BULGARIAN BEACH BABIES

Cacao Beach, Nessebar, Bulgaria

Night Beach Babies

Huge party scene at Cacao Beach - not for Big Mamas

Nothing can make me as exhausted as lying on the beach the entire day! Reading or dozing on a comfy sun lounger, dragging myself into the sea every now and then to cool off, putting on sun lotion, deciding what to have for lunch (such a difficult decision!), having an hour's massage. When the day at the beach is over, all I want to do is go home and sleep.

But I love it! I'm one of those people who can never get enough heat, sun and sand. And this is the kind of exhaustion I can easily deal with, any day. I'm not as set on a suntan as I used to be when I was younger - with all the ensuing dangers - so you'll usually find me under a sun umbrella these days. And I can't possibly be a Beach Baby for more than four hours max - as opposed to eight to nine hours in an earlier life. To put it another way - I've become a Beach Big Mama.

Sunny Beach

Real Beach Babies

My granddaughters love the beach of course. As long as there's water nearby they're happy. A couple of years ago Mira was still little enough to bring her sand toys to the beach and make castles and canals and entertain herself for hours, while her older sister was out on her pink lilo. One late afternoon two children with sad expressions came over to Mira and me carrying an inflated grey lilo. "Does your kid want this?" they asked with a Scottish accent. All I could focus on were the words "your kid". What a boost for a Big Mama! - Well, seriously... they wanted to give the lilo to Mira because they were leaving the next day. So the sad expressions were "end of holiday"-faces of course. And Mira's face! What a contrast! Happy, proud, shy, self-conscious, grateful. She didn't care for a moment that the lilo was grey and not her favourite colour pink.

Nice, but not a Big Mama lunch

Big Mama lunch

Lo-o-o-ng lunches are the best. I simply love this break when I'm on holiday, sunbathing or not. Wine and food and conversation and no hurrying back to duties. You can never indulge in this kind of lazy long lasting activity in your everyday life - not in Norway anyway, where your lunch break is thirty minutes. The southern Europeans have always understood the principle of long lunches, but because efficiency seems to decrease after these sessions - even if you include a small siesta - they too are beginning to prefer shorter lunches with no wine.

Another Bulgarian lunch

Yet another Bulgarian lunch, with friend Jon

But summer comes to an end. Getting out the electric pump and switching it to "deflate" really drives it home for me - there's huge and heavy symbolism in those colourful plastic things collapsing.

Bambi deflating - summer's almost gone

Back to daily routines!

BULGARIAN LOVE

In 2007 we sold our fruit basket company and bought a holiday flat in Bulgaria. As simple as that? A strange exchange? Well, one of our shareholders - and good friend - believed it to be a promising investment - so we joined him, and the two guys travelled eastward to the Black Sea to look at projects. After being guided around for a few days by yet another friend, they ended up buying a flat each at Marina Cape, Aheloy, on the Black Sea coast between Pomorie and Nessebar, on a promontory with sea on three sides.

Suddenly I had a new country to fall in love with! My "goodbye problems" are related to places as well as people, but every time I leave Bulgaria, I know that I'll come back. What a fantastic feeling for me! To the wonderful climate, to the people I've come to know, to our lovely flat with the verandah overlooking the bay of Aheloy.

I love those warm velvety summer nights! The heat still lingering. Sitting outside, all night - on the terrace, in the bar, at a restaurant, wearing short sleeved dresses and sandals. Last summer it was so warm at night I even had to change from a short sleeved dress to one with just shoulder straps! Our flat is on the first floor, our friend Svein's is on the ground floor. His terrace is huge and we can set the table there for at least fourteen people. So this is what we often do - we cook in our kitchen upstairs and carry the most delicious food downstairs to Svein's beautifully laid table with candles and bottles of excellent Bulgarian wine.

Svein's table

My verandah at night - visible from miles off because of the candles!

We spend several summer weeks there with family, sometimes with friends. It takes organising, a bit of logistics - but I've made it clear to everyone around me that Big Mama's on holiday too, so I'll want to do most things in my own time. Like my 1000 metres swimming every day (10 rounds in the pool - I've measured!), my visits to the gym, my ice coffee before I go back to the flat to shower and change, my late night conversations with friends at the bar.

But I also do Big Mama duties. Except they're not really duties here. My granddaughters love spending their summer holidays at Marina Cape, and keeping an eye on them every now and again is fun! Everything is there, life is easy for all of us. They've both become very good swimmers after five summers in the pool.

Oh yes, we definitely all love Bulgaria!

Sophie, Julie & Mira 

Sophie, Julie and friend Axel

With friend Kine

Sophie on Svein's terrace

Jelena & cousin Ida in the pool at night! Exciting!

Big Mama buying Jelena fancy drink 

THE DAY INNOCENCE DIED

In July 2011 we were on holiday in Bulgaria with several family members and friends. They came and went, and life was carefree, happy and relaxing - as it should be in the sun and the heat. In the afternoon of the 22nd July some of us were dozing around the pool, some swimming - when my husband, who'd been in the flat, came hurrying towards us with a phone message from Sophie, who was still at home and expected to come out to Bulgaria the following week. "There's been a bomb attack in the centre of Oslo!"

Later that afternoon some of us went sightseeing in the neighbouring town, but as text messages came ticking in, from my sister, from Sophie, from Johanne - who'd left Bulgaria the previous day with the little girls - saying that they, fortunately, were all okay - we were unable to concentrate on anything other than getting back to our holiday resort to try to find some news channels to follow for more information. We had heard that there was shooting on the island of Utøya, in addition to the bombing in Oslo.

Utøya August 2011

Utøya 3rd March 2013

When Grete and I stopped the car across from Utøya late yesterday afternoon on the way back from our weekend at the lakeside cabin, a lot of emotions and memories resurfaced. The Oslo bombing and the Utøya massacre have traumatised our country forever. It will be part of our history. We will never forget. But it must not happen again.

It was strange to be in a holiday bubble so far away from home when our whole nation was grieving. My sister told me of total silence, when she took the boat into the small, usually very lively Norwegian seaside town where she was on holiday with her family. All flags along the coast on half mast, no laughter, no smiles, only subdued talk. The eight of us in Bulgaria - my brother's family included - sat together in one of the holiday flats all day Saturday 23rd July, switching between TV-channels. I was the first to leave the flat, at about 4 in the afternoon - completely devastated and in need of a break - and I walked out into bright sunshine, laughter, swimming pool noises and splashing - happy people having fun. I wanted to scream at the top of my voice to all of them: "SHUT UP! BE QUIET! My country has lost its innocence..."

Julie and I went into Oslo city centre, to the Cathedral, the day after we got back from Bulgaria, on August 4. Oh, it was sad, sad, sad. It was heart wrenching. At the same time - it was beautiful. The rain crying on the thousands and thousands of flowers, candles, teddybears, messages and drawings. We lit candles inside the Cathedral.

Some days later Johanne and I took Jelena and her friend Amanda with us and drove to Utøya. We'd bought pink roses, which the girls lay down on the land side, pointing them towards the island. They made a heart of berries. They spent a long time decorating - doing and redoing things. This was so important for the girls. All in all it was important to do what children wanted in that state of emergency our nation was going through.

When the tragedy was a fact, we said to each other that we were bound to know someone who had been killed. Or know someone who knew someone. Of course we did. That's how small Norway is.

AM I A VIKING AFTER ALL?

Here is the view this afternoon from the cabin at the lake, where I spent the weekend with my friend and soulmate Grete. The lake is called Tyrifjorden. It takes me forty-five minutes to drive to the cabin from my house in Oslo. This is a summer view:

This is old viking country. This is the Norwegian cultural landscape. When I sit on the terrace winter, spring, summer, autumn, I don't see anything but scenery and water and an occasional eagle - no cars, no modern day sounds, maybe only a boat or two. I imagine then that this is exactly what it looked like when King Olaf II of Norway (995-1030) grew up and played in the fields just down the road on his step-father's - Sigurd Syr's - farm. His younger half-brother - Harald Hårdråde - also grew up here. (He is well known to the English)! Together the two brothers fought the Battle of Stiklestad, when Harald was only fifteen years old, and in which he saw his half-brother Olaf die. He himself later died in the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. If he hadn't been defeated, all you English out there would have been Norwegian!

Bønsnes Church, Røise, Tyrifjorden

Yesterday evening at sunset Grete and I walked to the church at Bønsnes, one of Norway's oldest medieval churches. The story of this church is that Olaf II came sailing across Tyrifjorden in a dreadful storm (how there can be a storm on this lake is beyond me, but perhaps both landscape and climate were different back then), and he promised God (Olaf christened Norway and is also know as Holy Olaf) that if he and his crew survived the ordeal he would build a church on his step-father's grounds. So Bønsnes Church is one of Norway's few votive churches - a church raised to honour a promise to God. It might be true. It might be a myth. But it's a good story.

You wouldn't see an airplane splitting the clouds in Olaf's day

As usual Grete and I can talk endlessly, for hours. We've been friends from the age of seven and have shared so many experiences, so many confidences, so many thoughts and ideas. Her awe at the scenery and the beauty and the history of the places I showed her this weekend is delightful to watch. I love her enthusiasm, and I can't wait to see the photos she took!

But words became scarce when we drove past the site of our national trauma on the way home this afternoon. Flowers and candles still line the road. The last rays of sunshine were just seeping through over the idyllic island of Utøya. 

WINTER WONDERLAND

At the lake of Tyrifjorden today and tomorrow with my friend Grete. Still a winter wonderland up here. Fantastic walk in this old viking country in the early evening, to the 900-year old church at Bønsnes.

A MERE COINCIDENCE

Diano Serreta, Italy - summer 1991

A few times in your life you will feel very strongly that a mere coincidence turns events around. I suppose that if you were to go profoundly into this and analyse it, life is made up of coincidences, combined with your own choices. But this is existentialism on a high level and not my topic today.

In 1991, when Sophie was six months old, Julie four years old and Johanne seven, we rented a house for the summer in the village of Diano Serreta, a fifteen-minute drive from the Italian "Flower Riviera," a few miles from the French border. This was before the Internet, so we found the rental house in a classified ad in the paper.

Luuuv those glasses!

It was gorgeous! Italian village life! Festivals! My sister came to stay for one week, and we really managed to drive around and see the area. While my husband went to the Casino in Monte Carlo, we had a lovely time at the beach. Going out for a meal at night we just placed Sophie in the pram, and wherever we went people made room for us. Bella! Bella bambina! Even youngsters on their way to the clubs stopped and admired her. That's how much they love children in Italy!

Big Mama with Sis & Sophie

We loved it so much that we rented the house again the next summer. That autumn - 1992 - we started our gourmet shop, which I wrote about the other day. For years to come we couldn't have a holiday together, but in 1996 we had an employee who said: "I WANT you to go on holiday! I'll take care of everything while you're away." He was an angel. (I wonder where he is now).

Julie & Johanne in Italy summer 1992

We called the owners of the Italian house. "Can we rent again?" "No, sorry, no availability." So we started looking through the classified ads. We found a rental flat in France, near Perpignan. We didn't know anything about the area - all I knew was that my brother had spent a few months there years before. And then! We fell in love with the region. We went on holiday there again in 1998. We dreamt. We fantasised. We went to the French Riviera twice to compare. In September 2001 we caught a flight to Barcelona, drove up to French Catalonia, determined that we wouldn't leave until we'd found a house. And there it was! The house deal came through while we were waiting for our luggage back at Oslo Airport.

This was my coincidence. Or maybe not. I speak French. I only speak a little Italian.