Without the Camera

 
Original source of picture unknown.

This is how stressed I’ve been this week: Not only  do I have very little idea of what’s been going on in the Blog World (my usual little corner of it), but on Wednesday I forgot to bring the camera! (Perhaps just as well.)

Harry-the-dog also spent most of the day just lying under a table and giving us gloomy looks. 

Wednesday was the day we moved “things” from dad’s old house to his new room/ flat at the assisted living/nursing home place.

There’s so much I cannot do, that there’s no use trying to compare myself to “anyone else”. But what I did do (pack and unpack a lot of “little” things like clothes and sheets and towels and ornaments and photos etc) still meant at least five times the intensity of a normal day for me. Which does not come unpunished.

Some of the “moves” my brother did on the same day I did not dare watch even without camera...

However, no major accidents occurred, and we did not (I think) forget anything really important, and “things” are now in place for when Dad moves in next week.

Something Birthday to Us

 

 

29 August, 1931, a little baby boy was born. My dad.

Exactly 24 years later, a little baby girl was born. Me. (Held by my grandmother in the picture.)

It’s not always a barrel of laughs sharing your birthday with another family member. Growing up, I very rarely got to have a birthday party “of my own”, with friends. (For relatives, the “two for one” was probably practical.) In my 20s and 30s, when I did not live in the same town as my parents, I made up for it with quite a few birthday parties with friends, no family (the family celebrations often held either before or after the actual day). At 40 I had my only really big party (about 40 people), including both family and friends. At 50, I went away to celebrate with a few old friends.

Had circumstances been different, I might have tried to make a bit more of turning 55 - also being born in 1955.

Circumstances being what they are, however…

First I allowed myself a very lazy morning. I did not get up (properly) until noon! This was not really because I felt all miserable, but spoiling myself.

Then I went out and bought myself a big bouquet of flowers and enjoyed that while I ate my lunch (which in itself was not all that special).

Then I split the bouquet in half, and in the mid afternoon took one half of it with me on a 45 min bus tour across town, to “celebrate” for an hour with dad at the short-stay nursing home (and then another bus ride home again).

I asked dad if he remembered what day it was. He said yes, but did not elaborate. (I’m not sure, I think the staff might have talked to him about it after I phoned earlier in the day.)

Anyway I suppose it was good I went to see him even if neither of us was exactly in happy birthday mood.

I tried to tell dad briefly about the moving plans, even brought him a couple of pictures of his new place. He again said “yes” but again I’m not sure how much he really takes in. Don’t know how much help photographs are either. Most of the time he sat staring out of the window. I don’t think his eyesight is very good either now. Or perhaps it is mine that isn’t! The thing is that while I see the black roof of the next building in front of some green treetops, dad seems to be seeing a lake. And of course that is really a much better view than mine! It’s just one of those reality clashes that is difficult to handle in conversation “right there and then”…

Going home on the bus, the pictures in my first photo album came to mind. Mum put the baby photo of dad in there for comparison. I’m not sure whether they took the photo of me deliberately in that position, with the old photo in mind, or if it just “happened” that way. My paternal grandfather was a good photographer (and journalist at the local newspaper).

Not to leave you with too sad an impression of my not-exactly-happy birthday, I should probably mention that five birthday cards and one parcel arrived for me before the weekend; and some phone calls have been dropping in as well. One friend even singing to me on the phone! So I’m not really feeling “forgotten”. Just too tired for partying.

For the times they are a’changin’…*

From the patio outside the “assisted living” place my dad will be moving to – shortly. Exactly how shortly is still not 100% clear, which is causing us some trouble.

We have to wait for redecoration to be finished before any stuff can be moved in, and stuff has to be moved in before dad can be moved in… Well.

 

When all is in place, including dad, I expect it will be as good as can be, when life is no longer as good as it was, and help is needed with things you hoped you would never in your life need help with. Still a place to call your own (with some old things to hopefully remind you of who you are), right inside a bigger home (unit for 8), right inside an even bigger home (complex containing a whole range of similar units with different levels of care), right in the centre of a village you know better than any other place. Or at least used to.

Most likely I won’t be around in Blogland as much as usual over the next couple of weeks, because what little energy I have will be required elsewhere.

The weather is not being very helpful. It does not show on the picture above, but going out to the village by bus yesterday (which takes me just over an hour at best, and often an hour and a half, one way), I also had to fight storm winds and torrential rain showers.

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
* For the times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan

A Moving Situation

When I entered my email account today, an ad turned up at the top of the page, insisting that “Moving is the best medicine”...

My spontaneous reaction: “I don’t think so!!!”

Well. Related to exercise and arthritis (as the ad was) the statement probably does have some relevance. I’m not going to argue with that. (Not today, anyway.)

What is on top of my mind, is all the preparations for moving dad to a new home. Hopefully in the end it is the best possible solution (even if no cure) but just now it involves a lot of stress, tension and headaches for my brother and me, trying to sort out the details.

One of the details is that we still haven’t got the exact date. Today at least I found out that the reason for this is that the new place is going to be redecorated, which of course in itself is a good thing. Even when you are no longer able to take much notice of your surroundings, I think it must give a better feeling to move into a fresh and clean place than a shabby-looking one.

But not to be able to set a date for the whole moving apparatus certainly does not alleviate the general feeling of stress…

Hopefully I’ll be able to go and have a peek at the place next Wednesday; when it should be empty, waiting for the painters. Just to get a feeling of the size and shape of the room/flat – and some more info from the staff.

…

The pictures? Just some from the last month which I haven’t had any other use for yet… ;) That car in the last picture just rushed by in the street one day and I hardly had time to get the camera out of the bag. The photo was blurry - because the car was moving! - so I tried all sorts of editing to it, including blurring the edges a bit too and just keeping the colour on the most colourful parts of the odd-looking vehicle... (In case it is too blurry for you to see, it has no hood over the engine, but that is one clean-and-shiny-looking engine!)

The Long Road (Wonderland II)

♫ Gee but it's great to be back home,
Home is where I want to be.
I've been on the road so long my friend,
And if you came along
I know you couldn't disagree. ♫
---
♫ And I'm sooo tired,
I'm oh oh oh so tired… ♫
---
Paul Simon, Keep the Customer Satisfied

There really is a Paul Simon quote for every occasion.
Well, at least if you twist it just a little bit out of context ;) …

---

No, this is not where I live. And I’m grateful.

I decided to take a walk through this residential area after having been to visit my dad in the short-stay nursing home where he has now spent a month. (A month?!) (The nursing home is not quite in this area either, but close to it.)

It was probably almost 20 years since I last walked this way. Back then, I had friends living there. I realized as I walked there now that I had forgotten quite how large that whole suburb part of town really is. And how much everything looks alike. (From the main road passing by one really does not see half of it.)

 
Suburb watercolour painting by Lars Lerin

The long walk, however, is not really why I felt “oh oh oh so tired” when I got back. (I did not walk the whole way home, I took the bus part of the way.)

The reason I was at the nursing home was a meeting with a lot of people to discuss the future living arrangements for my dad. The lot of people included at least three from the nursing home + the municipality assistance evaluator + district nurse + me + dad.

All very nice people, I’m sure, but considering that dad sort of lives in his own Wonderland these days (i.e. a place where normal rules do not quite apply) I was not sure how he might react to the idea of not returning home to live but being sent somewhere else.

I’m still not sure. He did not protest but I’m also not really sure how much of it he took in.

The result of the meeting was that he will remain at the short-stay place for another month. In September there will hopefully be a place at a nursing home unit for elderly people with dementia in the village where he grew up and then also lived the past 18 years.

There is one Crux though. For mysterious reasons there still seems to be a lack of formal “evidence” that he in fact suffers from dementia. (Without which he cannot be offered a place at that unit.) Even though everyone in that room knew it to be so, they said there was no official record of where the diagnosis came from. (Although I do know where it comes from, and I’ve told a lot of people that along the way.)

It also seems no one during all this time has thought of doing a certain test that is commonly used to prove it (MMSE = mini mental state examination – I know the gist of it since the years I worked as a medical secretary). Apparently this test has to be done by a specialist nurse to be valid. And the specialist nurse is (of course) on vacation just now. So they’ll try to find another specialist nurse to do it as soon as possible.

 

In the meantime, while the evaluator asked dad questions like if he himself thought that he would be able to go back home to live – and dad answered that he’d like to think that he could… (actually with sort of a glimpse of his old self shining through in a bit of irony) … I decided to instead ask him (in the presence of the whole lot of people) if he could tell them where exactly it was that he had been living before he had to go into the hospital five weeks ago? He could not. He named a completely different village where he has never lived. (And he does not remember the going into hospital part either.)

It really is “oh oh oh” so difficult to try and understand which paths he’s walking in his mind.

Earlier, before the whole lot of people arrived, he asked me if I had any contact with --- these days. A name I did not recognize at all. When I did not understand, he added: “You know. Your mum.” (The name he mentioned started with the same initial as mum’s, but that’s all.) And then, with sudden hesitation: “Or is she still alive…”

And I had to tell him again, that no… So sorry, but mum died last year. Also tried to remind him of the fact that it was he himself who used his security alarm to call for help when she had a stroke one evening at home, but that she died shortly after arriving in hospital. I guess to him… having a very fuzzy memory indeed now of the past few years… it must seem that she just sort of disappeared… Perhaps gradually. Like the Chesire cat.

That, and more, is why I felt ”sooo tired - oh oh oh so tired” - when I got back home to my own home (which luckily does not feel as gloomy to me as that residential area in pictures above).

Before I allowed myself to lie down and rest, though, I decided to dig through a pile of papers in search of one I knew must be there, somewhere... I found it. The Evidence. A copy of dad’s release form from two weeks evaluation at the Neurology ward two years ago. It clearly states one of his diagnoses back then to be beginning vascular dementia. (What was beginning then, has grown since.) I phoned the district nurse, and I’m sending her a copy of it.

♦ ♣ ♥ ♠

"What do you know about this business?" the King said to Alice.

"Nothing," said Alice.

"Nothing whatever?" persisted the King.

"Nothing whatever," said Alice.

"That's very important," the King said, turning to the jury. They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when the White Rabbit interrupted: "Unimportant, your Majesty means, of course," he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and making faces at him as he spoke.

"Unimportant, of course, I meant," the King hastily said, and went on to himself in an undertone, "important -- unimportant -- important -- -" as if he were trying which word sounded best.

Some of the jury wrote it down "important," and some "unimportant." Alice could see this, as she was near enough to look over their slates; "but doesn't matter a bit," she thought to herself.

At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his note-book, called out "Silence!" and read out from his book, "Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court."

Everybody looked at Alice.

Alice in Wonderland Ch 12 – Alice's Evidence

Unpredictable

The weather forecasts for Tuesday predicted thunder and lightning and torrential rain and floods and all kinds of disaster to fall upon us in the afternoon. The morning papers even had big black headlines telling people to stay in if they could….

Pfft… Again, a few drops of rain was all that came. Not even much wind involved. There was a certain drop in temperature though. So there probably was thunder somewhere in our oblong country. But not here.

Yesterday by noon the sun was blazing and doing its best to heat things up again.

Dad was moved from the hospital to a short-stay nursing home on Monday, and my brother is staying at the house (in the countryside) for a few days. Yesterday we both went to see dad and to talk to staff at the nursing home. Seemed as good as can be expected from a short-stay place and dad seemed to be “accepting” the situation as well, even though having no real concept of where he was. He was able to answer some questions about himself from the past quite adequately though. It’s when we get to the last few years that it gets confused.

Afterwards my brother and I went into town for lunch – at the restaurant in the background of this picture. (I’ve blogged photos of it before – it’s the one with the outdoors chrystal chadeliers.)

In spite of frequent visits to this town and neighbourhood all through his life (we did not grow up here, but our grandparents lived here, later I came to live here, and our parents moved back when dad retired), my brother has spent very little time on foot in the actual town centre. I thought it was about time for a bit of an update! So we parked on the other side of the park and walked across to the restaurant. I love walking through the park, it’s one of my favourite places.

Flowerbeds being watered in the park. 

Today again it seems we’re in for a bit of more unpredictable weather. (Thunder?) Planning to spend most of the day at dad’s house so better get a move on…

Still Hot

Photo from last year (town park).

We’re still having afternoon temperatures a bit over 30C /~90F in the shadow.  Indoors in my flat now 27C/ 80F.

Towards evening yesterday there was some thunder passing by, but at some distance – only a few drops of rain here. Today’s morning paper however told me that the fire brigade had a busy afternoon yesterday, with no less than nine fires started by lightning in the area.

Ginny asked about air conditioning. That’s not standard in the average private home here. For the most part of the year we are a lot more concerned about keeping warm than keeping cool...!

I have two fans going to circulate the air but they do not cool it down.

Luckily since I live on the 2nd floor I’m able to leave windows ajar at night (and when I go out in the day). Would not dare do that if I lived on the ground floor.

---

Dad was transferred today to a short-stay nursing home across town from me.

And my brother called from dad’s house in the afternoon to say he had arrived there, after a long and hot drive (~300 km).

Tomorrow morning I’ll call the nursing home again (talked to them briefly today) to make an appointment for us both to see the nurse there to exchange some more information. The timing of my brother’s visit is as good as can be. He’ll also be able to help bring some clothes and things from home for dad. I might go out to the house some day this week too, while my brother is staying, so that we can look over some things together.  We’ll see how it goes. The heat wave does not really inspire to a whole lot of “activity”.

Time And Time Again

On Tuesday afternoon I was told that dad would be moved on Thursday from the hospital to the nursing home; but they would phone me about the exact time. On Thursday by 2 pm I had heard nothing, so I called the hospital ward – and was told that no, it had been postponed until Friday. So today again I waited for that phone call; again I heard nothing, and when I called I was told that no, not today, but on Monday! (Remains to be seen what they say then.)

Since I had not been to see dad myself since Tuesday – partly because I kept thinking each day that I had better save my own energy for “tomorrow”! – I went up to the hospital again late this afternoon. He was more “awake” than he was last time, but not really very much more “aware”.

His sense of time and space has been out of order since before; but visiting him at the hospital now it strikes me even more forcefully how dependent we really are on Time for our sense of orientation in this world…

Every time I opened my mouth a time-related word seemed to popping out, and at the same time I realized that this probably conveyed very little to him now…

When I first came in, he said he was surprised to see me in the middle of the night. (It was 5.30 pm and the sun shining from a blue sky outside the window.) So automatically I tried to correct… Then I tried to get a grip of whether he remembered that I had been to visit earlier this week – or anything else that had happened earlier in the week (he didn’t). And then there was the task of trying to explain that my brother will be coming… next week? … on Monday? … in a few days? … soon? …  And so on… 

Dad in his turn tried to convey to me his own impressions: While I boringly tried to drag him into Reality and explain that he has been spending the last five days in a hospital bed, he tried to tell me that he had been away travelling and meeting relatives and friends and having quite an interesting time, only a couple of days ago! My sense of logic tells me this can only have been happening in his dreams… but to him those dreams seem more real than Reality now…

Thinking about it as I walked home in the warm summer evening… As long as his dreams are pleasant, perhaps we should just try to be glad for him that he is able to spend so much time in that “other world”…

But it is certainly not easy to make Communication “between worlds” work without reference to Time And Space! 

¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

---

¹⁴ And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so.

About the photos in this post:

1. Gulls over the river. See more photos from the same occasion in my Thursday post at Soaring Through the World.

2. For more of these glass birds, see today’s post in my Picture Book. They’re hovering over the hospital foyer. I have been thinking for months that I should take photos of them, but usually when I’m at the hospital I don’t have the camera with me + in the daytime the foyer is always a busy place full of people. But on Tuesday after I had been to visit dad, it was after “business hours”… few people around… and I did have the camera with me. So I took the opportunity.

My Brother The Musician

TADADADA… Blowing a soundless fanfare here to present the news that my brother has just recently joined the blog world.

His blog Cutting Edge Easy Listening is not of the silent kind, though, because it is about music. His own music. With soundtracks!

His instrument? Synthesizers… software synthesizers... whatever they are called, it means that he can sound more or less like a whole orchestra all by himself. A world of intricate mysteries that I have never been able to fully comprehend all the details of!

If you’re curious, and if you remember what it was like to be a new blogger eagerly waiting to see if you would manage to make contact with anyone at all in this strange new world  - pop over for a visit!

My brother is far more musical than I am. I don’t write music. I don’t really even play an instrument. I did struggle for three years with the piano about 45 years ago (age 10-12) but then I quit and never tried to take it up again. In my early 20s I bought a guitar and learned a few chords but I never got very good at that either. I still have the guitar hanging on my wall, though. It looks very nice there! But it’s been a very long time since I last touched it except with the feather duster… 

BTT: To Share and Discuss (Books)

http://btt2.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/discussion/

Do you have friends and family to share books with? Discuss them with? Does it matter to you?

(Deb's comment: "Personally, I almost can’t remember the last time I was able to really TALK about a book I’d read with someone else who’d read it, and haven’t really been able to since my best friend and I devoured the same books in high school. Thank God for the internet.")

My answer: Some books, sometimes! My brother like me likes to listen to audio books in English and when he finds something he thinks I might like, he lends it on to me (or makes copies). We don't always share exactly the same favourites but we do both have a certain preference for fantasy, British humour and classical mysteries.

In the past, I sometimes talked about books with my mother, but during the last few years of her life she did not read much. She preferred realistic novels. She and her sister used to talk about books too; now my aunt and I occasionally share some reading tips.

I also have a couple of old friends that I sometimes talk to about books. Or write to, with one of them.

Between the 6th and 7th Harry Potter books, I took part in discussions in a Harry Potter internet forum - The Leaky Lounge - and especially the subforum Academic Analysis: Obscurous Books - which was a new experience to me, and I enjoyed it immensely. The discussions often went way beyond HP and it revived my interest in book discussions generally, and inspired me to read classics I'd never got round to before, and to reread some that I hadn't read since my college days. It made me aware how much I had missed that kind of discussions.

Six months or so after the last HP book... I began to feel that perhaps it was time to move on (not to get stuck in the wizarding world forever)... That's when I entered the blog world. In the beginning I probably focused more on books and book reviews in my blogging - not really knowing what else to write about... (I also started a special HP blog Through My Spectrespecs to collect some of my thoughts from those discussions; I haven't been updating it very frequently though.) Then photography took over, and some other more personal stuff. But I have also found some blogging friends along the way that I enjoy sharing occasional book reviews and opinions with. Like Rae @ Us In Tejas (hi). And a few months back I found these Booking Through Thursday questions, which I have since enjoyed participating in.

Does it matter to me? Yes, it does! Discussions with old and new friends challenge and inspire me to find out more about all kinds of things I might otherwise not have bothered to give a second thought. This goes for both books and all kinds of random blogging topics.

Onwards and Backwards

Yesterday was another day of phone calls + a visit to the hospital. I talked to a nurse at the hospital in the late morning, and then twice with the municipality's assistance evaluator, in between which she in turn had investigated the options at hand just now.

Result: Tomorrow dad will be moved to a short-stay nursing home for a month. His problems include general weakness and increasing dementia. He had fallen a couple of times at home over the weekend so that's why the home care nurse decided on Monday to send him to the hospital. Tests and X-rays showed nothing new though. Some attempts at training will be made at the short-stay nursing home. Then a new evaluation will be made to decide if he can go back home as before (with home care) or if other arrangements will have to be made.

The short-stay nursing home is in town - across town from me, and further away than the hospital – but I will be able to visit more often than in his home village.    

Lucky coincidence in the midst of all the unlucky is that my brother starts his summer holiday next week anyway and will be able come down and stay in the house for a few days. 

Later in the afternoon I went to the hospital to see dad. He was asleep most of the 1½ hour I sat there. During the few minutes he was awake I tried to ask him if he knew where he was, if he remembered what had happened the day before. He had no recollection of it. I soon realized that any discussion of details was pointless. I think he recognized that it was I who was there but I'm not even 100% sure about that. When I left he was fast asleep again. (As were two of the three other elderly gentlemen in the room. Imagine the sound…) I left a bar of dark chocolate and some pastilles I know he used to like on his table as a visible sign that I - or someone! - had been there…

.~.~.~.

… I remember, way back from my childhood, the taste and smell from those liquorice pastilles - a little too sharp for my taste back then, but associated with early memories of dad. He used to keep a box in his breast pocket - Läkerol Original, back then they came in metallic boxes . (Since then there have been - probably dozens of new tastes?) I also remember that he always preferred dark chocolate to milk chocolate. A fragment of memory from some train journey... Milk chocolate for me*, dark for dad...

*(Nowadays I only buy dark chocolate myself, since in my late thirties I developed lactose intolerance.)

 

A Day of Waiting

This morning I got a phone call that my father was being taken to the hospital. Not the kind of emergency that made it seem like the wisest choice for me to just rush over there head-over-heels though; so instead it has been a day of phone calls and waiting by the phone. In the late afternoon I learned that he was to be admitted to a ward. Remains to be seen for how long, and what might follow. My presence in the Blog World might be a bit more sparse over the next few days; but thankful for your thoughts and prayers. 

Forget Me Not

Wednesday 26 May, 2010

Between the pages in my mum’s childhood photo album, I found these pictures that her father drew of her. The one above he sent as a postcard to some friend or relative who obviously later gave it back to my mother.

  Another drawing of her as a baby

I recently found the photo album at my dad’s house and took it home with me.

With it, I also found a note pad with memories connected to the photos, written down by mum back in 1979 (when she was 49). It seems she got the idea to do that after sorting through other old photos (I guess in connection with the death of her mother-in-law) and finding that many of those had little to say to the next generation, when not accompanied by names and dates.

In my mother’s opinion, “one 50 year old letter often says more about someone than lots of photos”  

I haven’t had the time (concentration) to sit down and look/read through the album and notebook properly yet, but  I intend to.

One year ago today my mum’s life ended. Born on 20 February 1930, she got to be 79 years old + three months and a few days.

  

One year ago?? Time behaves strangely, sometimes, mixed up with memories...

Some words from the song by the Beatles pop up in my mind: “Oh Yesterday came suddenly…” 

But forgotten I have not.

.~.~.~.

Today’s post at my Picture Book blog has the same title as this one: Forget-Me-Not. But different content: It is about the little blue flower by that name, and some legends connected to it.

And there was morning, and there was evening...

... Actually, for some reason, in the Book of Genesis, they have it the other way round: "And there was evening, and there was morning..."   Strikes me that I have no idea why, so shall have to look into that some day. But not right now; I'm too tired! Besides my own Creation work (getting things installed on the new computer), I had some things to sort out on behalf of my dad. What with making phonecalls, and waiting for people to call me back etc... When I was done with that I was too tired to go out (as I had intended). Lay down to rest... and fell asleep... and when I woke up... there was evening! (Well, late afternoon, anyway.) I wish you a good one, if yours is still before you. Not much left of mine!



Some days, it's an upside-down world...

A Bit of Family History

After looking at my blog pictures of the Town Hall centenary (see previous post), my aunt pointed out to me that my maternal grandmother, back in the 1920’s, worked as a secretary in this very building.

This is a photo of my grandmother at work.  Thought it might be fun to include that here, since you have already been shown the building!

I borrowed my aunt’s family album a couple of years ago and quick-copied some of the photos and notes in it using my digital camera. So my copies aren’t top quality. The ones I’m showing here I have tried to edit a little using Picasa, to make them sharper; and adding new frames in Windows Live Writer. 

 

Here’s another photo of my grandmother from the 1920s which I like.
I asked my aunt if she knew any details about the car, but unfortunately she doesn’t. If any old car enthusiast among my readers has an idea about what kind of car it is, please comment!

Wedding picture from 1928.

A fun piece of family history is that my maternal grandparents got to know each other by a newspaper ad leading to correspondence between them using shorthand/stenography!

My grandfather was from the north of Sweden, and in his youth worked at a sawmill up there; but went on to study to become a teacher (and later in life headmaster). My grandmother lived down here in the south. When my mother was born the family was living up north; but a year or so after that they moved down here.

My grandmother died when I was 6 years old, only a few months before my brother and my oldest cousin were born (my cousin just before Christmas and my brother three weeks later). So I’m the only grandchild to have some memories of my own of my grandmother.
(My grandfather later remarried.)

In a interview from another blogger about a year ago, I shared a childhood memory that included this set of grandparents. I decided to repeat it here, and include a picture that I did not have back then:

What is your favourite childhood memory?

Some people seem to have their childhood all sorted out in a series of stories. For me it's more like scattered snapshot images and I think they often involve something that seemed a bit unusual or new to me at the time. Quite a few early images are connected with visits to other people's houses.

The surroundings where my maternal grandparents lived changed dramatically while I was growing up. When I was little, their house was one of just two in otherwise rural surroundings, with a view overlooking fields with cows and haystacks. As I grew older, the town kept coming closer and closer - blocks of flats towering up in the late 60's and early 70's, shopping centres and villas added, until the house my grandfather built back in the 30's was just one among many other houses in a suburban street.

An old photo of the view from my grandparents’ house (sent to me by my aunt). This is what it looked like in my early childhood. Since the 70s the view is quite different – actually reminding a bit of Lars Lerin’s suburban paintings that I just recently showed in another blogpost…

Other people own that house now since many years back. But whenever I am in that neighbourhood, a series of memory snapshots from the late 50's or very early 60's pop up in my head. Me walking with my grandfather over the fields on a sunny summer day, with an old-fashioned metal milk can, to fetch milk directly from a farm in the neighbourhood - "straight from the cows". (This was unusual to me, because in town, the milk in those days came in brown glass bottles with soft metal caps on top.) Opening wooden gates and shutting them. Stopping to pick wild strawberries. On the farm, two huge carthorses inside the stable (I see them from behind, standing in their boxes, towering up high above me - it's dark inside the stable with just some light coming in through the open door). My grandmother (who died when I was six) in their big kitchen, skimming the cream off the milk in a bowl on the workbench by the window overlooking the front garden. Tasting the lukewarm milk - I didn't much like it. Grandma making small pancakes in a special iron on the stove - no one else I knew made those. (My parents are not in the picture, I guess they had gone on a short summer holiday on their own and left me with Grandma and Grandpa.)

Once Upon A Time

80 years ago today, a little girl was born far up in the North of Sweden. Her name was Birgit. 25 years later, that girl herself became a mother. My mother. She died last year on 26 May, at the age of  79 years, three months and a few days; so did not live to celebrate her 80th birthday today.

The photo above shows my grandmother with my mother in 1930.
I borrowed my aunt's family album a couple of years ago and used my digital camera to copy some of the pictures in it. This one was originally black-and-white, but I chose a sepia tone in the editing for this post.

When I was born, my parents (married the year before) had just moved to a new town, only a couple of months before my birth, and my dad had just started a new job. Mum was at home with me, her first-born child, in a town where she knew no one at all except her husband, who was at work all day. To me, at the age of zero to five, this was probably the most natural thing in the world, because it was my world. It is only much later in life that I have sometimes wondered what it must have been like for her. The only company she had during the day was little me and the radio.

One thing my mother sometimes did back then, to amuse herself as well as me, was to draw pictures. When I was about 1½, she put some together into two little hand-made picture books, which I still have. She covered the pages with sticky tape, which was probably a good idea at the time. I doubt she considered the possibility of the books surviving 50 years, and what sticky tape might do to the colours in the long run!

Anyway. I scanned these pictures now, using some colour adjustments on the scanner; and then put  them together into four collages, which you will find below.

The picture books were based on me. I'm sure I loved to be in focus! The fun thing about them now is that they show glimpses of the flat we lived in, the furniture we had, the clothes I wore, and the toys I had at that age. And one thing you will notice is that my Mum kept a tight rein on me, quite literally!

The first book is still kept together by the original binding.
It shows the procedure of taking little me out for a walk.







The other one is a set of six pictures. I'm not sure if there were originally some more. There is no text but the pictures show details from our flat. The radio. My bedroom. Our living room. My parents' bedroom. The hall. And some of my favourite toys.

A Sunny Snowy Countryside Walk (1)

On Sunday, while visiting our Dad, my brother and I went out for a dog-and-camera walk in the afternoon. We were lucky with the weather: Sun shining from a clear blue sky, over vast fields of untouched snow. The snow stays so much cleaner in the countryside than in town!

Usually, it is my brother with the dog, and I with the camera.

It is an even competition who makes more stops:
the dog or the camera.

On rare occasions, the dog and the camera trade places.

The goal for our walk was a nature reserve area at an old mill.

The ice formations at the mill-dam waterfall were amazing.

"Ice pancakes" was my brother's name for these.

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In another post, I will show some more photos from the little island behind the mill, and the other arm of the river - which turned out to have its own impressive set of ice-art.

I will also be showing photos from this walk at my Picture Book blog this week (starting today).

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PS 1/ Meanwhile, outside my windows, the sky is all grey and it's snowing again...

PS 2/ This is my second post today. To learn how we celebrate
Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras / Shrove Tuesday) in Sweden, scroll down!