Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Life close to the cathedral

@brittarnhild

 

There is always something going on in and around a cathedral. Walk three times around one, and I am sure you have ideas for a series of blog posts. 

Today I met my two best friends at the cathedral restaurant for a birthday lunch (worth its own post, but everything can´t be shared.....). After the lunsh we went out and met these two young men busy photographing the old stone wall of the cathedral. Curiosity got me and I asked: "What are you doing?"

Apparently they were happy about my question, and soon we were deep in a discussion about old stone mason signs on the cathedral walls, writings, cartoons, signs and so on, and today´s technology to discover the age of the different writings.

In a few years there will be a millenium since some people started to build a church upon St. Olav´s grave. 

Since then hundreds of masons have left their personal marks.

All this history in the walls, in the old stones. All the life lived. Stone masons and other cathedral builders traveling through all of Europe, using their skills to praise The Creator.

 

Signs of Spring, the migrant birds.

@brittarnhild

Last night I went to a friend´s birthday party. I came home around midnight, got a ride home with one of the other women there, she stopped down the main road behind our house and I walked the few meters up the small hill, in through the gate to our garden. It was then I heard the sound, the sound of hundreds of geese. One in the lead honking eagerly.....does the goose honk or whay? First one, then more, then a lot answering as they came closer. Soon the air was filled with the noise. A lamppost made some light agains some low white clouds, and all of a sudden I saw the first plow, flying just over my heads.

 

Three years ago the migrant birds passed our house on my birthday, at the very same hour as my guests arrived. You can read about it here. One year ago we followed the migrating swans and geese in Iceland. Last night, as we set our watches on summer time, I was outside at midnight, an hour when I "always" sleep, and there they were. The migrant birds.

 

I have a special "signs of the seasons"-notebook. I will write in it today. And I have a stack of migrant bird books, William Fiennes The Snow Geese, Scott Weidensaul´s Living on the Wind, Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds, and Edwin Way Teale´s North with Spring.

 

Happy Sunday.
If you want me today, you´ll find me with my nose in a book.

Photos: from Iceland April last year

 

Reflected

@brittarnhild

 

To walk along the river
To let your thoughts flow.
To think of nothing.......

 

Scillas in March

@brittarnhild

 

It is still only March, a winter month in Norway, but the weather is sunny and mild, and when I walked through the cathedral park this morning, I discovered that the blue scillas are already blooming. I walked on a blue blanket, trying to make myself light as a feather.

 

Grandma Olga´s garden was painted blue in spring, with scillas. My love for blue started already when I spent time there as a little child. And also as I grew up in Blåklokkeveien, Bluebell Street.

My energy level is low these days. Working 50% feels like carrying an overweight suitcase. It felt good to leave the suitcase behind and walk on the blue carpet.

And with spring here, anything can happen.

When you have kids

@brittarnhild

I was 24 when I became a mother for the first time, Torgeir was born in 1982. Two years later Øystein came and five years after that the two boys got a sister, Ingrid. Marta was born in 1996 and our circle was complete.

Being a mother is a constant joy, and somehow also a constantly worry. Not that we have any reason for worries with our clover, but still, there is always a corner of my heart set for such thoughts.

We are lucky, we have all four of our kids in Trondheim. Torgeir and Øystein with their apartments downtown. Ingrid and Marius on top of a hill with an extraordinary view of Trondheim and the surroundings. Marta still at home, with two rooms of her own in our basement.

I loved having babies, I thrived with my toddlers and blossomed with school children.
Now they are all grown ups, Marta turned 18 in February, Ingrid will be 25, Øystein is 30 and Torgeir almost 32, and I have reached another stage in my life. Terje has a job where he in periods travel quite a lot, Marta is busy with friends, the three others have jobs and studies, not to mention travels........Torgeir just returned from three weeks in Japan, Øystein is in South Korea for a month, working, Ingrid (and Marius) have several travels in Norway for the moment and will go to England after Easter.

I work less now, due to the health problems I mentioned.
I have more time at home, and completely new to me is all the time I have home alone.

 

I have been wondering about this stage in life. Now I am breathing its air, and I know everything is right. 

 

And I LOVE it when the kids call, when they send messages, and most of all when they come home for dinner..........

.....and when they invite us into their lives.

The photos are from Ingrid and Marius´apartment. They invited us for dinner the other day.
The coffee table is made by my father in law a year ago, just after his 90th birthday.

 

 

On a path like this…...

@brittarnhild

.......and there is nothing wrong with deep water when the path is like this.....

 

Thank you for your comments, your prayers, your sharing, your concern, you love. I bring it all with me, colouring my path.

 

Where the road leads…….

@brittarnhild

You walk through life, on the road which has your name, confident that you are on your way towards the goal, towards your goal. You might take the wrong direction when the road forks, but you discover, you walk back, you follow the signs and you are on the road again, on your road. Then, one day, you come to a crossroad. All the ways except one are closed. You walk the one open, even though it looks like it takes you out on deep water, and you can´t see land in the other end.........

This is where I am right now.
I have stopped.....for a while. I can´t turn, the path behind me has no opportunities, is slowly disappearing. I don´t know how to continue. The stones are dry, safe, there is no haste, I can stand here for a while. But eventually I have to go forward.

 

Different health issues means that I have been on and off a sick leave since the end of January. For the moment I am working 50%, and this means quite a few changes for me. It feels like I am on my way out into deep water, and I try to tell myself that I am a swimmer. May be not a good one, but practice makes a master.......

 

 

Every day, a precious gift

@brittarnhild

I think I have already told you that my mother has a favorite song, Hver dag er en sjelden gave, Every day is a precious gift. Every single night she plays it on her piano. She has passed the song forward to me, and though the day I find myself huming......hver dag er en sjelden gave, en skinnende mulighet.......

The song followed me yesterday, when Terje and I took our Sunday morning cabin hike. A small rucksack was packed with a thermos with coffee, a box with left over chocolates from Christmas, the sky was deep blue, the sea a mirror. An eagle was flying low, searching for his lunch, a man, one of the locals, stopped for a chat, a dog, a black one, looking precisely like a bear, decided he wanted to hike with us.

Every day, a precious gift....

....some more precious than others.

 

Around the church

@brittarnhild

 

Terje had to buy some building materials, he always has something going on. I decided to do a walk instead, around the church, down to the sea. Can you see that there has been a funeral recently? All the flowers are still on top of the new grave.

In earlier times people used to come to church by boats. My grandpa Johannes came from this area. We do have a few family tales, I wish I knew a lot more.

I sat down on the bench, wishing I had bestefar Johannes there with me. Listening to his deep, loving voice, letting myself fly on the wind back to his childhood days. His youth. The time he decided to do the extraordinary, to leave the village to go to the teacher seminary......where he met bestemor Ragna Josefine.

Are the tales all forgotten, or are there somewhere to be found?
In the wind?
In the sea?
In words?
In oral memories?

Or may be deep in my heart somewhere, inherited as a memory from previous generations?

In search of spring

@brittarnhild

Spring is always earlier at our cabin than in The Blue Garden. When we arrived last night it was too dark to search for the signs, but when I woke up to a choir of birds singing this morning, I knew it was time to start the search.

The flower beds are all covered with branches of needles, and will still have to keep their coverings. If not I am afraid the deers will eat all my tulips.

But with my camera I looked under the needles, I brushed away, I searched, I found and I rejoyced.

Crocus, muscari, loads of tulips,
and even the columbines I bought last year, have survived the winter.

Next time we come out here, I might make a rhuburb soup.

And I might decorate the table with daffodills.
Ha, actuallt the cabin table is decorated with daffofills this weekend also, but they are from a nursery :-)

 

Wonderful to be back to cabin life!