Art exhibition in Son

Part of the harbor in Son.

Painting by Solveig Reigstad and ceramics by Laila Baadstø.

Near Moss is the idyllic little village of Son, next to the Oslo fjord. Here several artists have their galleries and summertime is their high season.

Today we visited Galleri Soon where a joint exhibition by Solveig Reigstad and Laila Baadstø made me happy.

The colours really fit my mood. In particular I liked this painting and the ceramic blue bowl next to it. If I had the money, I would have bought the two of them together and then built my livingroom around it - perhaps.......

Tollboden in Moss in winter and in summer

Paul Potts singing opera

Watch and listen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7glOGq82xQ

Thank you, Cheryl Richardson, for telling us about this!
Cheryl called it "Grace in action".

Today I discovered through the German Stern TV channel that Paul Potts eventually won the "Britain's got Talent" contest.
http://talent.itv.com/page.asp?partid=354&pos=3

WOW!

Missing my cat

Red car in the rain

Norwegian rock carvings

These rock carvings on the Norwegian side of the border are also made between 2500 to 3800 years ago.

Ships are often depicted on such old carvings. We were once told that each of the lines on top of the ship indicated how many men were on board. According to this, six persons were on that ship at the bottom.

On Wikipedia they have this entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_carvings

Swedish rock carvings at Torp

Next to some private houses, close to the Norwegian border, but on the Swedish side, we visited the rock carvings at Torp today.

These rock carvings were originally made between 2500 years ago to 3800 years ago.

So look at this horse with a rider and a person next to another animal (cow? horse?) carved into that rock so long ago.

With a little modern red paint, now quite washed out, you can even enjoy them on a rainy day........

Going a little further into Sweden than we did today, you get to Tanum where the rock carvings are on the World Heritage list . If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, visit the Vitlycke Museum

http://www.vitlyckemuseum.se/default.asp?h=271

For me, rock carvings have been fascinating since I first saw them as a young child!

A friend who is an artist, also found them beautiful. Trying to copy them to paper, he told me these were made by real good artists, as the lines of the carvings have to be very exact for the effect.

The plant that died

I am not a plant person, but when we received a plant around 18 years ago and were told that this strangelooking plant with two stems that had grown together symbolized a couple, I watered it and kept it alive.
For eighteen years.

Lately, coming for a visit to my old house, it was outside, behind the house, and it had completely dried out.

Moss: Architecture

This is a house right opposite the public library. I like the shape of it.
This particular photo was taken in February.

Wonder how a photo taken on a sunny summer morning will differ?

Sweden: Midsummer 1955

These two images are on IKEA's website, but for me they bring back childhood memories from Sweden.

We had walked over to some friends' house.
Outside on a small field we built such a Midsummer Pole, raised it and then dansed around it. We the children had flower wreaths on our heads, like the little girl above.
There were special songs. I remember one about frogs. ("Små grodorna, små grodorna".)

For me it was great excitement being with friends and family and I enjoyed doing a Swedish tradition, coming from Norway.

Now, more than fifty years later, I read the Wikipedia explanation for this celebration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer

Sometimes it is more fun when you don't know too much....

Rooibos tea = Redbush tea

Rooibos harvesting in South Africa

Redbush and Rooibos are different names on this plant that only grows in South Africa.

It is rich in vitamins and minerals like iron , copper, zink, calsium and magnesium.

It does not contain coffein or very little tannin.

Rooibush has a slightly sweet taste.


Why am I telling you this?

Because for the last months I have been drinking this tea.

As time passes, I like it more and more.



Why did I start drinking it?

Because I read in the book "The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith that the main character was drinking this kind of tea down in Botswana in Africa.

Wikipedia writes in their description of rooibos:

The popularity of rooibos has also gained from its association with the fictional lady detective, Precious Ramotswe, in the popular series of novels by Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith about the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.
Mma Ramotswe is a Motswana , and is the first female private detective in the country. She is a traditionalist, both in adhering to the old Botswana morality and in her traditional build. Her favourite drink is rooibos, red bush tea, and she often promotes it as a therapeutic drink to her friends and clients - and hence the readers of the books.

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

It may take some time to get used to the taste.
It should not take more than an instant to understand that this is a much more healthy version for tea drinkers.

Heron dance newsletter and watercolors

On an earlier occassion I have written about the free newsletters I receive from Heron Dance - watercolors and texts in A Pause for Beauty.

You can read a little more about this on http://www.herondance.org/The_Best_of_em_A_Pause_for_Be_W296C111.cfm

To encourage you to try the newsletter, I have added one of the watercolors by Roderick MacIver, a painting called September Sandhill Sunrise.

17 000 persons receive these newsletters and I am proud to be one.

As a child, watercolor was a frustrating medium for making pictures.

Now, following these truely wonderful expressions of nature in watercolor, I have decided to try to use watercolors.

Not because I think I can become a watercolor artist, but because I want to experiment and see what happens.

Thanks, Rod MacIver!

Norway and the common market

When the Norwegians had to vote for or against joining the Common Market (EU) , 48 % was for it and 52 % against it. So I was told.

A wise man explained to me that the present situation with Norway officially outside the Common Market is ideal:
The 52% know Norway is not in the Common Market.
The 48 % know Norway for most practical purposes is in.

Mimmi = Bestemor = Mormor = Grandmother

When I grew up we used the word Mormor (Mother of Mother) instead of Bestemor (Best Mother) for my Swedish grandmother and Farmor (Mother of Father) for my Norwegian paternal grandmother.

Lately I have heard about Mimmi and thought by mistake that this was a given name for a woman. After all, I know another Mimmi in another country.

But that was a mistake.
In this case, Mimmi is an additional word for Mormor and Bestemor and Grandmother.

Cheryl Richardson - a touch of grace

For a few years now I have received a weekly newsletter from Cheryl Richardson.
Her website is http://www.cherylrichardson.com/

I think I have needed some normal sensible voices to whisper in my ears that I must take charge of my own life. Hers is one.
Nothing sensational in those newsletters. Just a good friend sharing her thoughts on different subjects and then giving a mission connected to that subject.

I have some of her books.

I bought a stack of Self Care cards.
F.ex. one card has a painting with the word SUPPORT. When you turn the card over you read: " Offer your support to someone. Experience the joy of serving others."
Sometimes I randomly pick two cards and try to figure what the two subjects put together, like f.ex. FRIENDSHIP and COURAGE mean to me.

For an article about the Philosophy of Extreme Self Care, check this
http://www.cherylrichardson.com/store/my-extreme-self-care.htm

On Cheryl Richardson's website she now has a feature called A Touch of Grace.
You think of a challenge you are facing with your eyes closed and then open them to chose one of the stars you feel a connection to.

Without telling you my challenge, I will tell you the answer I just got - FAITH.
I then closed my eyes again thinking about this word in relation to my challenge.
When I clicked on the card, it turned and I read the message:

Have faith.
Every event we experience
and every person we meet
has been put in our path
for a reason.


May I add: Amen.

Personal stamps

The Norwegian postal services allow you to design your own personal stamps, both for private customers and for firms, for use inside Norway, or even as postage for letters to other countries.
http://www.posten.no/personlige

As a private person you can send your favorite photo by email to the postal service. Within a week you will receive a sheet with 20 stamps to be used for letters weighing 20 grams or less, inside Norway. For other countries, you will have to add postage to your letter.
This costs 230 Norwegian crowns plus an additional 19 Norwegian crowns for the shipping.
Roughly that is a little less than 42 US dollars for the whole deal.
I don't write many letters these days, particularly not to Norwegian addresses, but I think this could be a good idea for my mother's upcoming birthday - she loves to send letters.

As for firms and businesses, the postal services call the personal stamps the smallest ad space of 24 mm X 32 mm.
Perhaps for introducing a new product or service?
Perhaps for showing a new logo?
For firms you have to order at least five sheets, each with 20 stamps. The price is the same as for private clients, so it will cost you less than 200 US dollars to get your 100 stamps to be sent inside Norway on letters weighing 20 grams or less.
Sounds like a good deal to me.

Photos are of course subject to copyrights and to the consent of those on a photograph. In addition, the postal services can deny printing stamps where they feel the subject matter is inappropriate.

Countryside recreation

In the local newspaper Moss Avis a consulting firm named Mimir has suggested that the Moss region has a good potential for "countryside recreation".

This would mean that tourists can do quiet activities in a beautiful landscape.

Golf, bicycle rides, nature walks, canoo trips , nightsailing, fishing and bird watching were all suggested as suitable activities.

Mimir had also pointed out that one million persons live in a radius of one hour's drive from the Moss region!

Something to think about.

The red army soldier - a statue in Kirkenes, Norway

Kirkenes is a little town up in the most northern part of Norway, in East Finnmark, not far from the Russian border.
In this town you will find this sculpture of a Red Army soldier, a memorial to the Red Army liberating this part of Norway towards the end of World War Two.

The Germans had given the order to the Norwegian population to evacuate this part of Norway and leave it a waste land.

But 23000 Norwegians had defied the order and had hidden in the wilderness under extreme conditions.

For these persons, the 15000 Soviet soldiers chasing the Germans away, became liberators.

"For the courageous Soviet soldiers" says the text on the statue.

East Finnmark was liberated by the Red Army in October 1944.
2200 Soviet soldiers fell in the battles up there in September-October 1944.

The Soviet troops stayed in Southern Varanger for a year - till September 1945.

Based on an article in the biggest Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten.

Norwegian sculptures by Skule Waksvik

Two of Skule Waksvik's other sculptures

In yesterday's newspaper Aften a photo of an elderly gentleman and a bear in stone, caught my eye.
Skule Waksvik was a new name for me, but the shape of the bear felt good.

I will definitely go to Oslo to see his sculptures outside the Vigeland Museum this summer.

Mr. Waksvik was born in 1927 and did his debut as a sculptorer in 1947 in Trondheim. In 1948 he showed his bronze chicken in the Autumn Exhibition in Oslo.
Since then he has often made sculptures of animals both in bronze and stone, placed all over Norway.

He is still full of ideas and work, at the age of eighty and after working as a sculptorer for sixty years.

Opsvik and Josh Groban

The big chair by Peter Opsvik somebody "parked" in my little apartment is actually too big for this space, but today I found that to sit in that chair in the position on this ad, with my feet forward on top of the kneepads (they can be inverted) and to listen to Josh Groban singing his first album "Josh Groban" (an album I bought a few years ago), was like floating in the air, like some out-of-body experience, if I can exaggerate a little.

Perhaps I will have to reconsider keeping the chair....

Or buy one of Josh Groban's later CDs....

Norwegian summer weather

I like the Norwegian summer .
Last night it was light till at least eleven o'clock, and the temperature was pleasant.
In my other country the summer is very hot and the prevailing colors are brown and yellow. To keep anything green you usually have to water it :)

Here the occassional rain keeps nature green and it is not so dry. You smell nature in a more humid version, also during the day.

In my other country, that is usually only felt in the early morning hours with the dew or after you have been watering your garden or orchards.

The summer light is definitely a plus here.

Beer

Memories of not drinking beer:
My parents did not drink beer, so I grew up in a family where beer drinking and alcohol was not part of life. I think my parents had some alcohol for guests, but I do not remember seeing anybody drunk or slightly drunk in our home.

Memories of my schoolmates drinking beer:
When I was fifteen we were allowed to go dancing in the village hall. The boys my age were very shy (probably the older ones too...) so they decided to bolster their courage with beer.
At fifteen you are not allowed to buy beer, but somehow they had managed to purchase beer they hid in the nearby forest.
As the evening went on, they would enter the dance hall, proceedingly more drunk each time, but as the beer had not given them the desired effect, it was back to the forest and to more beer. At some point, they were so drunk, they would throw up and often fall asleep.
In the summer that was not so bad, though I remember one boy crawling around in the stinging nettles!
In the winter it was dangerous to fall asleep in minus 30 degrees Celsius, so we - the girls - would check out where the boys where and what their situation was.
Beer and vomit - that is the smell combination I remember till today.

Beer 2007:
Being back in Norway, forty years after those drunk schoolboys, beer is still not on my list of beverages. But I have seen that since spring came and now the nice summer weather, many Norwegians like to take a beer, both men and women.
Last night I was out on town and saw some men in their late twenties quite drunk. They looked like those schoolboys looking for courage in a bottle.
But I also saw grownup men and women enjoying one or two glasses of beer on outside restaurants, enjoying the summer evening in an orderly way.

"Here it is not such an honor to say you don't drink beer", somebody told me.
Even so, beerdrinking is definitely not for me.

"Kranselag" - a tree or a wreath on a new building

A kranselag somewhere else in Norway.

Every day I pass a construction site of a new big institution.
Now, the roof is ready, so a little tree was placed on the top of the new building.
Sometimes it can also be a wreath.

I remember this tradition from my childhood in Norway. It is supposed to be a very old tradition:
When the owner of the new house sees that the carpenters have done a good job , he makes a little party for them at the building site - in the old days often with lots of alcohol, these days more with a meal and perhaps a bottle of alcohol to bring home.

Often friends and neighbours are also invited - this is a joyous occassion with good hopes for the life in the house soon to be lived in.

Then if the carpenters are happy with the treatment they have gotten from the owner, they put up the little tree or a wreath on the top of the new house.
If they are not, I read they would hang a kind of big scarecrow up there.
I have never seen such a big cloth puppet in my life. Only small trees. Many small trees, over the years.

Imagine starting your life in a house where the carpenters had not been happy.....

There wasn't too much written about this tradition on Norwegian websites, but it turns out the Germans have a Richtfest that is so similiar it makes you believe this is a very old Germanic tradition, before Christianity - but that is just a guess frim my side.