Last Christmas at the open air museum

I guess Father Christmas's reindeer had a cold -
he was feeling a little horse, at least. 

Here's the cosy museum shop with plenty of ideas for good quality presents from the past. 

The sails were on at the mill, which was open by chance.
Check out the website to find out exactly when the mills are open at

 www.natmus.dk/museerne/frilandsmuseet

It would have been nice if that link had been blue 

but I guess the nissers (Danish Christmas goblins that play tricks) 

have been up to mischief.

A nice view is waiting at the top.

Oops here's the nice view.

And inside, you can see how different types of wood are used for
 the teeth, wheels and central treetrunk around which the mill turns
to make the most of the wind direction.

It was really impressive to see how flour was made all those years ago.

It was also interesting to think that mel in Danish = 'flour' in English
but we have 'wholemeal bread' in English too.

There were lots of houses to explore and big barns where
you could enjoy food and drink. But they were full of people who
might not want to be on a blog. So I've only used photos
without close-ups on faces except for these lovely ladies who
might well be serving again this year. 

Yummy!

Jake warmed up with a meatball and bread...

...before polishing off a traditional pork sandwich with all the trimmings.
Well not all the trimmings because there were hearts and nissers all over the place!
This is Denmark after all!

We'll be back this year for seconds!

Hedgehogs in our own back yard!

You won't see many photos of me on this blog.
But here's a very happy exception!

Watson and Jakob found not one but two baby hedgehogs sniffing about
 in our garden and called me out to see. I didn't have time to put shoes on.

Run snail run!

Jake took photos and we fed them with kitten food.
They must have come for the water I put out in a bowl every night.

Then they trotted back off into the hedge. And Jake went back to bed.
AMAZING!

Potty time at the open air museum

This is cheating a bit but I'll pass it off as a good way to learn some Danish
- if you can zoom in close enough.
This is just one of the MANY old houses at the open air museum.
But these photos will give you an idea of what to look forward to
on this huge site, where admission is free.

All the potter's tools are on display

Neatly lined up.

Ouch - also at head height. Though judging by the height of some of the doorways,
Danes may just have been related to hobbits.

Imagine the potter sitting with his back against the wall,
treadling like mad with his feet (if there's such a word)
so the base goes round as he's shaping the lump of clay
 on the top. I guess that's how it works, anyway.
I'd be no good at that because I can't even rub my tummy while patting my head!   

Here's the kiln where the pots were fired.

And here are some more pretty pots. Is that a pig's head hanging on the wall?

This photo has nothing to do with the museum, but Dr Watson has just had his whiskers trimmed.
Hold on, Watson...is that a packet of crisps?

Make a cute mouse egg cosy

These are the cutest egg cosies I've ever seen and you can 
buy them at the Open Air Museum in Lyngby, which is well worth a visit.

If you live on another continent, or fancy a couple of hours sewing, you can follow
 in our footsteps and have a shot at sewing something similar. 

Cut out a shape roughly like this. Mice are all different sizes -
they just nibble their mouseholes a bit bigger to fit,
so exact measurements are not a problem ;o)
Just make sure that the lower edge of the fleece is long enough to go right
round the fattest part of the egg cup and leave a bit for a seam down the side.

This is what ours looked like. Fleece is great because you don't need to
hem edges, it's stretchy but firm to sew and you can trim ears as you go along. Eeek,

This is the point when Jake took the raw egg we were using as a pattern and
tried to demonstrate some law of physics he'd seen in a video.
That's why the table is shiny wet and I had to wipe down my machine.
In his defence, yes, I believe raw eggs are strong if you push top to bottom
but NOT if you squeeze them round the middle! Yuck! 

Now that's all cleared up, back to the mouse. Sew a seam
down one side and across the other shoulder.
Fold the nose back, as shown, and sew the two sides.
 Trim the ears rounder, see above. 

You can see the lines where the stitching are better in this photo.
One shoulder poked out more than the other, so we ended up running a
 seam of stiching down that side too at the end to even things out.

Now take a deep breath Mr Mouse as we turn the nose inside out
and then tuck it into the neck hole. 

Push it right down until the whole nose is inside the body
with the edges meeting at the top of the neckhole.
(Like you do when sewing a sleeve into a shirt).

There will be pleats/bunched up bits but that will all be under his chin, and most
 of us have a few spare chins tucked away under there. I stitched this by hand as it was a bit fiddly.

In the very foreground of the picture above, you can see what will
be the top of the head and the ears each side.
DON'T SEW THESE BITS TOGETHER YET! 

Now turn the mouse the right way out by pushing the nose right into the body
and pulling the body down until the seams are hidden inside.
Now push the ears through the holes and run a line of stitching around the base of one ear,
around the back of the neck and around the base of the other ear (see above).
When you gather this stitching slightly, it will shape the head and ears.  

Now we sewed on button eyes and a popper-stud nose.
Then Jake stuffed the head with offcuts of fleece
and other grey matter to pad out the head.
Brainy.

Jake thought this photo was really blurred...

So he took this much better one instead. Complete with whiskers and a smile.

The perfect dipper eggs take 5 minutes exactly from when the eggs are lowered gently
into the bubbly water - by a grown up.

HAVE FUN!

This little piggy at the Open Air Museum

Through this gateway lies a fairytale land of old houses to explore - each one carefully taken apart brick-by-brick and rebuilt at this Open Air Museum just outside Lyngby. 

For this expedition, I had to enrol the help of Anika and Toran Brown - and a couple of friendly horses -
for photos, because Jake was back at school and the deadline was looming.
If you look very hard, you can see one of my big brothers, Alex, with a beard standing at the back of the cart but his wife Clare is tucked out of sight. 

As soon as the driver got aboard, it was giddy up and we set off on a lovely horse-and-cart ride around the
enchanting site set in 12 acres of land to see what it had to offer. 

We passed quite a few of the over 100 quaint old houses...

...which had windows I want to paint (on canvas).

And when our tour by horse and cart was over, I walked back to try and find the sneaky pig I christened Trixie
whose phantom pregnancy had ensured her a cushy number in hog heaven.
I poked my head inside some houses to see the tools and baby equipment on display from centuries ago.

Handles at both end? For mum and dad, I guess - see who can push the strongest?

Many of the houses had notices like this one outside explaining who had
lived there and what they did for a living.

The horses passed me again and the driver smiled and said, yes, I was on the right road
to find the HUGE pig I'd seen from the cart earlier.

First I found a this little piggy in the market for some grub,

Then this little piggy who stayed home.
One spotty piggy who had roast beef
 and another dotty piggy who had none

Then finally I found this GIGANTIC HAPPY PIGGY who went grunt grunt grunt but
couldn't be bothered to even get up let alone run wee wee all the way home!

Even though home was just over there.

Luckily on the way back I passed the waterfall where just minutes before a
 whole horde of children had been playing so I'm not
contravening any privacy laws with this photo. It DID look fun.

AND OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS

We'll be posting more photos of the houses, animals and shop where we bought these cute egg cosies.

This weekend, we'll be making our own egg cosies out of some grey fleece that was once
intended to be an elephant costume for the Danish Faste Lavn celebrations
many years ago.
It's up in the loft. Probably hidden away in a trunk somewhere ;o)

so WATCH THIS SPACE!