Enchanting. 

Marta and Ingrid at Piazza Navona in Rome. 

Beautiful Italy. 

A Traveler's Notebook

For Christmas I got a traveler's notebook. The giver know my love for travels and for diaries, and this was the perfect gift. I use it whenever I travel, write a few sentences, or a whole page. And know that this will be a wonderful keeper.

On top of every page is a quatation from a famous man (or woman) and listen to what is on top of the page where I am writing right now:
"What I most regret in the particulars of my life.....is not having kept a journal of my travels" Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

I can not say that same. For more than ten years now I have kept journals from my travels. I use spiral bound hardcovered book, and I write in the right page during the travel, and keep the left page blank for photos, tickets, bills, postcards and so on. I have a wonderful collection of such travel books.

A couple of years ago I was asked by the church of Norway to go to the UN General Assembly in New York as an observator for two weeks. A wonderful opportunity, and of course I had the most wonderful time. More than 40 years ago my grandfather was asked to do the same by the Norwegian government. One of my brothers still has his passpost from that travel, and also a Bibel he was given by the youth group in the Norwegian seamen's church in Brooklyn where he preached at least one time during his stay. I have been thinking alot about whet my grandpa did over there during his stay. Oh, what if he had written a travel diary! What a treasure it would have been for the family today.

I write the diaries while I travel, but it sometimes takes a long time to finish with the photos and everything when back home. But it really is part of the fun. Last summer we spent three weeks in Italy, and a coupld of days ago I finally finished the travel diary from these weeks. Please enjoy a few photos with me.

A spring miracle. 

The student is enjoying the spring sun! 

Student.....and a little spring sign.

I am a student for four years. Studying for a Master Degree in Valuebased Leadership. I do this on top of my regular job, and I do it because I like to study and this special study looked so fascinating. I started in August 2004, and will be finish, if I follow the line as I plan to do, in June 2008! I go to Oslo four weeks a year, the rest I have to do at home alone.

Not easy to sit doen with thew books when there are thousands of other things to do. But now ever I have to realise that the exam in May is coming close. I will have one exam in late May, three days working at home, and then I have an essay which is due in the beginning of June.

So now my days are filled with as much reading as possible on top of my ordinary everyday life. I've had a very good and restful Easter vacation, so I feel I really have alot of energy, and right now see now problem in this. And what is better than to sit out in a sunny garden studying. Since we are on summertime now the afternoons are longer. Terje and I ate our dinner out on the terracce when we came home from work today (Marta was with a friend, Øysten had gone fishing with a friend and Ingrid had already eaten). Then right after dinner Terje drove Ingrid to handball practice. I made myself a pot of coffee and brought it together with a mug with my favorite Jan Vermeer painting (The Milk Maid) and my book out on the terracce. Ha, if there will be many days like today I will have no problems when the days of the exam come :-)

And before coming in I found a tiny little spring miracle, the very first primula flower. Praise to God, our creator. Spring will come this year also.

Spring is still a dream here at Huseby. 

New life hidden under the snow. 

Waiting for spring.

Spring is my favorite season. With all its anticipation, with everything coming to life, with its longer days, with hope for a long and warm summer!

There is still alot of snow in my garden, but with the sun and mild temperatures we have had these last days it has been melting fast, and the first signs of new life can be seen. The weather is overcast today, so my plan of sitting out to enjoy the sun will not come true. But my plan of bringing out a few of my garden books from the shelves can nobody take away from me. Four of my favorites are laying here in the table close to my computer while I write this.

Traditional English Gardens - Published in Assosiation with the National Trust. A treasure chest of beautiful photos and information about beautiful English gardens. Victorian Flower Gardens by Andrew Clayton-Payne, where one can only dream one self into one of the paintings, feeding the hens, playing with the cat, smelling the lilacs.An Englishwoman's Garden by Helen Penn, a favorite for many years, not at least due to the beautiful front photo of an old garden bench with a basket of freshly cut flowers and a lady's straw hat causually hung on the bench. And the last one my all time favorite, Tasha Tudor's Garden Book.

So with the sun hidden behind white clouds I will still have a little sunshine indoors enjoying a few of my garden books.

(By the way, today I have showed you only English garden books. My Norwegian ones must wait for another day)

Pastor Øyvind in Kolstad church. 

The grave is empty. Picture is from last year in our church. 

Christ has risen - Happy Easter.

After a long and nice breakfast, Terje and I went to church, our local Kolstad church. I know nothing better than celebrating Easter morning in church and to hear again the good news that Christ has risen. We read from Mathew today that Maria Magdalene and the other Maria came to the empty grave where they were met by an angel who asked them to go tell the world that Jesus was not dead any more, he was risen. Two women were asked to do this, to grieving, poor women, but rich and worth gold in the eyes of gold. It is special for me to read that God in this important time of history asked women to tell the good news. We are also asked today, men and women equally! God has risen, we are free to live as his human beings.

After the service we had coffee in the church and we sat together with a woman from Lebanon and her small daughter. She has lived in Norway for 18 years, but still try to celebrate Easter morning at least partly as she did back home in Lebanon. And she and her daughter had been up early to dye Easter eggs this morning. Marta and I did some dyeing at the cabin, using leaves to make pattern and red onion to make colour. The eggs got a beautiful violet colour.

Home from church the weather was so nice and Terje found our garden furnitura and made tea while I prepared the lamb (mutton?) steak for the oven. We just ate the steak, it was perfect, with the taste of garlic and rosemary. We had tea and a snack, and Marta did an egg hunt. In Norway we don't have Easter basket, but instead we use Easter aggs, colourful big eggs made by cardboard and filled with chocolate and sweets. The egg is a symbol of new life and therefore an important Easter symbol. Terje can't resist skiing as long as he can find snow, so he went up in the hills for some cross country skiing while I enjoyed my Henry James book and also one of my garden books, Tashe Tudor's Garden Book. I so much love her books, I can dream myself right into her world :-) And one day I would love my garden to look a tiny little bit like hers.

My favorite reading spot. 

Table almost set for dinner. 

Playing cards. 

Ingrid fishing when the sun goes down. 

Marta masters the art of fishing. 

More cabin life.

I am almost always the first one up in the mornings, and so I am today as well. And I want to give you a few more cabin impressions before starting breakfast and heading for church on this festive day when we celebrate that Christ has risen.

We love fishing when we are at the cabin. We have a small rowing boat but seldom use it. Mostly we stand on land to fish in the salt water, or we borrow a pram from a relative on mine. This pram is on a small lake where we love to fish in the summer nights. But this time we stood on land. And got NO fishes. Probably too early in the year? Who knows? Anyway, I always love fishing, and Friday night the weather was quite mild and it was so beautiful to watch the sun go down behind the mountains.

When we came back to the cabin I prepared dinner, no fish, but we had bought two kilos of shrims two days before, so we had a feast. We all love shrims, though the kids think it is almost too much work to have to peal them all before eating :-) We eat them on white bread with majonnaise and lemon. Mm, yummy! And while waiting to becoma hungry enough,lol, Terje and the kids played cards, I sat in my favorite reading chair enjoying Henry James and Roderick Hudson.

Thursday morning I was the first one to reach this valley. 

Finished socks. 

Good to be at cabin. Marta is already in her pyjamas, I am busy knitting socks for Ingrid. 

Home again.

We came home from our cabin this afternoon. Terje and I could have stayed longer, still two days off work. But Øystein and Ingrid wanted to go home to meet friends during the week-end.

Had a perfect time. Nice weather and alot of skiing. Enough snow up in the mountains, but spring around the cabin - a perfect combination. Terje was out cross country skiing every day. I also prefered a couple of days around the cabin, but was very happy to be out three of the days. Today, before driving home, all five of us went skiing. The snow was wet and melted fast, but still we had some very nice hours outdoors.

Happy Easter! 

From Easter 2004. 

Leaving for cabin.....

.....in an hour to celebrate Easter. Will stop for skiing on a mountain pass on our way there, but hope to find spring at cabin.

Letter writing. 

Week two, music and movie. 

The first page I made was from the first week of 2005. 

Visual diary.

One of my new creative activities this year is starting a visual diary. I have written diaries since I learned to read and write at the age of five, and I have also made visual travel diaries for many years. But this is my first attempt to make a visual diary of my everyday life. I have given myself no rules, just make what I feel for when I feel for it. And here you can see a few of the pages I have made so far.

Mathilde and Benjamin. 

Grilling sausages. 

Palm Sunday.

We still don't know if we'll manage to go to our cabin during Easter. I have all my decorations at the cabin, so before breakfast this morning I searched high and low to see if I could find something here at home. Did find enough to make a nice breakfast table :-)

After breakfast we went out skiing with my sister in law and her two kids. It was snowing, and not as nice as yesterday, but we still had a great time. Highligh of course was making a fire to grill sausages.

Palm Sunday Breakfast.