Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

I was all smiles

@brittarnhild

The last few months has been a demanding period for me, on an off work because of health issues, for the moment working 50%. Planning gifts for myself for my birthday has been something which has given me great pleasure when the days have felt dark.

Last night I had a dinner party for 12 of my best friends, a few more more coming for coffee.

One of my friends, Anne Lise, came with the food, her special created Bible party where she makes food from the Bible, telling tales about all what we ate. My mother played the piano. I read some of my father´s poems, and a small part from the book I am writing. Marta made the birthday cake. I gave away small plants from The Blue Garden to everyone. Instead of gifts from the guests to me I asked them for money to a project close to my heart in Nepal.

But the best gifts of all, from me to me

 

was Georgio and his accordion.

Georgio is a street musician. He came to Trondheim four years ago and every day you find him downtown where he fills the air with his music. Can you remember my post about exchanging smiles? That´s me and Georgio. Last week I asked him if he and his accordion would like to come to my birthday. Georgio speaks neither Norwegian nor English, but he phoned his Romanian wife who speaks good English, handed me his phone and soon we had a date.

 

I was all smiles last night :-)

 

 

 

 

 

A not so ordinary ordinary day

@brittarnhild

Tomorrow is my 56th birthday. I will fill the house with my best (female) friends tonight, and for a long time now I have planned and prepared gifts to give away. You know, the best gifts are not those you get, but the ones you give. I am so excited......

......and I will tell you more tomorrow.

 

Blue Message

@brittarnhild

I am an apprentice. An apprentice of life. Learning that I can not live alone. Learning to search for the roots. Learning to search for water.

The Water of Life.

 

 

The scillas are blooming in the Cathedral Park. Every morning I take the detour through the park, working on a blue carpet. Today somebody had been there before me, picked a handful of blue flowers and left them on a grave. They shone towards me, like a message from an angel.

 

The First Letter

@brittarnhild

 

The first letter is written, and soon I will fold it, put it into an envelope, write name and address on it, add a stamp and walk over to the postbox to mail it. Meanwhile I am thinking about ideas for this project. This time I glued a photo of The Blue Garden on the sheet, next time I might draw something, or put a little surprise into the envelope. I might write one page only, or two, or several. There will be no rules to this. Or actually there will be one rule - crceativity

Honey Bee, I googled Janice MacLeod´s Paris Letters. What lovely pages I found. Her idea is great, but different from mine. She copies her letters and you have to pay to recieve them as snail mails. The letter is sent out to a lot of people. My letters will all be handwritten and unique, and mailed to only one person each week.  I can´t do the stunning watercolours MacLeod does, but I can add my own little touches. Thanks anyway for mentioning her. I love looking at her pages and might buy her book.

Granny, Daena, Cynthia, Kristi, ARR, Pam, UP and Mardelle. Thanks for your comments and tales. UP, tell your Pam that I would have been thrilled to recieve a circle letter :-), what a perfect idea. ARR, the scrapbook idea you mention is absolutely gorgeous. I will remember it for some time in the future......may be. And Kristi, what a treasure you have, the letters your granmother saved for you. Our son Torgeir was an exchange student in Ohio when he was 17-18. I have all the letters and postcards he sent. Later he studied in Australia for three years,using emails when writing home. I have none of those :-( 
Cynthia, it makes my heart sing to know that a young woman is writing letters by hand. You are lucky to get them. Lucky you Honey Bee to get the handwritten note when you had sorrows. Daena, I used to write loads of letters when I was a child, when I was a youth, a young wife and mother.......but today too few. I miss it, and hope to start the tradition again. Granny, may be it is time to write some of your old friends again.......

Deciding only one of you as the one to recieve the first Blue Garden Letter is not easy. Then I try to comfort myself by the fact that I will continue this new idea, hopefully for a long, long time. I have a special notebook for this project and will make a list of all the recievers so in the end I will hopefully reach you all, one time, two times, many times..........

 

The first one to get a Blue Garden Letter though is Pam. I have known Pam almost since the birth of internet, and over the years I have got dozens of handmade and handwritten letters, for birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, Valentine and quite a few other days as well. The first Blue Garden Letter is my way of saying Thank You Pam. I have your address Pam :-)

 

 

Blue Garden Letters

@brittarnhild

You already know that I am a snail mail fan. I used to write letters all the time, something I don´t do any more. But I miss it. And more than that I miss getting handwritten letters in my mailbox. 

 Here in Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods I have a category called Travel Letters, and if you go there you can see that from time to time I have written a special travel letter during my travels, and sent out to one of you, drawing a name from your comments.

 I have been thinking about this letter idea, wanting to do something with it. Something not only connected to my travels.

 Then, all of a sudden, the idea came, all by itself........

 I will start a new category with the name Blue Garden Letters.

 Every Sunday I will write a letter, every Monday I will mail it out to one of you, based on your comments.

 As the idea is here now, I am so excited I can´t wait. I have already posted one blog post today, so this one will have to be a second. A Blue Garden Letter.

 Comment on the post. Just add your name. Or tell me about a letter you have got or one you have written which mean something special to you. Or may be tell about a letter you did not write.  Tomorrow I will pick a name and mail the letter to one of you.

 I am still working on ideas for this concept, but more about that tomorrow.

 

Now I will start writing today´s Blue Garden Letter, and I am looking forward to pick a name.

 

Seven branches

@brittarnhild

Before breakfast I was out in the garden, cutting seven small branches from the plum tree. Hopefully they will bloom in time of Easter day.

 

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Over in Den blå hagen på Huseby, you will find a photo a day from our garden.

 

 

Got them!

@brittarnhild

 

And I was not the only one :-)

 

Two male mandarin ducks are visiting Trondheim these days.

 

The last telephone booth

@brittarnhild

 

I remember them well, the telephone booths which you used to find everywhere, often with a queue of people waiting to speak with family, friends, a sweetheart, a colleague. Now they are almost gone. I have heard that there are only two left in Trondheim. I have no idea if they still work.

It is hard to remember a time when we had to walk to these phone boxes to reach "the world" in a time when all of us carry a cell phone with us always.

 

Now I need to search for the other telephone box left.

 

Distinguished visitors

@brittarnhild

 

We have distinguished guests in Trondheim these days, a pair of mandarin ducks. They have been in the paper and on the local television news, and on a facebook group where I belong, Nordiske Naturfotografer, Nordic Nature Photographers, there has a been a rush of photos of them.

According to the photos, the ducks have been down along the river, not far from where I use to go on my photo walks, and after work today I decided to take a detour on my way home. To search for the guests.

I found a million ducks.
But no mandarins!

I might go there again on my Saturday morning walk and hope to have better luck then........

 

Meanwhile I can enjoy my mandarin duck photos from Hyde Park last year.

 

A Blink of an Eye Moment, and another notebook

@brittarnhild

 

I could hear their laughter a long way. A group of children were playing together outside the cathedral. I came closer and heard one of the kids saying to the others: "Come here! Look! I have something to show you! Can you see this stone? It is my charging point!"

I smiled as I continued my walk. Children of today, with electrical cars and digital devices everywhere, of course they know all about charging points.

 

My thoughts started to wander. I am so low of energhy these days. How can I find back my joy of life, my creativity, my energy to run around like a child? May be the best thing I can do is to search for my charging point?

 

My girls know about my mania for notebooks. When Marta was in Kenya she bought me a bright yellow one. I have had it on my desk since I got it, knowing that I want to use it for something special, not quite sure what. But now I know :-) It will be my "blink of an eue"- notebook, my charging point. Where I write down the small, too often unnoticed blink of an eyes during the day.

The charging point tale will ne first out.
And I am already looking for the next one.

 

The first photos are from a kindergarten next door to the cathedral.