Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

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.

 

A new video, in English

@brittarnhild

Yesterday I made two different videos, one in Norwegian, one in English.
Here is the English one:

 

 

A diarist

@brittarnhild

From time to time, in books I read, I meet the word diarist, a word we do not have in Norwegian. Well, we have a word for a person writing a diary or a journal, but when I googled diarist I learned that it means a person who has been writing a published diary. Ever since the first time I saw the English word diarist I have loved it.......though I have given it the meaning one who writes a diary. And I am proud to call myself one.

I got my first diary, or journal, for Christmas in 1964, when I was 6 1/2. I had not started school yet, but I knew how to read and also how to write. Already on Christmas Eve, probably not long after I had unwrapped the gift, I wrote my first entry, which you see above.

I still have this book, and enjoy reading through it from time to time.
Dagbok is the Norwegian word for diary, directly translated it says daybook :-)

It took me three year and one week to fill all the pages in my dagbok. The last entry was written on New Years Eve 1967.

 

Since then I must have filled probably more than a hundred dagbøker (bøker is the plural for book) In long periods I have written entries every day, then there has been short and some times long periods with no entries. 

The other day I again stumbled into the word diarist in a book I read, and I realised my own dagbok has been neglected for some time. I do have both an online one, and a beautiful leather-bound book handmade in Venezia. I really want to be a diarist, so I am back to writing more frequently again now. And as I sat there with my pen, filling pages with words, it came to my mind that Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods actually used to be some kind of a dagbok as well, right from the start back in 2005. A dagbok sadly neglected for some time now. 

I want to do something with that.......so here I am, hopefully to stay!

 

Creative Days

@brittarnhild

We are in deep winter here where we live. Deeper snow than we have had in many years, and more snow coming every day. Terje has got Covid 19, I have not (so far), but we are all doing fine, though homebound for one days. We both have for our three shots and feel safe, and I must confess that I enjoy these days at home, just the two of us, no possibility to go out to do all the things that we, may be, should have done. A kind of vacation actually, a very creative one.

I spend hours and hours up in my studio, enjoying colours, yarn, needles, crayons, paper, pencils, flowers.......just making stuff.

I love these days.
And I m ake the most of them.

Like recording a new video for my YouTube-channel, like I did yesterday :-)

 

 

A snowman and a video

@brittarnhild

Because of the pandemic we have not met our grandchildren indoors for a few weeks. But some days ago the two oldest ones, Leander 6 and Milian almost 3, came to make a snowman in our garden. You can see more of the snowman and a lot of other things in today's video (in English)

 

 

Two days "in the wild"

@brittarnhild

When I was a child we used to say that Norwegians were born with skis on their feet. Well, I can't tell if I was born with them, but as soon as I could walk, my parents took me out in the countryside, hiking in summer, cross country skiing in winter, so skiing has been part of my life for let's say 60 years. Not so much the last years though, and last winter I was out skiing one of the last days in December, but then no more during the year 2021.

But now we have 2022, and today I have been skiing. Yes!

The weather has been amazing for many days no, and when the ski tracks are like this.......well, even I wanted to be out there, with skis on my feet.

Terje is skiing almost every day for the moment, even when the two of us go for a hike in the woods, he makes sure to go skiing before or after. But for me this was this year's first. It was great and I feel so proud of myself.

Skis or no skis, we continue to hike together.
Yesterday, Sunday, we hiked up to an old farm in the woods some 5-6 kms from our house. The farm is open to public and have a café with the best pastries you can imagine.......no, the next best. When our son Torgeir, who lives in Sweden, came home for Christmas, he baked two batches of cinnamon pastries, and no other pastries in the world taste better than his :-)

Terje and I sat outdoors, outside the farm, with coffee and the next best pastries, and as always I had my knitting.

Rain is expected in a couple of days.
A lot of rain. They call it an atmospheric river.

But so far we continue to enjoy the blue sky, the low sin, the snow
and each other.

 

Friends over for a dinner party, finally

@brittarnhild

A night with friends, finally. The pandemic is refusing us so many things, but last night we finally could invite a few friends over for dinner. Not for the first time during the last two years, but this, our life is so different now from what it used to be, what it could have been.

There are three great pleasures connected to a dinner party with friends.
The preparations.
The party itself.
The cleaning up afterwards.

Or, wait a minute, there are four actually.
Eating leftovers :-)

 

Yesterday and today I have experienced them all.

 

Twelfth Night

@brittarnhild

Twelfth Night, the night before Epiphany, and The Magi are on their way.

I have collected nativities for more than 20 years now, since I bought a very special one, a coconut and some clay figures, in Haiti back in 1998. I have lost count of how many I have, but I have now started a nativity blog, where my goal is to post about one creche every day for as long as I have one to post about.......if you see what I mean :-)

The three kings, The Magi, you see in the picture, is from one of my newest nativities. It is from Nepal, I bought it from a Norwegian organisation working in the country and it came in the mail the day before Christmas.

Some years ago I got a rubber ducks nativist from a friend.
Aren't the rubber duck magi just smashing :-)

The Magi has reached baby Jesus with their precious gifts.

 

We will lit a special three armed candle tonight, on the night before Epiphany:
Many years we have celebrated Epiphany in Tenerife (Spain) where tonight is one of the most important days of Christmas, with huge parades and loads of sweet gifts for the children.

 

How do you celebrate Twelfth Night and Epiphany?

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Here is the link to my nativity blog.

 

View from my studio window

@brittarnhild

It is Terje´s birthday today.
He turns 66 and one of the gifts he gives himself is a long cross country skiing tour after breakfast.

Later today, before having the family here for dinner, we will go for a hike together, I much prefer hiking boots to skis,

so for the moment I am sitting upstairs in my studio, looking out the window.......

 

Growing dreams

@brittarnhild

The sunset made the garden into a fairytale. 

Still deep winter here, and it will be so for many months yet.
but ever winter can glow with colours.

The beauty inspired me to start growing dreams.

For many years I have had a dream to spend spring in Italy when I retire. I did retire two years ago, just when Covid 19 reached the world, which means that so far this Italian dream of mine has been impossible. 

It will not happen this year either, so today I started growing another dream. One I know will come true.......
.......to fill our garden with flowers, herbs and vegetables.

I went to our local garden center today and bought the first packed of seeds. Basil.
Today, or may be tomorrow, I plan to sow them.