Bacalao

Tonight we were invited to my parents house for dinner

some lovely red wine

(notice my empty plate in its reflection, cool huh?)

some crispy garlic bread

And my mum's special

Bacalao

check out the link for some fishy information

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_cod

And that's the way the crumble crumbles

Goodbye yoghurt

hello Rhubarb crumble

I'm not worthy!

Rhubarb

I've got these..

Wouldn't you love a rhubarb crumble with cream
And if only these two pictures

was followed with a photo of the most

delicious and generous serving

of sweet rhubarb crumble..

(sigh..)

sadly

the rhubarb is tucked away

in the freezer

and I'm here with a lousy

blueberry yoghurt

(no offence to the yoghurt)

Piece of Heaven

No further comment is needed.

Shape of my heart

This song is one of my favourites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7OkW8QNt18

good film too..

Whittling and the first swim of the year

Yesterday my children and I

was sat outside whittling

little boats of bark

Today we had the big launch

Such a lovely day at the little lake near our cabin
My daughter and I wanted to have a go in the canoe

but as you can see of the photo

there was rough waves

and we capsized the canoe spectacularly

A shoe gets very wet I promise you

after a walk on the bottom of a lake!

Good thing I didn't bring my camera to take some photos

of the lovely Waterlillies...

17th of May

In Norway, tomorrow is a special day.

If you want to check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Norway

This is what we do

the children from all the schools

march in parades

waving their little Norwegian flags

singing and shouting Hurrah!

They get to eat as much icecream they want

and hot dogs, and cake.

Tonight lots of parents (mostly mothers)

are ironing shirts and dresses.

This year my family decided,

we had enough celebrating for a long time

last week.

So we did a runner

up to our cabin

Outside it's raining

but in our hearts the sun is shining

Our sanctuary

Our asylum

The food

Somehow we're not so hungry right now!

The cakes

No party without cakes!

The flowers

The flower arrangements were made

in the middle of the night friday

All set for the day after

The table was ready
And so were we!

Sweet smells and a KitKat

A little stroll in the garden

the smell of sweetness is so strong

and the air is warm even if it's evening.

It's lovely May

my guests are happy

and the feelings good

A little moment of silence

reading a few blogs

enjoying a couple of british treats

brought to me by my mother-in-law.

Guests and celebration

This coming Saturday

We will celebrate our 14,5 year old daughter's

Civil confirmation.

Its a Secular coming of age ceremony.

I think it's a good alternative to the Christian one

which I went through when I was her age.

For her it's the right choice

and this decision was hers.

Tomorrow my parents-in-law and my sister-in-law

will come visiting from England!

We can't wait to see them!

And we've taken the rest of the week off

to be with them

So these coming days we will be enjoying their company

and planning the celebration om Saturday.

I will keep my camera ready

and I might post some photos later

Grave yard

This is a place I like to visit when I'm in England

Its a grave yard

The graves are very old

no new ones

I walk quietly around reading about

"loving wife"'s and "dearest son"'s

I see the dates of births and deaths

so long ago

I see names of big families

which lost old grandma's and newborn children

sometimes spouses who lived years and years alone

after their loved one had passed away.

The dates are from 1700 and 1800

so I think this is graves of quite wealthy people

poor people in this area probably didn't get buried

with such style.

But the wealthy ones also lost their loved ones
I think about the fact that

in the end they were just like us

or we're like them.

We get born and we die

and in between those dates

there's Life

None of these people are remembered now by living relatives

but their grave stones are still here

telling me about them being born

and dying

I don't know them

and I can only imagine the life they had.

Cabin fever

Today I was struck by cabin fever

I was off work because it's May 1th

It's also our 16th wedding anniversary today

We never make a big deal out of it,

in fact we usually forget.

Since we 're lucky having the day off,

we were looking forward to a lovely day outside

But the rain was pouring down!

and a grey mist was hanging around between the houses

We were getting on each others nerves big time!

My daughter never came out of her jammies

she was chatting with her friends on the net

and did't bother about the weather

she wasn't planning to go out anyway.

But the rest of us (both human and pets)

had to go out despite the falling rain

to avoid total madness

even the camera had a little trip outside before it was

sendt back inside to dry up

And through the lens

I spotted the beauty of a rainy day

After a walk with full rain gear on

The cabin fever was just a memory

and we made cinnamom muffins.