Two views from the cabin

A little lowly Hermitage it was,
Downe in a dale, hard by a forests side
- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (Booke 1, Canto 1)



This weekend I've been spending some time in the old family cabin, something I always look forward to when I return home from a prolonged stay abroad. With some provisions and a book I moved in yesterday afternoon and came back today about 25 hours later, having enjoyed the weather yesterday that permitted me to take a few short excursions into the woods and along the river, and also the weather today that forced me to stay inside with a roaring fire in the stove and the sound of rain hammering on the roof. It is an old structure which used to serve as the sleeping quarters - similar to a Scottish shieling - for the milkmaids who stayed with the cows of our farm all summer to milk them. In the 1950s, the cabin received its present shape and position when it was moved and expanded with a kitchen and a bedroom. These cabins are common in Norway as most farms had their own, and at the very least were co-owners of one together with some neighbours. Now, however, there is no longer any need for milkmaids, and we do no longer have dairy cows on our farm. Consequently, the cabin has become a little refuge to which we retreat when we want to take a break and feel less involved in the world, quite like a little hermitage.