Spent his first Christmas being adorable in all the ways
So, I've just returned from a Christmas at my sister's house. I spent every night listening to my niece's sleep talk, and every day playing hide and seek ("auntie, you go hide in the wardrobe and I will try to find you"), eating all the food and being eaten myself by my nephew, who tries to bite everything that gets close to him.
And here are the kakemainna (cake men) (yet they're neither cakes nor men)
My grandmother Ninna using her 80 + years of experience
"Now I'll make a cat" she says. "I think we need more cats."
My grandmother is brilliant, both at baking and telling stories. She tells me she used to bake two batches (and much bigger batches than the one we usually make) of these cakes, hide one box of cakes in the cellar, and give the rest to her husband and four children, because they were so fond of them and would finish them all way before Christmas. I think this method came about after some years where she had to do all the Christmas baking twice, because they'd managed to eat it all in the beginning of December.
If anyone's wondering why the text format of my blog has been looking a bit odd lately, it is because I still haven't gotten a new keyboard, and have to copypaste every letter 'e' into the text. This means copying from different fonts and sizes, and changing it afterwards and hoping Blogger will understand it, which it doesn't always do.
Also,
tonight, the 23rd of December, is "the night before the night" in Norway, as we celebrate Christmas mainly on Christmas Eve. This means that I am going home to my parents tonight, to watch this film at 9 pm (and you may ask why all of Norway is watching this film about NYE on December 23rd, to which I will only answer that we have a lot of weird Christmas telly traditions):
At least on the first of December, the weather was brilliant
I went to the market at Birkelunden, where half the wares seemed to have fallen off the backs of lorries
Then went to a cafe with two of the girls I went to Nicaragua with
And only photographed one of them, Line, because she was sitting opposite me
I also spent a lot of time with my friend Maja, as mentioned earlier, met another of my Nicaragua-girls, met my friend Samantha from Zimbabwe, relaxed and drank all the tea in the world.
Can you tell I've just gotten around to editing photos?
I'd left Oslo in a summery (almost) 7 degrees and sunshine, and came home to this in the evening. Full storm, although you can't really spot the wind...
Me and my littlebrother last night (photo: Tore Johansen)
Last night (Thursday), I was coming home (to my new house) from swimming, after a long day of work and back and forth and general stuff, when I got a message from my mum that my brother was on a surprise visit for the evening, and that I should come home (to my parents' house) as quickly as possible. You see, my little brother lives at Svalbard, almost two hours flight away, and will be working over Christmas, and we were prepared not to see him between November and February.
So I packed all my things and went home and we had a tiny Christmas celebration and charades, and I said goodbye to him this morning outside my work and felt like my younger brother (of only 19, will be turning 20 by the end of January) has grown up a little.
with my grandmother, who's 86 years going on 87 (photo: John Harald Johansen)
last Friday, I was baking Norwegian Christmas cookies (kakemainna) with my grandmother Ninna, something which has become quite the little tradition from the past three or four Christmases. We've become a very good team, finishing the entire operation in less than two hours, leaving us with just enough cookies to survive Christmas.
Now there is Christmas in every sentence in this blogpost, and I am happy (one week left, excited!).
from the day we got internet in my house in Falmouth, October 2010
1. I have a house that I'm renting with four others, only one of which have moved in.
2. I now have internet in my house! Almost as happy as on the photo above.
3. The reason I went to Oslo was to go to the Global Dignity evaluation meeting for all the district leaders (yes, I was one of them), and after that, go to a formal(ish) dinner at the Norwegian Crown Prince's residence. Yes, I shook his hand. Yes, it was exciting and very pretty and not too lavish.
I think that's about it so far... Getting ready for Christmas now!
I've been staying with my friend Maja this weekend, after my other friend fell ill. We've known each other since we were two of the three Norwegians starting our photography studies in Falmouth in 2008. Then we moved in together with three English people for our second year, and ended up living together those last two years of our studies. I've been seeing her more than our other housemates, since I go to Oslo now and then. Still, when we met yesterday, it had been more than a year since we saw each other last.
And yesterday we were back in the sofa, having a late Saturday breakfast, watching Friends and going back in time.
