Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Back to where we met Tenerife the first time

@brittarnhild

We have a rented car for the rest of the week, and today we took a tour down Memory Lane, visiting places we have been and enjoyed before.

The terracce in the middle of this picture is the place of a fish restaurant with some of the best fresh fish I have ever tasted. It was not open yet when we walked by this morning, but it didn´t matter. I will always bring with me the memories of the meals we have eaten there.

A pilgrimage up to a holy shrine and a statue of the Lady of Lourdes. I have no idea what this has to do with Tenerife, but we have walked these tracks before and will probably do it again. Today there was a young man un in the tiny little chapel, watering the flowers. Ha knew only a few English words and was not much interested in talking, but we learned from him that there was a sacred well up there.Ha was watering the plants.

Finding new places. Discovering where we have already been.
Oh, I love travelling. Simply LOVE it.

The first travel tales, both in Norwegian and English are sent out. I hope you got yours.

More like a lump

@brittarnhild

With only 114 meters above sea level it can´t be called a mountain, hardly a hill, more like like a kind of lump. But it has the characteristic name Montana Chayofita, and today we hiked it.

From the top we could look back and see our hotel, or front to see the sea.

Yellow, the colour of the sun

@brittarnhild

 Yellow has never been my colour. I have always looked upon it as the colour of danger.
But not tonight. Tonight it turned out to be the colour of comfort, of warmth, of love.

We sat at a table with bright yellow tablecloths, yellow napkins. The sun had just set and painted the sky deep yellow. WE drank sangria made on white wine, we ate paella.

Comfort, warmth, love.

 

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Wow, I got a lot of emails yesterday. I have added you all to my travel tale list :-)

 

First travel of the year

@brittarnhild

We are ready for our first travel of the year. I plan to blog, but inspired by our dear friends in California, Jane and Lanny, I also plan to write travel letters and send them out by email. I am working on an address list now. If you want to receive my travel tales, please let me know at [email protected] and I will add your address.

I hope to write two editions of the tales, one in Norwegian, one in English.

This first travel goes to Tenerife.

 

Perfection in Five Fingers

@brittarnhild

I was looking after my grandson for a couple of hours while my daughter and son in law had some errands to do. The baby was sleeping and I had brought a book, eager to get some reading done for my Visiting The World Through Books-project. The book ended up laying untouched on the table.

Five fingers. Five fingers of perfection. Not long ago they let go of God´s index finger, sent out in the world in search for new hands to be held by. New fingers to hold. God´s hands are still there, cradling the baby´s body, but the finger grip has loosened and the new little person is sent out by the holy breath into a world where it will have to find its own space.

It happens every day. All the time.
To watch it closely is a miracle.

 

 Five fingers.
Shaped to hold God´s index finger.

The tiny seedlings

@brittarnhild

A little more than a month ago, on December 4th, I cut three tiny branches from the fruit trees in the garden. It was Santa Barbara Day, and in parts of Germany the tradition says that if you cut branches that day and put them in water, they will give you flowers for Christmas.

My branches were all still brown and looked dead on Christmas Eve, but today, on Epiphany, the first tiny green seedlings are out. A wonderful sign of spring, and of hope.

 

You can read more about St.Barbara Day here.

 

The bonus of reading

@brittarnhild

I have not read much during the holidays, but now I am back to my more normal reading routine. Today I finished The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak, the fourth book in this new project I am doing, reading one book from every country in the world.

 

I finished the book on the bus home from work, and the first thing I did after dinner and my regular afternoon nap, was to open my blog Books on the Menu and write about the book. Even before I had finihed, I got an email from my blogging friend in Istanbul, Pinar, where she shared her thoughts about Elif Shafak and her writing. Several emails back and forth between us, and also several messages on the Visiting the World Through Books´facebook page, and I added Pinar´s thoughts to my blog.

 

The deeper I get into this reading project, the more clearly I see how life changening it is going to be. The more I love it.

 

The photos today are from when I met Pinar in Istanbul, we had coffee at Pura Palace Hotel, the hotel where travellers on The Orient Express were taken and where Dame Agatha wrote her thrilling Orient Express murder. After we finished our coffee, Pinar read my fortune in the coffee cup.......and she found an angel, do you remember?

 

Happy birthday Terje

@brittarnhild

It is Terje´s 60th birthday today. We celebrated Saturday night and as one of my gifts for him I sang Dylan´s Make you Feel my Love.

 

Happy birthday Terje <3

(on the photo you see me singing, with a friend accompanying me, you see Terje listening, you see my parents, and you see my brother Børge filming.......I have not seen/heard the film yet)

 

 

Say Grace for it all

@brittarnhild

From a blog reader I got this prayer:

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera.
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
and grace before I open a book,
and grace before sketching and painting,
swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

 

It's by G. K. Chesterton, from an early notebook (mid-1890's)

 

Thank you Carole.
I will bring this grace with me through the year.

A word for the new year

@brittarnhild

I know that many of you choose a word for the new year. A word to colour the days, to help you keep focus. I have never done that, but as I sit here today, on the first day of 2016, I know that there is something I hope to give focus in my life the year to come. There is a path I want to walk. A path which will take me through good days, and bad. Trough joy and tankfulness, through sorrows and all the "whys" in our lives. I just saw on facebook that Amnesty has set the word "act" as a headline of 2016 - let us act together for a better world, for justice and peace. I could adapt that word, but I am not. I could choose joy, peace, justice....... Many Norwegian choose godhetstyrann for 2016, "godness tyrant", refering to one of our blue ministers who accuse many Norwegians of being good in a kind of false way (this came up in a discussion about refugees) I want to be a godhetstyrann, I hope that I already am one. But it is not my 2016 word.

 

My word for 2016 is bønn, prayer.
Inspired by the nuns at Turvey Abbey, and all other nuns and monks in the world, I want bønn to colour my way through the new year.

The world need bønn. Let is join hands and pray.