Among the first 20K

I started blogging in 2005.
In April 2007 I was among the "first" to join Twitter and FaceBook in Norway.
The history of these social networks are well known.  Now there is another tool that can be recommended:

The ap.net is still in it´s Alpha version, but over 20.000 people world wide have already joined this real-time social feed without the ads. (About 20 persons in Norway I think)
It costs you 35 NOK to join, but that is only 50% of the price of a pint of beer (if you are on the right places in Oslo), so why not be among the first to test it out. It is here to stay.

Breakfaset in a blue kitchen

 The coffee is warm and the temperature in our blue kitchen gives a sparkling image during breakfast.

The rising sun welcomes the scrambled eggs and bacon. A new day can begin.

POSH - Port Out Starboard Home

Today we had a beautiful day at sea together with our friends Gunnar and Ragnhild (Starboard out).
A glass of  Cava on the voyage when leaving Bestumkilen, a delighted lunch at Middagsbukten and a lovely voyage back to Oslo. It is September but still possible to enjoy a 5 hours summer party  at sea.

Fro one castle to another

We are still in transition between living at the cottage and at our apartment down town. On a beautiful day like today (and yesterday) we are saying farewell to the wasps in the garden, spend the hours in a lazy position and care for a light beer. But if the temp is coming a little bit closer to zero or the rain is returning like we have had most of the days this summer, the neighboring church will be more interesting than the apple trees as a landmark.

This Saturday we will at least spend some hours at the harbor watching the show of airplanes and vintage cars. Most probably some drinks will also be part of it. Where to sleep tonight will be a question to decide later. Have a nice weekend.

Cathedrals here and there

It´s full moon over Oslo tonight. The church at Uranienborg has got two moons. One is the clock in the tower, but the other is Ms Luna where now late astronaut Niel Armstrong made his footprints in 1969.

In Paris another church is illuminated through a painting by Alf Krogh Holt. He made his high day version of Notre Dame in 1956.

Harvesting Reine Claudes

According to Wikipedia the plum Reine Claude are considered to be among the finest dessert plums. Today we harvested our first bowl of this delicious fruit. The autumn is here liking it or not

Saturday Car Show at Bryggetorvet

One of our favorite lunch venues is Cafe Sorgenfri at Aker Brygge, Oslo.
Cafe Sorgenfri opened its doors 8th November 2003, to a restaurant where one can remember 'the good-old-days' , whilst enjoying the present! Here you can loosen your tie, and the piano is there for everyone to play. But be aware that you will never se a paid performer by this instrument.

Good old days were also present outside the restaurant on Saturday as seen on the photo above. The "old" Rolls Royce Silver Goast from 1920 and all the other beauties were there to be seen. This blogpost is published too late for you to see the cars, but the restaurant is still ready to welcome you. We had Chicken Salad and Moules Frites and can very well recommend these dishes to you.

A Troll has arrived

Yesterday we had some friends for a late but long lunch at the cottage. This morning the Troll they gave us, was still smiling confirming that the party had been a success.
Thanks to Gunnar and Ragnhild for making the Thursday afternoon being a very happy gathering.

A summer morning at Solvang

The sun is fighting against the morning mist. The sky is blue when turning the eyes to north, but the southeastern sky is still cloudy with shades of grey. A motive for the painter.

Take a ride at the planet Mars

Here you have a possibility to look closer at the planet Mars.

Go direct to the 360 panorama and explore the surface on the red planet.

Computerization is education too

Our grandchildren in Wales are well prepared for the modern world through their use of computers. This time they are learning about collaboration through games with Trine2. Their father was kicked out of the room because they wanted to increase the sound volume according to Path messages.

Mari´s first day in kindergarten

Today Mari our youngest grandchild started her career in the Norwegian education system by attending the kindergarten.  Playing with pedagogical toys and eating under supervision of pre-school educated personnel. Her daily weekdays procedures in the next five years will be good taken care of.

A summerday at last

I think we can count on one hand the numbers of really beautiful summer days this year. Most of our roses have been taken by the heavy rain, but today I found a possibility to take a photo of some of our pink beauties.

Later this morning we got a visit by Maja together with Mari and Rikke. Tor-Marius came for dinner, but that is another story.

After lunch Maja and granddad joined efforts to make Waffles. She participated in the total process and was very clever handling the batter on the hot waffle iron .

Maja has every month during last year received a math-book (called Goboken 123) and we use every opportunity to count different things or activities. Here we recapitulated the process of adding water, butter and flour- mix before the cooking could start.
Today Maja got her 13th math book (2 to go) and then we will start with My first ABC

Amusement park for Maja and family

 Tusenfryd is an amusement park for adults and grown up children but also with possibilities for smaller children. The Loop was nothing for Maja (3 years), but daddy Tor Marius can be seen in one of the wagons above.

 Maja started in an airplane and from that moment renamed The red Baron

 Together with mom Rikke Maja also moved high up in the skies in this green carousel basket.

 This is not a Harley Davidson but Bente and Per Arne in Engelsviken have to look carefully when the MC groups come together. Maybe Maja will show up on a Honda Goldwing in some years.

The last photo shows Rikke and Maja driving a car fully describing how fun it is to swap an ordinary kindergarten day with family fun at Tusenfryd,

Summer in Oslo 2012

I made this painting in November 2002, but it could well be an image of this rainy summer too. According to the weather people we may wait one year for the summer.
 Longing for some weeks in Andalusia, Spain.

Competition: My Blog vs Olympic participants

204 participating countries in London 2012 and 181 participating countries visiting my blog. 
 Tonight competition is to find the countries missing on my visitors list.
The winner has to send a message to these countries and tell them about my fantastic blogging history since March 2005.

The first Raspberry harvesting day

 Then it is time for admitting that the fall is really coming closer.
The Raspberries are ready for leaving the bushes. The only problem is that the new unmatured berries are hidden among the leaves and will have to be harvested in the coming days and weeks too.

This first day (2 hours work) resulted in a load of about 5 - 6 kg "Askerbær" or also called Paragon. Well done. Anticipate a total volume of 20 kg this year. Too much rain and too little sunshine.

Handicrafts on a "summer" day

 Today I restarted my bread-baking activity.
In years we have bought our daily bread at United Bakeries, but this morning I decided to reopen my home-bakery which was an ordinary activity when Tullen was in active employment and I was a pensioner after the medical challenges connected to Hearth and Kidney Transplantation.
Compared to the prices of buying bread we save 75% by this baking, and the taste is phenomenal

Another handicraft activity during these rainy summer days has been Tullen´s knitting for the winter season in Swansea for Hedda. Her wool and silk dress and her matching hat will be great in the chilly Cymraeg climate.

Bell Tower at Oslo City Hall

When the last tone from the Bell Tower at Oslo City Hall faded in the darkening night at the end of the 22/7 Memory Concert yesterday, I was sure that the bell ringer / player, Vegard Sandholt, had performed the peak of the concert  through Håkon Berge´s composition "To the youth" by Nordahl Grieg.

If you want to hear the "Voice of Oslo" once more, click here

A year has gone

A year has gone since the shocking images on our television became documentation of what we experienced in the middle of our capital, Oslo.
In the afternoon on Friday, July 22, 2011 Tullen and I were sitting in one of our favorite restaurants: Amundsens Bryggeri og Spiseri relaxing over a beer and a glass of Soave.  Then the unexpected happened.
A powerful BOOM made the window-doors shake, everybody around the tables looked at each other with question marks and some of us rushed out to see what was going on.
In Stortingsgaten some of the windows in Ferner Jacobsen were blown out. We believed they had have a small explosion in the house because restoration of the shop was taking place at the time, and when returning to the restaurant the television continued to send direct from "Tour de France".
No sirens from emergency cars were in the streets. We turned our focus once more to the drinks.

BUT then the TV screens changed. The images from the Government Quarter replaced the sport sendings. We understood that something extraordinary had happened.

My immediate FaceBook message to family and friends was:

Hospitals are in catastrofy alarm. One confirmed dead Horrible situations in Oslo's center. Primeminister office blown out. He is secure. We were close to City Hall and windows vibrated but everything is ok on our side.

The facts became even more horrible when the killing at Utøya was reported in the news during the night. Next morning the volume of the terror attack became clear.
Norway had been hit by a terror attack .

Tullen and I decided during breakfast the next day that nobody should take our town away from us, and in the morning we walked down to the area of the attack. We ended up as many others that day at Oslo Cathedral where the flower ocean already had begun to develop 

Now a year has gone and the flower ocean area has recently developed into a memorial park. Today on July 22, 2012, people all over Norway and around the world will use some time to rethink "where were you when the bomb exploded". Many of us will take part in different arrangements linked to the 22/7 day.
Norway has changed. We have changed, but our lovely capital Oslo is still one of the most peaceful places on earth. The city is ours and will always be so.

Mari 1 year

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARI

Family photo at the birthday party
(Mormor, Pappa, Maja, Mamma, Mari, Bestefar, Farmor)

Afternoon sunshine at Solvang

The big question now is whether the summer has returned or the sun just gives us some hours to dry up the lawn after a week with heavy rain. Today´s temperature at +22 C is a good indication of the first

Helene 9years

Helene´s father is responsible for the BBQ activity in front of the birthday lunch.

Happy birthday to our oldest grandchild Helene with mormor´s chocolate cake with Daim H and nine + one lights.

 The female part of our family joining Helene´s birthday at Solvang.

Jazz at our Local in Cpn

The Bjørn Ingelstam band

Copenhagen Jazz Festival Monday

Great time in the streets

Copenhagen Jazz Festival

All over the King's city jazz is hard this weekend and the coming week. Join and be Happy

Picnic in Norway may be dangerous

Part of the Norwegian summer is picnics along the many lakes or parks we have.

 Yeasterday we received this photo showing our British / Norwegian family on picnic at Sognsvann. The temperature in the water is not very high (or low) so at least the children found a chance to dive into the stream. David, Henrik and Helene also had sausages for late lunch, and it seems that they added another good memory to their Norwegian history book.
BUT, many other creatures are also eager to stay along the lake. Suddenly they discovered a snake.

"Huggorm" or European Adder / Viper may be dangerous if alarmed or disturbed, but not regarded as especially dangerous nor aggressive if left alone. According to newspapers in Norway 2012 is a Viper-year.

Weekend memories

Well back in Oslo it it time to give some thoughts from last weekend´s workshop at AnneKatharina´s Palace at Flemsøya . My responsibility was to get the jacuzzi up and running after the winter sleep. This image is one of the evidence from that work, and although I had some startup challenges, we made it possible to take a bath in +39C although the external temp was around +10C

 In the Ocean-view-room one of my paintings is still on the wall, and I am happy that late Asbjørn wanted that work as a decoration among other more professional artists.

 The sunset over the Atlantic Ocean was as beautiful as always. (depending on the weather of course )

In the center of the photo, and as close to the ocean as possible "Eidet" (or "Øya" as we call it) is situated. The ferry brings us from the islands and back to the mainland and a ten hours cartrip to Oslo. Hopefully this was NOT the last visit, and we promise AnneKath that we will line up for future required workshops so she can keep the beautiful  place up and running, (and a gathering venue for the old bunch).