Evening bliss…

Tags

Father & Son

• Papa?

The voice of a small child penetrates the quiet darkness. Father turns to mother.

• Was that?
• Yes, it’s him, says mother. Mother and father have just gone to bed and are both still awake.
• Papa!?

The chil calls again, a little louder this time, and more determined. Mother turns towards the bed side lamp to ease father’s path to the door.

• He called me this time, you stay, says father, and has reached the door by the time the light comes on. Mom curls back under the duvet and wraps it around her to keep the bed warm for father’s return. She then stays completely still to hear the low voices coming from  the neighbouring room.
• Papa?
• Papa’s here
• Mama?
• Mama’s asleep
• Water?
• Here’s your water. Now take a sip and go back to sleep.

Mother can hear the duvet being wrapped around the wee child.

• Papa sing
• You want papa to sing?
• Yes!

Mother hears the mellow voice sing the child’s favourite lullaby. Son finishes the song by repeating the last words his father sung.

• There, now you have to sleep.
• Sing more
• You want me to sing you another song?
• Yes!

Another lullaby is sung.

• There, it’s time to say good night now.
• Papa?
• Yes?
• Hug

 

… and mother feels her heart melt…

 

Evening bliss…

Tags

Father & Son

• Pappa?

En spinkel barnestemme høres så vidt gjennom veggen. Far snur seg mot mor.

• Var det?
• Ja, det var han, svarer mor. Mor og far har nettopp lagt seg og er begge våkne.
• Pappa!?

Stemmen høres igjen, klarere denne gang og mer bestemt. Mor snur seg mot lampen for å bedre sikten for far.

• Ligg du! Han ropte på meg denne gang, sier far, og er ute av rommet nesten før lyset er på. Mor snur seg og brer dynen godt rundt seg for å holde senga varm til far er tilbake. Så blir hun liggende helt stille. Stemmene i naborommet er lave.
• Pappa?
• Pappa er her.
• Mamma?
• Mamma sover, du må sove du og.
• Tutt!
• Tutten er her, og her er vannet ditt. Legg deg fint ned nå og sov.

Mor hører lyden av dyna som krølles godt rundt lillegutt.

• Pappa synge
• Skal pappa synge?
• Ja!
• Når trollmor har lagt sine elleve små troll, og bundet de fast I halen, da synger hun for sine elleve små troll, de vakreste ord hun kjenner. O ai ai ai ai buff, o ai ai ai ai buff o ai ai ai ai buff buff buff, o ai ai ai ai buff
• Buff
• Sånn, da må du sove
• Synge me
• Skal jeg synge enda en sang?
• Ja!

Enda en vuggesang blir sunget med lav og rolig stemme, ellers er huset helt rolig.

• Sånn, da var det natta, nå må du sove
• Pappa?
• Ja?
• Kos!

Samtidig ligger mor og kjenner hjertet smelte

It goes overhead not duck to disappoint snow in the room wheel

Oops, there smoked the garden snake.

 

During my first year at university we went to York. While there, I and a few fellow students had a wee project on mistakes Norwegians make speaking English or translating from Norwegian to English. The title is of course an extreme case and most likely also fake.

We interviewed native English speakers and presented different mistakes, from the dire, to the minuscule ones, to see how they reacted to them and what types of mistakes we can get away with before it results in loss of meaning. The two sentences were added just for the fun of it, but what meaning people tried to extract from it proved very interesting and entertaining.

This post has about as little meaning as the sentences, but every time the room wheel comes around I think about the title sentence, and I thought I’d share. Besides it would be interesting to see what you extract from the two examples.

 

Babling i romjula

Tags

Jul, Norsk

Hodet mitt er i hvilemodus. Jeg har tenkt på å blogge i noen dager nå, men har ikke fått fingen ut. Jeg har minst en million unnskyldninger for hvorfor jeg ikke har bloggen på noen dager, og for å være helt ærlig er grunnene kanongode, og absolutt gyldige. Jeg vil derfor ikke beklage min fraværelse. Jeg har vært omgitt av familien og venner hvert minutt av hver dag. Jeg er utkjørt, men absolutt på en god måte, og har kost meg hele tida. Vi har bare vært hjemme i to dager, og har ikke hatt mer enn ett døgn for oss selv. Vi fikk besøk igjen i går, får mer i morgen, og vil ha folk her til godt utpå nyåret. Det er fantastisk, men som du forstår har jeg derfor ikke mye tid til å gjøre ingenting; som f.eks å blogge.

I dag har vi vært ute og handlet ting til oss selv som vi ikke fikk under treet. Hvor egoistisk og selvsentrert er ikke det? Ja, vi fikk penger til jul fra både folk og arbeidsplass, og har derfor litt ekstra penger å bruke (for ja, selvfølgelig må det brukes!) Det stakkars hodet mitt har måttet bryne seg på store oppgaver de siste dagene ettersom vi har vært på jakt etter ny mp3-spiller som også viser film. Jeg har derfor trålt nettet for å finne den beste i vår prisklasse. Valget falt på denne:

Og nå, vær så snill noen der ute; spør hvorfor vi ikke kjøpte iPod! (det vil gjøre all letingen berettiget)

 

Hm, hva mer har jeg å dele fra den siste uka? En del, og mye komme nok til å komme fram i framtidens poster, men det som må nevnes er den fantastiske tida vi har hatt sammen med familie og venner, goooooooood mat (svigermor kan virkelig kokkelere), sykdom (Sønn har jo begynt i barnehage og ikke engang jul er hellig for virus og basiller. Jeg skal ikke engang liste opp alt immunforsvaret mitt har slitt med for det ville vært alt for innlysende innhenting av sympatipoeng!), vektøkningen har vært minimal (Yay! endelig er jeg på rett kurs), Sønn har storkost seg hvert våkne minutt, og Mannen kan heller ikke klage. En veldig vellykket julefeiring med andre ord!

Post-yule babbling

Tags

Rambling, Yule

My head has gone into nap-mode. I have been thinking about blogging for a few days, but just haven’t got around to do it till now. I have a million other excuses as well for not doing it, but truth be told, I shouldn’t have taken time to do it earlier. My days have been filled with family and friends from the first minutes of the day until the very last. I am exhausted, in a good way, and I have enjoyed every minute of every day. We’ve only been home for two days, and have been alone for only one. New visitors came yesterday, and more will come tomorrow, and some will stay until next year. It’s great. But, it doesn’t give me much time to do nothing, like blogging.

Today we have been out and about getting things for ourselves that we didn’t get for yule. How selfish isn’t that? Well, we did get money from a few kind people and company, and thus had some money to spend. (yes, all money must be spent! Well, not all, but some is ok, right?) My poor head has had to overcome some serious thinking over the past days, and Husband has been looking for a new mp3 player, that would also show films. I have thus (yes, I like that word) thoroughly searched the web for reviews and tests of the affordable gadgets out there, and have now decided to buy this one:And now, please, someone, ask me why we didn’t just buy an iPod!

 

Well, what else do I have to share from the past week or so? Hm, a lot, I will probably get back to you on some of the things, but right now what I can think of is great time with friends and family, gooooood food (MotherInLaw sure can cook!), illness (yes, Son started kindergarten this autumn, so not even yule was holy to those evil viruses and germs – I’m not even going to list everything that went wrong for my immune system the past days, you’d probably end up feeling sorry for me), the weight gain was minimal (I might have finally found the right path…), Son has loved every minuted he has been awake, and Husband can’t complain much either. Very satisfying celebration in other words.

 

The 24th day of December *Christmas Eve*

Tags

Christmas Count Down, Music, Yule

God Jul! 😀 We have reached the final day of my countdown. Today we celebrate Jul and tomorrow it’s all over. No, it’s not, not really, The days after We are spending the day with family, chillin out, maxin, relaxin and all that all day long, and long into the wee hours of the night. Son is thrilled about everything walking around the house calling for Santa (‘isse! ‘isse!). He’s been so patient looking at all the gifts around the house. Every time he wants to open one, we remind him that we have to wait until the main day of yule, and he nods his head in agreement and says: “Gift. Yule. Yes.” (Pakke. Jul. Ja.)

It’s ironic that on a day of bliss, material extravaganza and so much food, the most important song to me is Do they know it’s christmas by Band Aid. This song should give me nothing but a bad conscience about the materialistic way of life we have, but I need it to get that special cosy yule feeling. Hypocritical of me? Yes, very! I guess I block out the meaning of the words when I sing along.

I don’t mean to spoil the day for you. But enjoy what you have, appreciate those around you. To honour those who don’t have it all, truly cherish what you have. Don’t take it for granted. So to get the best out of today, love, and love with all your heart and remember just how fortunate you are.

Band aid – Do they know it’s christmas  

Band aid 20 – do they know it’s christmas  

The 23rd day of December

Tags

Christmas Count Down, Music, Yule

As mentioned earlier, the boybands of the 90s left their mark on me. Backstreet Boys were the main sinners, which results in this song having a very high priority on my list. The song was published in 1997. Hope you enjoy!

Backstreet Boys – Christmas time

The 22nd day of December

Tags

Christmas Count Down, Music, Yule

Today I present to you the best selling single of all time, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. If you haven’t heard it before, you surely must have lived on the moon, or further away. Even in North Korea it should be well known.

The singer, Bing Crosby, though not the first to sing either of the songs today, lived from 1903 to 1977 and was one of the great entertainers of last century.

Bing crosby – winter wonderland

Bing Crosby – White christmas 

Winter solstice

Tags

Winter solstice

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:North_season.jpg

In the year 960 king Håkon of Norway signed into law that Jul was to be celebrated on the night before the 25th of December to align it with the Christian celebrations. Earlier, Scandinavians had celebrated from late December to early January, where burning logs determined the length of the feast. The feast would go on as long as the logs were burning, which would be somewhere between three and twelve days. According to the Sagas, yule was celebrated for three days, starting on midwinter’s night. In Norway the season is still called Jul /jy:l/ and the Christian traditions are, at least in theory, the main reason for celebrating. I’ll get back to the traditions surrounding christmas eve later.

Maeshowe in Orkney is well known for its solstice mystery

 

The sunset at Maeshowe

Today is “the day the sun turns”. Of course the sun is where it has always been, but our planet will now start tilting, resulting the sun to cover this side of the planet more than the southern hemisphere, until the process turns again half a year from now. The days will thus become longer, with more hours of daylight, and thus a decrease in hours of darkness. Where I live the suns usually sets around 3.30pm and it’s completely dark by 4pm. The sun rises again sometime around 8 in the morning. In other words; short days and long nights. The “turning of the sun” is no longer celebrated here, it is only mentioned during the evening news, and that’t about as much attention as it gets. People are busy getting everything ready for the big day and the sun is not being offered much thought.

I will celebrate today in the company of my family and only relax, enjoy myself and dream about long summer evenings to come.

More about Maeshowe here

Yule goats (Julegeiter)

Tags

Baking, Christmas traditions, Food, Norwegian Cuisine, Recipe, Yule goats

Roll out as regular rolls, a little more oblong, then make a cut in each end

This is a local type of sweet rolls associated with the yule season. I don’t know how common it is outside the city boundaries, I have grown up with it living in a small town across the fjord, but many of the people I’ve met living in the outskirts of the city have never heard of it. It could also be decreasing in popularity, or the younger generations are less fond of it than their parents and grandparents. I have often been met with questioning faces when asking for it in the local supermarkets, but they usually sell the rolls in every one of them.

Dette er en lokal bollelignende gjærbakst som vi spiser til jul. Jeg vet ikke hvor vanlig den er utenfor byens grenser, jeg har vokst opp med dem i en liten by over fjorden for Stavanger. Mange jeg treffer fra utkanten av Stavanger har aldri hørt om dem. Kanskje er de ikke like populære som de en gang var, eller så er den yngre generasjonen ikke like glad i dem som sine foreldre og besteforeldre. Jeg har ofte blitt møtt med spørsmålstegn av ansikter i butikkene her, men likevel ser det ut som de fleste dagligvarebutikker selger dem til jul.

I don’t know what gives these rolls their peculiar name, yule goats, but one theory is the cut end of them resembling the hoof of a goat. The only thing that makes these rolls different to regular sweet rolls is the rye flour and the syrup.

Jeg vet ikke grunnen til det noe spesielle navnet, men en teori er at kutten i endene ligner på en geits hov. Ellers er den kun sirupen og rugmelet som gjør disse bollene annerledes fra vanlige boller.

Mother demonstrating the correct technique for rolling out the rolls

 

The how-to of the dough is the same as here, except the syrup which is added with the liquid.

Tilberedning av deigen er lik som den her, bortsett fra sirupen, som enkelt tilsettes væska i begynnelsen.

5-6 dl of milk

A bit of yeast, amount depending on how much time you have to let it rise

4-5 tablespoons of syrup

About 650 grams of wheat flour

200 grams of rye flour

5-6 dl melk

4-5 ss sirup

Litt gjær, mengden avhenger av hvor lang tid du har til heving

Ca 650 g hvetemel

200 g fint rugmel

100 g smør

Cook at about 225 degrees until tanned. Eat with brown goat cheese for ultimate Norwegian experience.

Stek på 225 grader til de er blitt gyldenbrune. Spises med brunost og godt smør.