Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Gotland, the island of roses and fairytales

@brittarnhild

Back in the summer of 1978 I went to Sweden together with a group of students from my home city Trondheim. After a week in Lund, south in Sweden, we took the ferry over to Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. During the trip I fell in love with one of the other student. Two years later we were married, four years later we had our first child, and today, 46 years later, we are back in Gotland, the island of roses and fairytales.

When we came to the island, earlier today, I was concerned all the roses would have gone for the summer, so I started to photograph rosehips to illustrate this blogpost.

But no need to worry. The roses are here, a plentiful of them.

The island of roses and fairytales.
Just like our marriage.

We did get a good start, didn't we?

I hope to show you more roses and more fairytales in the days to come.

And rosehips.

Travel Writing

@brittarnhild

I am reading about the female artist and traveller Marianne North for the moment, in the book "A Vision of Eden. The life and Work of Marianne North", Published in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Marianne North was born in 1830, died in 1890. For many years she travelled with her father, and after his death continued to travel alone. She was a biologist and botanical artist, and today you can find her amazing collection of botanical paintings in the Marianne North Gallery in the Kew Gardens.

She also wrote about her travels, which gives us today a wonderful opportunity to follow her along. She has inspired several of my travels, like when I search out the botanical gardens she has visited on Tenerife.

While reading this m morning, I had to underline, and then write down in a notebook I have for special quotes, these words:

"...the greatest pleasure we knew was to see new and wonderful countries, and the only rival to that pleasure, was the one of staying quietly at home"

 

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I am working on my own travel writing today. For many. many years, even since I started this blog back in 2005, I have been good at writing about my travels, but a few years ago I stated to fail this, and now my goal is to go back and see if I can do something about that. Some days ago I finished blog journaling from our two weeks on Tenerife in January. Now I have gone back to September and October when we spent three amazing weeks, first on Jersey, then in Italy.

The pictures shown here today, taken by our friends and travel companion Brit, will hopefully also pop up in a post about a day on Jersey later today, and as always there will share the link on brittarnhild.no, on Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods on Facebook and now on this new instagram account Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods.

And I will tag the post, as I will with all posts from the travel, with Jersey and Italia autumn 2023

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Do you read travel literature?
Do you have any favourites?

 

One in stone, one in sand

@brittarnhild

We have been to two very different castles today. The first one, Mont Orgueil Castle, is situated on the south western coast of Jersey, and is a landmark seen from the sea.

Built of solid stones, with stairs up and down everywhere and a very interesting history.

It's own falcon, or was it a hawk?

And a very nice place to have tea.

The other one was built of sand, by The Sand Wizard

There is a Biblical tale about building in, or is it on, stone. But no matter how stupid, it really has its charm.

 

Marshland transformed

@brittarnhild

Originally marshland, but in the 1920´s millionaire philanthropist Sir James Knott turned the area into a unique plant collection and botanical gardens. The Botanical Gardens at Samarès, just outside Saint Helier, the capital of Jersey. It is late September and I was afraid we were too late to enjoy a blooming garden. But I was wrong. Here we found flowers ands colours and beauty everywhere.

Even a few magnolias, huge ones, were in bloom.

We did a beautiful and very interesting guided tour of the Samarès Manor (no photographing allowed) but before and after we walked the garden.

Zinnias in different colours,

cosmos and a lot more.

We were lucky. The sun was out and made photographing a game.

Next summer I plan to grow cosmos in every colour available, in my garden. And zinnias.
And a lot more.

Harvest Sunday

@brittarnhild

It is Sunday and we have celebrated Harvest Mass in St. Brelade´s Parish Church on Jersey.

A mass filled with thanks, joy and prayers.
And flowers. Beautiful flowers everywhere.

St. Brelade´s Parish Church is an old, very beautiful stone church, and today it was filled with so many happy people, of all ages. How lucky we were to be included among them.

In my mind, inspired by Miss Marple and Dame Agatha Christie I guess, I can see old, charming ladies picking flowers for their church every Sunday, and today there must have been a whole gang of these flower ladies. When the mass came to an end I simply had to walk around to admire and to take pictures. I spoke with the organist, and he could tell me that their church was always filled with flowers.

I think I will move to Jersey :-)

May be we´ll meet there :-)

The amazing life of orchids

@brittarnhild

Jersey, one of the Channel Island. We came here this morning, with an early flight from the mainland, and will stay here for a week. We are travelling with friends, they have been here before, many times, and have treasures to share with us around every corner. 

First stop today was a visit to Eric Young's Orchid Foundation.
Eric Young was born in 1911, ands already in his teens he was fascinated by orchids. Unfortunately he lost his first collection during WWII, but after the war he moved to Jersey, and built up an amazing collection there.

Orchid lover as I am, it was amazing to walk around in the greenhouse which hosts the Foundation´s collection today.

I remember once, many years ago, I was able to make a visit behind the scenes in Kew Gardens in London to see the worlds largest orchid in bloom (you can see my post from this visit here). 

Today I decided to look for details in the many wonders we say, and a new world of wonders opened.

Looking closely, we could see birds, angels, a monk, an old lady, well, an unlimited number of figures shaped by the petals.

Try yourself. Next time you see an orchid, as for it's hidden secrets.

 

Icons of England

@brittarnhild

We flew from Trondheim to Gatwick, south of London this morning. Tomorrow we will continue, but as there were no opportunity to reach our final destination today, we will stay the night at a hotel here at Gatwoch, Block Hotel, with rooms the size of matchboxes (very nice though) We did not want to spend hours on the airport, so we work a taxi to the nearest town, Crawley, in West Sussex.

Crawley might not be the most charming British town I've seen, and I've been to quite a few. But after some walking we first found a very nice Memorial Park, then a few hold houses with cottage style flowers, and eventually the old church, St.John´s church.

Unfortunately the church was closed, but look at this beautiful handle and key hole!

And I found more, a Waterstones filled with books.
And, yes, I ended up buying two.

The book in the first picture, Icons of England by Bill Bryson is one I've had in my shelves for years. A perfect book to bring with me, I decided yesterday when I packed my suitcase. 

Our Icon of England today - riding a double-decker :-)

 

Preparations for new adventures

@brittarnhild

Tomorrow morning we are heading for the airport to fly out searching new adventures.
Today I am busy packing and making all the at home preparations which always are there before getting away.

I pack the most important things first of course.
A new travel journal, which I bought in Venezia back in June.
A book to read.
My my knitting.

What is your first priority when you pack?

I will of course bring my computer and my camera, and hopefully there will be time for travel blogging along the road.

 

 

Play on natures team

@brittarnhild

We have visited the art center Vandalorum today, in Småland, Sweden. We found this place quite by chance last year, while driving to Denmark. Then we only had time for coffee and some sweet (the center is situated along the main road between Sweden and Denmark) and for us it was time for fika just there :-))
But we knew we wanted to come back, and today, was our perfect chance.

As soon as we parked our car, I knew that something was different. Where there had been "only" a parting lot last year, there were now huge areas with flowers. Beautiful flowers, playing on nature's team.

It took me a little while to realise what I really saw, actually I had to go inside the center to the information desk where I found a book about many, a book about the international well known dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf.

I will write about one of the exhibitions we visited in my Norwegian blog, Britt-Arnhild´s dagboksblader and when we came out again, after feeding ourselves on art and food, it was raining hard.

Terje ran over to our car at the new parking lot,

while I had a shower walking around with my camera.

I have no rain shower to offer you, but I have all these lovely images.

I have followed Oudolf on instagram for many years, and I know that his signature is to make gardens look like nature.

And this is something he does with style!

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A coleus and a knitted cardigan

@brittarnhild

Some years ago I designed a pattern for a knitted cardigan based in a coleus (plant) in the AirB&B we were staying in in Stockholm. These last days we've seen many coleus as outdoor summer plants in Sweden, and as I had brought my cardigan, which I have called #solistockholm (sun in Stockholm) I could not resist asking Terje to shoot these pictures in the garden of our hotel in Kalmar.

I often use nature as inspiration in my knitting, and the coleus leaf was a lot of fun to work with.

We are leaving Kalmar today, starting to drive north. But before we go we will do a hike out on Öland, the island in the Baltic Sea.

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