Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

A Friday hike

@brittarnhild

I think I have mentioned it before, Terje and I are planning to do 100 different 5kms + hikes this year. We started on January 1st, and will continue till New Year's Eve. We have been in doubt this fall, will we really reach the goal, but we have never actually given up, and today, on our way to a weekend at the cabin, we stopped in a small town along the way to do hike no 84.

The town, Orkanger, is only about a 40 minutes drive from our home, and we often stop there for grocery shopping, for a cup of coffee or other errands, and back in early spring/late winter we did a hike along the river there. But we have never actually walked to where we did today, the old wooden house town.

The wooden house town has a long history, and along the way we passed several signposts telling the history. 
I love the colours of these old houses, and also the way they are restored to keep the old look.

This house is not among the old houses, more like a vintage one I would say :-)
The colour is very uncommon for a Norwegian wooden house, and I love it.

Opera Night

@brittarnhild

Friday Night was the night for our babysitting, Saturday night was our night off, and we had tickets for the opera. Not Swan Lake (which is a ballet by the way) as you might be led to believe from this picture, lol, but Georges Bizet Carmen. May be to most well known by all operas.

The National Opera and Ballet in Oslo is beautiful, situated down by the Oslo fjord. Terje and I have been to one opera performance here before, years ago, so coming here again was a very special treat for us.

We started with dinner in the opera restaurant, and then walking right into the concert hall and three hours with dramatic music, love and death.

With little Vida to the Royal Castle

@brittarnhild

Our little princess walking though the rainbow, into the Princess Ingrid Alexandra Sculpture Park.

It took us about 20 minutes to walk from our AirB&B down to the Royal Castle and its surrounding park. Oslo has had a problem with droughts this spring, with prohibitions concerning watering gardens and parks. But, lucky for us, and for everybody else I guess, rain came a few days ago. Still no water in the fountains around the city, but the parks are green and flowering.

Here is a huge rhododendron in front of a statue of Camilla Collett, an early female Norwegian author.

Look at the beauty of this rhododendron. I wish I had one in our garden, but as we live further up north I doubt it would give much flowers there.

The first image in this post was from Princess Ingrid Alexandra's Sculpture Garden. The rest from The Queens Garden, just behind the castle.

 

A few days in Oslo

@brittarnhild

We are in Oslo for a few days together with our son Øystein, his wife to be (in a month) Silje, and their little adorable Vida, our granddaughter. Øystein and Silje are going to a wedding tomorrow, so we are here mainly to babysit Vida, but also find time in between for long walks, coffee and exploring more of the city.

After we arrived today Terje and I had a long hike, or rather walk. I love hiking in nature, but I also love urban hikes walks where you can stop for lunch, for coffee, for selfies, or just to sit down and watch life.

We stay in a beautiful AirB&B flat, not far from Oslo's great food court. My daughter in law and I walked over there this afternoon to buy dinner for all of us, ending up with dishes from all over the world.

The weeding is tomorrow night, which means that Terje and I will be homebound with Vida. I think I will go back to the food court for cheese, salamis and ham, olives and a million other goodies, making us a tapas night.

 

Fields of daffodils

@brittarnhild

Last summer we visited the small island Gossen/Aukra, four hours by car and ferry south west of Trondheim. It was then I heard about the fields of daffodils for the first time. "You should come back in spring" my friend told me when we drove past the church, "then these fields are painted yellow with thousands and thousands of daffodils. There and then I promised myself that I would go back in spring.

But when is spring in Norway, when exactly will the daffodils be in bloom?
The past weeks I have sent quite a few messages to my friend on the island, "how are the daffodils doing? do you still have snow? when will they bloom this year? And a couple of weeks ago I wrote again "we will be at our cabin fort the Easter holidays (our cabin is halfway between our home and the island) do you think the daffodils will be blooming then? 
My friend was sceptical, probably Easter time would be too early, and I told myself to wait for better luck next year. Our opportunity to see the flowers this year had to be Easter.

Then, some time last week, my friend wrote again, the snow has melted and with the warm, sunny weather we have now the daffodils will probably be in bloom next week.

All I had to do then was to convince Terje that six hours of driving home from the cabin was about the same as two hours driving, since we then got to see the daffodil fields, and also had an invitation from our friends to come and eat lunch with them. Terje is rarely hard to convince and yesterday we found ourselves on the island.

The story says that the very first daffodil bulbs were taken home from The Holy Island around 1720 by Alexander Borck who was a priest on the island then. Back home he planted the bulbs but was for a long time haunted by guilt. He had not been given the bulbs but had taken them, from Calvary, and now he doubted that God could forgive him. He struggled with his guilt for a long time until he finally prayed for forgiveness through one whole night. Finally dawn came, he looked out his studio window and was greeted by a field of yellow flowers.

He was forgiven, and for 300 years now people have been blessed by the yellow daffodil fields in spring.

 

Autumn break in the mountains

@brittarnhild

It is an old tradition with a week off from schools around the first or second week of October. It used to be called "potetferie" potato break, and my mother remembers when she was a girl she and her classmates were sent out to farms nearby the city, staying there for a week, helping with the potato harvest. 

We harvested our potato land a couple of weeks ago, so no need for that this week. Instead we took Leander with us and drove up in the mountains for a few days. Leander is in first grade now, so this is his very first potetferie, or autumn break as we call it nowadays.

We are staying at the cabin of Terje´s brother and his wife, a couple of hours south of Trondheim, close to the old mining city Røros.

Last night we went out with our headlights, which can be quite scary when you are five, soon to be six, and a little afraid of the dark. It turned out to be a very exciting experience though, and we all agree that this is something we will do again tonight. And of course repeating the coming back inside treat with hot chocolate and mashmallows.

Today it is snowing, the first snow of the year, and blowing hard. Not at all the hiking weather we had planned. But we have been out feeding the birds, exploring the area, and now we are waiting for the sun to come back, may be we can have a hike then :-)

The first two photos were taken this morning, when I was out to greet the day.
Two photos were taken last night, and the one of Terje with the birdhouse in daylight just before it started to snow.

 

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I am making sure to record filming for you to show in an upcoming episode in Britt Arnhild´s World.
Make sure you see this one, from our stay at the Obrestad Lighthouse.

 

 

To the Lighthouse

@brittarnhild

I am so happy to tell you that I have found a rhythm on my videos on YouTube which works very well for me, and hopefully for you as well. As you know I started my YouTube channel in English, then after some time, several years ago, turned the video updates into Norwegian. Then, a couple of years ago, I startet to do them both in Norwegian and in English. It worked for some time, but in the end I had to realise it was too much work for me.

The last few months have been kind of back and forth, partly because of travelling, partly because of a long sleep my computer had, partly because life has been too busy.

But now, finally, it seems like I have found the working way, the path less traveled so to say.
One week I will do a Norwegian episode, the next week one in English, then back to a Norwegian one, and so on. I have tried this for a few weeks now, and really like the way it turns out.

This week is the English week, and today I have posted a video I have been waiting to do for several weeks now, with footage from a trip Terje and I had down south to the village where he was born, combining it with an overnight stay in a lighthouse. I dod quite a lot of filming from the lighthouse and the amazing beaches nearby, and this is what I let you enjoy with me in the episode.

There is more in the episode as well, of course, as usual. I talk about several different knitting project and I read from one of Virginia Wollf´s books, not To the Lighthouse, but The Waves.

Enjoy:

 

 

A new life to my Mac Book Pro

@brittarnhild

My dear Mac died a few weeks back. I had to take it downtown to the Apple Store, and finally got it back yesterday.

 

The first thing I did this morning was to make a new (English) episode for YouTube, with all the amazing footage I had from our trip from our cabin, along the Atlantic Ocean Road down to the city of Molde.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Welcome to the City of Roses

@brittarnhild

Molde, a small city in the northwestern coast of Norway. Molde, the City of Roses, a name it got more than a hundred years ago.
Even though we are north in Europe, the climate here, close to the Atlantic Ocean, is good for roses and also garden flowers in general.

History tells that every cruice ship which enters the city is given a bouquet of roses from the hotel directors. This continues even today.

You find flowers everywhere in the city, even up on the roof of the municipality hall. I took some footage from there, which I will add in an upcoming video.

From our cabin we take a ferry and then drive for 2-3 hours, over The Atlantic Ocean Road, as I showed you yesterday, and not long afterwards we are in The City of Roses. We went there two days ago and stayed overnight at Hotel Scandic Seilet (The Sail). Our room was up on the 7th floor. I love heights, the view was amazing.

We had a lovely walk Sunday afternoon, another one on Monday morning,

and before heading back for our cabin, we drove up in the hills to see the city from above. Wherever you are in Molde you can see the mountain skyline across the fjord. I am sure Molde is the city in the world with the most beautiful, scenic view.

 

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In my next English YouTube video I will take you along The Atlantic Ocean Road and also to Molde.
Meanwhile, why not watch an old episode, from October last year:

 

 

 

If I had a flower shop

@brittarnhild

If I had a flower shop I would cover the pavement outside my shop with rose petals.

Red, yellow, white, purple. Like smiles to greet the passerby.

If I had a flower shop.......

 

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I don't have a flower shop and I guess you don't have one either.
But we can always cover our paths with rose petalsRed, yellow, white, purple.
Like smiles to greet the passerby.......

 

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I took these images in Molde today. Molde is Norway´s  City of Roses
And quite a lot of other flowers.