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!