Autumn Leaves and Balcony Gardening Jobs

Photo from a few days ago

Do you recognise this object (the long red one)? And if you do, what do you call it? (Really, finding the correct names for various household objects and tools in English - and what's BE vs AE -  is among my worst "blogging jobs"...) One suggestion seems to be "grabber/reacher aid". Anyway, I got this one, and also a shorter one, a long time ago, in connection with other physical problems; and still find them useful in many situations. I hesitate to use them for "dirty" jobs, though. But today I got inspired to put a plastic glove on this one - and with that solution, was able to use it to pick up wet plant leaves from the balcony floor without having to bend myself too much...

It's been raining a lot lately, and it still doesn't feel like a good idea to try to exercise my injured knee outdoors for very long at a time. This morning I decided to put what little energy I had into another project instead: Getting rid of the last two plants still standing out on my balcony floor - two rubber plants, almost as tall as the railing, and by now half-withered and no longer in a condition that made me want to take them inside. (I have one healthy plant of the same origin indoors already - plus a cutting - and that's quite enough...) 

The indoors rubber plant

The big leaves on the outdoors plants were dripping wet, the pots heavy with rainwater, the stems too thick and tough for my secateurs to just easily "snip"; and I needed three plastic garbage bags (of normal "kitchen" size)  to pack the remains in. (All while still having to "think" about every movement and position.)  I managed to get it done, though - and then put the plastics bags in bigger paper carrier bag, and then used the wheels belonging to a shopping caddy to get that down in the lift (elevator) and out to bins at the corner of my building... (And then there were the pots to clean... But I got that done as well, a bit later.)

I suspect that this year may have been the last time I tried to have any live plants bigger than a few geraniums (each in its own small pot, easy to take in/out) on the balcony.

Squirrel

 

Squirrel zoomed in from my kitchen window yesterday. I suppose he was looking for something edible among the brown leaves. (Whether he found anything, I can't say!)

The coat of the red squirrel varies in colour with time of year and location. It sheds its coat twice a year, switching from a thinner summer coat to a thicker, darker winter coat with noticeably larger ear-tufts (a prominent distinguishing feature of this species) between August and November. /Wikipedia/ 

Looks to me like this one has put on its winter coat!

Taxi Adventures

Normally, it's extremely rare for me to take a taxi to get anywhere. The few times I've done it, it's usually been health related - like to or from the hospital. I'm used to walking the distance from home to the city centre and back; and taking the bus when it comes to longer distances within the city. Compared to when I first moved to the street where I've now lived for 17 years, the bus communications have deteriorated a lot, though. For one thing, there are fewer bus stops along the whole line, and for another, it doesn't actually go into the very "heart" of the city any more - I only have a choice of two different stops on what I regard as the outskirts of the proper city centre.

And in my present predicament, with a knee contusion and doctor's orders not to walk too much until that has healed properly, pretty much the only alternative is to take a taxi when I need to go into the city centre - including my primary health care centre. I have one or two friends whom I might ask to drive me, if there is a special reason - but then private cars aren't allowed to drive everywhere in the city centre anyway... while taxis are... 

Today, I had an appointment for "double vaccination" at the HCC. It's only a 10 minutes drive (if even that), so not all that expensive to take a taxi. I pre-booked one to get there, and it arrived in good time. That journey did not get a five star review from me though. First, the driver almost slammed the door on my injured leg before I had managed to get that properly into the car... He managed to stop at the last second though (before the door actually touched me). But it was close enough to give me a scare! And then, he also didn't drive all the way up to the entrance to the HCC (which is kind of up on a little hill), but stopped to let me off in the street below. (Two weeks ago, the taxi that I was in then did drive up to the entrance, without any special request.) I guess I could have demanded that he did - but then I suppose he'd have had to drive round the whole block again; and I wasn't in arguing mood, and knew that I'd manage the walk (not up the staircase, but up the driveway). So I said nothing -  just made mental note to myself to be sure to give clearer instructions from start next time...

My appointment was att 11:15 and to my surprise the waiting room on this day was nearly empty; the nurse came to fetch me even before 11:15, and the two jabs were soon over and done with, and I was free to go...

... back to the waiting room to wrestle with the taxi app again, to book an asap return journey. This time I did include a specific note to the driver to fetch me "at the entrance"... And I could see it arrive from the waiting room, so did not have to go out before it came. I did not have to wait long, but when the taxi came, it was a HUGE one, more like a van, and I realised I wouldn't be able to climb up in it! However, the driver realised that as well, so immediately went to the back and brought an extra device for me to step on to make that easier. And he did the same when we arrived at my address, so that turned out no problem after all.

The booking app asks for a review after each journey... I wasn't in the mood to write comments on the first one (in the waiting room at the HCC), but I gave the second one (after I was safely back home again) five stars because of "helpful driver"...

As mental therapy for myself, I later tried to get Bing Image Creator to recreate the two taxi scenes.  I'm not giving Bing five stars either; but considering my rather complicated and at the same time insufficient instructions/details, not "too" bad...

(I might add that IRL I was wearing trousers, and my knee bandage wasn't visible to the taxi drivers. Their only visual clues would be 1/ that I was using a stick (walking pole) + 2/ my very slow and careful movements + 3/ that the one end of my journey was the HCC.)

Time and Time Again

 

I searched my own blog for previously posted clocks, and found this one - the Astronomical Clock in Lund Cathedral (in Sweden) - from around 1425. (If you're interested in more details, you can read more about it in my post from 2019, and also in Wikipedia.)

The reason I'm bringing up Time and clocks (again!) is of course that this weekend (here in Europe) it was time to reset ours (again!); switching back from Summer Time (daylight saving time) to what I still prefer to call Normal Time... 

I decided to do my "clock round" early on Saturday evening, rather than wait until bedtime or Sunday morning. All in all I have at least 7 manual clocks/watches to reset. Two wrist watches. Two wall clocks, one in my study and one in my hall. One smaller clock standing on the fan cover in my kitchen. One alarm clock beside my bed, and spare one in my living room. (There is also an 8th one in the old small stereo in my bedroom that has to be reset manually - which I often forget, as I rarely look at that one anyway.)

I made my round among them all, and then sat down to watch TV. 

A couple of hours later - just as all the clocks and myself all agreed that it was time to go to bed soon - it suddenly hit me that I had set all the clocks FORWARD rather than BACK... So I had to do the whole procedure over again - now setting them all back two hours.

Obvioiusly that all got a bit too complicated for my sleepy brain, because today - just as I sat down at the computer in my study to write this post - I discovered that the one on the wall above was still on Summer Time. So I had to pause the blogging project to immediately make another round among the rest of my clocks and watches to check those as well - but they seemed to be correct... 

Ever since this fiddling with time first started (1980 here in Sweden), I have been a firm advocate for going back to "Normal" all year round... Still keeping my fingers crossed that it will happen before I get much older!!

Tomorrow, I have an appointment at the Health Care Centre at 11:15 for a double vaccination. And I'll have to take a taxi to get there - still too far for me to walk. At least as it's not an early morning appointment, I hope I'll have a fair chance of getting it right...

(Note to self: I should also check the time on my separate camera, as I can't remember if I reset that one back in spring or if I decided not to bother...) 

 

Autumn Decorations

 

My autumn (fall) decorations are rather modest compared to what I see on some American blogs - we don't have quite the same tradition here of filling our homes and gardens with ghosts and carved pumpkins this time of year.

An old chest in my living room is my main place of changing decorations with the seasons, though, and the orange candles + fake orange gladiouli have been there throughout October. The other day I added my two owls (which during summer live elsewhere). In the big one you can put a tea candle (nowadays I use battery ones for safety). That one I inherited from my mum. The small one is made of solid concrete (very heavy for its size!), and I bought that one a few years ago, because it reminded me so much of the bigger one!

Today Ginny's blog post reminded me that I actually also have a small scarecrow that  rarely gets to be on display. So I added that to the brown vase for the next week or so. 

 

As scarecrows go, it's not really very scary! 

 

 

If memory serves me right, I got the scarecrowfrom my friend Gunilla up in Karlstad on some occasion. We were close friends since our early 20s. In February it will sadly be three years since she died - shortly before her 70th birthday. (She had a lot of health problems all her life, but in spite of that also managed to spread a lot of joy.) 

 

Halloween in Sweden is primarily a holiday when people remember loved ones who passed away, and visit their graves to decorate them with winter wreaths and candles. I'm not sure I'll be walking even as far as to the nearby cemetery in the week to come - but memories can be honoured in other ways, without going anywhere at all.