The cabin

Thursday 19th June.

We drove down to the cabin on Thursday afternoon after visiting the kitchen place. We had gone there earlier in the week with the measurements and our "wishes". Well, I don't like his design! I really want an island and he put a tiny one facing the wrong direction. Ok, apart from that the layout was fine. The thing is that we keep thinking of alternatives and this is probably why we've been trying to get a new kitchen for about 2 years! We are definitely going to take down the wall between the kitchen and the living room to have an open solution. We thought about taking out a window (we have four ceiling to floor windows in the living room) so that we can have a half island instead coming out from the wall. Of course this involves doing the joinery work first, and more cost. Aghh!!!

Anyway, so we drove to the cabin which was super clean and tidy when we arrived. Thank you Wendy if you're reading this. We appreciate your hard work.

On Friday we drove to Kristiansand which should take an hour but we got diverted because of an accident so we took about one and a half hours. We have wanted to buy lovely painted white wooden garden furniture for ages and eventually we managed to bite the bullet and go for the really nice (but expensive) Danish Skagerak set. While we were there we had lunch at Bølgen & Moi. (Mr Moi himself was there, okay so non-Norwegian people will never have heard of him but here he is sort of a famous TV chef and cook book writer as well as co owner of the restaurants) It is situated in a lovely mini harbour with a couple of other restaurants and a fish market.

Saturday passed in a blur of rain and wind. Did I mention that the weather is awful? It does stop raining sometimes and we managed to christen our new garden furniture with champagne, then waffles and coffee.

Sunday we visited the circus in Mandal. It's a Norwegian family who have had the circus for 60 years and they were in Mandal just for one show. Pretty impressive acrobats and high in the air swinging about acts. (Not trapeze exactly, not sure what it would be called, but very good) Mia loved it too. When we returned from the circus, Jarle's parents had arrived. They will stay for 3 or 4 weeks like they usually do.

On Monday we all drove to Lyngdal for some essentials like a new radio for the cabin and long trousers for Mia. I had foolishly packed skirts and shorts as I expected the temperature to be somewhat warmer than the average 12 degrees and rain. Welly boots are the order of the day, new ones for me and Mia!

Tilbake til Norge / Back to Norway

On Friday we flew back to Stavanger and then spent about eight minutes in the house before driving off to the Hardanger Fjord. A bit hectic and tiresome to say the least. The journey to the hotel was muuuuch longer than I thought, nearly six hours. However, the hotel was in the most amazing location and our huge room had a fantastic view. We managed to forget the little cable that connects our camera to the pc and so I cannot put any photos on here until later. Have a look at the hotel though at http://www.brakanes-hotel.no/index.jsp?pid=4166

We enjoyed a lovely weekend with my in-laws celebrating Asta's 70th birthday (my mother in law). 

Look what we´ve bought!

School´s out - almost....

Last day of school is Friday but as we´re traveling on Friday our kids will miss the last day.  It´s actually just a half day and I can´t imagine that they´ll miss very much.

Ben is off to an artificial lake with his class today for a day of swimming and larking about.  

It´s a strange time of year as so many families are leaving.  That´s what it´s like at an international school I suppose.  I´m glad that we´re staying another year.

Today I´m going to start packing and getting organised for our trip home.  Tomorrow I´m off to Paris with Joan and Lotta for a last day out without kids until after the summer, MUST remember my camera.

Yesterday I got my hair cut and coloured at a different salon.  This one is also walking distance from the house and seemed more professional.  It was a little more expensive (still cheaper than Norway) but I was more impressed with the service.  My stylist was a lovely Italian lady who made sure she understood what I wanted before starting (easier said than done with my awful french and her heavily accented french).  I´m pleased with the result, no more grey hair for a wee while at least.

The men who have been driving a tractor through our garden for the last few weeks finally laid new soil and grass seed in our garden.  Now the pigeons are having a whale of a time!  We were woken this morning about 6 am by excited (I can only presume they were excited) pigeons coo-ing on our bedroom windowsill!  I hope they don´t eat it all!!   

Pizza and Sprinklers!!!

Today was the first grade´s pizza party.  We enjoyed pizza and dessert with the children and then they ran around screaming frantically in the sprinklers.  I think they enjoyed themselves!

Inventors´ Day

Today I just happened to be at the school for Mia´s Pizza party when I found out that I could go along to Ben´s Inventors´ day too!  Ben was John Logie Baird the inventor of television.  I also visited and learned about the inventors of the Band Aid, Toothbrush and the Telephone......

He´s not sleeping, he just blinked when I took the picture!

Mia´s Birthday Party

Fun with the handbag shaped pinnata....

Mia and eight of her classmates celebrated yesterday at Acrochats.  They all had a super time.  I heard one of the boys say "this is the best place ever" so I think they were happy.

Jarle´s applecake

Here is a recipe for a very simple and good apple cake.

Mix one egg and 150ml/1,5 dl sugar together

Add 2 table spoons of melted butter and add 125ml/1,25 dl of milk

add 350ml/3,5 dl flour and 2 tea spoons of baking powder and mix really well

Put it all in a round cake tin the size of a dinner plate

Peel, core and slice 3 to 4 apples

Put 2 table spoons of sugar and two teaspoons of cinnamon in a plastic bag

add the apple slices and shake really well

spread the apple slices over the cake mix and press them down gently

Cook for 30 minutes at 200c 

Enjoy!  (Good with vanilla ice cream)

June and it´s raining.....

We´ve had a good weekend.  On Saturday the weather was great for most of the day and we enjoyed the sun in the garden.  Mia and I went shoe shopping while Jarle baked an apple cake.  We all went round to Joan´s for the evening and enjoyed a Texas style barbeque with great food and great company.