Moving

I have had problems with the photo posting here, so I am moving my house in the woods over to typepad.
http://brittarnhildshouseinthewoods.typepad.com/brittarnhilds_house_in_th/

Back home.

I am back home from my week in Oslo and will post a few of the birthday pictures I promised you.

This has been a beautiful and sunny day. It is Saturday, but since I have been away all week at had to go downtown to my office in the morning. Worked for a few hours, but was very happy when I could close the door and activate the alarm. Took a short walk in town before taking the bus back home. Nothing is like sunny spring Saturdays in Trondheim. The town is brimming with life. I opened my mind and enjoyed it all, even sat down on a bench in our main street, Nordre gate, for a short time with a cup of coffee and a "vaffel", sold my students to raise money for Blue Cross.

Back home Terje was busy changing the car tyres from winter till summer tyres, and also cleaning the car both outside and inside. I have told myself that this spring there will be only a minimum of garden work for me, because of the upcoming exams. But since I have been to school all week I gave myself two hours. And it really made a change in the garden. I loved sitting down afterwards enjoying beds, birds, sky and life.

Birthday and Studies

I am in Oslo all week for studies. Flew down Monday morning, and will return by train Friday afternoon. I had hoped to keep up with my blog during the nights here, but last night I discovered I didn't have to program on my laptop for downloading photos. So all my photos from the last week will have to wait till I am back home again.

It was my 47th birthday on Sunday, a perfect day :-) I woke up early and had almost two hours by myself before the rest of the family could be heard. I love the quiet time, and really didn't mind. Had breakfast, read, and opened the gifts from my penpals - mostly books, which I always LOVE. When Terje and Marta woke I got my present from them, a mp3 player, which was on top of my wish list. Øystein helped me to fill it with music, so I now have The Barber of Sevilla by Rossine, Vivaldi's 4 Seasons and alot of Verdi arias with me. Great.

In the morning I took a long hike in the forest. It was snowing quite heavy, and I loved being out all by myself, and decided that big snowdrops in my hear on my birthday must mean good luck for the year to come.......

Here in Oslo I stay with a cousin of my mother. She is really spoiling me. Breakfast is on the table when I woke up in the morning, dinner is on the table when I come home from school, and later in the afternoon we have coffee, we watch television, we knit and we listen to music. I am knitting on a pair of very fancy summer socks for Marta, much like the ones I knitted for Ingrid during Easter but much brighter colours. They will be a surprise for her when I come home. Tomorrow I will meet a friend after school She is a knit artist, so we will have alot to talk about.

Clean and tidy. 

"Real" mountain climbing. 

Marta has reached the top. 

Britt Arnhild, Marta and Terje halfway to the top. 

Spring cleaning and mountain hiking.

We have spent the week-end at our cabin. Saturday was for spring cleaning. We usually do this one day during Easter break, but this year it was no time for it so we decided to go back this week-end to "do our duty". Marta and a friend of her also went with us.

The cabin is not very big, so spring cleaning only take a few hours. Marta and Elisabet played outside while Terje and I worked. Three bedrooms and a combined kitchen and livingroom / diningroom. I actually love the cleaning / tidying part in this little doll house of ours. So much easier there where we have so little things. There are very few cupboards or wardrobes, so it is always important to throw away whet we never use. This year this meant a few old pairs of shoes, some old colouring pencils and papers and a couple of worn out board games.

Saturday it was a little coudy and also some light rain showers. So it was great to woke up this morning to a blue sky, hundreds of birds singing and very mild temperatures. We had breakfast and packed our backpack for a mountain hike. We have a favorite mountain where we love to hike. Hadn't planned to go there this week-end actually, we were afraid that the paths were too wet so early in spring. But Marta had told Elisabet so much about this "huge" and wonderful mountain where you had to do "real mountain climbing" to reach the top. And with two motivated girls we couldn't say no of course. And it was GREAT. Not wet at all, and the view from Høvikfjellet (The Høvik Mountain) is absolutely gorgeous. Marta ran most of the time, Elisabet had to struggle a bit more. And halfway Terje and I were afraid that we wouldn't make it. But after a rest Elisabet was fit again, and wher we reached the top everything was great.

I discovered halfway that the battery in my camera was dead, so the pictures are from two years ago.