Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Reflecting........in between

Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

We went downtown early for shopping. The confirmation is coming up in two weeks, my list was (is) long. Shoes for Marta's bundad, ordering the right flowers for the dinner table, extra glasses for the big party, paper towels, paper, clips, glue and a little this and that for the place cards, stockings, fake nails for Marta, a new deo for me............and outdoor coffee somewhere to praise the nice weather.

We are back home. I am preparing lunch (to be enjoyed in the garden), Marta is working on her baby and toddler photo album, Terje is working out in the garden....

........and I am reflecting.

Soon Marta's confirmation is over. Life is passing so fast.

Too fast?

 

We have sat up an extra table in the livingroom for photos and scrapbook "things". I look through the photos. Long forgotten memories come alive.

Such a rich life.

Such a blessed life.

 

May Flowers Grow in Your Footsteps

Copyright Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

Walk through live with love and care.

Let flowers bloom in your footsteps.

A moment of eternity or an apprentice of life

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

A moment stolen. Between two appointments. Spring in the city but still cold, so I enjoyed my cortado and my blueberry muffin indoors. Looking out the window where a group of art student were busy drawing, two backpackers were reading, tourists photographing.

A moment of eternity. A moment of training......to live life fully. An apprentice of living, seeking to master the art. I take my training seriously.

I am a toddler learning to walk this path. The path of life.

The cathedral spire shows the direction.

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After a while I pick up my green notebook and write down a list of cakes we want to tave for Marta's confirmation. And a list of people I want to ask for help with the baking.

 

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I still haven't askled my sister-in-law in Iceland.......

(from February 6th 2010)

My sister in law Stina (www.fabula.is) is an artist. In many ways. A week ago her creativity went into making the birthday cake for Ágúst's 8th birthday. We had talked about birthday cakes and Stina told me she always loved to make different ones for the birthdays of Embla and  Ágúst. On the table was a plate covered in silver, in the kitchen a quite ordinary round chocolate cake without cream was waiting.

I was curious. What would happen now?

I didn't have to wait long. Stina works fast. First cutting the cake in two layers, then like magic there were a head and a body, two feet, two arms.........a man.

Embla watch he mother in amazement while Ágúst is at the front door wishing his best friend welcome. The birthday part is not due in several hours, but the friend has asked if he could come early to help with the cake decorations.

The magic has started, now comes the next step, chocolate filling and decorating with sweets. Loads of sweets.

No tasting, it is time for work.

Small fingers are busy. New ideas are born......let's do this, look what I am doing.....

 Suddenly I can see where this is leading, the black leather trousers, the guitar.........

The small hands are busy..... their eyes see only the cake. I use the chance to eat a couple of sweets. The fragrance of licorice is filling the flat, and I can't resist........

The cake is ready, and soon afterwards the flat is filled with enthusisatic, fully alive boys!

 Michael Jackson is the highlight on the cake table!

The aunt coming all the way from Norway (me of course) could fill her memory chest with images, fragrances, sounds, colours and happiness. It is a long time since one of my boys were 8!

 

Preparations

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

Marta's Big Day, her confirmation, is coming up in less than three weeks. May 14 is the date. At 12 there will be a special service in Kolstad church. Afterwards there will be dinner (I guess you might call it lunch) for almost 30 guests in The House in the Woods, followed by coffee and more guests a little later.

A tapas buffet is on the menu, starting with fish soup made by 88 years old grandpa. The coffee table will have tons of cakes.

I am busy making lists these days. Of course we could make it simple, but the preparations are half the fun, or at least a quarter :-) A little stress is part of it all. For my lists I have a special extra beautiful notebook, light green for hope and life, which I bought in Paris last autumn. Most of my friends have got the question now - can you make something for the buffet, can you bake some special bread please, do you have a favorite cake you want to make for Marta...........

Small potatos will be served on the tapas table. I put aside all the small ones from our potato harvest last year and have saved them for Marta's Big Day. But now they have started to grow, wanting desperately to be put into the soil.........

Some are too far gone to be served. Really too far. Others are just perfect. I have sorted out the best ones......with Marta's nose over my shoulder; "Mamma, the more preparations we do, the more I look forward to my Big Day"

So do I :-)

The preparations will fill my days the coming weeks, and I plan to take you with me along this path.

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From July 22, 2009:

The first potatoes and a recipe.

 

Sunday we decided to check on the new potatoes. Well, I decided that Terje was to do a check! He was sure it was too early yet. I had a plan though, to make a special dish with mini potatoes.

 

After a lovely fish meal with one of the deans in the diocese in the early spring, I praised the potatoes (and the fish) so much that the only thing the dean could do was to give me a box of potatoes ready to plant. This special type of potato, called Molt can not be found in the grocery stores.

Proudly I came home to present Terje with the potatoe box, and he knew that the only thing he could do was to prepare the potatoe field.

 

The potatoes were planted, and every morning, during my garden walk, I have been checking on the growing potato grass. When we came home from vacation a couple of weeks ago the grass had started to bloom, and it was with a hard beating heart I watched Terje dig for the first ones on Sunday.

18 small potatoes under the one plant he dug out! That's something!

 

I washed them, but did not peel them. The skin is part of the delicatessen when the potatoes are new. Then I boiled them for just a few minutes before frying them in extra virgin olive oil. Before serving the small gold beads were sprinkled in Maldon salt.

 

While the potatoes boiled I picked the green for a Blue Garden salad and Terje sat up the grill. Sunday dinner in our favorite restaurant, The Blue Café.

 

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I hope to do a weekly potatoe post, here or over at The Blue Café. I already have a long list of recipe sent me by you some time ago, but I am always looking for more.

What is your favorite potato recipe?

Or a favorite potato story? Click on this link and you will be taken to mine.

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Click here and you are taken to the post where you gave me your potato recipes.

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A Norwegian potato site.

To garden dreams, to dream gardens

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

You must live through the Nordic winter to know what spring is. Really know. Year after year with long, dark, icy cold months. Telling yourself again and again that winter can be beautiful. Fleeding the darkness for a week. Counting days till spring.

Two weeks ago I was sure the snow in our garden would never melt. Never. Marta's confirmation is coming up the 14th of May. We will have a big party and I want The House in the Woods to look its best. That day. And always. "Terje, the snow in The Blue Garden is never going to melt this year. Everything will be gray, dirty and dead on Marta's Big Day."

Then, wonder over all wonders........of course I know that's the empty grave on Easter Morning, but for the sake of my blog post.........wonder over all wonders.....Saturday was a glorious day and when the night came, all the snow had melted.....well, almost, and wil a little help of my man.

Sunday came with lovely sun and almost summer temperatures. and Monday was perfect for more garden work. Now it is starting to look like the garden I dream of out there, the dream I garden.....

In between gardening I sit down with my books. And my dreams. With Tasha Tudor I create the rustic charm she mastered to perfection, with Gertrude Jekyll I paint with flowers and with Frances Mayes I dream, dream, dream.........of gardens, of travels, of Italy, of books, of art, of words, of travels.

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Before dinner I gather nettles and use them in a carrot stew I am making.

Oh, the pleasure of ones own garden, of nature.

Recipe for the carrot stew over in The Blue Cafe.

 

Playing the Games

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

The last snow in the Blue Garden melted Saturday night. Sunday it was time for the first 2011 Blue Garden barbeque.

A few years ago Terje, Marta and I celebrated Easter in Venezia. On Easter Day we took the vaporetto to Lido, walked over the island to the public beach and was so sure we would be almost alone there. Italians don't go to the beach in April.

Well, that's what we thought. In Terracina in April we've had the beach all to ourselves. What we didn't count though was that this was Easter break, and Easter Day was a family day when everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, gathered for picnic and family fun.

Another Easter, also several years ago, I was in Terracina with friends. One day I was invited on a mountain hike with a dear old Italian man. I packed my small backpack with a water bottle, some salami, a couple of small breads and a bar of chocolate. What I didn't know, what I had no idea about, was that a couple of women, who took part in the hike, had prepared food for hours, may be days.......their husbands had drived it all up on top of the mountains, by a backroad, in the morning. So when we reached the top I was in for a feast. It must be the best meal I've had in my life. Ever.

Our babeque yesterday was not an Italian feast. Let's call it a Blue Garden feast. A potato salad, a green salad, lamb, marinated salmon, different types of sausages, corn.........

Terje and I, our "four is my lucky number", Marius (Ingrid's boyfriend) and Marius's brother who is in Trondheim for the holidays. A real family gathering. Food, lots of it, followed by games, chatter, laugter, coffee, brownies and an Easter egg filled to the brim.

I think I have started a tradition. A Blue Garden family barbeque on Easter Day.

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Thanks to all of you for your comments and emails on yesterday's posts. Every morning I say to mysalf - today I will write everybody back to say a personal thank. Every night I realise that the day has passed too quickly.

 

Christ is risen

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

Morning has broken. And what a morning!

Christ is risen, Death is conquered!

Another sunny, mild day of spring here. We will go to mass in the cathedral, then I plan a walk in the primula garden at Ringve botanical gardens, and in the afternoon the Blue garden will be open for the first barbeque for the season.

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Photos: morning at Rastarbo

(I could easily start a new blog, a terrace photo a day from our cabin ;-))

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How do you celebrate Easter Day?

More photos, and a winner

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

We have spent all day out in the garden today. My face, my arms and my legs has got a fresh sunny tan, my garden muscles feel sore after so many months hibernating. The garden looks so promising, it was hard to go in to start preparing dinner. But we are hungry.......so now a vegetable soup is boiling on the oven......and I have some time to show you more photos.

Our cabin week offered us all types of weather. From sun and lunch out on the terrace till pouring rain and indoor life.......or out hiking with high boots and raincoats.

Never a boring moment when you have a cabin. A simple one, without electricity, without indoor water, filled with happy memories and love.

Always a different number of people arond the dinner table. Torgeir came down by boat one of the last days. We met him by the harbour and as soon as Marta saw the boat comeing she jumped out of the car to pick flowers for her big brother.

Blogging for me is about sharing thoughts and tales there and then. Going back now to find my tales and write then down is not easy. They might come later, who knows.......but tonight the correct words are not here......

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Thank you for following me anyway, and for commenting.

I promised a winner and have now picked.....

.......Claudia!

Send me your address Claudia, and I will send you a surprise gift.

The photos

Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

We are back home, in time for last night's Good Friday Passion Play in old medieval Byneset church.

As promised I have a basket filled with photos and cabin tales for you. But today is so glorious, with a bright Nordic spring sun shining from a crisp blue sky. The garden is crying my name out load......and i have to obey.

.....will be back later

(photo: me and my two girls out hiking in the rain)

the postcard

.......as a weaver of tales I thought this card could be the start of a story for you....

I got the postcard in the mail the day before we left for Rastarbo. I put it in the totebag I had packed with books, notebooks and stationary........and almost forgot about it.

Untill last night when I was writing a few letters. The card stirred something deep in me, a heartstring found its right tune. I took the melody with me out on the terracce...........to find a fairytale world in the view.

One thing leads to anoher...

a postcard
the book I am reading
secret thoughts locked by a golden key
Schumann's Traumerei
Cabin view
words on paper
peace