Update On My Knitting February 25, 2017

   I am knitting a brown sweater, sort of making it up as I go along.  I like the color and the wool – Rauma Strikkegarn (www.raumaull.no) – Norwegian of course.  I have knit the front and the back and both sleeves.  Now i’m in the process of joining the 2nd sleeve to the body of the sweater.  This is somewhat difficult to make a smooth seam.  Next will be to complete the upper part of the sweater.  I’m thinking of doing a simple pattern.

   this is a sweater which I knit from the top down following instructions in an old knitting book published in Norway in 1975.  The simple design using the contrasting colors is mine.

  A more elaborate pattern – my first “Norwegian” sweater, knit in 1970’s.

Julefest At Ballard First Lutheran Church December 6, 2016

Singing carols and dancing around the tree.  (I’m on the  right wearing the red Norwegian sweater}  This is one of my favorite traditions of Christmas.  Organized every year for the past 38 years by our Norwegian language teacher, Ed Egerdahl.   A service of music and readings followed by traditional Norwegian food and dancing round the tree.

Find Of The Day October 6, 2015

I’m distantly related to Laura Ingalls Wilder!  Evidence follows.

Time for Norsk class now.  Must prepare myself to be a Norskie.

Per Petterson April 14, 2015

I went to a very interesting event last night – an author, Per Peterson, reading from his own work.  It turned out that he read from his lasted novel to be published in English, I Refuse.  For those readers unfamiliar with this author, he is a Norwegian writer who has won many awards, including the Dublin IMPAC Award.  He is possibly best known for his first book to be translated into English, Out Stealing Horses.  I enjoyed the evening in hindsight.  At the event itself, I found Per hard to hear and hard to understand.  I was basically disappointed.  In the row in front of us (us  being daughter-in-law Susan and fellow norskis  Jill and her cousin Karen), a woman was knitting – I dearly wished I had brought my knitting as well.

Now this morning upon reflection I enjoyed the evening.  I looked up Per Petterson in Wikipedia and following is part of the entry:

Per Petterson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Per Petterson
Per Petterson, winner of the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2009
Born	July 18, 1952 (age 62) Oslo, Norway
Occupation	Author, novelist
Nationality	Norwegian
Genre	Fiction

Per Petterson (born 18 July 1952, Oslo) is a Norwegian novelist. His debut book was Aske i munnen, sand i skoa (1987), a collection of short stories. He has since published a number of novels to good reviews. To Siberia (1996), set in the Second World War, was published in English in 1998 and nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize. I kjølvannet, translated as In the Wake (2002), is a young man’s story of losing his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990 (Petterson himself lost his mother, father, younger brother and a niece in the disaster); it won the Brage Prize for 2000. His 2008 novel Jeg forbanner tidens elv (I Curse the River of Time) won The Nordic Council’s Literature Prize for 2009, with an English translation published in 2010.

His breakthrough novel was Ut og stjæle hester (2003), which was awarded two top literary prizes in Norway – the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Booksellers’ Best Book of the Year Award. The 2005 English language translation, Out Stealing Horses, was awarded the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (the world’s largest monetary literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English (€100,000). Out Stealing Horses was named one of the 10 best books of the year in the December 9, 2007 issue of the New York Times Book Review.

Petterson is a trained librarian. He has worked as a bookstore clerk, translator and literary critic before becoming a full-time writer. He cites Knut Hamsun and Raymond Carver among his influences [1].

Petterson’s works have been translated into almost 50 languages.

Would My Laerer Like This? March 16, 2015

Back in October 2010 I wrote the following on my blog:

” Last week I started a new language course – this time it’s going to be Norwegian. It’s a 10 week course for beginners. I so enjoyed my Irish language courses while living in Ireland – now that we are in Seattle, and a particularly Scandinavian part of Seattle – it’s time to “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” so to speak. Well, I don’t expect the speaking part to be my forte but it will be interesting to learn about the language and the country. The course is being given by the Scandinavian Language Institute and the venue is the Nordic Heritage Museum, not far from our house. In our first class we hardly learned one word of Norwegian…..but we had a wonderful potted history of Norway, fascinating. The teacher introduced his talk by tracing his own genealogy, again extremely interesting and probably representative of many of the family histories in this far corner of the Northwestern part of the U.S.”

Norsk Klasse March 11, 2015

Our fabulous norsk laerer is on vacation    In his absence a small group has formed to meet at Piccolino’s in Ballard at the usual Tuesday morning time of 10:30-12.  We had our first meeting this past Tuesday.  The group was small but very enthusiastic.  It has been suggested that we have a topic to talk about next Tuesday.  In norsk of course.  One member suggested Norwegian authors.  Good idea – I hope we all agree.

 

 

Which came first in stimulating me to take a interest in Norway?  Stamp collecting, rug making, adventure book reading, knitting, weaving, Norwegian friends, fabulous skiers, close boy friend, travel – Norway Sweden and Denmark weren’t my first choice for the American Youth Hostel cycling trip in 1959, but I’m glad I went.

First I have to work out what I’m going to say about Norwegian authors, po norsk of course.

Question:   Is the postcard image below from Sweden or Norway?

Recent Acquisitions October 25, 2014

 Det beste av Hellas, Vi har valgt ut de 10 deiligsts oyene, Norwegian Magazine, courtsey of Edgerdahl

Swedish Book, Folkdrakter och bygdedrakter frahla Sveige                  back cover of Swedish book

 

Footsteps through Belmont, a door prize won by my sister Ruth at one her high school reunions, BHS class of 1943, what a treasure, remarks will follow in future blog posts                                                 the frame is the recent acquisition.  I’ve known the subject since 1966, this photo was taken at the American International School, Dhaka, Bangladesh, approximately 30 years ago.  He looks slightly different now, but still going strong.

The Lure of the Sea June 20, 2011

Join me on a voyage up the coast of Norway.  It’s all being shown live and it is so interesting.  The ship is now in the Lofoten Islands, wending its way ever North.  This is a cruise that my sister invited me to go on this coming September.  Well, if I were to go – and I would certainly like to – this live video is certainly whetting my appetite.  Here are several images I found on the internet.

Tale of the Missing Glasses May 20, 2011

Back in mid-February, my glasses went missing.  I still had the case but no glasses.  A few days later, our car went missing.  Hmm, what next.

Well, I had a phone call just a week or so ago telling me that bits of the car had been found in another stolen vehicle in South Seattle.  So that was the end of that story.  Now just today while I was out in the garden doing some hoeing I saw something glittering.  I continued banging with the hoe but then suddenly thought maybe I should examine this glittering object – a pair of dirty but unharmed glasses.  I could hardly believe it.  Another rather trivial thing that happened today was the reuniting of 2 wayward socks.  I always find that quite satisfying when a lone sock finds its mate.  These 2 socks had been apart for many months.

Now for more colourful things – the Syttende Mai Parade.  The big parade in Ballard to celebrate Norwegian Constitution Day, May 17th.  We had a glorious day.  There were 90+ groups participating and the parade went on for 2 hours.  I understand that the Ballard Parade is the biggest in the U.S.  It has been celebrated here since 1889 – the year Seattle became a State.

I marched with some of my friends in the Norwegian language class.

  just behind those ladies is a man with an accordion – he played the whole way and then not long after we finished I saw him again with another group 

  these friends had their little King Charles Spaniel with them, complete with a Norwegian patterned lead.  The dog walked the whole way, smiling and wagging his tail.

  many of the ladies were in national dress

  this Caitlin caught my eye – not our granddaughter Caitlin for a few years yet

  Our neighbourhood band

  the Nordic Heritage Museum – our group was just behind them

 

  the Troll was just in front of us but he  kindly turned to pose for a picture

  we had to wait for the Viking Ship to turn the corner at  24th and Market

  and here are some of the Whittier Wildcats on their giraffe unicycles – they got 2nd prize in the Youth Category. 

  the sun was just setting as I made my weary way home – the downtown skyscrapers are outlined far in the distance

The website for My Ballard.com has some good videos of the Parade also.  Check them out if you are interested.

Rare Books May 4, 2011

As a member of the Rare Books subgroup of the Library Association of Ireland, I receive interesting notifications.  One that came in the mail today, just before I went off to my Norwegian language class, was a notice of a conference in St. Andrews University in Scotland.  (Of course, we all know who studied there!)  The Conference title is Documenting the early-modern book world: Inventories and catalogues in manuscript and print.  And if you follow the link you can see the list of papers to be given.  Really obscure topics but to me very interesting.  I love to make lists – and particularly lists of my books.  The first session of the conference is titled Booklists in 15th and 16th century Venice.  The second session will be about Private Collections.  Then we have Sales Catalogues.  And so it goes on.  But the one that particularly caught my eye was the session on Lists in north-western Europe and a paper to be delivered by a person from the University of Bergen on The market for books in early-modern Norway.  Right up my alley, I thought, to go along with my Norwegian language course which also covers -broadly – history and geography and politics.

 The conference is in early July – a great excuse to go to Scotland – but I already have other plans.  There is a lot going on, including the Association of Guilds of Weavers Spinners and Dyers Summer School to be held in Edinburgh at around the same time, but  I have already booked a place at Music Camp here in Tacoma, just south of Seattle.  And the big family reunion is going to be in New Hampshire/Maine on the 4th of July.