Tuesday, 19 November 2024

Winter Starts Here

Today I woke up to the first snow for this season. Just very small powdery snow flakes in the air today, but still marking the beginning of winter.



And yesterday, I noted that the Christmas Tree in the main square downtown is up: 

 
More snow to be expected, but the latest forecasts say that tomorrow, most of it will probably fall north of here; and the day after, on the east coast, moving north. (Far up  north, I think many places have already had snow for a while now.) 

Anyway, 1st Advent Sunday is only 1½ week away now. Frosty/snowy weather might inspire me to make my usual change of kitchen curtains already this upcoming weekend... (I always like to start with that, before putting up other decorations.)

Saturday, 16 November 2024

A November Walk

On Thursday morning I received an email telling me that I had a parcel to pick up at an inconvenience store across town. No, I did not spell that wrong - just trying to be funny... The thing is, I had ordered something, not very large, which I had expected to be smoothly delivered by regular post to my own postbox, or at worst the convenience store in my own neighbourhood, only a few minutes walk away. But it turned out the company had used a different delivery service; and thus the parcel ended up in a store much more inconvenient for me... Half an hour's walk away at least - and no use trying to take a bus either. (Because that would involve a change of bus, and the stops for those two lines are so far apart nowadays that one would have to walk half the distance anyway, and the whole adventure from door to door might actually end up taking even longer than walking the whole distance...)

Luckily, it was a sunny day (rather rare for November), and I decided that I had better just get the inconvenient errand over with, and make the walk as enjoyable as possible. 

I live to the south of the city centre; while the inconvenience store is situated along a busy street uphill to the east of there. I decided the best way for me to walk there was along the river as usual down to the city park, and then choose a side street for my walk uphill.


Besides being sunny it was even one of those days with the river still like a mirror... And I also quite enjoyed my walk uphill through an older part of town that I don't visit very often now. (I used to walk there more often back in a distant past when my place of work was at the hospital up on the top of that hill.)



Birch tree still holding on to most of its leaves!

After picking up my parcel (small and flat enough to fit into my backpack), I crossed the busy road over to the city library & culture centre for a quick visit.


It turned out they're rebuilding their entrance hall, and while doing so they have put up some temporary art made by school children to make things a bit more cheerful :)

I then decided to make a further detour on my way back home, to a park on the hillside. From photography point of view it may have been better to go there a month earlier, in the full glory of autumn colours - but on the other hand, one probably gets a better view of the town with the leaves gone... ;)

From a path somewhere half way up the hill, looking down on the town below.


Oops... When I saw it, I remembered having read about it in the local paper: They're doing some restruction work here too, reparing an old stone wall...


Once upon a time, this park belonged to a private manor house, built for a wealthy manufacturer back in the 1820s. (That house no longer there, and the park nowadays owned by the town.) 


▲ Walking down, and further down... ▼


▲...Looking back up...▼

Back down on flat ground, below the park, there is a major busy thoroughfare road to cross; and then a rather complicated traffic roundabout; and in the middle of that, since 2008, stands the huge Pinocchio sculpture by American artist Jim Dine (9 m high, and official title Walking to BorĂ¥s), which was really the start of our city building a new reputation as a  City of Art. (Many more sculptures and murals added since then, and regular art biennials.)



Thursday, 14 November 2024

SkyWatch Friday: The Moon

 

14 November 2024 (16:37)

I happened to be looking out of my kitchen window as the full moon was rising this afternoon (16:37). I went and got my separate camera as the mobile is no good at zooming.

14 November 2024 (16:38)
 

Around 20 minutes later, I saw these sunset clouds from my balcony, on the other side of my apartment.

14 November 2024 (17:02)

- - -

I was reminded that I also had photos of the moon from last month in the camera, which I never got round to transferring to the computer then. So I'll enclose those here as well:

 

17 October 2024

17 October 2024

 

Did it take long to find me?
I asked the faithful light
Did it take long to find me?
And are you gonna stay the night?
- Cat Stevens -

 

  


Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Supermarket Reorganisation

 

Two days in a row now I've chosen the supermarket as the destination for my walks - primarily because they're in the process of reorganising things, and even though I do most of my grocery shopping online with home delivery (twice a month), I also like to try and keep up with where to find things when I do go there myself.

On both my visits this week, I was too busy with reorientation to think of taking photos; so for this post I asked AI for an illustration. The one above actually comes rather close to reality - some members of staff were still busy moving things, while other people (customers + staff working with home deliveries) were trying to find them... ;-)

On the whole I'm very thankful for the possibility (since 10 years back) to have the bulk of my groceries and everyday stuff delivered, and to neither have to search for them in the store nor carry them home myself. However, there are still certain items now and then that one does prefer to have a proper look at before buying. 

Christmas decorations and such have been put on display now, and I was looking for some battery candles. I don't like to to have real candles lit when going to and fro between rooms, but with battery candles one does not need to worry... I have some battery "tealights" since before, and also a couple of fake thick ones, but had decided that it might also be time for me to get some tall ones, to fit ordinary candlesticks. Yesterday I found and bought two red ones - but then back home decided that I don't want to introduce too much red before December. So today I went back and also bought two white ones of the same type, plus  some batteries of rechargeable kind.


I'm quite impressed with these LED candles, because: 1/ the "flames" move and flicker, so that in the dark, and especially from across the room (like from my TV chair), it's really hard to tell them apart from live ones (except that these candles don't shrink!!); and 2/ if you don't turn them off manually, they have an automatic timer which does that after six hours, and then lights them again after another 18 hours (i.e. the same time next day). 


I also bought an Amaryllis (a real one!) with three buds coming up - hoping it won't grow "too" fast (...but if it does, never mind...)

 

Sunday, 10 November 2024

Gathering Evidence

 In my previous post I mentioned my observation (from innumerable walks around the old cemetery close to where I live) that trees seem to hold on longer to their leaves on the branches that grow very close to the streetlights. 

Today was a grey and gloomy day, and I did not get out until around 3 pm. The streetlights were lit up while I was still out, which gave me an opportunity to gather some more evidence for my theory... I'll let the photos speak for themselves:






 - - -

Meike (in a comment) was also asking after Barbie & Skipper. For anyone who happens to have missed the previous adventures of these two, perhaps I should repeat the explanation that around 1½ year ago I decided to donate a bunch of old Barbie dolls from my youth to a charity shop. (Before that, they had all been spending the last 50+ years in various storage rooms, packed away together in one big box.) At the last minute I decided to keep two of them after all (while six went off to unknown destinies). The two that I kept now live on a shelf in my sitting room, and have appeared on this blog now and then to show off outfits sewn by my mum back in the 1960s.

As by now they have been "out in the open" for over a year, some of my readers have already seen most of the clothes that I kept for them. But since Meike asked... Yes, they did get "dressed up" for the Halloween/All Saints' this year too (I think in the same outfits as last autumn); but have now "dressed down" to more casual autumn wear again. ;)


If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older. - Tom Stoppard 





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