Rikke 30 and a light birthday party

My youngest daughter has passed the 30 years milestone. Congratulation.
Pregnant with our 5th grandchild (due july) and busy with job and Maja. (and Tor Marius)

Instead of birthday-cake with candlelights and because Maja loves waffles it was a different celebration this year.

Too much dinner and some waffles too many, will hopefully result in a speedy sleeping this evening.

But first playing with dad. An ever lasting happy story.

ABC of Chippenham: King Alfred

The building in front of you is the Chippenham Museum, not far from the Buttercross which we looked at for the letter B. What makes this of interest for the letter K is the plaque on the wall, which you can just see to the top left of the lady walking past.

You see the legendary King Alfred was here: he of burnt cakes fame. He was king of Wessex - one of the realms of England during the Dark Ages - and one of the more famous ones of those times.

During these times Chippenham was a villa regia aka a royal estate with a hunting lodge. The king would bring his court here to stay for hunting in the surrounding rich forest and also preside over matters of justice. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle states that the Anglo Saxon Witan, or parliament was held in Chippenham in 933.

During the ninth century, the kingdom of Wessex was under threat from Danish Vikings, who'd already captured the other three Anglo Saxon kingdoms. In 878, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle says:

This year, about midwinter, after Twelfth Night, the Danish army stole out to Chippenham, and rode over the land of the West Saxons, where they settled, and drove many of the people over sea.

In 879, King Alfred defeated the Danes at the battle of Ethandune, which is thought to be modern day Edington near Westbury. He then chased them back to their stronghold at Chippenham and lay siege. Thus peace was restored to the kingdom of Wessex and it's this defeat which went towards him earning the title King Alfred the Great.

Whilst the remains of buildings dating from Saxon times have been found close by where the pictured commemorative plaque is displayed, there's no real proof yet that this is indeed where the royal hunting lodge actually was.

However, a couple of mentions in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, one of the key documents we have of this poorly documented time, shows that Chippenham must have been of some importance. There's other evidence too, but that story is a better tale for next month :)

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the eleventh in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.

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March 30th


1842: Anesthesia is used for the first time… with the exception of all the times somebody had to read Beowulf.


1863: Danish prince Wilhelm Georg is chosen as King George of Greece… because Greece and Denmark are so naturally alike.


1961: The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed at New York, thus ending that state’s drug problems forever.

We're eating cactus for dinner.

But I forgot to take a picture.

Inverse sailing

Have you ever tried to look at the world a bit up-side down?

It can be quite rewarding.

Old, renewed and new in my world

It was a surprise to me a few weeks ago when along the back roads I saw this familiar orchard in this state. Orchards are torn out for a variety of reasons. As trees age--these were probably forty years old--they are less productive and it can be financially beneficial to take the few years necessary to establish a new orchard. Add to that the new varieties of fruit that have replaced the old in the tastes of the consumer. If I recall correctly, this orhard was either Red or Golden Delicious. Although the Goldens are still a favorite apple of mine, You see a lot more Fujis, Galas, Braeburns, and others in the supermarket.

Today I passed that way again and found the progress:

So, will it be a new variety of fruit that goes in? I cannot imagine Janet, who  is the owner of that property, subdividing for houses there. I guess I will have to wait and see.

Further up the road on that first trip I found a team of workers installing the posts for a new vineyard. I do not remember what crop was grown in this area before. Today the posts and the wires that they support appeared to be completed, and a cleaning up of bits of branches and such that were remaining was underway. Vineyards are common in the Yakima Valley, and wine grapes have been replacing juice grapes more and more over the years that we have lived here--earning the area the name of Wine Country.

So that's some of what's happening in My World today. I need to take the camera out to the site of the new library, for which I showed the ground-breaking a few months ago. Progress is really taking place there, and I have been asked to volunteer to help move books in July--having had experience in moving libraries, though nothing so large a project as this.

What's happening in other parts of the world? Check My World Tuesday.

Back in Norway after 5 weeks in Andalusia

This morning we wake up in Oslo with new snow on the ground outside our windows. Should we have stayed for another week or so in Spain? The snowfall was however very light and during the day the "heat" from the nordic sun has managed to get rid of the white color

The image from the beach on our last evening can be one comparison to the snow and cover some of our memories from this year´s winter long stay at Costa del Sol

The hotel pool has not been open for daily swimming activity due to no Safety Guard on duty, but the Water Mirror shows at least the clear cky.

Goodbye and thank you Carlos, Ana and all you other personnel for some nice weeks. We will return, and have left a lot of things in the hotel´s basement locker for next time. This free service makes it even more attractive to use the facilities at Myramar Hotel, Fuengirola year after year. Maybe we will travel with only hand luggage in the future.