On Request...

In a comment to my post Early Autumn Colours, Meike (Librarian) wondered whether Barbie and Skipper have also already changed into "autumn clothes"? The answer is yes! :)

Having sorted through my own wardrobes this week - taking some summer clothes down to the basement for winter storage, and bringing some winter items up instead - I did also find it a good time to dress the dolls for somewhat chillier days. So just now they're in the outfits above (and have been given a battery tealight to brighten up the darker evenings).

For readers who may not know/remember them from earlier posts, the story is that for five decades or more, all my old Barbie(&co) dolls were packed away in a box; first in my parent's attic, and then in my own storage. In 2023 I finally decided to donate them to a charity shop - but in the process of organising that, I arrived at the compromise to keep two (with a selection of clothes for each, most of them made by my mum in the 1960s). 

And since then, these two have been on display on a shelf in my living room instead - and changing outfits now and then, according to season. I suspect I've probably shown their entire wardrobes by now - but I did choose items that can be combined in various ways. In the photo above, all clothes were sewn by my mum, except Barbie's pink top (which I actually made myself a year or two ago, from the cuff of a sock).   

Moody Skies for Skywatch Friday

Wednesday 16 September, 19:06

 

Wednesday 16 September, 19:26

The two photos were taken only 20 minutes apart the same evening (from my balcony). 

We're in a period of quickly shifting weather this week. Today after lunch the sun was shining, and I decided to go for a short walk to the nearest small convenience shop, just to buy some fresh fruit. When I got out of there, the sky still had a lot of blue in it...

 ... and I reckoned I'd be able to prolong the walk back home a little bit without getting wet. That was a mistake, though! Five minutes later the rain was pouring down. I was wearing my new rain jacket, so stayed dry on my top half - but before I got back home, my jeans from a bit above the knees and down were dripping wet - and I had to wring my socks out, and fill my shoes with crumpled pages from an old newspaper to dry (so far unknown how long that may take!) 

 Linking to Skywatch Friday 

Early Autumn Colours

 

The counting of the votes from the recent Swedish election has been finished, resulting in the left-wing "red+green" opposition winning by 176 vs 173 (members of parliament) over our old "right-wing" government. 

The old government will continue as transition government until a new one has been sorted out. It remains to be seen if that will happen before the trees have lost all their leaves, though - as there are disagreements to sort out among the four parties on the winning "side" as well. So speculations are still running high as to whether they'll succeed or not. And no doubt this will continue to dominate all our newscasts for quite a while yet.

▲Crab apple tree in my neighbourhood▼

  

 

 

Autumn colours in a flower bed in the cemetery 

 

 
Another project that is still only in the phase of Chaos rather than Progress is the transformation of the old football field to a "park"...

 

Post Election (Still Counting...)

 

Our polling stations closed at 8 pm last night. Most votes have been counted but some remain, and all will be re-counted one more time before we get the final figures - which won't be until Wednesday night or even Thursday. 

So far it points to the Social Democrats getting the first chance of forming a new government together with (or supported by) three smaller parties - but as all of the parties "on that side" (center/green/left) aren't 100% "best buddies" either, that is likely to take some diplomacy and negotiating in itself. I'm hoping they will be able to reach some kind of compromise in the end - but forming a new government is probably (again) going to take time. 

The photo above (and below) is of a horse chestnut tree in the cemetery that I passed on my walk today. The  chestnuts are still enclosed in green and spiky shells - only a very few have yet fallen to the ground and opened up.

 Horse chestnuts are not edible. In Britain I know they're called "conkers" and are used in a game by the same name - played by two players.  With a conker threaded onto a piece of string they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks. 

How my brain came to associate horse chestnuts with politics I leave to my readers to figure out for yourselves... ;)

Blogger Issue

Sidebar blog list not updating

Blogger seems to have stopped updating my sidebar widget of blogs that I follow ('Places to Visit') - and I've noted that the same seems to apply to similar lists on some friends' blogs. The widget no longer seems to be updating to show the latest posts (so that it now looks like no one has been posting for at least 5-6 days, even if in reality they have). I've tried looking for tips on how to fix this, but those tips I've found seem to be old, and what I've dared try so far (like updating all "http" to "https" in blog addresses) hasn't helped. And it's the same whichever browser I use. So just wondering if anyone else among my fellow bloggers has looked into this more recently and found more helpful into? 

Editing at 13:53 to add: Instead of perhaps just messing up my old blog list I tried to start a new one. I just added a few blogs, but those don't show the latest posts either. So for now I assume the fault must lie deeper, and with Blogger... 

 

14:45 - Adding an alphabetical blog list with just titles; but keeping the old one for now to see if the updating problem perhaps sorts itself out at some point.

 

Making these notes more for myself than for anyone else, really! ;)