Happy Halloween!!

Just a quick post today, as I'm going trick-or-treating!! Happy Halloween!!

Møljefestival

Pepperkaker (gingerbread men) and marzipan has arrived the grocery stores. It's not yet November, but obviously Christmas is not far away. One Christmas tradition in the Eiker area is mølje. Mølje is a dish, and in different parts of Norway it consists of different things. In Eiker, mølje is broth from boiled pork meat that a special thin crisp bread, flatbrød, are being dipped into. For the second year, Mjøndalen football club and Aulie lompebakeri (the suppliers of the special flatbrød) are hosting a Møljefestival here in Mjøndalen, which is a big feeding frenzy of mølje in the recreation hall. The banner hung up in Mjøndalen's main street tells me the festival takes place on the 6th of November. Read more about Møljefestivalen here

Knudsen Smia

In the middle of Mjøndalen, a small red brick building stands. The building is a forge, called Knudsen Smia. It has been in the Knudsen family through three generations, since 1896. Today the forge is run by Karl Oddbjørn Knudsen, who keeps it open twice a week. Knudsen has also close contact with a PhD student, who is learning how to make the type of ax, merkeøks, that Knudsen Smia is famous for. The building today dates from 1906 and is preserved (a photo of the building will be posted another day). The forge is also the closest neighbour to what used to be the house and property to my grandmother's family, where she and my mum grew up. They can both still recall the smell of the burnt metal and coal and the sounds from the anvil whilst the merkeøks were produced!

A new gymnasium

During the summer holiday, the old gymnasium at Veiavangen Ungdomsskole, the high school in Mjøndalen, Nedre Eiker was demolished, and now they are in full swing of constructing the new one. I am sad I never got a photo of the old gymnasium before it was torn down, as I have many good (and some not so good) memories from my three years there, whether it was playing dodgeball or checking out the boys at prom night!

Malum

I'm a little confused whether my title today actually translates into apple. If not, it translates into evil. There should be a little thing in top of the "u" in "malum" that would tell the difference, but I can't find it on my keyboard... I do find the connection between the two words interesting, as the apple has been poisoned in fairy tales, like Snow White, and indentified as the forbidden fruit in the Book of Genesis. Today's apple is neither poisoned nor in the Garden of Eden, so I guess I can saftely give it to my teacher in the morning..

More graffiti

Remember I said I thought I would have difficulties finding graffiti for this month's theme day? Well, as I found out, there are loads of grafitti images around train stations, like Mjøndalen station. Here is another one!

Candy

I was craving suger and sweets yesterday, so I went down to our local grocery shop to buy some. This is a photo from inside of it! No, I'm just joking. Despite being a small place, Eiker do have the kind of shops like everywhere else in Norway and the world! This shop is a "replica" of the old fashion shops, and it's located inside the manor "Fossesholm" in Vestfossen. When I was young, I came here many times with school, and my memories from the visits are the old fashion candy you could, and still can buy here. I also love the old commercial posters on the wall, and you might recognize the old boxes on the top left, as I have written about them in an earlier post.

Fields of gold

Today, I chose to give you a view of Nedre Eiker from the area we call "bygda." The word "bygda" means the village, but when we call the area between Øvre and Nedre Eiker "bygda," it means the area where all the farms and fields are, like the fields on today's photo.

Lille Eden

Lille Eden, or Little Eden, is a garden project planned and executed by Ingjerd and William Holmes, situated "inside" Fredfoss Culture Park in Vestfossen, Øvre Eiker. Lille Eden is open for everyone, and the initiators says the garden is intended as a place for peace and beauty in a stressing everyday. Both sculptures and installations are to come, and although I didn't find anything to back up my next statment, I think (and hope it's true) that the purple metal birds in this photo are made by Ingjerd Holmes herself. For more information click here

Hello Winter?

The ground and trees were beautiful and white this morning, although it looked like most the colour came from frost and not the snow that fell last night. I did take a photo of the scenery this morning, planning to post it today. That was until I saw this girl, trying to exploit the approximatly one to two centimetres of snow on the ground. 15 years ago, and that would have been me!!

Bye bye autumn!

It took the chestnut tree in the driveway of where I live just a few days to lose all of its leaves. The temprature has dropped below zero and the winter is coming closer. Tonight it has been snowing for the first time this year! I doubt the snow will stay for any longer than until tomorrow morning, but if it does I will make sure I get a nice photo of it! In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful autumn photo!

Generations

For today's photo I'm moving closer to home. This beautiful stone wall my granddad built and stacked 45-50 years ago. Many of the rocks were there from before, as the property is where he grew up in the 1930's. I love the moss on the rocks, and the thought of this wall being there for more generations to come!

My new home?

Towards Vestfossen, along the "rural road" and not the highway, just after the boarder to Øvre Eiker and amongst many farms and fields, this farm is for sale! For only 4.8 million NOK (€588 768 or $823 925) this property could be mine!! Click here for more pictures

Platevogna

Last weekend, the two buddies Jon Vidar Bergan and Jan Erik Smedsrud celebrated the one-year anniversary of the opening of their shop "Platevogna" (which can be translated into something like "The disc wagon"). Platevogna is the place to go for vinyl lovers! The little shop, which is housed in an old, 17m2 big barrack in Hokksund, Øvre Eiker, has over 2500 titles on show, with a wide spread of genres. Whether you like pop, rock, disco, country, jazz, metal or soul, you should be able to find some old gems hidden in this shop. I think I will blow the dust off my grandad's old LP player, and go on the search for vinly discs with The Beatles! For more information on Platevogna, see their facebook page

Refreshing recovery!

First, I have to apologize, but blogspot.com is not exactly my best friend at the moment. I am having difficulties uploading photos and when I manage to, the photos disappears after a little while. Frustrating! To recover from my city escape last weekend, a friend and I went for a walk around the water called Bremsa in the forest of Mjøndalen. It is an approximatly 8 kilometre walk and took us about 1 hour and a half! Refreshing!

Kafé Elvebakken

This yellow lovely house is Kafé Elvebakken, a cosy café situated in the oldest building at the property of Gulden Kunstverk, an art gallery in Steinberg, Nedre Eiker. Not long ago, new owners took over the business, and changed the meny. Now, you can explore the world by eating a norwegian speciality, a vaffel (waffle), with a twist: They offer indian vaffels and greek vaffels, just to mention a few. I am very intrigued, and will share more about these vaffels when I have tried them out myself. Stay tuned for photos!

Old and new!

A few days ago I posted an image of the pipe at Solberg Spinneri (here). In this photo you can see the same pipe and the part of the factory that has been turned into apartments. I love the mix of the original factory windows and the new balconies in glass with colours here and there!

Forest sunset

So far, in my time of blogging, I have only given you sunset photos from Oslo and Paris. Here is one from Eiker. More specifically, from the little lake Steindammen in the forest of Krokstadelva, Nedre Eiker. Beautiful, isn't it?

Ferguson

This is a Ferguson, 1952 model with 4 cylinder engine. I saw him amongst other old tractors at an exhibition at Vestfossen Marken earlier this fall. It was love at first sight! We do see lots of tractors here in Eiker, but no one as old and impressive as this Ferguson!

On the contrary..

Today I choose to show you a photo of what I should be doing this weekend. I should be exploiting the autumn weather and go for long fresh walks in the forest of Eiker, like these sporty people are doing. On the contrary, I am going on a girls weekend to Stockholm, and I dare say that the only fresh air I will be getting is "gulps" of city air when getting from H&M to Zara! (Ps: As I'm not too into all the useful settings and possibilities blogspot.com gives its bloggers, I have only just recently discovered how to delay the publishing of posts. So, for the first time, I will try to post daily photos even if I'm out of town!)

Borago officinalis

This borago officinalis, borage or agurkurt, found in my mother's kitchen garden is definitely a rare borage. It is red, and not bright blue as it usually is. We have been wondering whether it turns red like the anemone nemorosa, wood anemone or hvitveis does when growing in acid soil?

Ceci, n'est pas une pipe..

These are the famous words of René Magritte, meaning "this is not a pipe." What you can see here, is not a pipe. It is an image of a pipe. It is taken at Solberg Spinneri in Solbergelva, Nedre Eiker, a factory which housed industrial spinning. From 1821 and over the next 150 years, this factory was the linchpin, or backbone, in Solbergelva. More importantly, it was the village's largest workplace for women. Through generations, Solberg Spinneri's textile became a famous brand known in all of Norway, yet the success ended, due to low-cost country sourcing. In 2007 the production was moved to Turkey. Now, parts of the old factory houses apartments whilst other parts are used for cultural purposes and adult education.

Windfall

With today's photo of the windfall in our garden, I wish you a happy autumn!

Graffiti

Last month's theme gave me a little headache, and so did this month's. Not that there are no graffiti here in Eiker, it is just not that easy to spot it. On my search for it, I had almost given up, when I arrived at the train station to catch my train when I saw this information board covered in graffiti. How could I not have thought about that earlier?? Almost every station of some sort attracts adolescents who thinks its cool to tag graffiti, and the train station in Mjøndalen is no different. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants