Succisa Pratensis - Snapshot Of My Favorite Flower

Tvedestrand Graffiti

On the back of a bus seat. Mø means moo

Boat Under Consideration

My partner wants one of these:)

Stavanger Again

This guy flew around for hours - Obrestad Lighthouse

Enchanted Mini Break - if it is green, I'm all yours

My old friend N from the conservatory days, lives ninety minutes by train from Oslo. I go there if I need good conversation and a couple of days rest.

Last night N wanted to see her boyfriend. As compensation, I got to borrow her bike and see parts of town I never knew existed - and best of all; plenty of greenery. In my book, it can't get green enough. Here are some pictures from the bike ride taken with the camera on my phone. 

The cute bike

In Norwegian I would call this "stripa"- a place to see and be seen

From the old town

And there are fields of Brussels sprouts almost in town!

This morning I went to the hardware store, one of the old fashioned ones, the kind you almost never see anymore or have to know about to find. Ten minutes by bike and good morning exercise. In Oslo it would be an hours travel. The people here seem incredibly fit and tanned, like they are off to the beach every day to frolic in the waves. Even the elderly ladies seem like they just jumped ashore and live on raw vegetables and sun. This is a vacation town and August is beautiful. Norwegian summer is a period of grace.

Later in the day we visited Åsgårdastrand, where Munch painted several of his paintings, having coffee.

This is not the Munch Cafe (there are only two). It has very good coffee, open all year.

Oslo Graffiti 7

Somehow an important part of my home. All colours need to have a touch of cream.

Oslo Graffiti 6 - one of those blue nights

And who knows where the event hall really is ...?

Oslo Graffiti 5

Snapshot from the sea of flowers and teddy bears in front of Domkirken

It took some time mustering up the energy to go there. There are flowers all over town and apparently import tax on roses is lifted.

The government high rise seen from Youngstorget

Oslo Graffiti 3

I'm waking up very slowly, it feels like my mind could be returning. Maybe it is the mineral supplement :-D? My diet has been very poor lately. Will try to steam some green, orange and yellow stuff today, possibly make an orange soup -- and move a little, possibly jog. Maybe imagine the scary creature in the picture coming after me :)? Should make me move faster?

Seeing what people write in part of the blog sphere, makes me conclude that there is a lot of kindness, imagination and beauty in the world. Thank you very much for the  kind and encouraging comments.

Oslo Graffiti 2

Things have been tough here, but looking up now.

Barbar?

Oslo Graffiti

It is quiet here, both in town and in the house. People look serious. Not strange of course, after the attacks.

My mother is in the hospital with multiple, serious fractures after fainting from a heart murmur. She will get a pacemaker on Monday and hopefully get back home in a few weeks, but she has to learn to walk in stairs again, the house is full of stairs. I hope she is up up it, and I'm not sure how worried I should be about the heart murmur. It is the problem of knowing too much and too little at the same time. Today some friends are coming over to help me clean the house and sort out the garden. Take the carpet off the stairs among other things.

I'm worried about my mother, I'm not ready to let her go yet. I don't think I ever will be.

Graffiti from a passage way close to the hospital. I like it, but everything feels irrelevant now.

Beili Liu At Hå Gamle Prestegård

Snapshot From Stavanger

Snapshots From Stavanger

I've Been Doing The Mad Girl Thing

And so the madness begun; two pairs of jeans, three blouses, three pairs of earrings, a new scarf - the first one I'd really liked ever. Maybe I'm growing up, finally? I mean, a real scarf ... Then - wellies and the most fun shoes so far, or rather the most fun stilts, the heels are high, but fairly stable. Will be good if I bring a bike, then I don't have to walk in them. Does that count as common sense? A lot of it on sale, but I've gone girlie - mad, clothes mad and I don't know what. The strange part is that the clothes are all quite stylish and even a little interesting. It is quite the improvement from my grandfather's old under shirts.

These are the shoes (link)

Not Moving The Lawn Has Its Moments

Daisies

Oslo in summer is good. Most people are gone and the rest of us are left to move our lawns and sit yawning in coffee shops. Next Saturday some friends will come over, just before the big holiday project begins.

For me, it is enough that the trees are green, if it's rainy or sunny... We sit on the porch just talking, like old sailors from Southern Norway. And, I had my little flutter, ordering lots of cute earrings from ETSY. Life feels wonderful.

Daisies from way back then in Oz. Picture taken by my father

Graffiti

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

(picture)

Today one of the nurses called me a promising specimen when it comes to bedside manner. "This one is not too bad ...." Made my day :-D

The Cute Fiat

From our after dinner walk

Somebody got this nice, little car, hopefully to restore it

Sofie's Mod Tulips

The Curse Of Being - Oh So Terribly - Practical

I'm considering becoming a "slimy" diplomat, the kind who's actually too professional, who takes a pill to stop caring. I'm terribly practical. If people vent, I try to help find a solution. That's not a wise thing if one wants to lead a nice, quiet life.

Lately I've spent some time in hospital, due to required practice in med school. There you meet a lot of people who could have much better lives, if they had had all the information needed at their fingertips. I get so angry. Not at the patients, but at the thought of them not getting the information they should have had. You see the smokers, the old guys who were the seamen and workers Norway was so proud of, suffering from illness. They're victims of misinformation. When they were young, smoking was a nice, social thing.

So I get angry, and I think of one of the characteristics of an excellent teacher: she gives information freely, whatever the pupil needs in his or her situation. And I vow not to hold back information, if I have it and think it may help.

But, I'm practical, and people don't want practical, a lot just want to vent. It's obviously not good form to give out facts, even if they seem asked for. I must remember that information is not necessarily everybody's favorite thing, even if it is mine, and you don't hear anything until your inner timing is right.

Now I'm venting, so I guess I have to stop writing. Sleep well and try to avoid the bedbugs.

(ETSY shop)

Spring

Perfectly Graceful Bach

My Best Friend

Concert, Practice & Exam

Today my pupils had their spring/summer concert. It is a lot of work, weeks of preparation and practice for the pupils. Oslo Music Teachers Association has a beautiful house where you can teach and have concerts.

(picture)

This year I decided to hold the concert early due to exams.

My office

This is supposedly Edvard Grieg, cut in wood, using a chainsaw - oh dear - "he" stands on a shelf and nobody knows what to do with him.

One of the old windows

It is strange changing one's practice, all of a sudden playing the piano is getting some of its old allure back, and I even use some practice tricks on my exam cramming (taken from a book by Burton Kaplan):

• be impatient - if you don't get it right when having tried three times in a row, change practice strategy
• success no matter what - have sensible goals, get rid of all traces/feelings of failure
• try a success rate of 5 out of 10, then 6 out of 10, 7 out of 10 and so on ...

Let's see if it works on this one.

And the concert went really well today.

Graffiti

May Cherry Blossoms

The colours on the tree feels like autumn, the light is still somewhat bleak

The Cutes

This pic came in an email, the kind people send around, but she's sweet and I wish our little commander in chief, Myrull the hamster, might meet someone like her .... or maybe not? We would have 60 hamsters in no time. Have a lovely day!

Obsession With The Camera On My Phone & Stay At Home Days

Today there was a lost guy in the tunnels of the underground/metro. The whole train system was stopped. So I'm home studying, and I bet it is a lot nicer than being lost in the tube tunnel and possibly rather out of one's mind. 

Gail Sher writes about "stay at home days" in one of her books as a way of feeding one's practice. I know nothing I like better. I even got to walk a few stations as the tube was stuck. All exercise is good. It is a way to feed one's body. I miss running, will take a run on Saturday.

The camera on my phone is fun, even if the Canon 50D is wonderfully crisp and soft at the same time. Here are a few pictures from the walk:

Somehow I find graffiti interesting. Is it possible to be fined when voicing an opinion like that?

Not beautiful, but nice way to use an old tree

Just a tree, but with the sound of children playing and running in the background. Tveita is not posh. I like not posh.

Snapshot Of My Favourite Building Close To School