Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Sing, sang, sung a song

@brittarnhild

Every second Wednesday our local church is open for everyone who wants to come, serving coffee, something to eat and some kind of program. This week a nearby senior choir visited us, and we could listed to their lovely singing, and also sing along on some of the songs.

There is a special series going on on the Norwegian Broadcasting, NRK, for the moment, Demenskoret, the dementia choir, and it seems like every Norwegian have cried and smiled and laughed though every one of the six episodes, learning again how important singing is for our health.

I sing a lot with the grandchildren. I used to sing a lot just for myself as well, but somehow I have stopped over the years. I plan to do something with that. I plan to sing when I cook, sing when I walk, sing when I garden, sing when I look myself in the mirror, sing, sing sing.......and smile.

 

Preparing for a travel

@brittarnhild

Sunday Terje and I are flying south to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. Our 9th trip there, and the first one after the pandemics.

 

Today I have been making plans for some knitting I want to bring with me, a pair of wrist warmers inspired by the amazing paradise bird flowers which grow on the islands. Already on our first visit there, back in 2011, I fell in love with the beautiful flowers, and could not stop taking pictures of them.

I am no painter, but I love doing it anyway, so today I tried to make a watercolour to use as a kind of pattern for my knitting.

Painting is one thing, finding the correct yarn/colours is quite another. I do think I am into something now though (I have done some changes after I took the photos) and really look forward to start knitting.

And to shoot more photos all through next week.

 

Knitting in France

@brittarnhild

Back in October Terje and I spent two weeks in France. The first week was vacation, with hiking every day, the second week I was teaching knitting at a knitting retreat for Norwegian and Danish women.

We stayed at a B&B, Les Trois Fontaines, in Saint Paul la Roche, a very charming, very small village in Dordogne in France, south west of Paris.The owner of the B&B are Danish Karina and French Vincent, and they hope to make their place into a kind of art and craft center with different types of art retreats.

My retreat in October was the very first one, and for me it was the very first time to teach knitting in this special way. I can tell you I was excited and believe me, I had nerve es before the women came. But as soon as we were all together it was all pure pleasure.

These sun flower wrist warmers were some of the items I knitted before the retreat.

Karina has set up a very exciting program for next year, and she has asked me to come back for more teaching. I am crossing my fingers that there will be enough participants so that I will be able to go.

I did not blog during our two weeks in France, just two short posts from the first two days, but I still have it on my list to do make posts from what we experiences.......some day. I will let you know when I do :-)

 

By the way, you can read more about Les Trois Fontaines here.

 

100 hikes, almost.......

@brittarnhild

January 1st last year we started something that turned out to become a wonderful adventure. We started to hike together. Well, we have hiked together ever since we met and fell in love back in 1978, but the special thing about this new adventure is that we set a goal to do at least 100 different hikes, each of them at least 5 kilometers (5000 meters) during 2022.

And all the hikes had to be done together.

We both do other walks and hikes and cross country skiing an so on  individually, but the 100 ones of 2022 had to be done together. We took photos along every hike, always a selfie and always a screenshot of the map from the hike.

I shared them all on. Facebook, but since I lost my old Facebook account all the updates disappeared of course. Luckily I have it all safe on my phone (and in the Cloud), and I do have a goal to save them further in a special blog I have made for the purpose.

I got covid for the second time in December, and did not have the energy to hike at all for several weeks, so we did not reach our goal. But we hade 96 of them, and we both feel happy about that.

And of course we will continue in 2023.
4 hikes and counting, so far.

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Do not forget to follow the Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods group on Facebook, where I will update you and all what is going on here, and you will also find links to all my posts on my webpage brittarnhild.no

 

Long time, no see

@brittarnhild

Long time, no see, but here I am again, after several weeks of no blogging. There are many reasons for that, I had covid in December which left me with very low energy for a long time, the Christmas season was busy with family and friends, my father has been very ill.......and so on and so on. But here I am, happy to be back, and hoping that you, my readers will be here as well. Blogging can be quite boring without you, you know.

We are in the middle of winter here, with more than enough of snow and ice and below zero degrees Celsius day in and day out.  This winter I have decided to keep my greenhouse open though, every single day. It is too cold to enjoy sitting down out there, but I use it as a way of challenging my creativity. This means that I am out there every day, making small "stillebens" and shooting pictures. To share the pictures I have opened a new account on instagram which I have names @brittarnhildsblomsterrom (meaning Britt Arnhild´s flower rooms)

There will probably be more images from the greenhouse here in the days and weeks and months to come, but hopefully also other stuff, like my life here in Norway and wherever I travel.

Hope to see you here with me.

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As many of you know, I lost my old facebook-account back in November 2022, and with it also the groups and pages I administered. The group Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods was among them, a place to share what is going on in my blog with the same name. With a new blogpost finally up there after almost two months of not blogging, and I decided it was time to make a House in the Woods´s group on my new facebook-account. You find it here:
Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods on facebook

 

 

 

December 2nd, 2022

@brittarnhild

A new nativity is set up in the greenhouse, this one from Sweden, one of the first ones in my collection, bought many years ago. If you follow my instagram account @brittarnhildsrom you will see that yesterday's elephants have gone, and more typical Nordic cones and pines have replaced them.

After a dry, cold and sunny November, we woke up to snow yesterday. It was like stepping into a new world , where everything was clean and virginal. Still just a little dusting, but with great expectations of more to come. It is hard for the birds and the squirrels to find food now, and I am out first thing every morning to feed them.

 

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December 1st, 2022

@brittarnhild

The first candle is lit. Traditionally the candle holder should be a wreath, but mine is different this year. The meaning of the candles is the same though, we are waiting to celebrate the birth of the Light of the World.

Did you know that the advent wreath tradition came from Germany, almost 200 years ago. A German priest, Johann Hinrich Wichern had opened a home for orphans in the small town where he lived. One late November day, around 1830, when he was about to visit the orphanage, he was wondering how to give hope to the children. The winter was especially cold, the children were freezing, and he decided to make a wreath and put candles in it. The first advent wreath had 28 candles, 24 small ones, 4 big ones, one for each day until Christmas. Every day, when Father Christmas visited the children, he lit one of the candles and talked about The Light.

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The first advent video in Britt Arnhild´s World is now up.

 

 

Advent is here, Facebook is not

@brittarnhild

Advent is here and the first candle is lit. Advent, my favourite time of the year.

I do have a dream to continue my advent tradition and write posts here every day from December 1st till December 24th or 25th, but I know that probably this year, as so many years before, life will get me, and there will not be enough time.

But who knows, may be this is the year to make it.

I will post daily episodes on Britt Arnhilds verden/world on YouTube, but I do know for sure that this year they will all be in Norwegian only. It is too much work to make them in two languages, and also to text them, and there has been too few viewers to my English episodes to make it worth doing. I am sorry about that.

A week ago my Facebook account was hacked and then locked. I might get it back in a month or I might not. I do miss my Facebook friends and has opened a new account, in my name, Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland. In my profile picture I am wearing a hand knitted rainbow cardigan. I will be very happy if you come over and befriend me........

.......and let me know if you would be interested in advent posts from me this year.

 

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By the way, a couple of my instagram accounts were also closed when mye Facebook account was taken down. Among them was the account with pictures from my greenhouse. I have opened a new one, and for the moment I am posting daily photos of my nativities. The pictures used in this posts are from them. The name of the new account is @brittarnhildsrom  

 

Father's Day

@brittarnhild

Today is Father's Day in Norway.
We usually celebrate with as many of the family as possible gathered. But this year Terje and I are at our cabin, just the two of us.

This year must be the first year ever that I have not spoken to my father on Father's Day. Back in the beginning of January my dear father got dementia, and he is now in a care home not far from where my mom lives. He still has his phone and most days he manage to call at least my mother and also one or more of us four siblings. But today he hasn't called.

He has been in my thoughts though, and I am having a good time trying to remember as many happy childhood memories as possible. A blessed thing to do.

I have no memories of the fishing trip when this picture was taken though. My mother tells me she can remember the cute apron I wear over my dress. I have no idea, lol.

HAPPY FATHER´S DAY DEAR DAD, AND THANKS FOR GIVING ME SUCH A RICHED, BLESSED LIFE.

 

To let November be November

@brittarnhild

A rain storm was passing over our cabin during the night. I could hear the rain drumming on the roof, the wind bloom with gale force outside. But then we woke to the morning light, with clouds traveling the sky, light coming and going. We went for one of our 5kms hikes, and with warm, windproof clothing it was pure bliss.

I think I am starting to love November. No other month has this changing light, this unpredictable weather.

What I do NOT like though, is that we seem to make November a Christmas month. WHICH IT IS NOT.

November is November.
Advent (December 1st till December 24th) is Advent.
.......and then.......
Christmas finally comes, and Christmas is Christmas.

 

Starting to celebrate Christmas already now, actually steals the anticipation, the joy of looking forward to, to glede seg til as we say in Norway. Staring to celebrate Christmas in November, even early in November, makes our year a poorer year.

Yes, I love November, I love Advent and I love Christmas. And I want November to be November, Advent to be Advent, Christmas to be Christmas. 

I want a full live, not only the sparkling tops.

 

November light, as seen from our cabin this morning.