RAINY AFTERNOON

What a grey and dreary holiday, rain pouring down non-stop until way into the afternoon. My daughter Sophie and I chilled out on the sofa for hours - in typically relaxed positions - half lying down, half sitting.

When she came back from seeing her friends in the middle of the night I was listening to music on Spotify and YouTube, and then we spent about an hour watching one of my favourites - half Bulgarian, half Norwegian Mikhael Paskalev, who's born in 1987 and definitely more her age than mine. (Pleased to be introducing my daughter to her generation of musicians)! I'm such a fan of this guy, who blends retro scratchy sound with catchy pop tunes and Balkan gypsy influence. And he has definitely listened to Paul Simon! I know I've posted his songs before in my blog - "I Spy" and "Jive Babe" . The latter tune is accompanied by a video filmed in Bulgaria, and I recognise the landscape just inland from our resort Marina Cape. 

Mikhael Paskalev was behind me in the check-in line at Bourgas Airport in Bulgaria after he'd made this video! I was so starstruck!

I'm so worried now because my old laptop - where I've stored just about everything I've got - photos, documents, emails, you name it - glared at me this morning with a WHITE and empty screen. And no - I have hardly any back-up. I've been meaning to do it, but well, yes, no, not. I'm hoping it's only the screen that's collapsed - please, all ye computer gods and laptop guardian angels - NOT THE HARD DISC!! At any rate I can visualise money disappearing quickly during the next couple of days to pay for a new screen, alternatively having the hard disc restored.

When the rain subsided I asked my friends on Facebook whether I should go back to bed, do some clearing up in that mess of a place I call my house, or get dressed and go out for a walk. The majority recommended the last option, so I stepped into my wellies, stuck those plugs into my ears and switched on Spotify, then walked forty minutes around my neighbourhood. The flowers everywhere! Outside office buildings! They cheer me up endlessly now! (I almost forgot about the laptop....)

Finally the lid has been removed from the fountain around my favourite neighbourhood girl

Breakfast with granddaughters, good music, fresh air, a glimpse of the sea, flowers, a cup of good take-out coffee and childish delight in the uncovering of a fountain. A steaming hot sauna waiting for me at home. Who cares if it rains?! It's not snow, after all.

HERBAL HOLIDAY

Herbs make a meal. Well, almost. Winter temperatures here in Norway kill all herbs, and when you're addicted to herbs like I am (the good ones, the good ones!), it's a real tragedy when they wither and die before your eyes in a draughty easterly kitchen window. I use them desperately in all meals before they're gone!

Rain on my kitchen window this evening

The other day - when the sun was shining... now it's gone as quickly as you can say "Norwegian spring" - I bought three different herbs - oregano, basil and mint. As well as decorating my window sill they enhance every meal I make - from my breakfast omelette to the roasted chicken dinner and the salad.

Tonight is the night before a Norwegian spring holiday, and my granddaughters are staying over. I took them to the grocery store to get some snacks, and they chose cauliflower and dip. Healthier than most things children stuff themselves with! (Which reminds me that my own children never really liked sweets - they chose veg & dip, olives & sun dried tomatoes for Saturday goodies).

Tonight I cooked chicken stuffed with lemon, garlic and the new herbs. Spices and butter on top, veg and wine making up the yummy juice.

Mimmi's snack is not too bad either. Happy holiday!

FLOWERY INSPIRATION

I was inspired by all that manual labour we did yesterday on our compound, so today I went out and bought this year's first garden flowers. These are for the front part of our house, so that they will look decorative for everyone who passes by - later on I'll buy flowers for the terrace. But a few days of warmth and sun will be substituted by rain and cold from tomorrow afternoon and all through the upcoming spring holiday on Thursday. The schools are off on Friday, and many people have plans for an oval weekend. There'll be a lot of DVD-watching and video gaming going on instead of outdoor frolicking! And in this northernmost outpost you don't really know if flowers will survive when you plant them out as early as the 7th May - there might still be frosty nights!

Still in the flowery mood and recapping on my trip to Bulgaria last week, I was told by a friend that the above tree is a Wisteria. Imagine having a Wisteria hanging from my veranda - my only association to that is the series "Desperate Housewives," where they all live on Wisteria Lane! Oh, how I miss them all!

More Bulgarian flowers, planted and cared for by Marina Cape's brilliant gardener. If only I knew what they're called!

These are poppies, I know - they're beautiful! They are everywhere in Southern and Eastern Europe, but alas, rare in Norway. My friend Turi picked them on our last day in Bulgaria.

Here I am looking very happy in my flowery dress and my Carolina Herrera sunglasses that disappeared during yesterday's garage clearing. They reappeared today! I'm not known for having the best of luck, so naturally I thought they were gone for good. We filled five sacks with rubbish yesterday - but did not throw anything away, and when I started what I thought would be a painstaking job of rummaging through it all, they were in the first sack! Yes!! Completely unharmed. (The mystery is how they got there).

Sometimes luck is on my side too - not just love. Or something to that effect.

BARN RAISING

This afternoon I've been participating in a mutual effort called "dugnad," a word which is practically impossible to translate into English. In 2004 it was voted the most Norwegian word ever. The nearest you get to it in English is "voluntary work," but it incorporates a lot more than that. One of the definitions I came across when I was googling it was actually "barn raising," but hey! That's limited to a particular event and besides it's very Amish, isn't it?

Friendly neighbours working together

"Dugnad" may be defined this way: "Working voluntarily together with your neighbours towards the same goal, in this case to spring clean the outside areas of your immediate surroundings." In other words, if you try to sneak off somewhere or hide in the basement - as I have done a couple of times during my thirty years in this house - you're left with an EXTREMELY bad conscience. So, since my husband is away and we're moving next year, I wanted to make a good impression on my neighbours and was at it with my newly purchased leaf rake twenty minutes before the kick-off time at six p.m sharp.

Last year's leaves go into containers

Our stream emerging from the ice once again

But before all this friendly mutual multitasking even gets started, we have to clear the shared garage of all rubbish and stored stuff, because the garage will be cleaned with a high pressure washer. In the email sent to all the residents - which lines out our different responsibilities during the two-day work regime - we are threatened in an unsentimental footnote that if personal belongings like bikes, skis, extra tyres, garden furniture, grills, sun beds and prams are NOT removed before the cleaning starts, they will be thrown away with no further ado. I lost my bicycle that way many years ago. Silly me, not believing their threat.

Sophie and I worked very hard this morning to stuff plastic sacks with things to be discarded, then loaded two cars with the rest, only to stack it all back tomorrow! In the process I lost my Carolina Herrera sunglasses, though why I needed them inside that dark garage I honestly do not know. But I always put my sunglasses on, even on my head! So this means going through all plastic sacks tomorrow. I already have a horrible feeling they'll turn up in one of the cars crushed underneath four summer tyres....

You could see the green grass emerging as we cleared away the brown leaves

Big Mama pleased with her "barn raising" efforts!

LEAVING ON A JET PLANE - AGAIN

Oh, I've hated this fast growing tree hanging from our veranda and taking over our space, until I noticed these wonderful flowers the other day

Bulgarian Easter has coincided with our week's spring break, so the Bulgarians have been on holiday too. From Wednesday onwards the area of Sunny Beach and its surroundings exploded with tourists coming in from other parts of the country, people celebrating at restaurants, stalls suddenly opening, and the beaches crowding. I love this part of the year - all anticipation and expectation at the season that lies ahead of us.

Home cooked roast lamb for Bulgarian Easter

Sunny Beach

This evening my friend Turi and I will be leaving on a jet plane - heading for the northernmost outpost of Oslo once again. My husband will stay for another week to play golf with two of his friends who are flying in tonight, on the same plane that will be taking us home. I must admit that at the moment I wish I were in his shoes - though I'm looking forward to seeing my daughters and granddaughters again! Besides we have a national holiday on Thursday and all school children have the Friday off as well, so we'll most certainly be having a good time towards the end of the week. This is what I call a "soft landing!"

Husband with wife no 2 at Djanny's

Having cooked dinner in the flat all week, we decided to make a night of it yesterday, and went to the well known Sunny Beach restaurant Djanny's. An enormous meal of meat and vegetables on skewers, cocktails, wine and desserts left us absolutely and completely satisfied, and we went back to the flat to sit on the veranda and watch the grey mist rolling in from the Black Sea and the white bats diving through blackness.

And I'm bringing back my favourite sandals, which have spent the winter in my wardrobe in Bulgaria - hoping that they'll soon be put to use in Norway!

FINALLY WARM

Because of a mess-up with the seating on the flight coming out we were moved to the first row - YES!

On Saturday I left for Bulgaria and a day temperature of more than twenty degrees, so at the moment I'm a very happy Big Mama! The sun is shining, the sea is blue, the sand is soft, the wine is chilled and the nights are long. Unfortunately I forgot that I haven't been in the sun since last August, so two and a half hours on the beach yesterday left me looking - and feeling - a bit like a boiled lobster.

We - that's me, my husband and a friend - went to Sunny Beach yesterday to get sun-licked (sunburnt for me), and like a typical seaside resort - ghost town in winter and madly hectic for three summer months, people were hammering, constructing, renovating and cleaning their shops to have them ready for the season, which starts tentatively in about two weeks.

At our own resort - Marina Cape - things are still very quiet. Only one restaurant is open, the pools are yet to be cleaned, the bar is empty and deserted. The gardeners are planting tomatoes and flowers, herbs and green peppers, cutting the grass and trimming the hedges.

 

Me and the pussycat both waiting for the season to start and the bar to open

And the sunsets over our Black Sea bay of Aheloy! The velvet nights already warming up and enveloping me! (Although I still need a blanket around me, I can easily sit on my balcony until 2 o'clock in the morning). Outdoor meals - mussels and rosé wine! Having to sit in the shade at lunch time because it's too hot in the sun (and too easy to acquire a rosé-looking skin)!

I'm emerging from my hibernation now. I'm becoming myself again. I'm reborn. Pink lady or not.