WANDERINGS - NORWAY

Norway seems like a long time ago! I hope I haven't forgotten anything!!

I spent a few days at Sandefjord, about 140kms south-west of Oslo at a conference for work, then on Friday morning I took a train to Oslo from the town of Stokke - I had decided to spend the weekend to do some sight-seeing. The rain started about 10 minutes before the train arrived and did not stop until Sunday morning. My trip to Oslo was wet wet wet (as was I much of the time)!!!

Oslo seems to be an interesting city with lots to see and do. My hotel, the Thon Hotel Cecil was in a great central location close to the City Hall and waterfront, the Parliament and the Royal Palace. After leaving my bags at the hotel I set off for the pensinsula of Bygdoy on the ferry - where I met a couple of Americans who had been to an anthrax conference - sounds more interesting than a conference on European funding! It is home to many of the city's main museums and I visited most of them during the next day and a half.

On Bydgoy I visited the Viking Ship Museum;



the Maritime Museum with it's 20 minute aerial film of Norway's coastline; the Kon-Tiki Museum home to Thor Heyerdal's rafts, Kon Tiki and Ra II, that he sailed across oceans;



the Polar Ship Fram, that Amundsen sailed to the Antarctic and his journey to be the first to reach the South Pole;



and the Folk Museum with it's 155 buildings from all over Norway, including an apartment block from central Oslo with a number of apartments represented from various periods including the 1950s and 1970s.


Can you see the rain?

In the City Centre I also visited the City Hall where the Nobel Peace prize is awarded each year


and then the Nobel Peace Centre - one of the most inspiring places I have ever been, surrounded by the images and stories of people that have made a huge difference in the world.

Luckily on Sunday morning the rain stopped and I went for a wander before I had to go to the airport and got a sense of how amazing the City must be in the sun - trips on the fjord, the City's parks etc.



Stories from my trip:
1. At the Folk Museum I fell through an exhibit! Can't be many people who can say that!! I was standing on a step outside on of the buildings when the slate step broke in 2 straight down the middle and I ended up on the ground......jumped up, to make sure no one saw me (that would have been just too embarrassing) and then hobbled round the rest of the museum (after telling the staff of the incident!)


Can you see where I fell!!

2. On my flight home to Aberdeen via Stavanger, the King of Norway was on our plane!
3. I managed not to buy any wool!

WANDERINGS

I have been to Norway and had a good time - at the conference and in Oslo at the weekend! However, I am off on m travels again today so no time to post a "travel post" yet!! But I promise when I get back!

Until then I have to thank Taimarie over at Small Wonders for the wonderful swap package that I received! This was the first "blog" swap for both of us and it was fun! I hadn't realised how many doors to the world blogging would open up. In return for the book Dream Toys I received these beautiful gifts!


Betty the Beaver is just fabulous - the stitching is perfect and those teeth!!! I am looking forward to the chocolate (the tea has been drunk already and was delicious!) I am off on my travels again today and the little sewing kit is coming with me!

Thank you again!!

WOOLLIE IS WANDERING

I am off on my wanders tomorrow! I am praying for better weather than the forecast is predicting!! As long as it doesn't rain too much I'll be happy!! I have a conference in Norway - 140kms south of Oslo where I will be going to spend a happy 48 hours wandering museums such as Fram Museum with Amundsen's ship that took him to Antarctica - this has special resonance for a lass from Dundee because his competitor, Captain Scott's ship, The Discovery was built in Dundee and is now a museum in it's own right here in Dundee. I will also visit the Viking Ship Museum, the Norwegian Folk Museum and Thor Heyerdal's Kon-Tiki Museum. Do you think I can manage all this in 48 hours!! It is midsummer, so I am sure it will be light most of the night and there is a free music event and fireworks on the Friday night which I will go along to!!!

Normal transmission will be resumed shortly!!

WOOLLIE - WORK IN PROGRESS

I had a nice weekend - knitting group on Saturday morning where much of the chat was an upcoming visit to Woolfest in the Lake District on the 30th of June!! We are all getting excited.

After knitting I took a train to Edinburgh where I went to a mexican restaurant with some friends for dinner and today met some other friends for lunch.

In knitting terms I started a lace scarf (a very simple pattern for a first attempt) with the beautiful Malabrigo yarn that I bought in Stockholm. It is made of baby merino and my 50gm ball has almost 450m of fingering weight hand-dyed yarn and is the softest wool I have ever felt. I think it will make a great scarf - luscious and warm round anyone's neck!!

WOOLLIE

I have been lucky!!! I am now the proud owner of 2 "Small People" postcards - Marianne over at Applehead made a fantastic series of Small People collages and many of them have been made into postcards which were for sale on her blog. I happened to comment on my favourite one - Jeremiah and his dreams of travelling to Antarctica - and lo and behold Marianne sent me a postcard of Jeremiah and another of Leila pretending to be a tree! If you haven't seen Marianne's beautiful and witty collages yet then head over to Applehead and take a look!

Thank you so much for your kindness Marianne!

WOOLLIE

I have finally managed to do something woollie!! I have a brooch made of net, felt and beads and at the recent wedding in Stockholm someone commented on how nice it was so I decided that I should make some. Out came the sequins, beads and gold thread! Wait a minute - am I making a ballroom dancing dress or something a little more tasteful (sorry to all the ballroom dancers out there - just joking!!)

I just have to sew the top piece to the net and things will be finished!




WANDERINGS

Went wandering on Sunday to the Ochil Hills near Stirling so we could climb Ben Cleuch. Organised because it was supposed to be a glorious weekend and after the beautiful weather on Saturday we had high hopes. Then Sunday dawned, I opened the shutters in my bedroom and guess what I saw.......well it wasn't Fife - it had disappeared into the mist........so much for a beautiful day! We went anyway - in Scotland you can't let the weather put you off - it could be completely different five minutes down the road or five minutes later.

I think we just kept driving towards the rain on this occassion! But the walk was still fun - good company and green green countryside. One more soggy lunch!!



PS This is my 50th post!! Half way to 100!!

WOOLLIE - WELL THEY WOULD BE FUZZY IF THEY WERE WOOLLIE

Wendy at Girl in Green is having a sweets party today! I wanted to contribute a cornucopia of sugary goodness from my photo albums (as I didn't have time to make anything!!!)

Enjoy!!!

WOOLLIE

Finally a woollie post! It was International Knitting in Public Day today and our favourite knitting shop in Newburgh provided us with the opportunity to knit outside in the sunshine! How lucky were we that the sun actually shone! In the UK Knitting in Public Day was being sponsored by Rowan yarns and Innocent Smoothies Supergran project - the aim was to get as many people as possible knitting little hats for the Innocent Smoothie bottles, which will be sold in aid of Age Concern.

Here's a photo of a few friends on the pavement outside the shop - all happily knitting!

WANDERINGS - STOCKHOLM PART 3

Final part on Stockholm I promise!!

We returned to Stockholm on Sunday morning and with the sun now shining the City looked so completely different! I must admit that when I first arrived I wasn't sure about the city - definitely preferring Copenhagen, however with the sun shining............

There were people everywhere, boats - small and large - were ploughing across the channels separating all the islands and the water was dancing in the sunglight. The city was alive!



We decided to go to Skansen the world's first outdoor museum, home to over 150 old buildings brought from all over Sweden to the museum on Djurgarden. It's laid out geographicall with buildings from the north of Sweden to the north of the site and from the south of Sweden to the south. There are farmsteads, village halls, Sami summer villages, old shops and workshops, churches, schools etc. You can go inside many of the buildings and learn about life at the time the building was built and watch craftsmen making glass, furniture, shoes etc. The museum also has a selection of Scandinavian animals including wolverine, otters, elk and reindeer. All of this is set in beautiful surroundings with fantastic views over the City.




In the evening we took a walk along the waterfronts of the city watching a host of balloons floating gently across the skyline and viewing the colourful buildings in the dusk light.


Monday was our last morning in Stockholm so we walked through Sodermalm to do a little shopping in the trendy shops there - on the "Hump" from Slussen before heading to Gamla Stan for a final wander. On Gamla Stan we saw the changing of the guard outside the royal palace (now I would never watch this if it were happening outside Buckingham Palace but hey when abroad - be a tourist!!) and did a little more shopping before I headed to the airport and Mari to the Nobel Museum before she had to leave for the airport!

SHOPPING IN STOCKHOLM

We found some great little shops in Stockholm - particularly on Osterlangg. on Gamla Stan and Sodermalm. There were a number of beautiful knitting shops where I bought the most beautiful ball of finger weight yarn - Uruguayan not Scandinavian - from a company called Malabrigo (my travelling companion Mari was born in Uruguay so was taken with the yarn) which means bad coat, apparently something you would say if you go out without a raincoat, or too thin a coat! The yarn is hand-dyed merino and is soooo soft, it's a dark purply blue mix called Paris Night. I tihnk it will make a beautiful lace scarf!



There was also the most amazing sweet shop - just look at those lollipops in the window!



I also managed to buy a couple of magazines - my favourite Marie Claire Idee and Dwell - a US magazine that I actually like - I usually think they have too many adverts and not enough content but this one is pretty well balanced and the articles interesting - I particularly liked the article on playpark design.

WANDERINGS - STOCKHOLM PART 2

After the Vasa Museet we wandered along Strandvagen quayside towards the city centre. We had lunch in the Ostermalms Saluhall at the Tysta Mari restaurant - open sandwiches in a beautiful old, indoor market. We wandered the stalls selling a vast aray of beautifully displayed produce - fruit and vegetables, fish, meats, bread and cakes. It sure put modern supermarkets to shame.

We then spent the afternoon wandering the concrete catastrophe of Sergels Tor and visiting the Kulturhuset - the cultural centre of modern Stockholm. We went to an Astrid Lindgren exhibit - celebrating 100 years since her birth. She was Sweden's best loved children's author and the creator of Pippi Longstocking. She was truly a remarkable lady, she was a single mother in the 1930s and never seemed to lose her childlike aura!

That night we were heading for Galo - and a Swedish wedding. We took a train then a bus about 40km south of Stockholm and then got picked up to drive the last 6kms to the wedding location. During the last section of the journey one of my all time greatest ambitions (you can tell I am not particularly ambitious) - I saw a real live, wild moose!!! I have spent countless holidays driving with my aunt around New England and one trip to Newfoundland looking for moose, to have never seen one, to have relatives call me 2 days after my visit to tell me a moose swam past their house in the lake and there it was, standing quietly at the side of a Swedish country road. I was so excited!!

The location of the wedding was a summer camp - a large central dining hall and kitchen, 3 red wood buildings full of little rooms with bunks and a chapel on the hill overlooking the sea. It was the most perfect setting and great to be able to see the Swedish countryside.

The wedding itself was a very hands on affair, with family making food all day, Mariana and I being in charge of table decorations, musician friends in charge of entertainment.....

It all started at 8am on Saturday morning with the bride's breakfast, a wander to the beach, wildflower arranging, napkin folding and a leisurely lunch outside, followed by a beautiful ceremony in a small church with a huge glass window overlooking the sea. We had a great buffet dinner followed by speeches and some amazing entertainment from a wide range of fabulous musicians. I enjoyed meeting lots of new people, but felt a little inadequate by my ability to speak only one language - with everyone else at the wedding speaking at least 2 if not 3 languages, including the 11 year old sitting next to me!

WANDERINGS - STOCKHOLM PART 1

I have been wandering - 4 days in Stockholm - having a ball! The early start for the airport was hard - getting out of bed at 430am has never been my strong point! But once on the move all was well!

Stockholm is a beautiful city, situated as it is on lots of islands in the Baltic sea. However, as with many cities the 1960s have a lot to answer for.....the Lonely Planet guide described the main shopping area as a "concrete catastrophe" and they weren't wrong. The colourful buildings of the older parts of the City were full of charm. It's funny but on Friday it was pretty grey and cold in Stockholm and I wasn't all that impressed but by the time I saw it in the sunshine on Sunday my mind was changed! The sun made the whole city come alive - boats ploughing backwards and forwards across the channels between islands, people strolling the quaysides enjoying the sunshine and the water glistening and dancing!

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and took a walk round the old town - Gamla Stan - with its narrow medieval streets, brightly painted buildings and cobbled squares. We had the most amazing hot chocolate at a cafe in one of the little squares.



Later that evening we headed to our accommodation on the island of Langholmen, a green oasis in the centre of Stockholm - kept that way because it was a prison until 1975. We were staying in the old prison, the cells converted into bedrooms - 2 bunks per room - and I must admit slightly more plush that in 1975 - ensuite bathrooms etc. It was a fun place to stay and good value for money in a capital city.



Friday it was also grey and cool so we decided to take the tourist ferry to the island of Djurgarden (your-gore-den) where lots of the main museums are. It was a fun ride in the blustery wind and nice to catch a glimpse of the city from the water that is so important to its character. We visited the Vasa Museet. Home to the Vasa, a warship built of 1000 oak trees in 1628 as part of the Swedish defence in their war with Poland, It took one year to build and required 450 soldiers and sailors - on it's maiden voyage, in the waters of Stockholm, it listed, started taking on water and sank. In the 1950s Anders Franzein spent 5 years using a home-made core sampler searching for the remains. He was successful on August the 28th 1956. The ship was finally raised from the seabed in 1961 after 6 cables were passed beneath the ship and used to slowly raise it from the water. Remarkably the ship was so well preserved that it floated unaided over 300 years after it sank. Many years of painstaking restoration and the ship is now on permanent display in a purpose built museum along with other relics found on board. On entering the museum it is an awe inspiring sight - it is so huge. It somehow reminded me of something from Pirates of the Carribbean.