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! ;)

Pre-Election Saturday

Waking up fairly cough-free this morning, I decided to try and get myself into town for a couple of errands that I didn't feel up for earlier in the week. I took the bus part of the way there, but then walked back.

With the election coming up tomorrow, there were quite a lot of people about in the main square, as all the political parties have information booths up (no doubt they've been there all week). There's also a portable cabin for early voting, and today there was a long queue of people waiting to make use of that. 

Reports in the media say we've already broken previous records this year when it comes to the number of people preferring to vote early - and I made my contribution to that myself back on Monday. (I didn't have to go into town for that, as I could do it at a place closer to home.) 

 

These flags across a shopping street in the city centre are part of the past summer's art biennial. I did not stop to try and figure out the symbolism - and just as well that I didn't, as I'd never have succeeded...  Looking it up now on the Art Museum's Instagram page:

"Michelle Eistrup’s series of flags along Stora Brogatan draws on the heritage of Bakongo culture from Central Africa, which spread across the Americas due to the transatlantic slave trade. The flags form a “dictionary” of Bakongo gestures and evoke diasporic knowledge systems. They are organized into four sections, which represent the parallel cycles of the sun and of human life — sunrise and spiritual awakening, noon and maturity, sunset and decline, midnight and regeneration." 

On my way home, I walked through a corner of the city park, and noted that there are autumn colours to be seen in some of the trees now.

 

One of my favourite sculptures - I don't recall its name now, but I think it's been there since one of our first art biennials. For me as "Narnian" (referring to my blog name) it always makes me think of ancient mythological portals between worlds... 

Linking to Weekend Street/Reflection #294

RIP - King Harald V of Norway

 9 September, 2026

King Harald V of Norway, born 21 February 1937, passed away on Friday 28 August 2026, 89 years old. The funeral was held at the Oslo Cathedral on 9th September; and was broadcasted live also here in Sweden. Members of the Swedish royal family were attending as well. I watched most of it, and snapped some photos off my TV screen... 

The Swedish crown princess Victoria (goddaughter to king Harald) read a prayer at the ceremony in the cathedral, and our king Carl XVI Gustaf (himself 80 years old now) as well as the Danish king Frederik X walked on foot behind the coffin together with the new king Haakon of Norway (son of the old king), in quite a long procession through the streets of Oslo, to the old kings' final resting place.  

 

Walking behind the coffin: 

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, 
King Haakon VIII of Norway, 
King Frederik X of Denmark

More details can be found in a separate Wiki article: Death and state funeral of Harald V 

 

Flush in a Flash

My cold (cf my Monday post) has probably kept running a pretty normal course, but especially the coughing has been tiresome. (Still is, even if that too is getting better now.) 

On Tuesday I had the laundry room booked for the afternoon. I was in luck and could start an hour early (11 instead of 12) and didn't have to run more than two loads, but that still felt enough. In the evening I also had to start preparing for ... 

AI generated image

 

... Wednesday, when we (tenants) had been forewarned that plumbers were coming to high pressure flush all the drains in our building, one flat at a time; and for that we were asked to remove anything that might make their access to drains and pipes etc difficult. In the kitchen, this meant not only removing stuff on top of (and in) the sink, but also emptying the cupboard underneath, where I keep various bins, bags and boxes for waste and recycling. And in the bathroom, anything under and close to the wash basin, and near the drain in the shower (which isn't glass-enclosed, only has a curtain). I did not really expect them to find much problem with my drains - but as I couldn't recall this procedure having been done before while I've lived here, I wasn't quite sure how much "mess" to expect... So I pretty much emptied the whole bathroom. (Universal truth: One never really realises how much stuff one keeps in small spaces until one has to move it somewhere else...) 

As I live in the middle of the building (with 18 flats altogether) I knew they weren't likely to start with me; but as I had no idea how fast or slow the procedure would be, I still preferred to be up and dressed and "ready" before 8 on Wednesday (which was their starting time). They did come to me before noon, and as there was no real problem here, the flushing procedure as such was over in "no time at all"... 

... But after they (he) left, for me still remained the job to put things back in place... And as it's rare to have every nook and cranny of the bathroom that empty, I did take advantage of that for a more thorough than usual cleaning of that room before putting "stuff" back. Like behind pipes - of which there are a lot more in reality than in the AI image above... (AI did  well with the Wisteria pattern on my shower curtain, though!) 

All in all, combined with the remnants of my cold, enough "work" for me to feel rather exhausted afterwards...

... Although it can't really have taken me as long as it felt, because I know I then spent most of the afternoon watching the funeral of the Norwegian King Harald on TV. (I took some photos off my TV screen of that, but out of respect I think I'll put those in a separate post!)