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@brittarnhild
A few weeks ago, the morning after yet another storm, the regional newspaper wrote that the cathefdral spire is in need of repair. Not long afterwards a scaffolding could be seen, and now, when I pass the cathedral, I can hear the men up there talking to each other.
I have no fear of heights, I have been on top of both Preikestolen and Kjerag, but.......
Well, I am really happy for the workers that we are having sunny weather these days.
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@brittarnhild
I am in charge of the diocese of Nidaros´website, www.kirken.no/nidaros, so today I brought my camera with me downtown, and walked out before lunch to take some photos.
It is scilla time in the cathedral park.
My favorite time of the year :-)
When God painted his world blue.
And a pilgrim took off her shoes to dance barefeet on the scillas.
Tomorrow I have a cathedral spire tale to tell.......
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@brittarnhild
Terje saw them first, three tiny little squirrel babies, and their mother.
Now we are crossing our fingers that no birds or can will get them.
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@brittarnhild
Recently I have seen several popular blogs starting with advertising. And often people say to me - why not make your blog into your living?
I listen to them and I say to myself - well, may be.......... may be I could make it into a living....... travel, write, read, work in the garden.........
It sounds like a dream.
But.....no. Blogging is pure joy for me, it is relaxation.
I could never sell myself to advertising.
I am not doing it for free though.
I am payed by your likes, comments, emails, friendship.
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@brittarnhild
Sharing.
A cup of coffee at Cafe Lido in Hyde Park.
Breakfast when you are still tired and your body has not yet warmed up.A brief kiss every time we say goodbye.
Hugs. Here, there, everywhere.
His hand on my cheek the last thing I remember before going to sleep.
This must be love.
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@brittarnhild
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love (Washington Irving)
One of the things I love about British cathedrals, is their openness for change, for art, for the way they are used. Some years ago I visited Durham cathedral several years in a row (during my Lindisfarne period), and I was amazed of how they used the old and the new art in the cathedral to communicate. In many ways we tend to look at Nidaros cathedral too much as a museum. New music is okay, dance is okay, but when, a few years ago, the cathedral had an art exhibition with paintings by Håkon Gullvåg, the discussions were quite busy.
How wonderful then to walk into Chichester cathedral, the cathedral which looks so much alike Nidaris cathedral when we see the outside of it, but which turned out to be quite different inside, to meet an exhibition by the artist and ceramicist Deborah Tompsett - A Thousand Tear Bottles.
Literally you can find a thousand bottles in the cathedral, 100 by the famous Chichetser Relief dating from the 12th century, 300 in the chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene, and some 600 by the Cahedral´s Shrine. All these places you could find sheets of paper with information about the bottles and reference to tears in the Bible.
I took one of the sheets of paper with me home:
Tears can be a gift, therefore, a sign of healing and resurrection - where even at our most forlorn the flow the tears can bring a changing tide of strength and newness. Weeping is after all the opposite of indifference; it is a sign of compassion, of deep connectedness to others, a sign of love. This love is what makes our tears an expression of our deepest sorrows - and also the means by which we might heal from them: Psalm 126.1 "May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy."
You can read more about the tear bottles here.
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@brittarnhild
"Britt-Arnhild, one day you must come to Chichester. The cathedral here is lovely and from what I can see from your pictures of the Nidaros cathedral, the two churches must look very much alike."
My friend Fran in Sussex has talked several times over the years about the likness of the two cathedrals. And she has sent me photos and postcards.
Finally it was time to travel to Chichester, a small town, or city actually, since it has a cathedral, down near the British Channel.
Seeing the cathedral made my heart sing with joy. It felt like family. It felt like coming home.
The two cathedrals are built in the same period, which is not difficult to say even though I am no historian, as the building of Nidaros cathedral has gone on for a thousand years. In medieval times cathedral builders travelled all over Europe to work on different sites, and I am absolutely sure that stone masons from Chichester have been in Trondheim and vice versa.
The inside of Chichester cathedral was not at all like Nidaros though. I have a tale from the inside for another day, another blog post. Now I want to tell you about an almost 1000 year old church which we found on the main street in Chichester.
The Church of St. Olave.
Here is what the sign outside the church says:
This Saxon church the oldest
building in Chichester was
built around 1050. It contains
evidence of late 11th century
work & was partly rebuilt
in the late 13th & early 14th
century. Being further
restored in the 19th century.
It is one of several churches
dedicated to St. Olave or Olaf.
King Olaf Haraldson.
Patron saint of Norway.
Lived from 995 - 1030 & was
canonised in 1164.
It did not only feel like coming home.
I was at home!
Home with my dear St. Olav, patron saint not only of Norway, but on Nidaros cathedral. The cathedral built on his grave.
St. Olav must have visited Chichester on one of his many travels.
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Here is a link to St. Olave church
And a link to Chichester cathedral
And here you find my blog about Nidaros cathedral.
By the way, have you read Ken Follett´s Pillars of the Earth?
No????? Then you really have something to look forward to :-)
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@brittarnhild
This winter & spring I have been reading a book about pioneer British gardeners, The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf. Actually it is a little strange that I started this book in the first place, as it is female gardeners who are my passion, but somehow I came over it, it looked interesting, and there I was.......hooked.
I read book with a pen or a pencil in my right hand, and on page 100 in The Brother Gardenes it came handy..........since Philip Miller acted as consultant to the Duke of Bedford about his estate at Woburn in Bedfordshire..........hi, Bedford and Bedfordshire, that´s where "my" abbey is, isn´t it? I checked google maps on my ipad, and right, quite close to Turvey it was.
I have a blog reader (and a fellow blogger) who lives close to Turvey, and now I sent her a message; Lindsay, are you in for a garden visit?
Lindsay was in, and on Saturday, on my last day at Turvey Abbey, just after breakfast, she picked me up with her Peugeot and her GPS. Woburn Abbey and Gardens our destination.
Before reaching the gardens we had to drive though a deer park, and we were lucky, a huge hoard of the deers was out. And we were lucky once more, as we arrived in the garden just before the tourist buses started to come.
Which meant that for a long time we had the gardens almost all alone.
Woburn Abbey is huge, and so are the garden. And very well maintained. As we are in the middle of April it is still spring. I guess the gardens will be marvellous in a month or two. But even now I loved them!
Unfortunately the maze was closed,
so we had to enjoy it from outside the fence only.
But there were enough other things to see and enjoy.
The Camelia House, which I posted about the other day, the peek highlight :-)
When people ask me why I love England and Great Britain so much, I know exactly what to answer:
I love its gardend and its gardeners.
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@brittarnhild
Back home again. Left London after breakfast and a short walk in Kensington Gardens. Heathrow Express. Flight from London to Stavanger. Another flight from Stavanger, via Bergen to Trondheim. Bus from the airport into town. Met by Marta. Home to a late dinner, Terje´s spacial fried salmon!
How good it was to be together again, the three of us, sharing a meal, sharing time. Marta is travelling to Riga in Latvia tomorrow, with a class from school, and will be away all week. But tonight we were together.
I have had many single meals this week. In the monastery I ate alone most of the time, lovely food prepared in the abbey kitchen, in London I had solo meals after Terje left.
I don´t mind eating alone. In fact I quite like it. Probably because I do it so seldom, it kind of feals like a treat.
Like it or not. I am happy to be home again. And I am deeply thankful for my family and our shared meals.
Photos: I took the photos in Kensington Garden this morning. Two ducks busy sharing a dead fish.
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@brittarnhild
In my next life I will live in a Camelia House. I will sleep there, I will read there, I will cook there, but most of all I will dream there.
Can you imageine, it took me most of my life, almost 50 years I think, to discover camelias. We don´t have them in Norway, at least not where I live, and I had hardly ever heard of them.
Then one year, in Copenhagen, Denmark, I discovered Tage Andersen and his flower work shop. I saw my first camelia, and my second, and my third and my...... I bought a book Tage has made about camelias.
I was lost at once. Completely lost.
I do have a camelia at hoe now, which I bought a few years ago. After I met Tage. It grows quite a lot, I let it hibernate indoors. It is green and beautiful.
But it never gets flowers.
Not even buds.
In my next life, in my Camelia House, all the camelies will bloom though.
All through the year. Bloom together with my dreams.
I have been to Woburn Abbey and Gardens today, with a blogging friend.
Will blog more about Woburn later, but just had to share some of the camelias.
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