Hello

Erik Werenskiold, On the Plain

Hello! I am truly so sorry to have been away from the Wood for so long. Suffice it to say that 2014 has not been the best of years for our family so far.

But we persevere, because it's all we can do. It's all any of us can do. I am literally taking things from one day to the next at the moment, never looking too far ahead, and so I thought it would be good to take a look at what I am doing right now.


Reading:  Phillipa Gregory, The Red Queen

Listening: Wardruna (LP)—“Runaljod – Gap Var Ginnunga” (this translates as Song of Runes - The Gap was Yawning) and The Young Tradition (song), “Lyke Wake Dirge”

Eating: Homemade custard—my hubster is the best cook!

Watching: Vikings, season 2...Hey Ragnar— Boo, Hiss!! Also, The Returned...genuinely creepy

Making: A knitted poncho for Joyce, one of our chickens (poor baby is moulting badly)

Dreaming: Of mysterious Norwegian forests

Enjoying: The slow arrival of autumn

So, what's occupying you right now? 

Feronia x

And Other Stories...

Image source: http://pressoffice.penguin.co.uk/static/puffin70th/index2.html

Image source: http://childrensbookshop.com/book.php?cno=82918

While I was at our local library yesterday, I found Puffin by Design by Phil Baines, all about the wonderful book covers of the Puffin children's imprint of Penguin books. How well I remember these books! Flicking through Puffin By Design, I realise how many of them I had (and loved). Did you have any Puffin books? I was actually a member of the Puffin Club!

Image source: http://childrensbookshop.com/book.php?cno=84491

Image source: http://blog.iainrowan.com/2012/01/influences-inspirations-nightmares-and.html

Image source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bottles-Cans-Using-Practical-puffins/dp/0140491406

Image source: http://www.amazon.com/Junior-Puffin-Quiz-Book-Books/dp/014030262X

Image source: http://www.fubiz.net/galleries/set/penguin-books/photo/2631664489/

I especially love the little note on the cover of Hazel Evans' Things to Do - "Have fun with odds and ends". Do kids still do that? I hope so.

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The weather has taken a wintry turn here in Melbourne. Very blustery winds and hail on the way, apparently. We are eating out at a Polish restaurant on the weekend and it seems like just the sort of weather for some hearty European food!

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I really enjoyed the "Arctic" series with Bruce Parry which was on TV here recently. Reindeers, Russian grandmas making home remedies with things they'd picked in the forest...I do hope I get to see the Northern Lights one day. Have you seen them?

Dreaming of Snow

Illustration by Ivan Bilibin

Summer is upon us here in Australia, and so I am dreaming of snow! As you may know, I am not a fan of summer. I find the heat confining and too restrictive on one's activities, especially when it gets to that point of really being too hot to leave the house. It is very warm today but the real warmth, when everything seems to be coated in an eerie simmering calm, will not (hopefully) be here until the new year.

So I am sifting through the Net for photos of Russia and Norway's snowy landscapes, that peculiar, almost iridescent blue-grey Northern light and a glorious clip from the film "Eugene Onegin" which captures just that light, the gorgeous interiors that reflect nature's winter colours and of course the chill of Ralph Fiennes' Onegin!

Russia from The Guardian

Image from nordiclandscapes.com

Let's get Hygge

From Bombshell Bettie's Vintage
http://www.etsy.com/listing/36663503/cocoa-and-cream-50s-nordic-cardigan-deep?ref=v1_other_2

From Thrush
http://www.etsy.com/listing/78841039/vintage-1960s-ski-lodge-sweater

From Mrs P's Brain
http://www.etsy.com/listing/63689984/vintage-hand-knit-womens-cardigan-size

From jenniejune
http://www.etsy.com/listing/61127040/vintage-cream-wool-sweater-ml

From Chisholm Block
http://www.etsy.com/listing/61127040/vintage-cream-wool-sweater-ml

From Bombshell Bettie's Vintage
http://www.etsy.com/listing/61077635/frosted-moss-50s60s-cozy-wool-alpine?ga_search_query=sweater&ga_search_type=user_shop_ttt_id_5650553

From Pineapplemint
http://www.etsy.com/listing/79485658/vintage-nordic-fair-isle-cardigan

When we were in Bergen, I kind of got a little bit obsessed with traditional handknitted Norwegian jumpers (sweaters). There are a number of shops offering them along the main shopping area there (the Bryggen) and I went into one shop in particular several times to admire their wares. I had already bought four pairs of wool socks there (which are the best socks I have ever worn in my life) but they also had the most gorgeous jumpers and cardigans. As you know I am something of a handknit nut anyway but these ones were something else. The colours and patterns were so lovely, the knit so perfectly nubby to the touch. But...they were about $400 a pop. So, no sale.

Now, my knitting is getting along. Kinda. In fact, the cardigan I mentioned starting yesterday, started well last night. But I am not hopeful of knitting a Norwegian style jumper anytime soon. So, I turn in a familiar direction - the world of vintage. Etsy has a number of beautiful vintage Norse style knits for sale and while they are not up in the hundreds of dollars, they are still fairly pricey to send from the US and Europe to Australia (fair enough too, these things are heavy with woolley goodness). Thus, I am pondering, vacillating and generally umming and ahhing and all the while hoping that one of these delicacies will surface in my local op shop. Wish me luck!

The inner pictures of the soul

The Dance of Life

Melancholy

Two Human Beings

Madonna

I bought so many souvenir postcards while we were away. I have no idea what I'll do with them all. But they are lovely to look at, nonetheless. I found the little paper bag with the Edvard Munch postcards in it yesterday, from Oslo's Munch-Museet. Often bleak but in spite of this - or because of it - rather amazing and singular in appearance and style.

"Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye... it also includes the inner pictures of the soul."

~ Edvard Munch

Norway

One of the many extraordinarily human statues by Gustav Vigeland in Vigeland Sculpture Park, Oslo.

A moment of quiet reflection today for the horrible events in Norway on Friday. I am astonished and so saddened that such barbaric things could happen in places we were in so recently and, more importantly, in places that were so peaceful and beautiful.

Of Stave Churches and Siberian Dumplings

The altar of the Stave church at the Norwegian Folk Museum, Oslo.

Wood carvings surrounding one of the four doorways.

When you visit Europe you see a lot of churches. Initially you think 'Oh, aren't these beautiful!' and of course they are beautiful but after a dozen or so, you do get a little bit of church-lag (very similar to museum-lag). So when we went to the Norwegian Folk Museum in Oslo - another wonderful open-air museum (the museums in Scandinavia are on the whole extraordinarily well done) - the promise of a Stave church was greeted with a little bit of ho-hum on my part. Until I saw it. First, they are so distinctive. Wooden throughout there is not a marble altar or plaster cherub to be seen. Second, they are often decorated with very beautiful and symbolically rich wood carvings. Third, the one in Oslo had the most incredibly serene and simply still air to it. My photo doesn't do it justice but it was mostly dark save for a little candlelight and natural light, what brightness there was emanated from the wood panelling and wall paintings themselves - as though the very building itself had become imbibed with the spirit of the place over so many centuries.

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The best food we ate while we were away was in Bergen, which, incidentally, was also our favourite stop on the trip for spectacular landscape and hiking. For three nights running, we ate at a tiny, walk-too-fast-past-and-you'll-miss-it Russian cafe called Det lune hjørnet (Steinkjellergaten 2, 5003 Bergen). The woman running the cafe was so friendly and warm and the food was just so good and incredibly cheap given the prices we had been paying elsewhere. We feasted on blini with meat and pickled vegetables, pelmeni (Siberian dumplings) and pancakes served with sour cream and homemade jam (apple, strawberry and plum). It was comfort food of the very best sort! By the third night, after another long day of walking, it was like sitting down to a warm, edible hug! If you ever go to Bergen, you have to go there.

Back Home

Why I fell in love with Norway in one photo...the quiet, mysterious stillness of the forests of Mt Floyen, Bergen.

This beautiful little heart is carved into the wall of a hut at Oslo's open-air Norwegian Folk Museum.

Hello! I am back from my six week holiday in Europe with my dear, sweet husband and getting used once more to the more familiar surroundings of the Yellow Wood! I have got beyond the just-back-from-the-holiday stage of home seeming like a bit of a novelty but it has certainly been a week of settling in. I would like to say I am glad to be home and of course all holidays must come to an end or they wouldn't really be special, magical holiday things but just, well, every day stuff, but we have returned to some very cold weather and we did have a lovely time overseas so it is a little hard not to be wistful...

On the up side though, the holiday did give me lots of good thinking time as holidays always do and I have clarified a few things in my own mind as to what I'll be up to for the next little while.

But! The Holiday. Well, first stop when we left Australia was Singapore which was as gorgeously tropical as ever. We were only there for a short time on our way to Europe so I'll come back
to that in a couple of days time, when I tell you about our week there on the way home. First European stop was Germany, where we were kindly hosted for a few days by my penpal Bodecea and her partner. Next on the list was our first foray into Scandinavia - Denmark. We stayed in the beautiful capital, Copenhagen, and then moved onto the oldest town in Denmark, Ribe. From there we took the train and the ferry to Sweden, stopping in Gothenburg, and then to our main destination of Norway. Oslo was our first Norwegian port of call and then to the beautiful, beautiful Bergen. I am still dreaming about Bergen! We spent another week in Oslo then and...our time was nearly up! Back to Singapore and then back home.

I've got lots of beautiful photos to show you (yes, it's the cyber equivalent of a slide night) and lots of travellers' tales to tell you. So, next post...Germany and Denmark!