On Second Thought...

 ... perhaps I was a bit premature in declaring a sense of autumn in the air already?

Anyway, today we were back to a clear blue sky with just a few decorative fluffy white clouds, and pleasant summery temperatures around 21-22C (~70F), with only a light breeze.

I phoned my hairdresser in the morning, and she was able to squeeze me in for a haircut  at 1 pm. So I just had sandwich for lunch, and then set off on a walk into town around 12:15. 

 

The city park and the little square across the river from there were full of people enjoying the sun.

See that low wooden chair in the foreground? That's new for this summer and the woman sitting in it seemed to find it the perfect place to spend her lunch break (or whatever! - maybe she was still on holidays...) 

After my haircut (which only takes about 20 minutes), I also took the opportunity of a couple of other minor errands. As so often when in town, I visited the tea shop by the main square and stocked up on some loose leaf teas. Then I passed through one of my favourite clothes shops - just to have a "peek" really, but my eyes happened to fall on a denim shirt that I liked... So I tried that on, and ended up buying it. Not quite an impulse buy, really, as I have been on the lookout for something like it for a while. I bought it in a size large enough to wear on top of a t-shirt, so it can also be used as a light summer jacket.

 

On my way back, I stopped at the ice cream café in the park, and had small beaker of vegan mango ice-cream at one of their tables outdoors, before taking on the rest of the walk home. 

In my previous post I mentioned Goldenrod in bloom (Swedish: gullris), but didn't supply a close-up - as on that day I hadn't actually been up close to them... Yesterday, I did come closer to some in the old cemetery, though. So if anyone is still feeling unsure of what kind of flower I was referring to, here's a photo:

We have a proverb in Swedish that would translate "A beloved child has many names". And of course it's also quite common that many children have the same name... So to clarify: The Latin "family name" for this plant is Solidago - while the variety common here in Sweden /(since way back) is Solidago virgaurea. Historically it's been used for various medicinal purposes, without any known negative side-effects (Wikipedia says). It's also not known for causing allergies/hay-fever - and is not regarded as invasive. 

Some other (from our point of view 'foreign') species of Solidago have also been spreading in Sweden in later years, though, and are regarded as invasive. I think (or assume) that the ones that I see around where I live are the old trusted kind, though. 

A First Sense of Autumn

 

On my walk yesterday I had a first sense of Autumn/Fall approaching*... Even if summer  here has not been as persistently hot and dry as further south in Europe, it's still been very dry for this area. We've had a few showers lately, but not really a whole lot of rain in total - so the ground is still very dry, and many wild grassy areas have turned brown.

*Meteorological autumn starts on September 1, while astronomical autumn begins with the equinox on September 22, 2026.  

Goldenrod is in bloom now in many places, along roads, or like in the photo above, on the slopes along the railway. There used to be a lot of Goldenrod growing in the "wild corner" of my grandparents'/parents' garden (my dad's childhood home, which then served us as summer cottage for a number of years, before my parents moved there to live in their own retirement years). My mum used to take in some to dry, which she then put in vases for winter decorations - sometimes together with other dried flowers.

In the old cemetery, one can already wade through "fallen leaves" in some places - although I think most of what we see just now is not really leaves, but remnants of tree blooms or seed pods (above, linden trees). After a few windy days, a lot of them just now, though!

 Rowan berries are turning red (even if still more orange than properly red).

And flower beds keep on changing and "maturing"...

 

 

 

The two top flower bed photos are from mid July, the next two from 1st August, the last two from 9th August.

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

♫... I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There's gotta be a little rain sometime... ♫
Lynn Anderson (1970)

Photos from the Rose Garden in the park in our city centre today; taken on my way back from having been to pick up my new glasses. The grey skies in the background brought Lynn Anderson's song to mind for me. The weather has been "back and forth" again a lot this week. Rain one day, 25C the next, and then again so stormy that one hesitates to go out just because of all the debris flying around. However, today the wind had once more subsided, the temperature was quite pleasant for walking - around 18C (64F) - and the rain actually kept away until I was safely back home again.

If you followed my July adventures, you may remember that I went to see my optician about a month ago; and after her examination decided to buy a pair new glasses, even if the results from the eye test only showed "minor" changes. (But it might have some impact on my ability to read small print.) You may also recall that I took a couple of frames home with me to ponder about over the weekend after the examination; but then ended up deciding on a third one in the shop instead, when I got back there. (Decicions, decisions...) 

What did not really strike me until today when I tried on the new ones again in the shop, now with glass fitted... was how very little the new frame that I finally decided on really differs from my old one! I almost had to laugh. The new ones are a bit more rounded in shape but that's about it...

 Old glasses: top/left, new ones: bottom/right.
I'm calling this collage: "Me and My Twin"...

There's a little bit more of a slight tinge towards green in the new frame compared to the old one (which is more just dark blue). But it's not really obvious...

Ah well. I guess I shall just have to claim that I've "found my style" and am sticking with it!

What I'm primarily hoping for is that the new glasses might make it a little bit easier to read small print on paper again. The main problem is macular degeneration in the left eye, though - diagnosed ~3 years ago. And that can neither be cured nor compensated with glasses. (But at least it does not really seem to have got any worse; which is good.) 

I did not bother to also get new separate glasses for computer work, though - my old "computer glasses" still work well enough.

---

The sentence "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem "Sacred Emily", which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person. Stein later used variations on the sentence in other writings, and the shortened form "A rose is a rose is a rose" is among her most famous quotations, often interpreted as meaning "things are what they are", a statement of the law of identity, "A is A." (Wikipedia) 

 

Dinosaurius Aurantiacus

 

 On my short walk this afternoon, I spotted an orange dinosaur grazing on the football field.

Back home, I asked AI what would be its Latin name, and learned that it would be either a Dinosaurius Aurantiacus, or possibly an Aurantiosaurus. **

Letting my phone camera zoom it in through a hole in the mesh fence, it became a little clearer what was going on, though:

They are now obviously getting started on the project of turning the big empty football field into a park - which I wrote about back in May, in a post entitled A Field Day. According to the information I took part of then, the corner where they have now started digging is where they plan to build a gigantic outdoor stage. 

In case you don't want to bother about going back to that post, below is the image of what they are planning to construct, again. (Please note the size of the people inside it.) How it tall it might in the end turn out to be compared to an Aurantiosaurus with its neck upright, I'm still not sure.

  

* * * * *

** Because the ancient Romans did not know about dinosaurs, modern scientists and linguists created Neo-Latin words to describe them. 

The literal translation of "orange dinosaur" into New Latin is dinosaurus aurantiacus. 

The translation is broken down as follows: 

Component Breakdown

Orange: Aurantiacus (or aurantius) is the standard Neo-Latin adjective for the color orange.
Dinosaur: Dinosaurus is the accepted Neo-Latin noun. (Note that while dinosaurus uses a Latin suffix, it originally derives from the ancient Greek words deinos, meaning "terrible", and sauros, meaning "lizard").

Scientific Nomenclature Style

If you are looking to name a specific, fictional dinosaur species using standard scientific naming conventions (binomial nomenclature), you would combine Latin and Greek roots: 

Aurantiosaurus: Meaning "Orange Lizard" (Combining the Latin root for orange with the Greek root for lizard).
Dinosaurus aurantiacus: Meaning "Orange-colored Dinosaur" (Written as a specific species type). 

(Source: Google AI)

 

August Calendar Photo

 ... and memories from Västervik, 2025...

In my own photo calendar for 2026, the photo for August (above) shows a view from Västervik, on the east coast of Sweden. 

The link goes to a post of mine from August 2025, with some more photos from this charming old seaside town. My brother and I spent an afternoon/evening (and night) there on our holiday trip. The sky was cloudy when we arrived, but the sun came out later on in the evening. Looking up that post now, I see that I also wrote there that "I took so many photos that I won't use them all in this post, but will save some for later."  I'm not sure if I ever got round to showing some more - but as it can still be said to be "later", here are some additional ones now... ;)

 

This year, we are not planning any "longer" trip . I for one have been feeling rather tired all summer. Besides "weird weather" a lot of the time, I'm still feeling limited by my knee, and am not sure how I'd cope with full days of travelling and touristing. Hopefully my brother will be able to drive down here for a visit towards the end of August, though (I spoke to him yesterday), and we may just make some shorter outing or two from here. (For me just now it doesn't have to be neither far nor long to make a bit of a change - while for him it will be a a few days away from home anyway.)