Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

New video, enjoy :-)

@brittarnhild

 

 

 

Like a travel abroad

@brittarnhild

We spent a few hours downtown today. After weeks and weeks of mostly stay at home, not meet anyone, it almost felt like a travel abroad, a week in Italy, a day in London, somewhere far away and quite exotic. Well, not exactly, but still. Lol.

We started early, picking up the two oldest grandchildren, driving them down to their kindergarten. As only one parents, or as with us today, grandparent, were allowed to follow them indoors (coronawise) I stayed outside, taking a few pictures, freezing my nose to a ball of red ice.

 

Next we picked up my parents, our elderly people get their Covid 19 shots this week and next, everyone older than 85. Dad will be 88 in a week, mum 91 in a month. We were not allowed to follow them inside the vaccination area, so while waiting we had coffee in a coffeeshop across the road.

Taking my parents home, driving back downtown, just walking around with Terje. Buying a few presents, grandson Milian turned two today, we will celebrate tomorrow. Having lunch at a favourite café. More walking. A bit more shopping.

 

Home for ordinary tasks on an ordinary day, and then the grand finale. Torgeir has bought an apartment in Stockholm and we, Terje, Marta and I, celebrated with him, through FaceTime and a bottle of prosecco. Torgeir had some Scottish beer over at his place.

 

Like a travel abroad?
Or a wonderful not so ordinary ordinary day in my life.

 

 

 

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

 

 

You can easily find my other active blogs through my new webpage, brittarnhild.no
The other blogs, which focus on different themes, are all in Norwegian, but the images are all our shared language, and you can always easily use google translate :-)

I have a list of different instagram accounts:
@brittarnhild
@akeleiehagen (the blue garden)
@brittarnhildsstrikkedagbok (knitting)
@brittarnhilds_naturdagbok (nature notes)
@brittarnhildsbokhylle (my bookshelf)
@brittarnhildsflora (wild flowers, active during the summer months)
@brittarnhildsmatseddel (menue)
@dagenslillegrønne (green living)

On Facebook I hava a page connected to this blog, which I call, obviously 
Britt Arnhild´s House in the Woods. Feel free to subscribe to it. I am also considering making a group connected to this page, where we all can post, chat, have discussions, sharing and so on. Would that be of interest for you? Well, let's see where this path leads us, shall we?

I do have an account on snapchat as well, mostly for family and a few close friends. Let me know if you are interested in getting the stories I share there, and we might connect :-)

Well, this should be about all for today.
I hope to see you again tomorrow :-)

 

The cold goes on

@brittarnhild

The cold, and very beautiful weather goes on and on and on. This morning we woke up to minus 20 Celsius, which is very cold for us. Our coughing, both mine and Terje´s is better, and I am out every day for short walks, and to feed the birds. During the night our garden fills up with fresh deer tracks.

Every day the light last a little longer. Around winter solstice the days gets about one more minute of light every day, now they get seven, which makes quite a change as the weeks pass by. In spite of all the very cold temperatures I could feel the sun warming during my walk today. Or was it only my imagination :-)

 

This morning I made a new video on YouTube, with quite a lot of interesting stuff and beautiful music and......well, why not come over and see for yourself:

 

 

 

You can easily find my other active blogs through my new webpage, brittarnhild.no
The other blogs, which focus on different themes, are all in Norwegian, but the images are all our shared language, and you can always easily use google translate :-)

I have a list of different instagram accounts:
@brittarnhild
@akeleiehagen (the blue garden)
@brittarnhildsstrikkedagbok (knitting)
@brittarnhilds_naturdagbok (nature notes)
@brittarnhildsbokhylle (my bookshelf)
@brittarnhildsflora (wild flowers, active during the summer months)
@brittarnhildsmatseddel (menue)
@dagenslillegrønne (green living)

On Facebook I hava a page connected to this blog, which I call, obviously 
Britt Arnhild´s House in the Woods. Feel free to subscribe to it. I am also considering making a group connected to this page, where we all can post, chat, have discussions, sharing and so on. Would that be of interest for you? Well, let's see where this path leads us, shall we?

I do have an account on snapchat as well, mostly for family and a few close friends. Let me know if you are interested in getting the stories I share there, and we might connect :-)

Well, this should be about all for today.
I hope to see you again tomorrow :-)

 

In this very special time in our world

@brittarnhild

It is the second day of February, it is a beautiful world outside, virgin white snow, sun from a pale blue sky, birds busy at our feeders.......and very, very cold. Minus 17 Celsius here for the moment, which is very cold for Trondheim, close as we are to the coast/fjord. I am sitting at my desk in my studio, Terje is just across the landing, in his home office. Just the two of us, as is the new normal these days.

We are kind of lucky here in Norway, we do not have a lock down, at least not in our part of the country, we have been able to meet people, a few, most of the time, shops are open, the infection rate is lower than many other places. Still, we are infected by the pandemic, both here in our little corner, and because we are inhabitants of a common world.

I have had a bad cold for almost a week no. A lot of coughing, especially during the nights. I am tested, it is not Covid 19, but of course I stay away from people. Two days ago Terje started to cough as well. So here we are, the two of us, making the best out of out twosome life.

Getting bored is not an option. I have too many things I want to do. Instead I realise, with great pleasure, that my creativity flourishes these days. I write, I knit, I draw, I paint, I blog, I make videos, I cook and I dance (when nobody sees)

During this period I have started a couple of new creative journals, and I try (again) to come back here and make Britt Arnhild´s House in the Wood a more active place, hopefully on a(n almost) daily basis.
 

The YouTube channel is becoming a more and more important place in this flourishing life of mine. I have not made any more English episodes since the one I've already linked to here, in a previous post, but in a couple of days I hope to make one, both in English and in Norwegian. What I have done today is to do some tidying up on my YouTube channel, sorting the videos into playlists. This means that you can now go to my playlist page and easily find all the English videos I have posted the last two years, 27 of them in all. That's not bad, is it :-)

I started this blog, back in 2005, several thousand blog posts ago. My goal then was to practice my written English, and, which is important, share bits and pieces of what an ordinary life of an ordinary woman living somewhere in the middle of Norway, is like. I think I have reached that goal. But I do not want to stop here. My ordinary life continues, I am retired now, I have more time and I want to continue this path.

I hope to have you walking with me.

 

You can easily find my other active blogs through my new webpage, brittarnhild.no
The other blogs, which focus on different themes, are all in Norwegian, but the images are all our shared language, and you can always easily use google translate :-)

I have a list of different instagram accounts:
@brittarnhild
@akeleiehagen (the blue garden)
@brittarnhildsstrikkedagbok (knitting)
@brittarnhilds_naturdagbok (nature notes)
@brittarnhildsbokhylle (my bookshelf)
@brittarnhildsflora (wild flowers, active during the summer months)
@brittarnhildsmatseddel (menue)
@dagenslillegrønne (green living)

On Facebook I hava a page connected to this blog, which I call, obviously 
Britt Arnhild´s House in the Woods. Feel free to subscribe to it. I am also considering making a group connected to this page, where we all can post, chat, have discussions, sharing and so on. Would that be of interest for you? Well, let's see where this path leads us, shall we?

I do have an account on snapchat as well, mostly for family and a few close friends. Let me know if you are interested in getting the stories I share there, and we might connect :-)

Well, this should be about all for today.
I hope to see you again tomorrow :-)

 

.........but before I close. I have made two YouTube episodes in Norwegian after the last one in English. There is some pretty good nature filming accompanied with my mother's piano music in them, so even though you do not understand my talking, you might like to watch part of them:

 

 

 

 

Winter hiking

@brittarnhild

As a girl I loved skiing, from morning till night.

Now, aged 62, fast on my way to 63, I have stored away my skis. We are at the cabin, and while Terje is out cross country skiing, I simply hike on my two feet.

Not exactly from morning till night, but still, for long hours, which you can see from my bright, red cheeks.

It is pretty cold here for the moment, but we dress well, with layers of wool and good mood. Here I am with my  binoculars, searching for some special birds which I think I say yesterday.

I did not fine the birds, and since I had brought my big camera, I started to photograph lichen instead. Two years ago I had birds on top of my "I want to learn more of this - list", last year it was flowers. This year I think it might be lichens.

Life is too short and too precious not to find new interests, learn new things.

 

Are you ready for a swim?

@brittarnhild

We can't have guests for the moment, not even our own children or grandchildren. We miss them all of course, but luckily we can still meet outdoors. Yesterday we met the two oldest grandchildren out in the woods, cross country skiing, barbecuing sausages and having fun, fun, fun. Icy cold, but my gosh how it warmed a grandmother's heart.

Today Terje and I have been out walking little Vida in her pram for one of her naps. Still cold, but walking fast made us warm nevertheless :-) We walked up to a little lake which is a popular place for ice skating. It is Monday and we were there early, so we were the only people around, but you should have seen the place yesterday.

Can you see what I see? Right out there a hole is made in the ice, a hole for bathing, for swimming. Well, I am Norwegian and I guess I have viking blood running through my veins, but.......swimming in this cold! No way.
Today it was minus 9 degrees Celsius, which should be minus 15.8 °Fahrenheit

By the way, here in Norway we still let babies sleep their naps outdoors during winter, all the way down to minus 14°Fahrenheit.

On our way back to Vidas home, I simply had to stop to photograph this house for you. Can you see, even our houses are freezing during winter :-)

 

The botanical gardens here in Trondheim

@brittarnhild

Some years ago I did a monthly post through the whole year here in the blog from our botanical gardens here in Trondheim. Terje and I drove over to the gardens this afternoon for a hike, and I decided to see if I can do a monthly post this year as well.

We have had a period with little snow, a lot of cold and deep frost, so everything was dead, colourless and the paths and the lawns hard as stones.

Still, if you look for it, there is always beauty to be found.
And to know that the soil you work on is filled with roots, send and bulbs which will overwhelm you with beauty and life in a few months. That's magic!

 

In the Bleak Midwinter

@brittarnhild

The new, still young, year is cold. So very, very cold. 
I put on a lot of warm clothes, and go out for walks. One day along the river, the next up the hills or into the woods.

Very little snow so far, and the very cold temperatures means that walking is not as slippery as walking in winter often is.

Cold, yes. Beautiful, yes!

 

Two facts:

In the Bleak Midwinter was written back in 1872 by the British poet Christina Rosetti.

The stone house you see in the first image is the old building of a power station not far from our house. When the Canadian_American comic strip artist saw an illustration of this house, either in an old book or on a postcard, he was inspired to draw Prince Valiant´s castle. Do you know the comic strip Prince Valiant? Wikipedia tells me that......The Duke of Windsor called Prince Valiant the "greatest contribution to English literature in the past hundred years"

 

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

A new English episode on Britt Arnhilds verden (World) is up. Welcome over :-) I share with you some pretty wonderful footage there, from a hike terje and I on the first day of the year, accompanied by my mother playing Grieg.

 

 

Let us all share HOPE

@brittarnhild

I know that many of you find a special word at the start of every year, a word with a meaning which you want to paint the year with. I have never done that, but as I was out hiking with Terje this morning, I knew that I have a word for this year, a word I share with the rest of our world I think. The word HOPE.

The Norwegian pastor and writer Eyvind Skeie has written a beautiful advent hymn. One of the lines in the song goes something like this:

let us all share the hope so that good things can happen
let earth and heaven meet, a candle is lit for that

Hope is easy to find on beautiful days like today. We all know that life is not always like this, but let us do what we can to make 2021 the year of HOPE, for ourselves, our family, our neighbours, for the world.

 

 

Good start of a good year.......hopefully

@brittarnhild

When you wake up in paradise you know that the newborn year has potential to be a good year. Let us hope, let us pray, let us act for that.

Terje and I spent part of the few daylight hours hiking in the woods behind our forrest. I could not have had a better start of 2021.

I know there are challenges ahead, waiting, but I also know there are good days, blessings, joy, love and happiness out there. And that's what I will search for.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you from all of me!