Easter in Volda
For once we are doing the stay-at-home thing for Easter. The family doesn't complain, we have always been travelling at any opportunity, and have crossed the southern part of the country over and over again to visit parents, aunts, sisters and the one brother. Before the kids were born we did this for the sake of our parents. Afterwards we did it to give the children a chance to know their many loving aunts, to make them feel at home in different cultures and even different countries. So what I have now is two socially very intelligent and relaxed teen-agers, who prefer to stay at home, lounge on the terrace, do dishes and help out rather than make the effort to go anywhere. To them staying at home is a luxury they enjoy, not a restraint or something they have been forced into.

But yesterday I did force them to do something. I made them walk up on Helgehornet, a small mountain almost in Volda, in order to enjoy the wonderful view west towards the islands and the ocean. Today they have a new layer of freckles and a pair of happy grins while I am sore and grumpy... which of course makes them feel even happier, more fit and ready to take over the world. The house smells of cocoa, which I made for breakfast, because spring, eggs and cocoa, melting snow and the scent of growing things mingled with sunscreen is all tangled in my memories of once-upon-a-time before growing up was forced on me by life, and I want to pass on the careless invincible promise of spring to my children while they can still identify with it and make it their own.