Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Hot chocolate on cold winter mornings

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
My girls want Starbucks to come to Norway. I do not. Oh no, I do not want Starbucks to come to Norway. I love visiting Starbucks when I am in London, but here in Norway......NO.

 
So why this deternination, you ask.

Well, I am afraid that if Starbucks comes to Norway, many of our local no-chain coffee shops will die. We have quite a lot of these charming local ones. And I love them!

 
Like this one, Bakklandet Skydsstasjon, which I happened to pass last Sunday just when it opened. The woman in the bright polkadot dress was out with a sign telling that she served hot homemad cocoa with cream. I couldn't resist, could I. Not the hot cocoa, not the cream, not the beautiful woman with the bright polkadot dress.

 
Inside the small rooms are filled with mismatched tables and chairs, and a delicious meny of homemade bread and cakes. And dinner if you come later in the day.

 
As I already said I came early, just then the coffee shop opened. I found a small table near the counter, ordered svele (a kind of thick pancake with a ccream of butter and sugar) and hot cocoa with a lot of cream, and sat down with my notebooks.

Coffee shops are my very best places to search for words.

 
In between word hunting I couldn't stop looking around.

So much charm gathered in a few tiny rooms.

 
One svele only for me, though I would have loved a dozen..............then I might have shared one with you as well :-)

 
I came back to Bakklandet Skydsstasjon again yesterday. For more cocoa. For more writing. For more charm.

 
.....and to look out the window over to the cathedral.

Booktalk on a Sunday 40. A Vision of Eden

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

It started in India. During the three weeks I spent there with Carolyn and Hossy, I travelled, step by step, trough Carolyns collection of travel books. Isabella Bird and Dervla Murphy were among the travelling women I read about, so was Marianne North. "A Vision of Eden. The Life and Work of Marianne North" was the first book I read, sitting out on Carolyn's terrace. Through her story I travelled the world, starting in 1871, in my suitcase I had my paintbox, brushes, my easel........an adventorous spirit.

If I had been born sometime in the 19th century I am sure I would have been a world traveller. Writing diaries. Sending letters home. Exploring. Making friends.

A few months after my weeks in India, I went to London, and as I unexpectedly got some extra time there, I spent a day in Kew Garden. Was hoping to see the Marianne North Pavillion but unfortunately it was closed due to renovation........good reason to come back :-)

Marianne North came to my mind several times during our week on Tenerife. I didn't quite understand why then, but a week ago I suddenly knew, North visited Tenerife. And she wrote about it. I went right over to amazon.co.uk to order the book, it came yesterday, and now I am reading about her days on Tenerife, her visit to the botanical garden (the one Terje and I found at long, long last), her amazement to see the 3000 years old dragon tree (according to North it is even older), the flowers and trees she sees and enjoys.

....I had a room on the roof with a separate staircase down to the lovely garden, and learned to know every plant in that exquisite collection. There were myrtle-trees ten or twelve feet high, bougainvilleas running up cypress-trees, great white lancifolium lilies (or something like them) growing high as myself. The ground was white with fallen orange and lemon petals; and the cherokee roses covered a great arbour and tool-house with their magnificent flowers. I never smelt roses so sweet as those in the garden. From the garden I could stroll up some wild hills of lava.....

I could go on and on copying Marianne North's words, but you better buy the book yourself :-)

If you need me today you'll find me in the sofa, reading about Marianne North, dreaming about old and new travels..........But first I plan a photo walk here in Trondheim.

Photos: I could have used photos from Tenerife, I have at least a thousand, but chose India memories instead.

From the fish market home to dinner for two

Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

A very special email found its way to my inbox yesterday. Hopefully it will lead to a thrilling tale which I will share with you later.......but not yet. This email though sent me down to the fish market in Ravnkloa after work. I hadn't decided yet what to make for dinner, but I knew it had to be some kind of sea food.

Well, as soon as I set my foot in Ravnkloa I knew what to make, mølje, a traditional meal with skrei (a kind of wild cod), rogn (cod spawn) and torskelever (cod liver). Winter is the season for this meal, if you have ever tasted mølje you will never forget it.

My mouth started to water already while waiting to be served. I had spent the day trying to come up with a menue, mind travelling to Italy, France, Spain, may be something Indian...... loving your comments on my post from yesterday morning, yes, I could make some pasta, or of course pizza can also be made for two...........but somehow couldn't decide.

Then this email (I am terrible on keeping secrets......) and all of a sudden I could hardly wait.....to sit down with Terje and share mølje........(terrible on keeping secrets, terrible on being patient........)

Terje came home without any gifts at all from Tage Andersen, with not much time at hand after the conference, before flying home, he had found the flower store only to find a sign on the door telling that the shop was closed for two weeks. He did bring other gifts though, Danish cheese, Danish salami, two bottles of white wine and a card with the words - YOU AND ME ARE WE!

Yes, we are!

It is almost impossible to get a good photo of mølje, I know it doesn't look very delicious, but believe me, the taste is completely out of this world. Spawn and fish in strongly salted, at the point of boiling water, the spawn for longer that the fish. Diced liver and onion, fried in olive oil, salt, pepper. Boiled mandelpotet (almond potatoes) with their skin on.

A glass of white wine. Or a whole bottle.

No starter. No dessert. The mølje takes all the space you have in your stomach.

Velbekomme. Bon apetit. Enjoy!

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Here is a link to a previous post from Ravnkloa, the fish market in Trondheim

Friday and pizza, but not tonight?

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
Friday night is pizza night in The House in the Woods. Around 8pm pizza is served, often one or all of the grown up kids are home to eat with us.

I love pizza. I love our pizza nights. I love to fill the table with people enjoying my food.

 
Tonight there will probably be only me and Terje at home. Marta is off school today and around lunch mormor and morfar (grandma and grandpa) will drive her down to the harbour. She will take the boat down along the coast to Kristiansund to visit a friend for the week-end (my baby is growing up.....help). None of the other kids have said anything about coming home tonight.......yet.

 
Terje will be home from Copenhagen tonight. I will have a meal ready. But I don't know yet what to serve.

Suggestions needed. Asap.

 
By the way - when are you coming to The House in the Woods to eat pizza?

 

Collecting smiles

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

If there isn't a smile dance I am going to invent one.

To share with you all.

I am overwhelmed by all your smiles during the last 24 hours.

Let our smiles spread like rings in water.

When I was young I used to collect poems. I wrote them down in beautiful notebooks. A poem I still partly remember (it is in Norwegian), is about collecting smiles.

I am collecting the smiles of small children, the beautiful smiles of small children........and in the end my favorite part......if you some day manage to open my heart, you will find the most wonderful collection of smiles.

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Sure, if you open my heart just now, you really will find the most wonderful collection of smiles. Among them mine is the broadest.

 

Let us sit down and talk, shall we.....

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

Let's sit down and talk, shall we? Not about the weather, I do not want to talk about the weather these days, I want to forget that it is snowing again, it is cold and the roads are so slippery.

No, let's find another topic.

Not about travels. Terje is on the plane on his way down to Copenhagen, while I am here, looking out the window and all I can see is snow, snow, snow......

Well, Terje did leave with a list of what I want him to buy at Tage Andersen. That's something we can talk about, flowers, and art, and colours and.........

Love is a perfect topic.....or? Not with my lover on the plane down to Copenhagen with me sitting here among the snowflakes........no, that's not a good idea.

What about music then? Shall we talk about music..............no, just now I want some quiet, the days have been too long and noisy lately, a headache is playing hide and seek with me. I have decided not to seek it out. I don't want to talk about music. Not today.

Now I know.

Let's sit here, quiet. Together. No words are needed. A smile very much appreciated.

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Are you with me? Send me a smile and I will smile back.

Winter near the canal, walk near water.

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

A wet, grey winter morning, coloured by the old wooden warehouses along the canal.

 
I often find my way down here during my photo walks, and has come to love the area. My walks are in the early morning, Saturdays or Sundays. Very few people are around. Sometimes I am alone, other mornings an old man, a few old men, are in their boats. Working. Living the life they love.

 
I can imagine sitting down with a thermos filled with scolding coffee, a piece of bread with cheese. Letting life flow by. Listening to the seagulls, the waves, an old boat motor.......

 
Can you remember the shining star which I found in one of the windows over Christmas? I wonder what happened to our story. The young man. The cat.

Do you know the continuation.......

 
Water, canals, river, lakes, the fjord, waterfalls, the ocean......if I lived on a small island........the city queen of canals........

.....I know what it is to be in love. I have been in love with my lover for 30+ years, I easily fascinates by others, who doesn't.......can I also be in love with water, with colours, with my photo walks.......

Here is a link to the Christmas on the canal story.

Shall we keep the story running?

A bird near the river

Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

 
I went downtown for my weekly photo walk, or photosafari as I like to call it. The day was wet and grey. Where could I find beauty to shot?

I started down at the harbour, the fjord was so grey there was nothing to see. Continued along the canal. I love that area, love the boats there. Got some great photos.....for another day......and then continued up to my favorite spot along the river Nidelven.

 
I saw a skarv (sorry I don't know the English name) there in January last year. Got a misty photo which I love so much. And to my pleasure the skarv was there again.

 
This bird is famous up on the Lofoten islands where my brother Frode lives. Years ago there used to be an old blacksmith, quite a character, who used to make the most elegant skarvs. WE have a small collection of three of them out at our cabin.

 
The skarv stands in a tiny little island out in the river. This island can't be seen when the tide is in, the tide from the Trondheim Fjord goes up the river a little, but yesterday, when I came to search for the skarv, the island was perfect for both of us.

Can you see the iron kind of a cross out on the island? If my information is correct, this iron cross was mentioned already in the old Norse litterature written by Snorre.

The skarv, the iron cross, the tiny island, the river, the Pilegrim Center and the cathedral.

I love this photo.

Booktalk on a Sunday 39. An Artist in Italy

Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

From time to time I visit Frances Mayes' Journal. When I came over last night it was to be taken on a Venezian walk. Why is it that my heart beats faster, warmer, every time I am taken to La Serenissima?

As many of you know, I have quite a collection of books about or set in Venezia. Actually, when I started writing my booktalks, many years ago, even before blogging, I always included a section about Venezian books. Like here, in the 2nd Booktalk on a Sunday I wrote here on Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods back in February 2007.

With Italia and Venezia in my mind I am enjoying a gem of a book today, An Artist in Italy written and illustrated by Walter Tyndale R.I around 1920 (I am not quite sure of the year but if I remember correct, Roz, a friend and fellow Venezia lover, helped me check the date a few years ago.

I found this book by chance in an antiquarian in the Ghetto in Cannaregio in Venezia. It cost a lot more than what was on my bookbudget, but I bought it anyway and have of course never regretted the money spent.

The book, huge, blue bound, tells the story of how Walter Tyndale as a young man came to visit Italy in the first place, sent there by the mother of a friend who went to Italy and failed to write letters home. The book starts in Venezia, then continues to other parts of Italia, all the time illustrated by Tyndales watercolours.

An artist in Italy. I am no painter, nevertheless I bring my painbox with me every time I travel to Italy, yes, if you have read my blog for some years you have seen me sitting on the foundamenta, painting, or you have seen Marta working on her art.  Venezia is made for artists, artists who create with brushes and colours, artist who create with words, with music, artists who create with their camera.

And it is made for artists living there, magicians with glass as their medium, with fish, fruit and vegetables, icecream, pastries or coffee as their medium, artists hanging their laundry.

It is also made for you and me, we who make living an art. Venezia is always there, waiting for me. Waiting for my long walk where I never miss even the tiniest nook and corner, it is there for me to make friends, to have coffee, to wrap myself in colours, in beauty, in history.

I know I will be back in Venezia during the year. I always will.

But when?

Photos: I started to look through old photos from Venezia, I had forgotten how many I have of hanging laundry. I could have shared hundreds......

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Links: I started to put in links, but gave up. There are so many I want tpo show you, I must have hundreds of posts from Venezia. Here is a link to them all. (If you press on this link you will be taken to all my venezia posts, starting with this on, scroll down and it will continue for a long, long time)

Today you begin to change the world

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

"She opened her eyes at four in the morning and thought, Today you begin to change the world, Florita"

I did not open my eyes at four,even though I am an early bird. But when I read these words last night in the book I have on my bedside table, they somehow hit a cord in my. The blessing of every new day given, the blessing of being able to change the world.

We all have this possibility, to change the world. Every new morning is given us, together with the painbox and the palette which is our life.

Some of us travels the world, always on the road, seeking adventures. Some of us are homebound, to a bed, a chair, the four walls of a flat or a house. We have all been given the colours, the brushes, and each and every day a new clean sheet of paper is waiting to be filled.

I woke this morning to a snowy, wet day. This heavy, wet snow which bends the trees, which soaks through everything. I had to look twice, more than twice to see its beaty, I had to fight away the negative "oh no!!!! will spring ever be here" thoughts. Now I have looked twice, and twice again, and I can't take my eyes off the white beauty out in the Blue Garden.

As soon as daylight is here I will be out with my camera.

Today you begin to change the world.

So what are your plans for the day?

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Photos: from Syria, a hotel in the old part of Damascus, where we had breakfast two mornings.

The book on my bedside table: The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa