Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Being together

@brittarnhild

18 years and two days ago I was sitting in my favorite armchair, heavy and immobile while Terje took our three kids, Torgeir 14, Øystein 12 and Imgrid Elise 7 out to MacDonalds to celebrate Øystein´s birthday. The next morning he took me to the hospital and a few hours later Marta was born. The best gift we all could have!

Since then we have often celebrated a combined party for Øystein and Marta. 12 years and one day apart, still best friends always. And in our family being best friends, loving each other, means a lot of teasing.

Wednesday Øystein turned 30, yesterday Marta turned 18. A perfect way to celebrate.
Terje and I sent out invitation to a dinner at Frida, a Mexican restaurant in Trondheim

Siblings, cousins, parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents.
We made a full table of 15.
A perfect circle.

Lisbeth and Arne, somehow the photo I took of you did not turn out good enough to be used....... (but I have cheated and have a couple of other photos of you in the end)

The restaurant has taken its name from Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter.

I love their food!

 

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After dinner we went back home to The House in the Woods for dessert,

and there Marta and Øystein´s youngest cousin, Winnie Wolfgang was waiting.

 

Lisbeth and Arne, thanks for coming down all the way from Røros to take part in the celebrations.

 

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Some years ago I was in Mexico City, for the UN HIV/Aids-conference. Then I visited a Diego Rivera museum, and fell in love both with his murals and Frida´s paintings.

 

Our little girl is 18

@marta&brittarnhild

 Our youngest, our Marta, is 18 eyars old today. Our baby girl! It is hard to believe.



Earlier this month Marta was in Kenya. One of the first things she told us when she returned, was:" For my birthday I want a new lens for my camera. A zoom!"

Then she attached her camera to our television screen to show us her hundreds of photos.

 "Marta, your photos are great! Can I use some of them in my blog?" I asked immediately.

"Of course" Marta smiled :-)

So here are a few for you to enjoy. Marta's gift to all of you on her very special day which marks the way into a life as a grown up woman!

All the cameras shown are directly from Marta's memory card, no editing, no photo shop.

 

And yes, of course we bought Marta a new lens :-)

Happy birthday Marta!

 

The dairy maid who traveled the world - a repost

@ brittarnhild

While searching the net to find a place for us to stay the first nights of our drive around Iceland, I was charmed by the tale of Anna, a dairymaid born in the tiny little village of Moldnúpur in 1901. In 1947 Anna decides to travel, and this leads to years of exploring the world. Back home she wrote travel books, publishing them, 7 in all, by herself.

Moldnúpur today is a tiny little village, on the mainland south in Iceland, looking directly out to the Vestmannaeyir. The village consists of a church, a few farms and Hotel Anna, named in tribute to the dairywoman who became a world traveler.

As soon as I found Hotel Anne online, and read Anna the Traveler´s tale, I couldn´t resist. Could I? I sent an email to the hotel, asking for a double room, but heard nothing back. I wouldn´t give up though, and after a couple of days I had my sister in law call the hotel. And "yes, they had a room available for us for two nights"

Our two days there turned out to be a dream. In the little hotel, with only 7 rooms, we were the only guests the first night, the second night two other rooms were occupied as well. The kitchen was splendid, and on our second night we took the chance to eat an Icelandic speciality - horse meet. Oh my, it was delicious.

But back to Anna. She did publish 7 books through her lifetime (she passed away in 1979). One is translated into English. I think I must learn Icelandic to be able to read the others.

Anna from Moldnúpur was born in the Icelandic countryside in 1901. She was energetic and eager to learn but her curcumstances did not allow for the possibility of long-term schooling. She worked at various jobs in Reykjavik and the countryside, and also practiced weaving, eventually leaving behind many woven treasures. After her first trip abroad Anna was always on the move; during the following years she made six long trips to Britain and mainland Europe, and in the summer of 1964 she traveled around the USA for more than three months. Anna wrote detailed novels about her journes and published them at her own expense. The voice of Anna from Moldnúpur is unique in the history of Icelandic literature and is a valuable witness to the self-image and the life experience of a common Icelandic woman of that time period, no less than to the countries she visited.
From the back cover of 
Anna from Moldnúpur. A Dairymaid Travels the World.
Publisged by Hotel Anna
www.hotelanna.is

Anna wrote her books from memory when she came home.
She had a most excellent memory!

Most of the female travellers I read wrote as they went, and before computers they used to write letters home and then using the letters as base for their travel books.

Travel letters is a dying art.
I still do write a few postcards, but no letters anymore:
Of course we must live in our own time, and today is the time of the digital nomad.
But what will be left after us?

I write my blog at least once a day when I travel. You can call it my travel letters to the world. But will the blog still be there in 50 years? In 100? 200?
Like letters I read today in my travel book collection?

I want to do my share to keep the travel letter writing alive.
Starting from Iceland, I want to send one handwritten letter to one of my readers during every travel abroad I do.

 

Do you want to be the receiver of one of the BrittArnhild´s House in the Woods Travel Letters?
If so, leave a comment on this post and tell me why you would cheerish a handwritten travel letter from me.

  

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Link to Hotel Anna

My desk and my night

@brittarnhild

My desk is small. I have inherited from one of the kids, it must have been Ingrid. A small cabinet on the left side, a drawer and a cabinet on the right. The top holds my Mac, a desk lamp, a wooden bowl from Ethiopia with bric a bracs, an orange box from Venice, a gift from Mauro when he came to visit, with pens, felt pens, pencils and brushes, another box with letters waiting to be answered, a folder with flight tickets for an upcoming travel, a travel journal in progress to the left of the Mac, on the right is my cell phone, a letter from Ardi witch came in the mail today, a book of poetry by Göran Sonnevi, a collection of notebooks, another travel journal in progress, a stack of travel books. My diary.

In front of my is a window. It is dark outside, a line of street lights is enlightening the road leading down to our house. We live in a quiet neighbourhood, with only a few cars passing by. The Blue Garden is hiding in the darkness.

Still a few hours till bedtime. The night, as so many nights, is mine, and I love every minute of it.

I pick up one of the travel books, by a female writer and adventurer. I open the book and disappear into a land of dreams.

East of the sun.
West of the moon.

 

 

Leftovers for you

@brittarnhild

There are still leftovers from yesterday.
I am inviting you over. I see us sitting here, with a cup of coffee in our hands, fingers greazy from the waffels, fingertips sweet, sticky with trollkrem. Between us there are words, wrapped in silence. Tales.

I have shared my life through my years of blogging. Now I am hungry to learn more about you. I am inviting you over. I want to hear your tale.

Will you tell me?

Circle of Friends

@brittarnhild

It is a beautiful, springlike Sunday here in Trondheim. Church is on our list and then we will go for a walk. The rest of the day I have decided to dedicade to writing  letters and emails. And may be some blog updates.

I have a stack of letters on the desk in front of me. Envelopes in different shapes, exotic stamps from all over the world, sheet of papers with words of love, friendship and affection between the writer and me. And I have a mailbox with emails ready to be replied to.

Letters. Emails. Messages on facebook, instagram and twitter.
A circle of world wide friends.

 

........Manuela, yes, an email will also find its way to your mailbox :-)

 

How friends create new aspects in me

@brittarnhild

My feet took me down to the fjord and the sailboat harbour this Saturday morning. While my thoughts reflected on friendship.

I got an email the other day, from a blog reader. I get quite a lot of emails from readers of my blog, and I love it. This one was a bit different though, as the sender asked for my friendship.

I have not responded to the request yet, and before I do, I want to think a few more thoughts about friendship. I have a lot of friends. Some from many years ago, others are more recent. I have friends among my colleagues, in my neighbourhood, here in Trondheim, other places in Norway, form other countries. I have friends which I see often and I have friends which I have never met face to face, but still know on a deep level though letters and emails.

 

A real friend is a friend who helps you to discover yourself. To redisover well known aspects, to help create new ones.

 

You meet a new friend over a cup of coffee, and while getting to know each other, you discover parts of yourself you never knew you had. Thought words, through eye contact, through silence, though being together, something new is created.

Old friends are coming for dinner tonight.
I am cleaning the house and planning the menue.

And I am looking forward to a night filled with friendship.

 

Double Date

@brittarnhild

I am having a double date tonight, with two fantastic men, one is 58, the other is 100.
The three of us are going to the movies.......well, as long as the hundred year old one doesn´t climb out the window and disappear.....

 

I am prepared for a lot of laughter.

 

 

The break in between

@brittarnhild

I have had a period of a lot of thinking.....well, when I come to think of it I always have periods of a lot of thinking. Thinking about my life, about the whys and hows, about the meaning of it all, about the values which keep me going.

In my journal I note down bits and pieces of this life of mine. I ask questions, I try to find answers. I write down tales from the past, I try to imagine what the future will be.

All this is an important part of how I live my life.

 

But sometimes I wonder.

 In all this past and future reflections, do I forget to live here and now.

Life is about breathing.
You breath in, you breath out. You breath in, you breath out.

 

Have you ever noticed the little break between?
The break between breating in, breathing out.

Tonight I am going to have an in between the breathing  break.
I will listen to some music, may be read a poem.....

.....but most of all I will be. Just be.

 

And then, tomorrow, I will look behind the walls, continue to search for the treasures.

 

Tongue tied

@brittarnhild

The perfect season for fresh fish from the Lofoten islands. I visit the fish market several times a week, I twist my brain for new ways to serve my catches, and we enjoy long, tasty dinners.

Today we had cod tongues on the menu. And potatoes from the garden.

What a feast!
I wish I could invite you all.

Actually, there are some left overs. So you are all welcome over for a taste.