ohio, Carol in Maine, Lily in Germany, Jeanne in Canada and Lucille in California.

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Later I will write more about food, and then I will say thanks to all of you who wrote such great comments on yesterday's post. They all mean a lot to me!

and then I got a piece of warm bread with syrup on.....

I could hardly believe my eyes the other day. I was in the grocery store looking for rice and all I could find was packets with small readymade bags which would be ready boiled in a few minutes. I wanted "real rice", in cardboard boxes or in a woven net, not prepared artificially to be boiled only for a few minutes. Real rice to make paella, risotto, or one of the many different casseroles I love to make.

The rice is not the only thing. Walking around in the grocery store, which is known to be a quite good one actually, I find so much fast food, but no fresh fish, no counter where the meat can be cut in the size I want. The vegetables are still fresh, but the area is occupying only a small corner of the shop.

Are these signs that we are losing our food traditions. Do we turn our backs to the old traditions, to the fresh food which needs to be prepared with love, from scratch, where you really have to use your fingers, your hands, your tastebuds, your heart to make healthy meals?

I found another store where I got the rice I wanted, I visited the vegetable market downtown to buy strawberries for dessert and I went home, deep in thoughts about food.

When I came home I made a bread dough, thinking about food all the time when I kneaded the breads. It is so easy to make a fast and simple dinner, buying the food easiest prepared.......and if we never ask for anything else the shops will not sell it.

Food is important to me. A lot of my cooking is inspired from the Italian kitchen, but I also try to take care of the old Norwegian traditions.

 

When the bread was fresh out of the oven I cut three slices, one for Marta, one for Terje, one for myself. Then I remember when I was a girl I got a special treat when my mother baked bread. Warm bread with syrup. I spread some on our slices, filled three glasses with milk and had a feats with my man and my girl.

I would love to hear about you and the meals you prepare, the groceries you buy.