Hyttetur

The title is a tribute to the song "Hyttetur" and I think all Norwegians knows how it goes. It wasn't any sister who was sour, but a grandma who was complaining. But that was mostly because her equipment didn't hold together.

My brother is at a folkehøyskole (some kind of school in-between high school and uni. Voluntarily.), called Bjerkely Folkehøyskole, where they focus on photography. And this Saturday they had all the families gathered to see what the young, aspiring artists had done during their excursions abroad. Mum wanted to go there, and dragged both me and Grandma with her. Since the school is much closer to the cabin than home, we slept over there from Friday to Saturday. The only problem was the 1 meter of snow we had to conquer. At least Grandma. It's been over 15 years since last time she used a pair of skis, and the last one to use her shoes was me some 3 years ago.
We didn't really plan anything, just packed some food, clothes for one day, skis and the key. Called aunt Astrid to get the code to a gate-lock, and we all took for granted that everything was ok - only worrying about Grandmas skiing skills.
A mistake.
Her shoes started to fall apart the moment she put them on at home, but we only realized it when we got out of the car 300 m. from the cabin. (That was almost 3 hours drive from home.)
As a result: we spent a few hours to get from the car to the cabin.
We left Grandma's skis in the car, and let her walk instead. Mum left us to find some snowshoes that should be at the cabin (according to Grandma, who hadn't been there for some years), and I stamped my skis into the snow so the old woman would have somewhere to walk without disappearing into the whiteness. It was not really successful. Sometimes I heard "Noooo I don't want to" behind me, turned around only to see her falling SLOWLY into the snow. Tilting, is probably a better word.
Mum didn't find the snowshoes, but Grandpa's old-old skis. They didn't fit, of course, but at least they had a string Grandma could have around her shoes to keep them from falling off.

Finally inside, a cozy fire in the fireplace, soup in our stomachs, tea and burning oil-lamps made the effort worthwhile.

Saturday morning, mum and I woke up with the smell of coffee in our noses. Grandma had gotten up with the sun, heated up the house and came up to the attic with sweet buns and coffee. It was such a nice morning!


Grandma, the early morning bird.


I just woke up - but the coffee was nice and strong :)

After breakfast it was time to pack, wash the dishes and figure out how to get down to the car again. It was still a lot of snow, or more even. After a lot of searching around, we found a second set of keys. They led to a shed mum didn't open yesterday - and what did she find in there? Snowshoes!
I gave Grandma my shoes and skis, and took her old, broken shoes and the snowshoes. Both mum and Grandma fell down a few times (mum due to a heavy backpack, Grandma because of not practised her skiing for a while but blaming the equipment) and we had great laughs at it. I felt like a rescuing party.


Snowshoes!


Grandma on skies, and my footsteps next to her.

To get to Bjerkely, we had to drive through Elverum centrum. It was really crowded everywhere, lots of people - and animals. A market! Every year there is a market there, but we didn't know what date it was (didn't check) so we missed it. Arrgh!
But I'm very happy we didn't miss the show at Eivinds school. It was great! Quite long, but so many fantastic images. How I wished to have enough time and money to go to Cuba, Venezia, Kambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Amsterdam.


This is just some of the rubber Grandma's shoes left behind in the shop...

Location: Mums livingroom
Eating: Dinner, soon
Drinking: -----
Listening to: Grandmas adventures of the day.
Mood: ok