Just a quickie!

Just before I leave....It snowed in Elverum today!

A November Stroll

My boyfriend and I went on a 2 hour walk this morning, I've been looking forward to it all week!  We decided to go through the museum grounds then circle back to our apartment, it was a lovely walk, it was lovely for the two of us to spend some quality time together too.  The scenery was amazing.

Elverum is really starting to look all wintery now, we've definitely entered a winter wonderland.  It was nice to just nice to be able to breath without any worries, just the two of us.

When the sun started to come out, Elverum really started to look magical as the sun shined on all of the frost covering every surface possible.

You may have noticed that the background to my blog has been changed to the theme of London!  This is because on Saturday, my boyfriend and I shall be heading back to England for my graduation, we shall be staying there for the week, I'm so excited!  Very nervous about my actual graduation though, and i'm starting to panic with all of the stress of packing and having to be at certain places at certain times, stress!  I'm sure I shall be fine though and everything shall go well.  So if you don't hear from me for a while, it's because i'm in England!  Speak soon!

I take that back...

So...what I said yesterday about Elverum escaping the Winter Wonderland?  Mother Nature must have heard me, we woke up to a white Elverum this morning (Covered in frost, not snow...might I add...) This was the view from our window all day.

An Unknown Journey

On the weekend, Thomas and I took a trip to Osen to visit his Grandparents.  This time however, we used my Sat Nav that I have brought over with me from England.  We've not had the chance to try it in Norway before so we thought it best to use it then seeing as, if we do get taken away from our usual route, we'll most likely still know where we are!

It was a chilly but sunny day, like many of the days we are having currently.  We plugged in the Sat Nav and the route took us nearly up to Trysil, then round Osensjøen (Osen Lake) The opposite side to where we usually come from.  We decided to still go for this route as neither of us had never travelled the opposite side of the lake before.

As soon as we had left Elverum (which has seen no signs of Winter as of yet), the trees all of a sudden started turning white, and there was a light frost on the ground, the type of things we should be seeing at this time of year!  The journey was so beautiful.  However, as we reached Osensjøen, the sun had obviously been out for quite a while, as the frost suddenly disappeared.

Then suddenly...we were thrown right back into the beginning of winter, and not only that...but we were also expected by my Sat Nav, to travel on what seemed a dirt track for the last 30 minutes of our journey!  Both Thomas and I were dreading what our car may look like after this trip, stones were flying up from everywhere, even though we had slowed right down!

The track went on and on...

For what seemed like forever!

Then finally, we reached Osen, goodbye dirt track, hello the frozen side of Osensjøen!

The scenery was absolutely beautiful.  I was slightly jealous however, of how Osen looked like some type of winter wonderland, when Elverum wasn't even showing any signs of starting winter anytime soon.  Everything looked beautiful!

We had a lovely day with his Grandparents, we both arrived home that evening, safe, well, and well fed!  A trip to Osen is always worthwhile!  We shall not however, be taking the advice of my Sat Nav ever again if it tells us to drive round Osensjøen the eastern side! 

I was due to go out for a mini trip in Elverum today to show you some more pictures, however something came up so i'm hoping to go out tomorrow, if not, definitely Thursday!  Keep your eyes peeled.

Rememberance Day

Tomorrow is the 11th November.  This means that it is the day that we all remember those who were killed during the First World War, this is due to Germany signing the treaty in Berlin to mark the end of the war on the 11th November 1918, at 11am.  So now we all take a minutes silence at 11am, on the 11th of November.  Today however, we also use this date to remember those who were killed in the Second World War, and all those that followed.

This has been the tradition in the United Kingdom for many years, and will be for years to come.  I feel so guilty that I haven't been able to wear a poppy this year, so my tribute is to change the background of my blog to Poppy's instead.  I will also be watching the ceremony online tomorrow morning, live from the Cenotaph in London.

Thank you, R.I.P.

Four Words...

...Where is the snow?

Nothing beats a delicious Roast Dinner.

I've missed roast dinners for so long, they're one of my favourite meals!  So today I decided to cook one, which meant I cooked Roast Potatoes from scratch for the very first time as they don't sell them in Norway!  I must say, they were delicious, I can't believe how well they turned out for my first try, they're easy peasy!  I also attempted to cook some honey roasted carrots but they didn't turn out so well, I think I used too much honey, better luck next time!  I could eat a whole tray of those Roast Potatoes...

We had Roast Chicken by the way... its just missing the Yorkshire Pudding!

Hurray for Winter Tyres!

Today, Thomas and I managed to have our winter tyres fitted correctly!  We found out that they couldn't be fitted correctly before because you have to actually change the bolts too.  So with the help of Thomas's Dad, we are now prepared for the winter - bring it on!

Funnily enough though....we have a bit of strange weather happening at the moment.  It is now November...there is no snow....what's going on Norway?!  The snow normally starts to arrive within the last couple of weeks of October, this is so strange!  Its probably because i'm here or something, the English girl has jinxed Norway.  I have jinxed it with my pure excitement to experience winter in Norway in its full form.  I feel like a little girl again, waiting, hoping, wishing for the snow to arrive!  Yes i'm 22 in a month.

Today was also the first time that I have made something called Kjøttkaker!  Literally translated as Meatcakes.  They are delicious!  Thomas's Grandma kindly gave me the meat I needed to make the meatcakes and gave me a few instructions on how to make them, easy peasy!  The only mistake I made was to use flour to 'mold' them together, apparently you can simply use water.  So because I used flour there are a few brown marks on the cakes, but apart from that, they tasted just as they should, delicious!  I am so impressed with myself that I served a Norwegian meal!  I even served the meal with Flat bread and Ripsgele (a type of jelly you serve with hot food, especially delicious on potatoes)  The meal even had approval from Thomas!

This is Norwegian Flat Bread, typically used as a side with hot meals, it is thin and crispy in texture, quite plain in taste, but very delicious with hot meals.

I'm not quite sure that Thomas and I have much planned for the next few days, hopefully we can have a relaxing weekend!  I shall keep you posted.

Belated Happy Halloween!

Apologies that I haven't written for a few days, i've been quite busy!  What with visiting Thomas's family on the weekend and then preparing for Halloween all of yesterday, i've been little busy bee! 

Yesterday I had planned to make some muffins and a cake with a punch so that Thomas and I could have a mini Halloween party to ourselves.  I made a fruit cake with chocolate icing, with a spider web decoration iced on top.  This was my first time at decorating so the spider web didn't look too great, it was more of a square!

Next I had planned to make some chocolate muffins with a buttercream icing on top with a green spider web decoration.  However, I was left with way too much batter after I had filled all of my muffin cases, so I decided to use the left over batter to make another cake.  So that left me with 2 cakes and 12 muffins!  Just for 2 people!  It was getting rather late by the time I was able to ice the muffins, disaster struck.  The butter cream icing wouldn't set!  Which meant that the muffins now looked awful, tasted amazing, but looked awful! It also meant that the spider web decoration wouldn't really stick to the butter cream.  So I decided to use my green decoration icing to decorate the spare chocolate cake instead.  I was too tired by this point to put a spider web on the green cake, even though a simple white web would have looked really good on top.

It had reached midnight by the time I had finished baking and making the Spiced Autumn Punch.  Despite being tired and worn out from all of the hard work I had created myself, everything tasted delicious!  There's definitely one thing that me and Thomas can be sure of for a while....we're stocked up on cake!!