1st Advent Weekend

So what’s going on in the town square on a very cold Saturday afternoon in November?

It’s the first Advent Weekend. Traditionally in Sweden we have a special Advent candle holder with four candles, lighting one for each of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. The churches in our town unite in upholding this tradition by also lighting giant candles in the town square on each preceding Saturday afternoon, with a choir singing some of the traditional Advent hymns.

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This year we had an unusually cold start to Advent. They actually had difficulties lighting the candles because it was too cold!

It was also very cold to just stand still and listen, so I took the camera as an excuse to wander around a bit and get pictures from different perspectives.

The lights are up in the giant Christmas tree as well.

SantaLand is  also back, with Lapp cot tent and fires and whatnot.

You can also have a peek into Santa’s workshop. Santa himself seems to be either exhausted already, or just taking things easy, with five weeks to go to Christmas… He’s fast asleep in the window!

(I should really have put the camera on video for this because his tummy is  actually moving up and down…!)

PS. I bought myself an early Christmas present: An electric blanket to keep me warm in front of the TV in the winter afternoons and evenings…

Walk With Me

Autumn is upon us. Every day now the colours in the trees are changing, and leaves beginning to drop…

I was almost tempted to leave the camera at home as I walked into town today… Thinking: I’ve been walking these streets for over a year now with my camera. There is nothing new to take photographs of.

But the thing is, with the camera I see things I might otherwise just have walked past and paid no attention to, or forgotten as soon as I had passed. 

 

Like a miniature spider web on top of the stone wall.

Like the graceful shadow of a branch on an ugly concrete wall holding up the motorway.

Like the unexpected muffin (!) left behind on a stone wall in a church yard, to the delight of some very small black ants.

Like a Limousine parked in a street (arousing the curiosity of a lot of people on the other sidewalk – I actually noticed the crowd before I noticed what they were all looking at!)

Like a lot of other people running around town with their cameras, too (I think there must have been some sort of photo contest going on because most of the people with camera – except me! - were also holding on to a piece of yellow paper).

Like a beautiful flower arrangement on the wall next to a jeweler’s shop.

And without the camera, I would probably never have bothered going up to the top of the hill in the park

… just to look down!

To finish off, here’s the main reason why I went into town in the first place:

I needed a new pair of walking shoes…

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…

Hot and Sunny

Saturday was the hottest day here so far this summer. I walked into town around 10 am to go to the library and one or two other errands. Putting on my movie star look again - wearing my sunglasses and a wide-brimmed white hat… ;)

In the town square there was a band playing. This is a summer tradition, every year in July some music students are employed by the town to give daily street concerts. I found a bench in the shadow so sat down for a while to rest my feet and listen. I also had ice cream in the park on my way home.

Back home I had a sandwich and ice tea for lunch – and strawberries. Too hot to cook!

In the afternoon the thermometer outside my window on the shadowy side of the flat showed 33°C (91,4 F). On the balcony a lot hotter… I had three parasols up but there were also gusts of wind coming so the one supposed to be standing on the floor kept flying off. It was on its way over to visit the next-balcony-neighbour last time I caught it! Had to take it down, obviously I can’t leave it up when I’m not sitting there. Which I can’t do in the afternoon when it’s like this, but I was hoping to protect the flowers…

Inside I have around 27°C and two fans going. Felt almost cool when I got in from outside, but not if I try to “do” something!

‘They’ say that it’s going to cool off again in a day or two, though. I hope they are right! Not much one can do about it, but I do prefer 23° rather than 33°.

A Nearly Perfect Summer Day

 

Lilacs (Syringa)

Lilacs for me are connected with the end of the school year, more than any other flower, ever since my childhood. (Because they usually bloom around this time.)

Today was a perfect summer day for all students celebrating the end of the school year and the start of their summer holidays: The sun shining all day from a clear blue sky, and still not too hot – just over 20°C, and with a nice fresh summer breeze.

Before noon I walked into town to get some groceries. When I got home (by bus, because of then having things to carry) I made a salad for lunch and was able to eat it sitting outside on the balcony. In fact I spent most of the afternoon on the balcony, reading, doing a soduko and listening to mp3/radio (using earphones).

 

 

I did not need to use my mp3-player all the time to shut out noise though. It was a quiet kind of day in the neighbourhood. I was also able in between to just listen to the gulls in the sky above, and the wind rustling the leaves of the trees nearby… Relaxing summery sounds.

My clematis plant (photo taken a couple a weeks ago; the flowers are withering now)

Later on I went for short walk just “around the block” (well, a few blocks). Spring was late this year, and we’re still really only just on the verge of entering into summer. There is still a freshness about all the greenery; and a lot of trees still in bloom.

Horse Chestnut
(Aesculus Hippocastanum)

In July it will be two years since I moved to where I live now (this apartment/ building/ part of town). Last spring and early summer was somewhat chaotic, connected to the death of my mother at the end of May last year. But this spring, I’ve been able to pay a bit more attention to my surroundings. Like how many different kinds of flowering trees are actually planted in the park-like area around these apartment buildings.

Crab apple tree (Malus)

From my kitchen window, I can see a horse-chestnut tree, a rowan tree, Swedish whitebeam, and lilacs, all blossoming right now. (Plus a number of “anonymous” trees in the background.) When I go outside, there are also Japanese cherry blossom and crab apple trees, as well as tall birches and lime trees (linden) and maples; and probably several other kinds of trees that I’m not able to identify.

 

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
~Martin Luther~

Wholly 2

In my previous post on this sculpture, Wholly, I mentioned that from one angle (which I had missed to take a picture of) you can also see a church tower behind it.  Sandra then said in a comment “see if you can capture the church through the wholly” - so I went back and tried. It is not possible to actually see the church through the sculpture. But here is the view with the church tower in the background.

¹⁹Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, ²⁰built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²²And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (chapter 2)

Soap Bubbles

Some things in life aren't as easy as they might seem, 
even if you think you've got the right recepy.











Well, at last...!

The pictures are from a Public Laundry Day in our town centre yesterday, organized by the Textile Museum to show how things were done "in the good old days". There are also a couple of photos from this event at my Picture Book blog today. More will be coming up in the next few days.

I remember playing with soap bubbles as a child...
Found the photo below in my old album, of me and my cousin.
I about 8, he going on 2.

Town Hall Centenary

Our Town Hall, now serving as District Court House, was built in 1910, and the centenary was celebrated this weekend with Open House for the public, including guided tours, lectures and dramatised court proceedings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The back of the building.

A group of people waiting for a guided tour inside.

The inside of the building is beautifully decorated.

Waiting hall surrounded by court rooms.

 

Above each door there is a different decoration.

The city arms - a pair of sheep shears.

This mural painting combines the tower of a church which is the oldest building in town, with the two towers of the town hall.

A brief account of the history of the town is given in a number of texts painted on the walls. This one tells the story of the foundation of the town (1622).

 

Decorations everywhere:
window-bays, wash-basin, ventilation grid, staircases

 

 

My favourite: A little snail crawling up the banister!

.~.~.~.

For this post, I have been trying out the new editor
Windows Live Writer which I first learned about in a post by GB the other day. Among other things, it gives a wider choice of variety in the layout.