Back in old circles

With age I find my life going round in full circle, I am constantly coming back to some old "starting points" This is mostly very positive. Uma came with me to the market I worked at before I left Norway. I shop here regularly now. As usual I felt like I had the papparazzi following me ;)

As you can see in the last pic, I have a huge bunch Ranunculae and Astilbe in a warm pale pink!  

Yum yum bubblegum!!!

What is Sanitary!

Here is one for the Mythbusters!  I watched they did a test to see where the best place to sneeze was, and the conclusion was not a hankey but the corner of your sleeve in your elbow. Well today Uma had to go to hospital to get a graze on her knee cleaned out properly. As we came in we were told to put a plastic cover on our shoes for health reasons. Please any nurses feel free to explain to me why this is "healthier" as you can see I am very unsure. Normally we walk in and do what needs to be done and we seldom touch the floor of the hospital or emergency room! Well now I had to dig in a box find a pair of plastic covers that others had put on their dirty shoes, with their possibly sick hands and put them onto my feet. Their was no hand sanitizer. Then straight to the queue button to push for a queue number! Uma had her knee cleaned and there was blood dripping down her leg she got all cleaned up. We left we happily, put the covers back in the box! Yuck!!! I all of a sudden had an awful need to go wash my hands! It just seemed really unsanitary to me!

....and yes waiting for your turn is quite boring! ;)

Als die lente kom dan stuur ek jou tulpaner ut Amsterdam!

Translated is " Når våren kommer da sender jeg deg tulipaner fra Amsterdam" / " When the spring comes I will send you tulips from Amsterdam" funny little song I learnt at school I think or from a boyfriend who was partly dutch, I can`t remember. Anyway I make tons of bouquets with tulips everyday and I love the crunchy sound they make when I put them together. Tulips are particularly gorgeous because they are most beautiful in simple bouquets, they sort of force you to make them easy. Here is a bouquet I made for myself with lilacs and some brown twigs :) Yum!

If you think it is a little lob sided you are right. I spend all day making these perfectly balanced/ round bouquets so for me they just are slap, dash and that is just how I like them!

Spring brings on the flea market season!

A very popular way to do some fundraising in Norway is to hold what we call a fleamarket. Mainly held at schools, they sell second hand goods, just about anything that people donate. This has become very popular and you don´t get the scoops that one used to but at least it is cheaper than second hand shops! You have to sharpen your elbows because masses of people charge in at opening time to grab what ever catches their eye. People come from other countries too! The last one I was at I was wondering if there were about 500 people there?! Unbelievable. I am not very fond of the intial rush so I went an hour later and found a little tea set I fell in love with. Most people around that looked at it commented that it was too English, giggle, how amusing. I have always said that I didn`t grow up in the Laura Ashley and Biggies Best era for nothing!

How delicious is that, I have collected the green cabbage leaf pattern for years in whatever I could find and now a snowy white set of 12 cups, they are a nice size so coffee will not cool down to soon in them.  It is bone china so only for the nicest occasions and oddly they are Wedgewood and Coalport, I can see no difference in the pattern!

Well I got it all for NOK 850/ Euro 108. I am very happy because although it is a lot of money I still think it was worth it! I got an extra pair of wellies for my son (for kr 20/ 2.50 Euro) who is constantly coming home with his sopping wet! I cannot always dry them for the following day! And an asparagus cooker for kr 30/ 3.85 Euro, many had picked it up but hadn`t quite figured out what to use it for!

All in all it was a great success ;)