Cars...

My Grandmother joined my brother and me for our late breakfast. She is usually quite a talker, and today was no exception. But, she told us something I have never heard about before - her fathers cars.
I knew he had cars at a time when not many families had them - and that he was a hound for gadgets. But, imagine to have a Chevrolet Cabriolet, 5 seats, from 1921 and then a Nash 1930 model (also from the Chevrolet company), in Norway at that time. Or even better: kept until now.

I have always been fascinated by old veteran cars, but to know of these cars kind of make my heart ache.
"star light, star bright..." Where is the blue fairy when I need her??

oldcarandtruckpictures.com
Nash on wikipedia

Birthdayparty

And I asked them all to gather around Grandpa like an oldfashioned photographer. Anders and Anne came later.. Grandma had booked a room with equipment like cutlery, plates and coffee machine. Mum and Astrid had made snitter and Grandma had baked kringle. And then it was Astrids cream cake with cloud berries (picked up around Grandpas cabin). I know I shouldn't eat any dairy products, but it was so yummie! And I know Grandpa enjoyed his 90th birthday tremendously.

Preparations

Mum and Grandma is putting together the flower decorations for the family party, celebrating Grandpas 90th birthday, tomorrow.

More 17th of May!

Grandma made cake - both with and without cream (I can't eat any dairy products...).

She even decorated them according to the day! Eivind did a heroic job by grinding coffee beans by hand. (well, almost anyway.) And so we had a great 17th of May evening coffee :)

17th of May

Hooray! Spent the morning at Donskitoppen where Grand-dad is living. We watched the children marching by, had some coffee and now relaxing in the garden. Mum borrowed my hat from my national costume. Lovely, isn't she?

Morning coffee

Eivind made coffee today, and Granny came down to join us. Oh, and I have given E a new addiction too. Oooops

Sunday dinner

Whole family gathered together in the restaurant Far East. Here are the two family mothers, enjoying their food!

8th of May

One of Norways official flagging days (oh, how to say this??). And this year the spring is particularly beautiful. Grandma got an extra suprise too, because her 2nd great-grand-child was born too. Imagine, both born 8th of May!

Trendy Granny

Yesterday we were invited up to Granny for a in-between-practice coffee and cup cakes. Apparently, cup cakes has become trendy again in the states. At least according to the radio woman on P2. Way to go, Gran! And the cakes were yummie!!

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

Grandma's old artifacts

...are many and they're great. This time she found some of her daughters old beanies. Aren't we great?

Det snør, det snør, tiddelibom

Directly translated: it snows (is snowing), it snows, tiddelibom. (Winnie the Pooh sings this song together with Piggy when they are building a house for Eore. Yup)

When I had come at peace with the idea of a cold winter without any snow, had bought my skates and was ready for my challenge on the ice - it started to pour down like cats and dogs. Well, not really, since it is snow and not rain, but I'm not aware of any English saying that fits. I guess they don't really have this amount of snow anyway.

I had my daily practice when Mum and Grandma went to visit Granddad, our dinner were simmering on the stove (pinnekjøtt (stick-meat. haha), we're trying to eat the last remains of Christmas out of the house so to say), and the snow were starting to pour down. Eivind had left for Vietnam a few hours before (around 12.30) and then the ground was completely bare. When Mum and Grandma came back, there were app. 10 cm. of fresh snow. Grandma shoveled the courtyard. Then we ate our precious west-coast Christmas food, watched the news and then it was time for another round with the shovel. I'm not kidding - there was around 30 cm more snow! Eivinds car had changed colour - AND shape... Well, at least it got washed ;)


Grandma, the caretaker. She's a heroine!!


Our courtyard


And the high voltage mast

Location: My room
Mood: Happy
Eating: Apple from when the Opera were in Sandefjord
Drinking: Nada
Listening to: Nothing, but I've heard the high voltage mast in the corner of Mums garden

The wonders of nature!

When you have a mum with a huge garden, then the autumn is like a playground. Or a paradise for seeing new wonders. Like this little siamese twin-plums:



I think they look a little suspect though...
Or female examples of a much-hated species like this:



(I deported it from the outside wall. Didn't get myself to kill it, so now it has a new home somewhere else. No-one knows where. Mwooahaha)

And well, then you have all the work which has to be done: relieve the trees from the huge amount of apples, plums and pears. Remove all the fallen fruits from the grass, which also has to be cut (but because of all the rain it has been impossible to do that yet). We try to send a lot of apples to a juice factory, and also make jam out of most of the other things we don't manage to eat raw or put in a cake..
And then there is also Grandma. We try to entertain her sometimes so she doesn't get bored or feel too lonely now without her husband but a strange vision. (One eye with 60% vision but weird colours, and one blurry eye.) Banki practice cello in case she wants to hear some live music. It is too big for him, so he can only do pizzicato in 4th position... I think he is cute!


The eager cellist!


Isn't she just adorable?