Northern lights

Apparently the northern lights should be visible over Iceland soon, shall we run away together?

At the weekend my uncle who is a pilot told me he sometimes sees the lights from the sky! He also sails and gets to see the stars on a clear night with no light pollution!

How perfect!

Writing prompt #2

Here's this weeks picture, a favourite of mine from a little while ago. 

What is this crowns story? Did someone intentionally attempt to destroy it or has it been damaged by age? Was it worn by a lost prince or was it made by a loving father for his little daughter to play princesses with? I think it was washed up on the sea shore with other mysterious treasures :)

As always, feel free to leave me a comment with your writing, I love reading your stories, you guys are so imaginative! 

(picture super-lovingly taken from this lovely tumblr!)

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Simple pleasures

Getting caught up in the pouring rain a mile along a deserted beach and returning home to a steaming bath and a large mug of hot chocolate <3

Testing blogging from my iPhone, sorry if the format is off - hope it works nicely!

What are your plans today, dears? :)

Gardens of Decaying Art

This morning I was lucky enough to spot this article by Lomography detailing an installation by a German architect. The landscape architect lay down piles of books, which have been left to decay in the Jardin de la Connaissance in Quebec.

It reminded me of my visit to the Carl Larsson garden in Sweden - you can find some information here but I'm sure I'll write a post about it soon! We spent the morning drinking wild strawberry soda in the little cafe next to the artist's house before taking a walk down to the river at the bottom of the garden. To the side of the garden there is a little wood, thoroughly hidden by the long, swooping branches of the typical Swedish fir trees. If you sweep these aside and sneak through, you find yourself in an eerie little forest, filled with decaying pianos. 

Covered in cobwebs with missing or broken keys, the decaying pianos were scattered about, as if abandoned and longing to be played. The often screechy, out of tune sounds produced from these instruments certainly lent themselves well to what was arguably the most perfect setting for a 50s horror movie.

Of the book installation, which was a part of the International Festival des Jardins de Metis, a Denzeen feature describes the work beautifully, in a way that is also very relevant to the abandoned pianos:

 "Invoking the mythic relation between knowledge and nature integral to the concept of ‘paradise’, we invite the emotional involvement of the visitor by exposing these fragile and supposedly timeless cultural artefacts to the processes of decomposition." 

(top picture lovingly taken from here)

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PS: click here - I finally made a facebook page!

inspire writing

Since I love to inspire you guys, I thought it might be fun to do a few posts with writing prompts, since I have quite a collection of beautiful pictures. Here is my first one:

Who is sailing here? What do they see in the mystical arctic? Perhaps somebody is aboard the ship who shouldn't be. Perhaps this peaceful moment is about to be broken. Are they in the middle of an adventure, or are they finally returning home? 

What is this ships story?

(picture lovingly taken from here) 

If you decide to write a little something, I'd love to read it :) Just leave me a link or email me. 

Wishing you all a magical week,

inspire nordic

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PS: A very happy birthday to my sweet blogging friend Dana over at The Daily Dose!

"Let's try tae bo, it's probably not as hard as it looks''

Today I learnt three important things about myself: 

1. I am the most uncoordinated human ever to live

2. I go red in the face extremely easily. Not the attractive I've-just-been-doing-some-aerobics-please-admire-my-healthy-glow sort of red, I'm talking the full on I've-just-run-six-marathons-in-a-row-please-admire-my-tomato-face sort of red. 

3. I'm not Billy Blanks' hugest fan. 

While I was living in Norway, I met extra special friend number 2 - a Romanian girl named Raluca. Raluca is super fit. She looks like she's really strong too. Overall she just looks so pretty and healthy that one day I made her tell me her secret. It was Billy Blanks' tae bo. Given that I sometimes need help picking up my shopping bags, I figured it wouldn't hurt to gain a little bit of muscle and tone. Big mistake. It did hurt, a lot. 

Don't ever think that you can keep up with this guy. He cannot be human, he must be some kind of machine. Seriously. 

Do you like to do workout DVDs? I think I prefer running around outside, but I guess this type of exercise can be pretty funny if you do it with friends!

Picture (not so) lovingly taken from here

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Bye bye Olympics

Yesterday I took the train up to London to look round a little house I might be renting in September. The house is very pretty and it's only a 5 minute walk away from Primrose Hill. However, probably because of it's location, it's very expensive, so my days will be filled with thinking until I have to make my final decision at the end of this week. 

Have any of you visited London while the Olympics have been going on? I was super impressed at how clean and pretty the whole city seemed to be. And in stark contrast to usual London life, everyone seemed happy! I met a man on Primrose hill who told me he had come all the way from Texas. When he found out I was from England he was so pleased to meet me that he shook my hand! The whole city had such a lovely atmosphere. 

I'm not the most patriotic person - as someone who is so interested in foreign languages and culture I never really spend much time paying attention to my own country, but it has been quite sweet seeing Britain showing off its traditions. I'll miss all the themed sweets and cakes especially!

Have you been following the Olympics? What was your favourite moment? I loved watching the gymnastics and the swimming. It made me happy when other countries won the gold - countries who had clearly worked extremely hard and were getting great results.

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My Oslo Anniversary

Today it is a whole year since my first day living in Oslo.

One year ago today I met one of the most important people in my life, a sweet Korean girl named Eunseong. When I first met Eunseong, it was very late in the evening and she was so tired that she rushed right off to bed. I waited and waited the next morning for her to wake up so that I could get to know her - I just knew somehow that we would become friends! 

Ever since the day I met her, Eunseong has taken care of me. As some of you know, I went through some really hard times while I was away and Eunseong was always there to comfort me, to make me tea and to talk everything through with me. I'm so thankful that we met, she has taught me so much, not only about love and growing up and relationships, but she's taught me so much about myself. She's one of those special people who bring out the very best in you and I feel so lucky to have met her. 

While I was living in Oslo I often wondered if I had made the right decision in studying there. It was hard to mix with the locals so it didn't feel like I was getting any benefit from a language point of view (the reason for the year abroad). I had a sort of break down and was at a very low point in my life. I remember telling someone that I feared looking back on my time abroad and seeing it as one gigantic waste of time, emotion and money. However, now that I have left and am in a position to look back, I see it in a much more positive light. I see Oslo as the town that gave me one of the best friends that I could ever wish for, one that has influenced my life in such a way that I feel like a stronger, happier and more balanced person than I thought possible. 

And for that I'm eternally grateful. 

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Where do you do your writing?

Do you have a cozy place where you like to do your writing? I adored my little room in Norway, especially during the winter when I could curl up at my desk with a blanket and some hot coffee and watch the snow falling while I did my work. 

Now that I've moved back to England and to a new house, I've been trying to make a new cozy little space to work from. Unfortunately my little window is too high to see out of from my desk, something that is quite important to me, but I have such a pretty little room here that it doesn't matter too much :) 

I've decided to keep the room as minimalistic as I can - light coloured walls, baby pink fabrics and all of my things stored away. It's very fresh and calm and I feel very office-y with a neat little desk and a calender (we can pretend it's not a True Blood calendar instead of a sensible one, for now) for important deadlines. And of course, the all important thick Norwegian jumper and soft, snuggly blanket for optimum coziness... 

What is your writing space like? Do you have a set place where you like to do your work? I'm not one of those people who can work just anywhere. I have to have all of my things, a large selection of stationary and plenty of tea and snacks in order to function properly :)

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Bee friends

A long time ago I found this website, which was having a campaign to save the bees. They were sending out little packs of seeds in the post, so that everybody could help out by planting bee-friendly flowers. 

As some of you may already know, we've been home-schooling my little brother ever since we moved house in May because his new school was full and he's not able to start until September. One sunny day, we decided to go outside and do some bee-friendly gardening. I had already sent off for the seeds (during the campaign you could get them for free, a really nice initiative!) so we went out with our spades and our soil and planted them in a little pot. 

It's taken a couple of months, but they've finally grown. And the nicest part was that the seeds come in mixed packs, which means you don't know what it is that you're planting. So I arrived home from Sweden yesterday evening and was very pleasantly this morning to see that we had managed to grow two of my favourite flowers: cornflowers and poppies :)

What do you think? I like these kinds of campaigns, it seems like such a sweet and gentle way to educate the little ones about our environment and to inspire them to help protect it. 

If you'd like to help too, I believe the petition is still open to be signed. Just click on the link above to learn more :)

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