Mother’s Got A Dot Com

Mo’s almost bowled me over this week…

Here are a few photos for over:

Bridge over troubled water

Over the hills and far away

A lovely day is almost over

Mo’s playing up today…

Sorry, folks - it just jumped in here…

And Doodle Week - Day 5

Daydreams and cats? Well, had I had Paint at hand in my doodling school days, it might have looked like this - the cat might have been there too, but this one’s for Mo!

(PS:It looks like it came from an egg, but no… cats are mammals, silly!)

NEWSFLASH - THE EGG HAS HATCHED!

Read the rest of this entry »

A ripping theme this week, Mo!

I’d like to dedicate this post to absent friends…

My mother, who died at 26.
Both my dear grandmothers, who were like mothers to me ever since.
My grandfathers, who were more distant figures, but who both wished me well.
The one great grandmother that I knew, who was a grand old lady.
My ex husband, father to two of my children - who claimed to be “a lousy husband, but a good friend”, and was right. He died when the girls were 8 and 13.
His father, a lovely man and WW2 veteran, whose story I might tell you one day.
My aunt, my mothers sister, who passed away last year. She also was like a mother to me, and she never recovered from the death of her little sister.
As well as all the others: friends, more distant relatives, neighbours… People who’ve made an impact on my life, and that I remember fondly.

May you all Rest In Peace.

ManicMo has me stumped today, with the word quake… I made two assumptions, though - it turned out they were both wrong…

1.We don’t have quakes - I’ve experienced one earthquake in my life, in 1989, and it was little more than a tremor (although the papers went on about it for weeks…)

Ok, so I Googled it, and it turns out we do have quite a few quakes. Most of them are rather small, though…

2.We don’t, to my knowledge, have Quakers here either - puritanism is quite dead in this country.

Ok, so I Googled that too. It turns out I’m wrong again. We do have a Quaker community in Norway, with about 150 members.

So, thanks to Mo, I learned two things today.

Mo’s made me go looking for buds today…

These are the only buds available here as of yet… The crocus aren’t buds, really, they blossom whenever the sun is out (has happened once), but look like this most of the time! They’re also slightly frost-bitten…
The tiny green stuff to the right are proper buds, though: Mini daffodils. Give’em another 2 weeks, and they’ll be out and frost-bitten too!
Seriously. Give us some spring, already!

Mo! This one was hard!!! M, Mille, 1000, 10×10x10, Millennium…

Yes - got it! A Thousand Years Ago…

The VIKINGS lived around these parts around 1000 AD. Their reputation is quite frayed, as their communication skills were limited, and they had a very straight forward approach towards their fellow men… and women. Their antics in the British Isles, for example, included raping and pillaging - activities that greatly affected the locals. It may be argued though, that the British learned some techniques from the Vikings, that they later used with great success when they were done fighting amongst themselves and set out to build the British Empire. But I digress.

They also left marks in France (Normandy is named after them - the percentage of blonde people is far greater there than in other regions of France…)

Anyway. Around 1000 AD, an intrepid Viking named Leiv Eriksson set off from the shores of Norway to see if there was more to find beyond the horizon.

Maybe he was bored with British waifs and was looking for more exotic venues, I don’t know, but it seems to be a recognized fact that he eventually (very eventually, have a look at the type of ships the guy used…) reached the shores of Newfoundland. Vinland, he called it - it’s been said that he found vines there…

The Vikings built a settlement at L’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland. (This photo is from the reconstruction of the settlement) The remains of this was discovered in 1968, proving once and for all that the Vikings discovered America 500 years before Columbus…

Meanwhile, at home…: Around 1000 years ago, the Christening of Norway was well under way, with typical Viking methods. Efficient, but some might say questionable… “You swear allegiance to Christ, or I drive this sword through you” was a powerful incentive in those days, and Norway was officially Christened around 1030 AD.

(The Viking methods are used in all parts of the world to this day, albeit slightly modernized, to persuade reluctant locals to embrace such modern notions as Democracy and Human Rights, as well as countless less noble causes, but that’s another story…)

I’ll be pulling wool over your eyes today, Mo…

All crafty and traditional now. This is a lusekofte:

It’s almost the exact pattern my grandmother used when she knitted one for me when I was about 9 or 10 - 35 years ago. I’ve still got it, or rather, I’ve given it to #4 Brat, and she uses it in the winter. I tried to find it today, to take a photo of the “real thing”, but it was nowhere to be found, so you’ll just have to make do with this.

This type of pattern is actually very old, and originates from the valleys of Telemark in Norway.

Why this for pull? Well, it’s not a pullover, it’s a cardigan, but these patterns were used for both. Lusekofte litterally means “louse jacket”, from the little “lice” in contrasting color that are knitted into the pattern. The contrasting yarn is carried through the whole thing, thus making an extra insulating layer of wool within the pattern. Kids who’ve been made to wear these may actually give you another explanation for “lice”… These are made from pure wool, and they itch! At least they used to with the coarse wool of days gone by. Wool yarn is smoother these days, and the itch isn’t as bad…

Here are two examples of pullover lusekofte - all photos here have been found at Dale of Norway, and are part of their 2008 Heritage collections for men and women. They’ve been Norway’s leading manufacturer of knitwear for generations, and you can get your yarn and your knitting patterns from there as well.

Is Mo breaking eggs today?

This is our collection of painted eggs - painted by the kids and myself. We paint some new ones every year, so the collection keeps growing. In leaps and bounds though - some get broken every year too!
As you can see, some of them are hanging from birch branches. It’s a tradition to pick some branches for Easter and take them in to decorate them and have them sprout their leaves indoors. If you look closely, you can see the tiny green buds…
The large ones you see in front of the picture are a couple of the kids’ eggs that some rabbit or other comes to stuff with chocolate every year.

These are some of our eggs too, sprinkled into a bouquet of tulips!
There’s no tradition here for hiding eggs, by the way. I don’t know why - it’s probably a lot of fun!

I have my own little tradition with eggs, that I’ve adopted from my grandmother: On Easter morning, I serve everyone a boiled egg in one cup and a lifesize marzipan egg in another. The kids don’t mind at all…

And a real manic Monday it’s been too! Mo wanted a drink, but I haven’t been able to muster anything but gunpowder coffee all day.

Paperwork, paperwork - something to do with taxes (any other country still bothered with that nonsense?) - and I’ve been at it all day. I’m finished now. And knackered.

Care to join me for a Calvados later, Mo?