Guess where we are going tomorrow?

Remember I lost a bet?

Will be back next week:-)

Photos from the North - part 3

The in-laws has a lovely, lovely dog. Sweet-tempered and playful. Their only worry is that she is too thin. They went to the vet and got advice on what food to give her. She gained a little more weight, but she's still quite slim. I suspect it is because most of the time she's behaving like this:







And like this.


















It is very hard to get her to look straight into the camera...


But we finally managed! I have to admit, in the photo I'm looking a lot more outdoorsy than I actually am:-) Hmm - is "outdoorsy" a real word?

Skylab

We've come so far, thought the astronaut
as he swam around the capsule in his third week
and by accident kicked a god in the eye
--so far
that there's no difference anymore between up and down,
north and south, heavy and light.
And how, then, can we know righteousness.

So far.
And weightless, in a sealed room
we chase the sunrises at high speed
and sicken with longing for a green stalk
or the heft of something in our hands. Lifting a stone.

One night he saw that the Earth was like an open eye
that looked at him as gravely as the eye of a child
awakened in the middle of the night.

Rolf Jacobsen

This poem is beautiful. I really like the image of the Earth as the eye of a child. At the same time, the poem makes me feel a bit uneasy. Like this poem, also by R. Jacobsen.

Photos from the North - part 2

The in-laws live very close to the mountains.


This photo is taken from the in-laws garden. You see that smoke? That's the dust made by huge boulders, that have just come tumbling down the mountain side. When it's snow, I know it's called an "avalanche" in English. But what's the word when it's rocks? In Norwegian: "ras". Anyway, it was awesome! It sounded like distant thunder. I wasn't scared, because I could see that the rocks wouldn't land near us. And also because my father-in-law merely glanced up at the mountain and said "that's just a small one". Then he went back to working in the garden. I was a bit more excited, and took like 20 photos, hee hee:-)

This photo is taken at around 1 AM. In July, the sun doesn't set. Still the sunshine or light during the night is different from daylight. It's softer, not so bright. I really like it. The first time I experienced the midnight sun, I was 13. My father and I travelled around Finnmark (the northernmost county in Norway), visiting relatives. I remember waking up at 3 AM one night, because of laughter and noise outside my bedroom window. When I peaked out I saw a local family, parents and three small kids, on their way to the beach for a picnic! I thought it was wonderful, it seemed very holiday-ish and fun.

Hang on

One day, as I was lazing in the sunshine, huge and oddly Syd-shaped clouds appeared on the horizon. A few minutes later the rain was POURING down. As I hurriedly put sun lotion, crime paperback and sunglasses into my bag, I suddenly remembered something: "Hang on - didn't I have a blog?"

This is the view from our veranda, late in August. The sun has just set.