December 27, 2013

MERRY CHRISTMAS GOD JUL


I have spent almost all of this Christmas in BED ..with a really bad COLD. BUT before this happened I managed to get our apartment ready for Christmas ...and enjoy it for a couple of days too:) It felt really nice to unwrap the Christmas decorations we used in Berlin ..and put them up in our new home. We also continued the tradition from previous years of making GINGER BREAD cookies and a ginger bread house ..while  drinking CHAMPAGNE. This year we also hosted a Christmas party the day the SUN TURNED ...and are hoping to make that a new Bergen Christmas tradition. This cold on the other hand ..I hope will be a one year thing. Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and I wish you all a happy New Year!

December 13, 2013

A LOVE AFFAIR


I'm having a love affair with these flowers. As stated before; I love flowers. As I CHILD one of my dreams was to be a flower decorator. I didn't pick flowers like most kids do, I ARRANGED them. I picked them deliberately in different lengths and placed them together carefully. Not long ago E and I saw something on television where some kids had made statements/wishes about what every child should be able to do/have the right to do ..in a PERFECT world. After we saw it E looked at me and said; I bet when you were a child, you would have WRITTEN; 'Every child should have the right/opportunity to pick as many FLOWERS as they like'. I think he was onto something.. As a child I spent a beautiful month (I remember it more like half a year) in COPENHAGEN with my mom, dad and little sister. My dad was working there and my mom took me and my sister out of kindergarden for a month to come stay with him. I have a lot of beautiful MEMORIES from that stay, among them are the TULIPS. Flowers were ..and are still, much cheaper in Copenhagen than in Norway. My mother, also a big FAN of flowers, took advantage of this and bought a lot of flowers during our stay there ...and I remember those flowers so well ..I remember picking them up at the store, carrying them home and I remember how they looked placed in big VASES around the apartment. I also remember how E said when we had been together for only a short while that he had noticed that I got this particular expression on my face when I was carrying home fresh flowers. I can imagine it's a very happy, almost PROUD kind of expression. One of the things I really loved about BERLIN was it's affordable flowers. Of course I loved everything that was affordable there ..the food, the rent, the wine, the beer, the eating out... But still, maybe especially the flowers, because buying freshly cut flower feels like such a LUXURY. Ok, maybe I miss the eating and drinking out even more ..but anyway. Moving back to Norway I have had to cut down on a lot of my BERLIN HABITS, the pleasure is therefore even bigger when I do ... for instance ...buy flowers. .and then I of course like to SPLURGE.

When I bought these flowers I had a conversation with the florist about different countries flower habits/culture. Like for instance in Berlin they always liked to make bouquets, they always want to put a lot of green in them ...and combine a lot of different flowers. I can still enjoy a batch of roses, but my years in Berlin ...probably combined with my EARLY SPRUNG LOVE for arranging flowers have made me really love arranged bouquets .. so one of my favorite things is to spend a lot of time when I am in a flower shop ..talking to the florist coming up with fun combinations. Like with this one. That I love.

December 8, 2013

PERFECT WINTER SATURDAY


Yesterday the citizens of BERGEN got to experience this year's first real DAY of WINTER ..and it felt amazing. After days and weeks with rain and wind the WEATHER GODS finally offered us a BREAK. And I'm sure glad they did. I realized earlier this week that the dark, rainy weather was starting to get to me. My solution was to invite Christmas into our home ..as well as spending a lot of money on candles. It definitely worked.. still, no matter how cosy you make your home during winter, nothing beats glittering white snow and sunbeams. Thank you for yesterday!