A nice week

I wrote this last Tuesday but with what happened later this week, my initial euphoria about lonely expeditions has a bit diminished :(. I am posting this anyway.

We at last have gorgeous weather and yesterday I had a long walk with Happy before H. returned (late) from work. These we call my 'expeditions' when I choose to explore a new direction - and there are really endless possibilities for short to very long walks around our place here. H. lives in a large residential area, there are only a few taller buildings around the "center" which includes the church, one supermarket, pharmacy, a newly opened vet clinic, a small pizza place, a minuscule pub and maybe two-three little business more, all grouped together. Otherwise this is a *very* large area of individual houses spread on hills, forests and fields (the older farms). H. always stressed out to me how lucky he is that his house is so close to the train station. Actually the house was built in the 20-ties (I think) by his grand-parents. An old photograph in the hall shows an isolated house in the fields and far away, the old local farm. Well, things sure have changed here. H. walked 1,5 km one way to school each day. Now there are more kindergartens around than I can count. Local kids are lucky. If I had kids, I would love to have them go to a kindergaten in a semi-wooded environment like the one close to us. In the eighties, the field in front of the house was colonized with houses as well. I am sure this urban development can't be nice to people who once lived in a totally green place, but I guess that's how the world is nowadays. And also in the eighties, another train stop was built very close to our house. It only takes 2-3 minutes to get there and we can see the train (the local train stops every 1/2 h) but we do not hear it. And we are just about 15-20 minutes from the center of Oslo. There are 13000 inhabitants in our area which Wikipedia calls a village and adds that it has only developed like this in the 80ties, which I already wrote :).

Here are some photos from my today's walk with Happy. This is a very old path close to home, not much used. I crossed the railway a couple of times, under or on a bridge.

A creek in the forest where I also found ruins of an old mill (this is a historical path) from the 18th century in the water.

Then I reached the lake (one of the two closest to home, this one is maybe a 10 minutes walk from the door). You can see in the picture a small white infrastructure to go down to the water. Contrary to Poland, Norway does not have sand beaches, so even to go bathing in fjords, they put some "stairs" for people.
The full lake, not very big:

I haven't seen many black sheep in my life:

I absolutely adored this house. Later H. told me he went to school with a girl who lived there and that it's now owned by her brother. There was a person inside looking at me so I shyed out and hid behind the barn to just make a photo of the upper part.

In the evening I made one of my favorite 'diet' salads:

- 100 ml of tomato juice,
- 1/2 tsp of olive oil,
- 1 tsp of red wine vinegar,
- hot pepper sauce to taste,
- a pinch of paprika,
- 60 g of pasta (uncooked weight),
- half a tablespoon of pumpkin seeds
- 60 g of sweetcorn
- 1/2 a green pepper and 1/2 a red pepper,
- 90 g of roast/grilled chicken
- 1 spring onion,
- a tablespoon of chopped fresh coriander

Combine the tomato juice, olive oil, vinegar, pepper sauce and paprika and put aside. Prepare the pasta without fat or salt. Mix with the tomato juice mix. Put in the fridge for around 2 hours. Mix the other ingredients with the pasta and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Happy was just.... HAPPY!

And later on he slept in a somehow weird position, but we are used to it :)