A Patchwork Ramble, or Waiting for the Big Bang

There are so many things going on at the moment that I think I shall have to do a Scriptor-like ramble today.

Bomb Threat

This is the Court House situated by our main square.

I took this photo on Thursday evening when walking back from having been to the unveiling of The House of Knowledge sculpture (see my recent FMTSO post). This was around 6:30 pm when most of the nearby shops had already closed for the day, so not a lot of people about. Looks rather peaceful, doesn’t it? – The next day, Friday, was a hot and humid kind of day with temperature rising close to +30° in the shadow, almost tropical storm blowing, and the whole of Nature just seeming to be waiting for thunder. I had intended to go into town in the afternoon, but didn’t. Just as well, because if I had, I would have found central town deserted and the shops around the square closed; because of a bomb threat to the Court House (which is still being used as such). Someone left a message in the late morning, that a bomb was to go off there at 3 pm. So the court house and all the nearby buildings had to be evacuated. However, no explosion took place, and the police found nothing. And I did not know anything about it all until the evening news on TV!!! (What?! In my town?!??)

Action

If we got any thunder here during the night, I slept through it. We did get rain through, and the air was a lot cooler and fresher the next morning. So I set off into town for my postponed errands; hoping to find things in a state of “business as usual”.

Well, shops were open – just not all easy to get to!
To my consternation, as I approached the town centre, I found it had turned into a gigantic obstacle course. Not the work of terrorists though – even if to someone like me (out for a bit of ordinary Saturday shopping) it might seem so…

I guess my “sports filter” had kicked in as usual when reading the morning paper, and I had completely missed the fact that a big Action Run event was going to take place in town that day.

Apparently, various ways of getting wet was considered part of the “fun”.

I can only guess that the bomb threat the day before must indeed have been instigated by someone with a grudge against the judicial system rather than by someone wanting to cause chaos in general; because for the latter purpose, Saturday would (in my humble opinion) have been the more effectful choice. Or, instead of the court house, perhaps…

The Textile Fashion Center / Textile Museum

Because that’s where everyone else was, who did not prefer climbing rubber walls or running through car wash showers or balancing on narrow timber logs across the river.

The inauguration ceremony (re-opening of the Textile Museum in its new premises, after a move that has taken two years to prepare) took place on Friday afternoon. I did not attend, because of the oppressive weather already mentioned. But they also had Open House all weekend, both at the museum and in the rest of the Fashion Center; and I ended up spending both Saturday and Sunday afternoon strolling around the place with my camera, because there was sooo much to see.

As a result I have have more pictures and impressions than I can find the time (just now) to organise and share! So I will be getting back to this place in several posts to come, just sharing a few things each time. Otherwise all our heads will end up spinning… Just like these chairs below!

The goathi or lappkåta makes sense in a “punny” way, if you know Swedish…“Lapp” in Swedish = “patch” but is also a (dated) word for the Sami people (cf. Lapland, the region in the north of Scandinavia where they live).

In the planning of the new museum, the public was asked to send in various kinds of patches of a certain size to the museum; and a textile artist made use of some of them for the decoration surrounding the entrance (as seen above); but evidently there were a lot more patches sent in than needed for that purpose…

EU Election

Today was also election day for the European Union Parliament; and on my way to the Textile Museum I popped in at my polling place (a technical senior high school) to vote. They had art on their wall too:

I can’t claim to be very engaged in political issues, but I do find it better to vote than not to vote – because even if I’m not 100% sure which party I agree with the most (for the Americans: we have more than two!), I do feel more sure about some I don’t wish to see increase their influence… Which really makes any one of the others a better alternative!

The results of the election are coming in as I’m writing this but I’m not going into any analysis here. I consider that I’ve done my tiny little bit by voting.