Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The day when everything was blue

@brittarnhild

"Where shall we go today?" This is the first question we ask ourselves in the morning. And with beautiful nature all around, it is never difficult to find an answer, or rather many answers. There are so many places we want to go. Yesterday we climbed a mountain (I plan to blog about it in Blåklokkeveien), so today we took quite another route, out to the sea.

We are now at the mouth of the Trondheim´s Fjord bay, an area which was important both for Norwegians and Germans during WWII. The Germans occupied the area for some time during the war, and it is now a kind of memorial, where you can learn more about what really happened.

Today everything is peaceful. And everything is blue.
A perfect day for selfies.

 

Days like these are shining beads in my necklace of life.

 

A necklace which is easy to wear........

...on blue days.

Top of the world

@brittarnhild

 

Last Sunday I walked in The Royal Parks of London. Started in the Italien Garden, a gift from  Albert to his beloved Victoria, walked along the lake watching the extensive bird life, stopped for tea at Lido. Continued up to Kensington Gardens, after a few hours at Victoria & Albert Museum. The weather was absolutely beautiful and I found myself walking a little envious - lucky Londoners with all their great parks.

Today I hiked our favorite mountain near our cabin, together with Terje, and all my envy blew away with the indian summer breeze.

YES! I made it!!!

We were followed all the way to the top by two eagles. They did not want to have their portraits taken though.

 This deer was a little shy, and ran when I tried to get closer with my camera.

Mountains, blue sky, mild October temperatures, eagles, a deer and a husband who brought coffee, bread, eggs and chocolate cookies.

It can´t be any better, can it?

 

The challenge of growing cabin roses

@brittarnhild

We took over the cabin at Easter 2000 (my parents had built it in 1976) and one of the first things I started to do was to make a garden. Very slowly in the beginning, a tiny little bed with a tiny little rose.

Already the first year I met the challenge.....how could I take care of a garden when we were away for weeks at a time during the hottest, dryest periods of the year.

Over the hears the garden has grown, a little piece of new land cultivated every year.

The cabin garden is simple, consisting of roses and herbs, and also one cherry tree, one plum tree and one red currant. A few strawberry plants, a forsythia shrub and a few perennials.

The birds love our cherries, our red currant and our strawberries. So far we´ve had no plums.

We love the birds and don´t mind them eating our berries.

Butterflies and bumblebees also love my garden, and we love them.

This year has been extra challenging for the garden. We´ve been away for weeks, and it did not rain for weeks.

All the roses have survived, but their flowers are tiny and few.

 

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We are spending a few days at the cabin, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours weeding, watering, adding fertilizer, talking with the plants. And one thing I know for sure - as long as I am fit enough to weed, my cabin rose garden will survive!

 

Summer heath

@brittarnhild

The day is hot. Not Norwagian hot, more like South European hot. We are at the cabin which is  situated on a hill, facing the sun, directly to the south. The heat and the sun makes it feel like an oven. And it make it feel like we are on vacation. Somewhere far, far away.

All I want to do is to sit in the shadow with a book, but we have some grocery shopping to do, and decide to go and have lunch near the sea on our way to the grocery store.

There a slight breeze is sprinkling over us while we enjoy the hot, spicy pepperoni pizza. One to share is enough on a day like this, and anyway, tonight we will do a bbq at the cabin.

Living in our part of the world means that you never know what the weather will be like. Days like this are rare gems. I collect them and make then into a necklace to use though the winter.

 

Midsummer flowers

@brittarnhild

In between the rainshowers we did a hike, and picked a bouquet of midsummer flowers.

 

 

 

 

btw, pains still shout to me: DO NOT WRITE ON THE COMPUTER......

 

Leaving and receiving

@brittarnhild

 

Do you remember Tingstuo? The tiny little thrift store in the little valley, and the village with only 17  residents? Tingstuo was open yesterday, and I went there with a little bag of goodies for the store, a bag of bric a brac accessories from a day of clearing out the loads I have at home.

Synøve, the owner of Tingstuo, sat down to look through the "chocolates" . It is some time since I did this clearing, I had forgotten what I had put in the bag. 

Looking at it now, I almost wanted to buy a few piece back. "Oh no, how could I give away this? " "Oh my! Isn´t this piece beautiful?" Ha, I restrained myself, rose and did some treasure hunting among Synøve´s collections.

When I drove back to the cabin a little later, I was humming, smiling. In the back seat my bag was filled with a blue mix and match cup and saucer, a green wine glass, a tiny little green vase and a garden book from 1933.

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Last night Terje and I celebrated pinsaften, Pentecost Night. As our tradition is we wanted to have a fire, a remembrance of The Holy Spirit. But as nature here is exeptionally dry and we don´t want a wildfire, our pinsaftens bål had to be in the bbq grill :-)

 

Every day, a precious gift

@brittarnhild

I think I have already told you that my mother has a favorite song, Hver dag er en sjelden gave, Every day is a precious gift. Every single night she plays it on her piano. She has passed the song forward to me, and though the day I find myself huming......hver dag er en sjelden gave, en skinnende mulighet.......

The song followed me yesterday, when Terje and I took our Sunday morning cabin hike. A small rucksack was packed with a thermos with coffee, a box with left over chocolates from Christmas, the sky was deep blue, the sea a mirror. An eagle was flying low, searching for his lunch, a man, one of the locals, stopped for a chat, a dog, a black one, looking precisely like a bear, decided he wanted to hike with us.

Every day, a precious gift....

....some more precious than others.

 

Around the church

@brittarnhild

 

Terje had to buy some building materials, he always has something going on. I decided to do a walk instead, around the church, down to the sea. Can you see that there has been a funeral recently? All the flowers are still on top of the new grave.

In earlier times people used to come to church by boats. My grandpa Johannes came from this area. We do have a few family tales, I wish I knew a lot more.

I sat down on the bench, wishing I had bestefar Johannes there with me. Listening to his deep, loving voice, letting myself fly on the wind back to his childhood days. His youth. The time he decided to do the extraordinary, to leave the village to go to the teacher seminary......where he met bestemor Ragna Josefine.

Are the tales all forgotten, or are there somewhere to be found?
In the wind?
In the sea?
In words?
In oral memories?

Or may be deep in my heart somewhere, inherited as a memory from previous generations?

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.

Cabin roses almost in bloom

@brittarnhild

I am at the cabin together with my parents.
They bought this land back in 1975 and built the cabin the next summer.
In 2000 Terje and I bought both the land and the cabin from them.

Now it is two years since last time they visited.
So much to see again, so much to remember, so much to talk about.

The roses started to bloom these days.....almost.

 

 

The perfect time for a cabin weekend.

Though I wish I had a couple of weeks, not only a couple of days.......