Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Mixable week 8: The Vegetable patch



At Grimerud someone managed to book two arrangements for the weekend. We had a prayer-conference with over a hundred participants (mostly old people), and a youth choir from the west-coast of Norway. We had ample space to house both the groups, so the youth got to sleep in the gym-hall and in the studio. A good thing was that the choir had brought some extra parents

to help in the kitchen. So I got to chop salad, tomatoes and cucumber together with the couple. Turned out, the mum had studied nature-conservation just as I have. And one year of foresty. Over a plate of chicken-soup we exchanged our favorite felling and forestry stories. That made up for the sudden extra work that had to be done for the arrangements.




I have been skating many times this week, in my lunchtime, after dinner, and at night in the moonlight. It´s so relaxing. I get to "skate off" a bit of the stress of the work day, and look up into the evening sky or at the mountains of Toten at the other side of the lake. To the collective Norwegian mind , every Dutch person is naturally blessed with superb ice-skating skills. I am an exception 

to confirm this rule to be a myth. Trying further to explain where on earth the Netherlands are, one former missionary told his five year old son: "It´s the land with the blue airplanes".


While I was working with last year´s drawing-diary, I thought about it how cool an idea it would be if the parents would keep an illustrated diary from the first day one of their children. They could take turns regularly updating it, until the child is old enough to take over to draw about it´s own life. It´s also a crazy idea. A guy called Lapin, has made a start at something like that. He is an inspiring sketch-artist.

LK is been doing very good, he was allowed to leave the hospital for a few days to be with family and friends. He is still going to get more treatment for his leukemia.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hei, Jan Willem! Det var en fantastisk tegning, som tok arbeidet vårt på kjøkkenet og samtalen over kyllingsuppa på kornet :) Det var en glede å jobbe sammen med deg. Nå sitter vi trygt hjemme i vår egen stue i Øystese og prøver å fordøye alle de positive intrykkene fra Grimerud og turneen ellers :) Beste hilsen: Hans Kristian og Anne.

Unknown said...

Oi, dere fant tegningen.
Det er mye glede og visdom å finne i enkle hverdagsmomenter. Det var hyggelig å få hilst på dere og godt å høre at dere hadde det så bra hos oss (Jeg måtte dobbeltsjekke hvor Øystese nøyaktig var). Velkommen tilbake skal dere vare.