Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The Sky of the Old Year

@brittarnhild

At 9am it was still dark outside. Christmas time is a time for sleeping in, but morning birds as we are, Terje and I have offered to take care of Leander in the mornings. Thirty minutes past nine the street lights were turned off and a few monites later to sky gave us its morning show.

"Oh, Terje, can you please take Leander? I need to go out in the garden with my camera." Terje was busy writing a grocery list, and another list for things we need to be before his birthday (he is turning 60 in a few days and we will have a big party), and a third list for wishes for his birthday. Terje is a list master. He put all the lists away for Leander of course, and I ran out to shower myself in the most beautiful colours the sky can give.

All the photos are "real", no filters.
And Leander is asleep now :-)

 

The colours of the moment

@brittarnhild

Winter has finally arrived, and it brought with him beauty and cold. As the house is getting more and more empty every day now, I found time for a long walk after breakfast today. Out in the cold. Out in the beauty. Out in the blue winter day.

A walk has room for so many thoughts, and as the year is singing the song of its very last days, it is easy to let them wander back on 2015, easy to let them wander into 2016.

Most of all though I hope to let my thoughts and my mind and my heart be here and now. To see the colours of the moment.

 

Every day worthy of colours

@brittarnhild

A walk in the garden when I came home from work resulted in a salad for dinner.

 

 

 

Filling up my palette

@brittarnhild (photos by Terje)

Back to normal days, busy life. Back to days filled with work, days when I hardly see the daylight as I am inside in meetings, or in my office doing paperwork.

When life gets too hectic I close my eyes and let colours fill me.

And when my neck gets too tight, I can always pretend I have a few parrots massaging me.

I filled up my palette in Tenerife, and have colours enough to paint my life for months ahead.

Autumn colours in the mountain

@brittarnhild

 

A weekend in October. A weekend free to do whatever we wanted.
And we were in no doubt, we wanted to go up in the mountains to visit my brother in law and his wife. And an extra pleasure, Marta wanted to go with us :-)

Arne and Lisbeth, Terje's brother and his wife, live south west in Norway, at Moi, where my father in law also lives. But Lisbeth grew up at Røros, the UNESCO Heritage Site up in the mountains south of Trondheim. Lisbeth's childhood cabin is still at Røros and several times a year they drive the 12 hours up there. To live the perfect simple life.

Marta, Terje and I came up there Friday night, and walked from the car to the cabin under a million stars.

Saturday, after a long breakfast, we drove in to Røros for shopping and a visit to one of the multitude of charming cafes.

But the weather was lovely, and the colours of the autumn burning. The mountain was calling our names.

We packed a huge backpack which we let Arne carry,  and started our hike. Marta and dog Winnie in the lead.

 There are moments in life you can live on for a long time.
Mountain hiking moments are among them.

We are walking towards winter here in Norway. For the moment autumn is my favorite moment.
Will this change when winter comes?

 

Roses and Memories

@brittarnhild

The hill which is folding out in front of the cabin is painted red, pink, lilac and purple these days. Roses and heather. God has been very generous with paints from his paintbox.

A few years ago we planted a couple of wild roses among the cultivated ones. I was dreaming of huge trees with pink roses, and hips in the late summer which I would make into marmelade.
The wild ones never thrived and yesterday we removed them and planted two new ones. One red. One pink.

A teenager summer love.
We met at a camp in the begiining of summer. We lived far away from each other. Train stations were our places for goodbyes, and for new meetings. The first time I had his blue and white sweather around my neck and forgot to give it back. I slept with the sweather as my pillow for weeks, breathing in my love.  In the middle of summer he came to visit me. I walked down to the railway station to meet him and I got my first kiss. Later I took the train south to visit him. When I left to go home, his mother filled my arms with roses from their garden. I sat on the train for hours with the roses in my lap, watering them with my tears. Not long afterwards I broke up. Not because of the roses.

I had white roses in my bridal bouquet.

We all have rose tales. Bouquets of them. Armfuls of them.
Do you have one to share?

Terje is not the world champion in giving me flowers,
that is not one of the 1001 reasons I love him,

but I remember the day my book was published, he bought me a huge bouquet of red roses. 

 

:::::::::::::::

Thank you Julia for your rose tale,
the man who makes roses 

Those long, lazy days of summer

@brittarnhild

Long, lazy summer days.
Though I would wish for some more laziness. I am on vacation, midsummer is here, the Blue Garden is bursting with colours.......and I have too much on my agenda. The too much are all great things, yes things, how I love this things. Still, when I go to bed I am longing for those long, lazy days. Days when creative living most of all is doing "nothing". 

Long, lazy summer days.
Some days rain. Some days sun.
All days summer.

 

Some days I long to be bored. To have nothing to do. Wandering around, restless. 
Hours, days, weeks streching out ahead of me. Aimless.

 

Once, many, many years ago, I worked in a church here in Trondheim. The congregation had a lot of old people, my job was to visit some of them. To bring hope, joy, life into their days. Karen had given up all hope. When I came there she dragged all energy out of me, always negative, always complaining, curtains covering her windows, never a tale to tell. After visiting her I always made sure to go on to Annette. We sat down together in the old, threadbare sofa, drinking coffee from her best china, dipping the dry buscuits in the coffee, a photo album on our laps, tales and anecdotes from a long life filling the room, when saying good bye after a couple of hours, I danced down the stairs from the third floor.

 

I do NOT long to be bored.
But I do long to have some lazy time at hand.

 

 

I think I will take the day off today.
Doing NOTHING! 
(knowing perfectly well that NOTHING means filling my day with "those are a few of my favorite things........") 

Flowers on the path.......

 

@brittarnhild

I was looking though some old photos when this little critter came crawling.

An artist he must be.
Playing with words and colours.

.....flowers on the path.....

 

Exactly what I need.
Inspiration.
Colours.
Words. 

Please little critter.
Don´t go away.......

 

I need you :-) 

In the garden of prayers

text and images britt-arnhild

"What are you giving up for Lent?"
Over the last few weeks I have met this question again and again, "what are you giving up for Lent?"

The question following me, but no answer has been found.
Until last night.
Fat Tuesday.
Or rather,
not until I opened my eyes this morning. 

We had our Fat Tuesday meal late, very late for Norwegian standards.  
9pm.
6 around the table.
Enjoying the salt meat, potatos, vagatables.
Afterwards I went directly to bed, and slept "like a stone" till this morning.

Ash Wednesday.

 

And I knew that my 40 days of Lent will have focus.

On prayers.
On silence.
On growth.
On renouncing.

 

According to my book about Lent,
I am following the rainbow.

Red,
for the first week. 

Can happiness be measured

text and images britt-arnhild

A morning at the cloth market.
A  morning in the pure middle of colours.
Happiness is what fills me.

In the news I read this morning that coffee makes you more open for positive words.
Colours work that way for me.

When I was here last time I had two Indian outfits made for me.
I had not planned to have any made this time.
But how could I resist?

And since Vinay would drive Sheri to the taylor anyway, and since Indian fabric is cheaper than coffee, and since both Sheri and Vinay were sure the taylor would make me an outfit in just a few days....

....I ended up with three meters of Indian cotton in red and black.

:::::::::::::::::::

Off to the taylor we went.

Can happiness be measured?

I don´t think so.
But if it could,
no measure tape would be long enough for mine.

How do you measure your happiness?

Photos: cloth market in Mysore