Fall is here, I watch it from my window, sneaking in, every day more present than the day before. I bought some new socks to match my outfits, I´m taking my shoes to the shoemaker for new soles, looking for a good sweater and for rubber boots, too. On sunny days I´m picking branches of white berries to decorate the house and apples from the neighbourhood trees to make jam out of. 
Author: ghetran
Pretty things I fancy
Fall is here and I´m getting cosy in our apartment again, digging up the wool blankets, lighting candles and making soup. I´m starting dinner early these days, a glass of red wine in my hand, and let the flavours work their magic as long as they need to- soups, curries and baked veggies all the way. Yesterday I even made some apple jam from fallen apples in the neighbourhood, I´ll be sure to post the recipe in a couple of days´ time.
Since most time is spent indoors nowadays, I feel the need to renew this and that while I dream about exotic holidays and good books. So I made a short list of the most beautiful things I´ve seen in stores lately! 
Matstreif
Saturday we had a food festival in town- Matstreif. I had a coffee date with a couple of friends, but I was running late since I couldn´t take Sam with me (he tends to get a bit annoyed around big crowds) and so I ended up checking out the happening on my own. The amount of people was insane! The moment I climbed down from the bus I felt like taking one in the opposite direction straight away. But I was there with a purpose- I wanted some cheese, a new cook book and a svele (the fantastic Norwegian pancake!), so I couldn´t leave until I´d got what I´d come for. 😉 
Saturday thoughts
This week has been a good one, both professionally and weather-wise. Sommer returned for a couple of days and brought a smile upon everybody´s face and a strong desire to live. We went to the Botanical Garden, had lunch and coffee breaks outdoors and a picnic in the park. Unfortunately V was stuck by a needle, so we ended up at the Emergency Room yesterday evening, to take a blood test. I tried to comfort him while he had a rant about drug addicts and how they ruin a perfectly good park where lots of children play all the time. The rest is not suitable for a public blog. We were advised not to dramatise the situation, since only an infinitesimal amount of people end up being infected. But it´s a horrible situation to be in none the less.
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Nodee
If you’re in Oslo during summer, you have to dine at Nodee! They have a lovely terrace, amazing Asian food and heating lamps, too! We took my mother and aunt there a couple of weeks ago to celebrate their getaway from work, a demanding grandchild and duties in general. And they loved it to bits!
Baked figs with brie and honey
Hi, peeps! How´s it going? We´ve been “suicidal” for a couple of days on account of the heavy rain, but now we´ve pulled ourselves together, the sun is out and the weekend is here. Summer is gone though, no doubt about it. And even though I love fall, I prefer it in the mother country, where the temperature is usually 25 and the quinces start ripening.
Nothing to do about it, though. Norway is my adoptive country and I need to make the evenings cosy so I can stand the cold during the day. The other day I invited some interpreter colleagues over for some wine, gossip and a bite. We were two Romanians, a Russian and a Tamil. Plus my Vietnamese husband. It was a lovely evening, we shared frustrations and stories, we laughed until our stomach hurt and we ate a lot of goodies.
This one was my favourite- baked figs with brie, drizzled with honey afterwards. 10 minutes in the oven and voilà, you have something impressive to serve as an appetiser or dessert.
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La Factory Provence
A couple of months ago I was the lucky winner of a 2000 DKK voucher from La Factory Provence through a giveaway hosted by my fellow blogger from Denmark, Nanna. I couldn´t believe it when I saw the mail, I hardly ever win anything and besides this was a Danish store, so I immediately thought about the cost of transport, customs and so on. It´s an online store that focuses on industrial and vintage furniture, right up our alley! I sat down with V one evening and we picked what appealed to us most (and what we have most of in this house, too!)- chairs! Surprised? haha! 😉
Marianne was wonderful, she helped me with the shipping, answered all my questions and yesterday I got the second chair, too! Somehow they´d been separated on their way and I didn´t receive them together. So happy with them! Take a look!
Tourist for a weekend
Missed me yet? 😉 I have a good excuse for staying away: mom and auntie visited for 5 days last week, so I was busy busy. Between work, sightseeing and eating out, I had no time left on my hands, not even to draw my breath, let alone blog. 😉 But let me tell you about the fun we had together!
On Thursday the weather was frightful and I had to work (I was actually a bit glad I didn´t have to pretend not minding the rain!), so they did some sightseeing on their own and came home wet and cold. In the evening my mom felt unwell (she was tired and had eaten some mussel soup that didn´t agree with her), so I took auntie and Sam out for a walk to the Opera house and we enjoyed the stormy sky with a glass of champagne in our hand.
Wish list for a neat home
When it comes to a more zen type of house, we´re making progress! We hardly bought anything this year, in fact we only dragged a retro tricycle in, replaced the couch (with a retro/used one), purchased a String shelf (like the one in image 2) and a shoe shelf from Normann Copenhagen. Oh, and won a 220€ voucher at Lafactory, a cool Danish furniture shop, where we chose this chair and this chair. Haha! Doesn´t sound like nothing, hm? But for us it is! We´re usually hopeless when it comes to over-stuffing our home!
But we´re getting there! We only need a couple of more storage elements and 30-40 m2 more! 😉 Here are my most wanted things:
- Trolley
Pumpkin soup
I bought a big slice of pumpkin the other day and thought I´d make a pumpkin soup out of it for a chilli evening. But summer has returned, although only for a couple of weeks, so no chilly evenings, yet. Nothing a bottle of Prosecco can´t fix, however, the soup went fine along with the bubbles. I didn´t have all the ingredients listed below in the house, so my soup was a “cheaper” version than the one presented here. 😉 I hope you´ll give it a try none the less! 😉
life in a bubble 
