Silence is golden

 

I'm finding it hard to distinguish one weekday from another just now... Monday through Friday this week have been filled with constant background noise and vibrations from the construction work going on in the nearby old football field, to turn that into a park. (Actually harder to imagine now than when they first got started, as just now it's just a playground for huge excavators and trucks and ground flattening machines playing around in wet mud... I'm finding the noise (and especially the vibrations) very tiring as it makes it hard to concentrate on anything at all; but at the same time I also don't have the energy to escape from home for very long at a time. 

Photo from Wednesday
(when it was still mostly dry)

On Thursday it was raining all day, and I didn't get out at all except for a very short walk in the late afternoon, after the moving around of mud had stopped. I know I managed to get some vacuuming done (competing with the noise from outside) - but as for what else I may have been able to get done (or not), I've already managed to forget...

Friday offered somewhat better weather (at least not as wet!) so I went for another walk to the charity shop in town around noon, to donate another old winter jacket. (If this very noisy stage of the park project keeps on much longer, I might end up with a proper wardrobe clear-out!) 

Today is Saturday, though, and no over-time going on in the muddy field - so it's been blissfully quiet! I slept late, and have then been trying to catch up with a bit of this and that - but mostly just appreciating the silence... (Noting to myself that I've not even really wanted to have radio/TV on much!)

Grey sky, but not raining in the afternoon, so I also got out for a quiet (...) walk in the cemetery...

 

 

Snapping these photos of gardening tools in the cemetery may have been inspired by me having read Jenny's (of the blog Salt&Light) post about "Red Things" earlier in the day! ;) 

Wednesday Walk

 

Yesterday was laundry day for me, and I did not get out until late afternoon, when I was finished with that - and then just a short walk. The photo above is from some other day, but autumn is in steady progress here now - every day more and more yellow leaves dropping to the ground, and (on weekdays) leaf blowers at work both in the cemetery where I usually walk, and around the estate where I live. And on top of that, the noise from the excavators and other machines at work to transform the old football field to a park... 

Today I again woke up to noises and vibrations of that kind, but also to a day promising a bit of sun. So I decided to try and escape my noisy immediate surroundings for a while by going for a walk into town - again combined with handing in another bag of clothes to a charity shop. This time, just one item, but a rather bulky one: An old winter coat, which I had decided to consider replaced by the new one that I bought on the shopping day with my brother when he was here at the end of August. And as I noted last time I was in the charity shop that they had started a special collection for winter clothes, that was a reminder for me to include my old coat in my washing yesterday; and then no reason to wait further to also get it off to the shop. 

The fountain in the main square was "up and running" today; and some new plantings had been made for autumn.

 

One of the bridges across the river, leading to the park, is decorated with pink symbols to remind of October being breast cancer awareness month. The "dressed statue" in the park had lost her knitted hat (cf my Saturday post), but was still wearing her pink skirt + message. (I did not take a new photo today.) 

While I was in town, I also popped in at the book shop to ask for the book mentioned in my Monday post. They had it, so I bought it. (The fourth and last in a series of which I already had the previous three in print.)

 I walked back home along the river. In some places, on a calm day, not all easy to sort out what's "real" vs reflection! ;)

 And at the "riverside" entrance to the cemetery, there were new autumn plantings, too:

 

How To Spend A Rainy Day

Today has been a thoroughly grey and rainy day, and by now (~ 5:15 pm) I've given up any thoughts of going out. The photos of colourful maple leaves in this post were taken one day last week, when I remembered to bring my "proper" camera on my walk (with better zoom capacity than my mobile). 

 

 

 

Of course I thought this morning that if I'm not going out, it will be a good day to get some "housework" done. 7 hours later, I can't really say I managed that either. As so often these days, I seem to have spent most of today struggling with "tech stuff" like updating apps not working as they should (or me not understanding how to get them to do so).

 

The main "hiccup" today was trying to update a (Swedish) library app (for e-books) that I hadn't used in a good while. The library had changed their login procedure, and I in turn wasn't even sure I remembered the old one correctly... So that took a while to sort out. I finally managed that part - but then I still had to struggle for a good while longer to also borrow the e-book, download it, and learn how to make (and keep!) the settings of font, text size and keeping track of how far I'd read etc. I finally managed to actually also read about 100 pages it (out of 700 something) today, though.

 

What motivated me was that I had just read a review of this newly published book, which is the fourth and last installment in a series of which I have read the previous three - and also have those in print. I'll probably end up buying this last one as well (to have the series complete); but as I do find it easier to read enlarged text on my tablet these days, I decided to try the library e-book for now. (The author, Susanna Alakoski, is Swedish-Finnish, and these four novels have to do with the history of textile industry in both countries - also involving Borås where I live. Alas I can't find that any of her books - neither this series nor others - have been translated to English.) 

 

So that more or less sums up my day: Struggling with a library app, reading a few chapters, and then blogging about it... 

 

AI-generated image from 2024. (I'm not in the mood just now to check if since then AI has learned to keep the rain outdoors...)

 

Weekend Street/Reflections

 

After a mostly rainy day yesterday, the sun somewhat reluctantly decided to come out again today. It had still not quite "got out of bed" yet when I decided to go into town, but it showed its face again before I got back home.

I took the bus half the way there today (two stops), because my errand this time was not to go shopping, but rather the opposite: To drop off a bag of discarded clothes to a charity shop. Having done that, I felt a little big lighter, and walked all the way back home instead.

Walking through the park on my way back, I came across this rather unusual sight: A usually naked statue dressed in a skirt and a knitted hat - both pink. From where I stood, I could not read the whole sign, but I recognised the pink symbol at the top: A reminder that October is Breastcancer Awareness month. (I think this is global, not just in Sweden?) 

 

Made me think of several old friends who fought that battle. (♥) 
Too many sadly died... but I do also still know one or two who survived. 

Walking along the river back home, the sun had come out, and I caught this water reflection - with the reflected sky looking even bluer than the one above! 

Linking to Weekend Street/Reflections #297

Entering October

A sunny autumn day yesterday (30 September), and I took advantage of it for a walk into town and back for an errand. As always, trying to "combine business with pleasure" - or the other way round! (My "business" this time was to get a couple of things from the pharmacy before the prescription expired.)

 

 

 On the way back I passed by an even older cemetery (closer to the city centre) than the one I usually walk in. I only passed it on the outside of the wall, but spotted this 'tricolor' tree whose bottom branches were still green, while the top of it was all red.

Another view of treetops from the same cemetery.

And a young Rowan tree about half way on my way home.
With red leaves as well as red berries!

 

Home is a less peaceful place than usual these days, at least on weekdays, as the project of turning the old football field nearby into a park is now fully under way... 

These two photos were snapped one afternoon last week when I happened to be passing while the workers were on a break. Except for a break now and then for coffee or lunch or whatever, they're pretty much "at it" all day now - and very noisily. They've dug up the whole field and are putting new layers of gravel and sand and soil on top. I think most of the noise and vibrations just now are to do with flattening it all out again with heavy machines running back and forth... A tiresome constant background noise throughout the day, which also penetrates closed windows. We're having another fine autumn day today, but just now I can't escape by going for a walk, as I'm waiting for a delivery of groceries...

... Ah, a machine just stopped and it became all quiet... For a blissful minute...

I keep telling myself that it's temporary, though - and even if I'd have preferred the old (and usually empty!) field to be left alone, after all it's better that they turn it into a park than if they had decided to build more apartment blocks... (I suspect the ground there is not the right kind of foundation for building more houses on, though.)

The photo above is from 25 September last year - and was my chosen picture for October in my own photo calendar for 2026. (Just now I'm not sure why, as there's not all that much autumn colours in it!)

...

To end with some good news, the blog list on my side-bar seems (at last!) to be updating properly again, since yesterday. While I've noted here and there that others seem to have got theirs fixed much sooner, I was beginning to fear mine would remain "stuck in the past" forever... But it seems one should never give up hope - even with things like that!! :)