outdoors

we've been enjoying the outdoors a lot more since spring arrived. the following pictures are from two different places where i live. norwegians spend a lot of their spare time outdoors, and there are nature walks everywhere. most of them quite rough and natural - quite different from these two, which are loaden with wooden figures, play stuff etc.
even though it gives us a slightly uncomfortable tourist-y feeling (my town is a popular place to visit, and one of these trails is a popular target, located 10 minutes from the centre of the city by funicular), i guess variation is a good thing.


now THAT'S a big nose... (notice the eye also)

this is 'huldra', one of the nature sprites in norwegian folklore. this particular hulder was adopted by our daughter as her 'second mummy' a couple of years ago, and if you look closely, you can see two white flowers at the feet left by her as an offering.

strange forest creatures


look closely at the trees at the other side of the bridge; they've got small faces attached to them.

i can't help it. this is my favourite... seems like someone removed the axe from his head, though.

a couple of weeks ago, spring almost turned into summer. yesterday we went back to the 'huldrepath' and enjoyed the sun, bringing jump ropes, badmington sets and bread for the birds.


hard to spot, but he's there - tiny yellow bird sitting on the stone.

cathing tadpoles

there were A LOT of them.
you know what they're called in norwegian? rumpetroll, which literally means butt trolls. yeah, i know! but there's a logic to it. in the old days, 'butt' meant 'tail' as well. so they're tail trolls. it's as silly as i find the english word for chickadees; tits.
silly.

this one's definately not silly; is there a better thing in the world than laying naked on a sheep skin and soaking sun?