Bye, bye Bøe...

These are our last few days here, we are moving this weekend. It is with much excitement that we leave to take over our own farm, mixed with a good bit of nostalgia, and not to forget gratitude for the time we have been here. A fantastic place where we have been at our happiest!

Thank you, Bøe...

...it's been great.

Finally!

The big day has arrived, and our Ronja has started school! She was jumping all over the place here last night and this morning, super excited and happy and just wanting to GET ON WITH IT, and I think all her expectations were fulfilled after the first day. It's both fantastic and with a slight taste of melancholy that we see her off, but I feel confident that she will be well taken care of and have great challenges to come. Our big little girl!

Ronja and her teacher

A very cute bouquet of excited first-graders!

More monkey & more porridge!

Our little monkey is loving her porridge! The moment she sees the spoon in close proximity, she opens her mouth and gets this eager look in her eye, like a little baby bird. It really is a relief that she likes it so much, as she has been very fussy up to now and has not been at all interested in anything except for the real thing (plastic? not having any of it!)... So we'll celebrate her healthy appetite with some more photos of our little monster, grr! :)

Treasures from the garden.

Blackcurrant and redcurrant juice, straight from bush to bottle (well, almost). Yummy!

The first porridge!

Freja is only four months, but she's a big little girl (hence the nickname Chunky Monkey), so we figured she's ready to try a taste of solid food. So this saturday she took her first step into adulthood with a teaspoon of rice porridge! She was very curious and enthusiastic, and the future looks bright, both for baby and mummy (who looks forward to sharing the feeding with daddy, and maybe a little bit of time off every once in a while...).

Scenes from summer.

Ronja & Ronny

Homegrown beetroot, squash/courgettes, spring onion & potatoes

Our treeclimber


Cousin Emil visiting for a picnic in the garden

My beautiful.

Somebody's feet have grown since last summer.

(...it's Ronja's, for the record.)

The sisters.

We've been out walking...

...and we found out we can see our new farm from a hill by where we live now! We had a lovely day, although Mrs. Payne felt a little aggressive going up that last steep bit of the hill (which Mr. Payne found somewhat amusing, the evil man that he is). She quickly recovered once she saw the fantastic view, and it was all worth it.

A grand day out for the Paynes!

The world's cutest snugglepuss!

A kind of family photo.

"...this is Freja Payne - on top of a mountain - for the BBC - in Norway."

The dogs probably went for a ten times longer walk than us, with all their running up, down and around.

Mr. Payne and Freja, posing in front of their new farm.

Yummy breakfast.

One of the greatest luxuries in the world according to me, is to go out into the wilderness and be able to pick juicy, tasty and gorgeous berries straight from the bush. So healthy, so good - and it's free! We love to sprinkle some on our morning porridge...

Mr. Payne, the handyman!

The ever so resilient (but sometimes a teeny tiny bit grumpy) handyman Mr. Payne has done a fantastic job with the floors in our new house. The rooms had ugly and old linoleum flooring, which has been ripped off and worked with several machinery profesionally handled by Mr. Payne himself. And the result is astonishing! Mrs. Payne is now a very happy woman.

The girls' bedroom.

Our bedroom.

The dining room, experimented on with painted parkette - giving it a very arctic, milky feel...

Mr. Payne himself, now a professional floor-sander.

Our funky kitchen!

Sweet harvest time!

The berries in our garden are ripening now, lovelylovelylovely! I can't wait for my mum to come home from her holiday and teach me how to make jams and lemonade, yummy. We have raspberries, blackcurrants, strawberries (small ones) and redcurrants, plus many apple trees which look like they will give a great crop this year too.

A world inside the trees.

Sometimes I go and stand under the huge maple trees in the yard, and look up, and it's like being in a world of its own in there. They are simply amazing, those trees.