Mid February Sunrise

I happened to wake up just in time to catch the sunrise this morning... Photos taken from my kitchen at 7:41-7:42. (The sun soon followed my own example and went back to bed, though - and remained hidden the major part of the day...)

A Winter Walk

There's a lot of Olympics on TV at the moment (and not much else!). Personally, I have to confess I've never taken much interest in sports of any kind. The only winter sports that can sometimes keep me entranced in front of the TV for as long as an hour or two is usually figure skating, and especially ice dance. (I did watch the whole ice dance final the other night.) That has nothing whatsoever to do with any skating skills of my own, though - I never even learned to stand on them, and even less to move about...!

Friday the 13th* was another cold, grey winter day here - of the kind with a flurry of snow in the air all day, even if not actually adding very much to the amount already on the ground. I decided to defy *superstition though, so manged my usual weekly "recycling walk" (about 20 minutes). But I did not feel tempted to extend it any further. (Cold winds blowing...)

Yesterday, I expected to wake up to much the same kind of weather, but was pleasantly surprised to instead find the sun shining from a clear blue sky - inspiring me to actually try a walk into town. Winter seems to be planning to keep us in its grip next week as well (possilby including throwing even more snow at us), and I did need some stuff from the pharmacy again. Besides a refill of some prescription medicines, my recent cold "caught from nowhere" had also more or less emptied my basic stock of various over-the-counter stuff...!

Ever since my unfortunate fall and knee injury back in October, with the long, cold and snowy winter following, it still feels like a long way to walk to the city centre, though. So when I set out, I was thinking that I'd probably better choose the same way into town that I did last time - allowing me to catch a bus part of the way, if I should feel the need for it... 

However - once I got out, it seemed that my legs must have been conferring separately with some braver part of my brain. Because as soon as I had crossed the first street, instead of continuing towards the travel center, I found myself turning down to the river, and my favourite path into town that I have not walked since early October - as it does not include any "escape options" along the way...

It all turned out for the best, though. With the cold dry weather we've been having for weeks now, the gravel path along the river, even with a bit of snow and ice on it, was probably actually a better choice for walking than the pavements along the streets.

I also had the pleasure of seeing the river all frozen, which doesn't always happen - but as I've already pointed out, we've had an unusually long period of temperatures staying well below freezing point both day and night lately.

 

 

 After my visit to the pharmacy, I also paid a visit to my favourite little tea shop by the square (pretty much "just around the corner" from the pharmacy), as I had also again run out of my favourite black tea blends from there. I actually can't recall when (before this winter) I last had to "resort to" buying prepackaged loose leaf tea from the supermarket! ;)  I've been buying nearly all my teas from that shop by the square for 40 years - i.e. for as long as I've lived in this town...

After that, no room in my backpack for any more purchases. But as my knee still wasn't signalling any serious protests, I decided I was likely to be able to walk back home the same way as I had come - through the park and along the river. 

When I reached the cemetery hill (up to the right from the view above) I decided to take the "shortcut" across there. (When walking in the other direction, I had taken a bit of a detour to avoid having to walk down a rather steep hill. But uphill is somewhat less challenging.) 

 

 

Not all paths on the cemetery have been ploughed, but the major ones have. 

 

 

I parked my poles and my backpack on a bench for a photo stop. (Didn't sit down myself, though - too cold for that!) (All photos in this post taken with my phone, btw.)

 

All in all, I was out and "on my feet" for two hours (including the time spent in the two shops). My knee injury back in the autumn happened on October 10th. Four months later, this is the first time since then that I walked all the way both to and from the city centre. With the kind of winter we've been having, I had really given up hope of even trying this until spring. But my knee does not seem to have got any worse from it. I'm still wearing a compression knee sleeve whenever I go out (and a softer bamboo one all night), and use at least one walking pole outdoors (just now both!) And I may have to continue to do that. But being able to walk into town and back has been my primary goal, and having achieved that "already" feels like an unexpected victory! Kind of like my own personal "olympic" achievement - even if it doesn't come with a medal... :)

 

Heartfelt Wishes

I'm still feeling a bit "lost in time", after weeks of rather monotonous winter weather.

For some reason (or rather - no reason), I've been thinking all week that on Friday it will be Valentine's Day - here in Sweden known  as Alla Hjärtans Dag = All Hearts' Day" ... Only to suddenly realise, just as I started preparing this post today, that no, that's not until Saturday!

But I decided to go ahead and post this for Friday anyway. Who knows - the need for some extra heartfelt good wishes might perhaps be even bigger on Friday the 13th...!  

I've never really been in the habit of doing a lot extra of decorations especially for All Hearts' Day.  But I put a table runner with embroidered hearts on the living room table...

   

... and hung some red hearts on the branches in the vase on the old chest in the same room. 

That vase, by the way, is really just plain brown, but in the photo below it has been given an interesting striped pattern by the sun shining in through the blinds in the window! Which just goes to show that there's always something new to discover, if one looks hard enough.

 

And on that note, I wish you good luck both for the 13th and the 14th. 
And keep your hearts as well as your eyes open to notice the details around you!

 (Owl copied from some website with free images.)

The Blue Bird

 "The Bluebird of Happiness" seems to be a wide-spread symbol across several cultures, representing "hope, love, renewal, and the beauty of life". References to it can be found in old mythology and folklore from various corners of the world, as well as in modern popular culture. 

 

This little blue glass bird used to belong to my paternal grandmother. I remember it sitting in one of the windows of her glazed veranda. Nowadays it lives in my bedroom window. 

In Maurice Maeterlinck's 1908 stage play named The Blue Bird, two children, Tyltyl and Mytyl, are sent out by the fairy Bérylune to search for the Bluebird of Happiness. Returning home empty-handed, the children see that the bird has been in a cage in their house all along and they create great happiness for another by giving their pet bird to the sick neighbor child. (Source: Wikipedia)

Homefront Sleuths Mysteries - (Audio) Book Reviews

 

 

The Blackout Murders
(The Homefront Sleuths Cozy Mystery Series, Book 1)

By Anna Elliott, Charles Veley
Narrated by Iona Campbell

England, 1941. The tranquil village of Crofter’s Green seems like a haven from the chaos of wartime. But when a local air raid warden is found dead in the village churchyard, five villagers decide they need to uncover the truth:

Evie Harris, recently widowed, is new in the village, where she is opening a tea shop (in spite of the difficulty of finding ingredients in wartime).
Dorothy Baker is a young mother who is helping her 
Alice Greenleaf, the village herbalist.
Blake Collins, a schoolteacher, wounded in the war (and with a talent to see patterns that others might miss).
Harry Jenkins, a retired detective. 

 

(The setup of characters reminds me a bit of "The Thursday Murder Club" which I watched as film some time around Christmas, and then also listened to as audio book - but found my impressions of the two clashing a bit in my head, so did not get round to writing a review.)

 

As I'd never heard of this book/series before, and it was included for free, I didn't expect all that much from it. But I found it entertaining enough to keep me company through the first week of my recent cold - even if I also frequently kept dozing off to it, so for that reason did not find it all easy to keep track of all details. 

 

And when I had finished the first, the next one in the series turned up for me as well - so why not continue...

 

 

 

The Spectre of Hawthorne Manor 

(The Homefront Sleuths Cozy Mystery Series, Book 2)

By Anna Elliott, Charles Veley
Narrated by Iona Campbell 

 

"England, 1941: Evie Harris doesn’t believe in ghosts—not even when she spots a glowing figure outside her bedroom window in the quiet village of Crofter’s Green. But when the same eerie spectre is seen by Lord Hawthorne, tied to a long-buried family scandal, even Evie starts to wonder if the past is haunting Hawthorne Manor.

Before she can investigate, Lord Hawthorne is found dead at the bottom of his grand staircase. An accident? Not likely. When the glowing figure begins tormenting Lady Gwendolyn, Evie rallies the Homefront Sleuths to unravel the manor’s secrets.

As the sleuths dig deeper, the twists keep coming:

    A furious daughter returns for the reading of the will.
    Priceless antiques vanish from the estate.
    And Lady Gwendolyn’s strange behavior hints at dangers far beyond ghostly hauntings.

With hidden passageways, family feuds, and wartime schemes at every turn, the sleuths must race to uncover the truth. Is the danger truly from the dead—or the living?"¨

(Just quoting the Audible presentation in full with this one.)

Having got to know the characters a bit better now, I think I'll also continue with No 3 in the series - which also automatically popped up as soon I had finished No 2...

 

 

 

For those who prefer reading with the eyes rather than listening, I see that the books are also available for Kindle at rather reasonable prices.