Nature Studies

From Stuefugle I Farver

Nature seems to be so alive at the moment here, even though we are moving into Autumn. Keeping this in mind, I made a good find at the op-shop today - Butterflies and Moths from The How and Why Wonder Books series. Printed in the 1960s, I adored these books when I was a child. I read Our Earth and Ancient Egypt religiously. The illustration below is from Butterflies and Moths. Buying this book, I was reminded of two little books I bought in Denmark. Stuefugle I Farver (Pet Birds in Colour - I am guessing here, having used a Google translation) and Insekter I Farver (Insects in Colour). Printed in the 1950s, I spotted them languishing on a trestle table at an outdoor junk market in Ribe on Denmark's west coast. One even has a little old Christmas card tucked into it, to Sinna from Søren (don't you love finding things like that in old books?)

From Insekter I Farver

A little sprig of tansy that I've put in water on the bathroom windowsill

Pretty little flowers on the windowsill - possibly weeds? - but lovely all the same

...& warm wishes to you for Easter

Be who you are

Shells at Rømø beach on the western coast of Denmark. Photo by me, last year.

It's funny but when I was a child, I didn't read Dr Seuss. I've just found a rather good quote of his, though, and I thought you might like it.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

Apparently, dancing for twelve minutes is a way to beat writer's block. Having had a birthday not long ago, I went in search of some music from around the time of my arrival. Think I could bust a move or two to a bit of T-Rex... How about you? What gets your toes tapping?

Of Pressed Flowers, Windswept Butterflies and Raspberry Cake

I am loving collecting framed, pressed flowers from op-shops. I was a bit down on them until quite recently, when I regarded them as a short footstep away from sticking googly-eyes on gumnuts. But I now realise they're actually really beautiful. I love pressed flowers actually - isn't it wonderful when one falls out of a book and you're reminded of a moment you would otherwise have forgotten.

When we were in Ribe (Denmark), we drove to the coast and visited the Wadden Sea nature centre. It was chock-full of schoolkids but, despite this, it was really interesting. The landscape in the area quite flat and stark as you look out to sea, and the colours muted. We wanted to take one of the buses which goes across the sea when the tide is low to one of the islands just off the coast but we had missed the last one for the day and took a walk instead. Was it windy! Oh my. But somehow this plucky little butterfly was hanging on. Local Danish artist Lars Bollerslev has done lots of wonderful paintings of the area. I bought some postcard reproductions of them at the nature centre and have just now put them up on our living room wall. His website - http://www.larsbollerslev.dk/ - is well worth a look.

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Friday is rapidly becoming cake day. Today I will attempt Raspberry Cake from New Australian Cookery for dinner with my parents tonight.

Have a lovely weekend.

To Ribe

The Norns, the weavers of fate, greeted us at the entrance.

The great Lord and Lady in the atmospheric half-light of the long house.

"Yeah, yeah. I do a lap of the field and then I come back to you. I get it."

A view from one of the huts onto a herb garden.

One of the beautifully painted walls in the long house.

One of the sweet little huts. I could move right in, but how would I blog??

Goosey, Goosey Gander, where shall I wander?

A quiet, simple moment in the long house. It was so peaceful and again made me wonder what we have really gained in modern life...

Next stop in Denmark was Ribe, in Southern Jutland. It's Denmark's oldest town and there is much made of the Viking past here. Having read up on Norse mythology before we left Australia, this was more than fine with me. The Ribe Viking Centre, slightly out of the town itself, was absolutely great and as an open-air museum, it did really give me a sense of what life in a Viking village may have been like (until we got to the cafe and the gift shop, of course!) Seriously, the traditional long house was wonderfully atmospheric to walk through and we absolutely loved wandering amongst all the farm animals pottering around! I was amused, though, when we went to the falconry display and the falcon...left. He taunted the falconer for a while, flying in great sweeping loops around our heads and then he was off into the forest!

Northern lights

I have heard a lot about the 'Scandinavian light' - that is, the different glow that the sun seems to cast on things in such Northern climes. And I really think it's true - probably even more so in the winter. Certainly I see a suggestion of it in this photograph I took in natural light on the windowsill of our accomodation in Copenhagen. A gentle, pure white light.

All a tremulous heart requires

Often while on holidays, surprising things happen. Now, I knew there was water between Germany and Denmark. But I had not really thought through how we would cross it. I just took it as read that we would. But as our train chugged along from Hamburg, I was rather surprised to be told our train would be driven onto a ferry, we would get out of the train and onto the ferry, make the crossing and then continue on to Copenhagen on the train. There is nothing like this in Australia. If you go to Tasmania, you fly or take the ferry. No trains. No train and ferry combos. And the ferry? I was expecting some utilitarian vessel which would take us over the water in practical and spartan surroundings. Uh, no. Restaurants. Shops. Lounges. All very interesting!

This cake, consumed in a cafe at the Tivoli, was covered in molten (and melting) chocolate. It was horrible. Just kidding! And the hot chocolate? Well. None of this namby-pamby-break-it-to-you-gently sweet stuff. This hot chocolate was serious, with just the right touch of bitterness. Lovely.

I don't do rides but I'm happy to watch other people nauseate themselves...

Dreamy...

And sometimes on holidays you do things that you wouldn't normally do. For me, one of those things was going to the Tivoli amusement park in Copenhagen (http://www.tivoli.dk/) It is in fact much more than an amusement park (oops, I sound like an ad for it). There are restaurants, shops, a lovely aquarium and a really terrific exhibition about the Titanic (though I did wonder about the Titanic souvenir t-shirts...who wears that??) It really seemed to be the place to go in Copenhagen for locals and tourists alike - far more so than, say, Luna Park here.

Holidays. You just don't know, do you?

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!