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).