Vacation. Icecream, camping and carving.

I am currently spending some really good time celebrating my vacation, as usual in Norway. I had planned on doing a lot of carving but it just has not really happened yet. I have been busy doing many lovely things though. The country in summer is so nice. There are loads and loads of wild berries on the bushes, and the fjords are bursting with fish. We have therefore done loads of berry picking and a bit of fishing. We have had fun processing the berries into icecreams, and into syrups. Raspberry-Yoghurt icecream is a great thing.

We have not only been making raspberry-icecream, but have been playing around with many flavours since we picked up a nice little machine.

Besides spending time on good foods, we have also been hiking and swimming quite a bit. It has been excellent weather here. On one hike my girlfriend Maren and me came across a lovely place with a bit of field next to a stream that ran out into the fjord. I resolved to go back there to test a tent that we bought in a sale. A McKinley Vega for €30,-. I could not not buy it. It will serve very nicely while my actual tent and most of my camping gear is in the Netherlands. A trip report of my camping trip can be found here. Since Maren is working this week, it was my first ever solo-camping trip, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. It is awfully nice to spend a night next to a fire, sipping tea and watching the tide go in and the sun go down.

Of course I have not been completely idle on the carving-front. While being here I managed to get enough time set apart to carve a simple noggin/kuksa in birch. It has been made over several days, carving a bit whenever I had time. I am not entirely pleased with the rim, but I will leave it like this until it is dry and I can carve it more safely without the fibers tearing out. It is now sitting in a paperbag with some green wood shavings to slowly dry.