Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

First day of November

@brittarnhild

November, the first winter month, and winter is waving to us from several directions. No snow here with us yet, but icy cold. And at the same time this amazing November light. I used to dread November. The dark month, before we start burning advent lights everywhere in December. Then, years ago, I started to look for November light, and to my surprise it was so easy to find, and slowly November became a month to look forward to.

Terje and I are spending a few days at our cabin. Came here on Sunday, and will head back home tomorrow, Thursday, so it is not a long cabin break. But we have been so lucky with the weather. A bright, very low sun shining for hours every day. And we have made the most of it, going to several of our favourite places for hiking.

Today came with what felt like a gale wind, so we decided to stay at the cabin. Which for me meant mugs of hot tea, knitting, enjoying the view, reading and making some Christmas/Advent preparations.

What does  November look like over at your place?

Sleeping muscles

@brittarnhild

It looks perfect with all these daffodils. But when you do not see are the weeds. Well, Terje sees it, I see the yellow flowers. We will have friends over for wild garlic hunting and dinner tomorrow. They might see the weeds, or they might not. But anyway, today was a perfect day for weeding. With Terje working on the roof, I dreamt down on all four and started the work.

Oh my, tonight I can really feel that I have woken up some muscles which have been sleeping deep all through the winter.......

Weeding with such a view, sure, it is pure bliss.

 

Spring has sprung

@brittarnhild

We woke up to a white world this morning.......again. It did melt quite fast though, but before it did we were already on our way to the cabin. And look, here we have spring.

Every fall I plant dozens of daffodil bulbs, and are rewarded when spring comes.

Daffodils in the cabin garden, wood anemones in the woods, blackbirds and red robins and a million other birds.......and the weather forecast is good.

 

Easter Day and a hike

@brittarnhild

After a long, cold and snowfilled winter, it feels absolutely lovely to greet spring this Easter week. And the weather has really been lovely. There is still more than enough snow up in the hills, and Terje is out cross country skiing every day (I have been once), but today we decided to go for a hike near the Atlantic. Øystein, Vida and Marta left yesterday, but Ingrid, Marius, Leander and Milian were still here (they left after today's hike)

As so often before, we went out on the island Skardsøya, and as I told my two grandsons, I believe this is my most beautiful place on earth, with sky, mountains and ocean meeting.

Skardsøya also played an important role during WWII and there are some fatal memories from WWI, so during our hike today, on the day 83 years after the Germans invaded Norway, we gave the boys a history lesson.

   

Here we are standing by a memorial stone set up to remember a mine accident in 1919, where 4 people died while deactivating a mine, a mine expert, a local farmer and two of his sons.

Easter break is almost over. Tomorrow (on my 65th birthday) we are heading back home.

 

When grey is beautiful

@brittarnhild

After last night´s storm we woke up to a new morning.
I love colours, but I also see that grey can be immensely beautiful

 

I with Thee would begin,
O my Savior so dear,On the way that I still must pursue;
I with Thee would begin
Every day granted here,
As my earnest resolve I renew
To be and remain Thine forever.

The start of a hymn by the Swedish Lina Sandell (1832-1903)

Cabin life in deep winter

@brittarnhild

We are spending a couple of days at our cabin, on our way back home from an opera performance in the small town on Kristiansund last night. Yesterday, in Kristiansund, the weather did not feel like winter at all, mild and sunny, though the wind was strong, but when we woke up at the hotel this morning, the temperature had dropped down to freezing point, the wind was blowing a gale, and it snowed heavily. We had 50 kilometers to drive and a 30 minutes ferry ride to come here, and luckily and thanks to a very good driver, all went well.

Our cabin is quite simple, and no heating is on when we are not here, so when we arrived the inside temperature was about 5 degrees Celsius. A faithful old wood stove is your best friend then. You can see ours in the drawing above, a drawing I made back in October 2006.

A mug of hot mint tea, with dried mint leaves from the cabin garden, also helps to warm up.

And with the wind continuing to blow outside, and hails hammering on our windows, I have made a little spring corner inside.

Cabin life in winter can be perfect days, especially when you have your Jøtul stove, stacks of books and enough yarn to last you though as long as you want.

 

A day at the cabin

@brittarnhild

Let's start the day already when it is just a few minutes old young, shall we :-)
Midnight, and nights are filled with light here up north at this time of the year. Well, not quite all night, we do have a few hours with the sun taking a dive in the ocean, but all of a sudden it is back again, the sun I mean.

It is hard to go to bed when the light and the view is like this, but harder to stay awake, I am always tired at night, and sleep hits me the moment my head meets the pillow.

Hours later I've had my beauty sleep, we have had breakfast out in the terrasse, and while Terje is up on the roof, finishing the work there, I am watching the bumble bees, smelling the thyme.

Then I drink a mug of mint tea, I read, I knit and I watch the view.

Soon it is too hot to sit in the sun and I seek shade behind the red currant in the herb garden.
More reading, but then Terje comes down for the roof, "what about a swim in the ocean again?" A perfect idea. We have to drive to find a good place to swim, so I make a thermos of coffee, fill a water bottle and pack some snacks, and off we go.

It is night again. Not quite midnight yet, so I am still awake.

I am working my way through my travel literature and garden literature this summer. Taking photos of each and every one of the books I have, posting them on two of my instagram accounts, using the hashtags #brittarnhildsreiselitteratur and #brittarnhildshagebibliotek

There are so many great books in my shelves, and as I read on along the travel literature path I'm playing with an idea. I have this blog Caffe Avec which I started many years ago while we were vising Krakow in Poland. I fell in love with the cafés and coffee houses there, something you can read about in the very first post over at Caffe Avec, Krakow, Let's get started.
Since then the blog has been used for quite a few different topics. But my idea now is to re-open the blog for posts about past travels, inspired by the travel literature I read, or simply inspired by memories.

What do you think? Will it be of interest to you? Will you go there, will you read it?

 

A swim in the Atlantic

@brittarnhild

We have such amazing weather for the moment. A weather which calls for a swim in the ocean.
Terje is busy at the cabin these days, repairing the roof after a leak, but after lunch today we decided it was time for a hike. A hike to the ocean.

Icy cold
And so refreshing!

 

First day of summer vacation

@brittarnhild

Vacation? Aren't you retired?
Sure I am, and in that way I kind of have vacation all year round.......or?

Well, it really does not feel like I have. The days are passing by sometimes faster than I can follow and when it is time to go to bed I often feel frustrated. Where did the day go? There are still so many things I want to squeeze in before sleep takes over!

I guess this is a good sign. No, absolutely no, boring minutes in my life :-) 

Last weekend was a kind of climax, busy in the most wonderful, perfect way you can imagine.
Our Øystein got married to his Silje (I hope to write a post about it some day)

 

And this morning I woke up to this lovely feeling, the first day of vacation feeling.
We had breakfast, I watered the greenhouse while Terje packed the car, and then we drove the two hours out west to our cabin.

We will stay here for just a few days only, this time, but the sun is shining, the temperatures lovely, the stack of unread books high and the knitting projects many.

It is summer vacation.

 

All the images are from our cabin today.

 

Slow Living, my way

@brittarnhild

A week at the cabin

Terje and I

Slow Living

My way

 

Hiking

Knitting

Reading

Cooking

 

And time to make another episode in Britt Arnhild´s World on YouTube.
This time I sit outside on our terrace, with the camera hold to show you the amazing view we have, me looking directly into the cabin wall :-)

It is a short video.
A slow life video.

I hope you like it.