Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

What the kittiwake says

@brittarnhild

She left Trondheim as a young bride more than 50 years ago. Her new home was a fisherman´s farm on the tiniest of islands far out in the North Atlantic. Here she was to spend a lifetime, giving the farm and the sea all her labor, all her love.

Today the place is abandoned through the long, dark arctic winter. The woman and her husband live somewhere else on the tiny island. In early spring life is back though. Couple after couple of kittiwakes starts to prepare a new season, repairing their old nests, laying eggs, hatching, feeding the baby birds.

The kittiwakes are an endangered bird species and the old woman does her best to help them survive. Every spring she is back in her old house, counting the number of birds roosting, the number of eggs, the number of new birds.

When we met her, she talked passionately about her dear birds. About her life on the island.

"Do you know what the kittiwake says after shitting on you?" she said with laughter in her voice. "vakk´e mæ, vakk´e mæ, vakk´e mæ" (wasn´t me, wasn´t me, wasn´t me.......)

We listened to the birds, and all of a sudden all of us could understand kittiwake language :-)

 

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 Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods has been on internet since 2005. The blog is my virual diary and a tribute to life and life´s Creator. I love to hear from my readers, in comments and in emails, and from time to time I am lucky to meet some of you, here, there everywhere.
I also have a few other blogs, you find them in the right hand bar. Welcome over, and welcome back here.

Some thoughts on tourism, on Pellestrina

@brittarnhild

When we asked Paolo, the owner of Nati House where we usually stay when we are in Venice, if he had any suggestion for a "new" thing to do during our stay, he mentioned Pellestrina, the long, pencil thin island south west of La Serenissima. I had read about Pellestrina in one of Donna Leon´s books and fell for the idea.

 

From Venice we took vaporetta #1 out to Lido. There we caught bus #11, driving first all the way south on Lido, then on a small ferry over to the island of Pellestrina, continuing further south to the city of Pellestrina.

It was like coming to the heaven of peace. Everythning was so quiet, so silent and so beautiful. No other tourist, and few locals to see. In a tiny little shop I found a few old postcards, but there were no place to buy cheep Chinese souvenirs, no neon light coffee bars, no tourist traps at all.

Walking the narrow calles of the village, and we felt like intruders, we came so close to the peple living there.

Lunch time came, and we walked over to one of the restaurants we had seen, Da Celeste.
The waiter met us with a broad smile: "Please sit down. Can I get you something to drink? I am sorry the kitchen is opening a little late today as there is some television filming going on."

We sat down, almost out oin the lagoon, and soon things started to happen.

  

  

I wrote about this in one of my Postcards from Venice, but since then there are some thoughts which will not leave me. Thoughts on tourism.

Remote, serene places like Pellestrina, are becoming rare in our world. And I wonder, how long will they continue to excist? BBC2 clearly see its beauty and they want to share it with their audience. This way people might want to go to the island to experience this beauty by their own. If too many tourists come, the island and the village will lose its charm. I, a blogger, could clearly see its beauty and I want to share it with my readers. I already know that people have gone there because of my blog. Others night go in the future.

To survive, Pellestrina and places like this, might need tourists and their money. To survive, Pellestrina and other places like this, might easily be destroyed by too many tourists.

Is it possible to balance this?

Two early morning birds went for a hike......

@brittarnhild

We are both early morning birds, I a bit more than Terje.
The weathjer has been lovely these last days and we had all our meals outdoors in the cabin garden.
After breakfast on Sunday we packed a backpack with coffee, a bottle of water and a few potato lefses and drove out to one of the islands. We were ready for a hike.

Morning birds are lucky.
When going for a Sunday hike they often have the landscape completely to themselves.

Or not quite to ourselves.
Suddenly a deer buck was right in front of me, and I cried out "wow, look Terje",
and of course the deer ran away before I got out my camera.

"Oh no! I missed it" I said.
But Terje had an important lesson to teach me. "You missed a photo of it, but you didn´t miss the buck. That´s a difference, and important difference!"

He is wise this husband of mine.

As the year unfolds I tell myself again and again that the time we are into is my favorite season, favorite month, favorite part of the day.....at least that´s what I do in summer, in spring, in autumn, not so much in winter though but winter has her own charm.

No doubt that early August has a special beauty.
Yes, just now it is my favorite time of the year.
The air is so crisp, the colours so clear, it is like you can take them out, one by one, cherish them in your hands, play with them, and then put them back where they belong ,
in God´s creation.

We drank our coffee down by the ocean, the North Sea, the Atlandic, just where the Trondheim Fjord starts, looking at Smøla far out there.

Afterwards Terje couldn´t resist, he took a swim. But as it was not planned and he had no swim suit I don´t think I´ll post a photo here ;-)

I could resist the swimming temptation........

Two early morning birds went for a hike........

 

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Thank you for the comments on yesterday´s post.
I am in the process of writing back to every single one of you.

"There is where I fell down. And hit the stone stairs"

@brittarnhild

In 1933, as the fifth of seven siblings, the first of two boys, my father was born in a little house on a small island. Later another sister and another brother was born, and Johannes and Ragna lived with their five daughters and two sons  in the white house just where the river met the ocean, in Elva (the River).

All my life I´ve heard my father talk about Elva, and in my mind I had a clear vision of what the place looked like. I visited once when I was a little child and probably my vision was fed then, because when we came to Elva yesterday, it looked exactly like I remember, and at the same time so much better. It looked like the paradise my father has talked about through my whole life.

"Look BrittArnhild" was the first thing he said when we had walked down to the road to the old farm "there is the stabbur (storehouse) where I tried to climb up to the roof, fell down head first and got a concussion"

 

All of a sudden my 80 years old father was a boy again,
I had a wonderful time following him around, with my camera, listening to his tales.

"Look, there is where I made myself a ski jump in the winters. I was an only boy with a handful of sister, little brother Jostein was born much later. The girls didn´t much care to have me around, so I had to make my own games"

"There is the telephone my parents bought"

"The sea where I was out all by myself in the rowing boat, fishing, from I was a little boy. My father was a teacher, and during WWII he got no pay for his work, like all other teachers in Norway. It was a hard time for my mother to find food for all of us. My fishing helped a lot"

 

My grandparents moved to Trondheim eventually, and in 1954 they sold Elva. Bente, who lives there now, is the granddaughter of the couple who bought the placefrom grandpa Johannes and grandma Ragna. Bente, and her parents, kindly opened Elva when we came yesterday. And they had their own Elva tales to add to my father´s.

A special love for old houses on small islands was given me when I was born, nurished through my childhood.

 

Coming to Elva felt like coming home.

All the work and love Bente and her parents has given to Elva made it all the more special.

In my next post I´ll take you indoors.
And believe me, you really have something to look forward to!

 

 

A day on the island

@brittarnhild

A 56th anniversary is worth a special celebration.
We decided to spend the day on the small island Smøla, where my mother had never been before, my father once when he was a boy, another time around 50 years ago.

 

First part of the celebration was already on the ferry, with coffee and svele, this special "pancake" which is served on all the ferries along the western coast of Norway.

At Veiholmen we ate lunch at Havkroa,
salted fish balls, a local delicacy.
We have been to Havkroa many times, this summer it has new owners,
Terje and I met Ingrid, the chef and one of two owners three weeks ago when we celebrated our anniversary at the same place, this time I asked her for a photo :-)

I will be back at Smøla and Havkroa, again and again,
if only to eat Ingrid´s salted fishballs.

 

The small island day ended with the outdoor play, Fru Guri av Edøy.
(I have taken you there twice before)

The play is marvellous,
though

the weather was icy cold.

In spite of the cold and the gale wind,
my father 80 and mother 83 never forget to smile.

 

And a little wind is not a bad thing on an island filled with windmills.

Tomorrow our travel continues,
to another island,
my father´s
birthplace.

 

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And when I am back in Trondheim I´ll mail you your postcards. 

Cleaning the stairs

@brittarnhild

We passed her house, and she looked up and greeted us with a hei. When we came back a little later, she raised her body, smiled and started to talk. "Oh, this is so hard on my back. I have had painters here painting the house, they finished yesterday and left the stairs filled with red drops of paint. I am trying the best I can to remove them, but the clorin I am using won't do." She laid her hands on her back and streched her body, "When I came to this house as a young bride 60 years ago, I remember my mother in law cleaning the stairs every Friday. I am alone now. My husband passed away last year. My back is going to kill me. I have taken painkillers  and know exactly how long they work, so I still have a little time at hand. But then I need to go indoors and find my bed." She smiled at us, wished us a good day and continued with her cleaning.

 

It was our 33rd anniversary and we had come out to Veidholmen, a small village on the island Smøla, as far out in the Atlantic as you can go.

At Havkroa they serve the local speciality, saltfiskball (balls made of salted fish), a deli we both love.

We go out to Smøla every summer, on a day trip from our cabin.

Never have we experienced such friendliness as we did this time. The old woman cleaning her stairway, a man passing us on our walk, stopping to chat, the young new owner at Havkroa, the woman who had just recently opened a small coffee house at Veidholmen.

The people, the place, the atmosphere, the houses. It all made our 33rd anniversary a very special day.

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The gardens at Veidholmen all have the most beautiful columbines.
I made a special columbine post ovet at Blaaklokkeveien

Smøla, a tiny island out in the Atlantic

@brittarnhild

A tiny little island, far out in the ocean, flat as a pancake.
Smøla is our goal for the day.

We leave a sunny cabin, knowing that the weather on the western coast of Norway chan change every hour.

And often it depend on which direction you look.
Bright sun.....

....or a grey wall coming towards you.

We chose to look in the sunny direction, and at each other, boarded the ferry, and 20 minutes later we were in Edøy, one of the hundreds, thousands of island belonging to Smøla.

Our goal was Veidholmen, a little fishing village far out in the left index finger tip of Smøla.
But before coming there we just drove around, enjoying the landscape, the old houses, inhabitants on the road.

 

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This post will continue tomorrow.........

.....with a very special lunch, and a very special meeting.

Postcards from an island

text and images britt-arnhild

A week in Hong Kong.
Memories for years to come.

A week has given us glimpses,
has shown us that Hong Kong has everything....
....almost

Has made us want to come back.

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To get away from the busy city life, we took a ferry out to one of the islands, Cheung Chau.

Close to Hong Kong, yet, like another planet.
30.000 inhabitants. Just as many bicycles. No cars.
A beach for swimming and sun bathing. Fresh air, though with a view over to the polluted Hong Kong island with its million skyscrapers.

Glass, after glass, after glass of lemon ice tea.

Blue houses.
And houses in any other colour imaginable.

 

A man texting one of his beloved daughter´s back in Norway.
I think I could fall in love with this man if I met him on the street.

No cars, but a million boats.
In all sizes and shapes.

Three generations of women.
Or may be four?

A fish market with everything fresh.
fresh as in - still alive.

To sit under a tree with your book
and
no need to read. 

Old and new, blending together.

As always, everything has an end.
We said goodbye to the island......

......

......and sailed into the sunset. 

 

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a link to more information about Cheung Chau

a link to the First Ferries

The Language of Flowers

text and images britt-arnhild

Summer, Sunday and a trip to the monastery island of Tautra, Terje, I, my parents.

The new monastery at Tautra opened in 2006 (you can read the whole interesting history here), and since then the nuns and their friends have worked hard to create the garden surrounding the buildings.

 

 Do you know this yellow flower?
In Norway we call it marikåpe.
The Latin name is alchemikka vulgaris.

Marikåpe means  Mary´s Coat.
The monastery at Tautra is a Mariakloster, a St.Mary monastery.

I love it when plants and flowers are used to tell something.

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One day I would love to create a Biblical Garden in a corner of The Blue Garden. 

A Kitchen with a View, or Friends and Food

text and images britt-arnhild

In Trondheimsfjorden there is a small island called Tautra. A monastery island with ruins from a medieval monastery, a running monastery of today, a few farms and a guesthouse called Klostergården.

Klostergården has a charming restaurant with the best salmon in the world, and when we have guests from abroad, we often take them there for a lunch.

For two days I have been at Tautra, stayed on Klostergården. Not with friends fro abroad, but with a group of colleages.

 We came out there with two impofrtant missions; to celebrate a birthday and to work together.

We wanted to have a birthday party on the beach, but as the day came close we understood that the weather gods did not cooperate. I contacted the owner of the guesthouse, asking if it would be possible to find a place where we could prepare our food, and to my delight I got a message back - "the restaurant closes at 6pm, the kitchen is free for you to use "

 
The birthday boy, 65 years old Søren, an artist of life, was in charge of the three course dinner, with paella as hovedretten, the main course.

With Søren as the chef we all took part in the cooking process. An easy task with a kitchen view like the one at Klostergården.

The starter, mango, avocado, shrimps, mussels sprinkled with herbs, balsamico and oil.

The main course, Sørens pealla....

And when it was time for the dessert I was so filled with good food, sweet wine, laughter, singing and walk out to meet the sunset.......

.....I completely forgot I had a camera.

 

Here is a link to Klostergården
Thank you Ståle for your hospitality!