@brittarnhild
When I started blogging in January 2005 I don´t think #hashtags were invented. But if you look at the right side bar here in my blog and scroll down a little, you come to "categories". This is a good way to sort the blog posts. I was good in the beginning adding categories to my blog posts. Then there were years when I did not use them, and also, as the years went by, new categories came and some of the old posts had top be categorized again.
A couple of years ago I started to go though all my posts, there are today 3200 post only in my main blog, and then of courdse hundreds and hundreds in the other blogs as well. I made it through a little more than a year, then came to a full stop, but again and again I´ve told myself this is a job which needs to be done. And I´ll tell you why - let us say that one of you send me an email with a question about Venice. I want to send you all my Venice blog posts, but as they are not sorted this is a job I will never have the time to do. Going through all my 3200 posts, categorizing them again, I will be able to send you a single link to all my food travel posts, all my apple posts, all my 1001 reasons to love my husband posts, all my fish soup posts and so on.
Doin this takes time. A lot of time. And more so as I stop to read and to remember all posts. Again and again I am telling myself that I should make a book, 10 books, a hundred books from my blogging, but for the time, for today, I´ll give you a repost, from July 27, 2006. A visit to Olava´s House.
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At Smøla, a small island in the North Sea, you can find an old house with white painted walls, dark red paint around the windows, grass growing on the roof. The house has been the home for generations during several hundred years and is marked with signs of love and work, hard and stormy winter days when the wind made it impossible to open the door, warm and sunny summer days when thousands of roses were in bloom. Oliva came to this house as a young bride with white roses in her bridal bouquet, she was the last person to live in "Olivastua", and her name has therefore been given to the house. The first thing Oliva did after moving in with the love of her life was to plant one of the roses from her bouquet. The rose rooted, just like Oliva did, and though Oliva died about 40 years ago, the rose survived and is blooming with hundreds of sweet smelling roses every summer.
Oliva never had a child of her own, and when her husband died she and her cat were the only remnants in the house. All the love that was in her meant for her own babies were spred out on the other children on the island. They loved to visit Oliva. She had stories to tell about days long gone, she had songs to sing, there was always home made suger covered cakes in her tins, and she had a smile and a hug for everyone.
Oliva was never lonely. In the summer she had her garden, her cooking and baking and all the work which followed the small farm. And during long winter nights she knitted. She subscribed to a magazine from Oslo, and every second week she got a thrill when she found the newest issue in her mailbox. Together with stories about people living totally different lives from her, there were recipes and patterns in her magazine. Olive loved to flip through the knitting patterns, sweathers in bright colours, chic hats and mittens, lace patterned table clothes. In her dreams she made it all, and her dreams sometimes took her on long trips around the world, visiting exotic and far away places. All through her dreaming her fingers were fluently working the needles, and knitted quilts made of scrap wool were created. Running out of wool was no problem for Oliva. If the quilt was still too small when there was no wool left she just cut up her old nylon pants and worn out aprons, braided them and sewn them to the quilt. The quilts were used to cover old chairs, and they gave the best warmth during cold winter nights.
Guest were treated royaly in Olivastua. They got to sleep in the best bedroom under the best quilts decorated with English embroidery, filled with the smoothest and softest bird feathers Oliva had gathered around the island.
And from her book cabinet Oliva found one of her Bibels or religious books which she put near the bed to be sure that you had the proper litterature to read before sleeping.
Oliva had a secret passion - old photos and frames. Photos filled almost all the available space in her "bestestue" (livingrooom used only for guests and on Sundays), and when the tinker passed by her house every second months she couldn't resist buying more frames. Old and gone family members, made eternal through her portraits were her very good friends and advisers. Framed photos filled every inch of space on tables and on top of cupboards and hutches. Only on the walls she laft room to show her pride, the brown rose wall paper.
Oliva is long gone, but she is still living in tracks she left, in love she spread out and care she payed forward. Oliva is not one of my foremothers if I follow strikt family lines. Still I feel live I live in her heritage. She is one of so many strong women that has lived her time on earth making the world a better place for us to live on, making it possible for me today to live as a free, erect woman proud of myself and proud of my gender
