Church Concert for the Children of the World

Yesterday afternoon, I went with my friend E to a choir concert in the church in the village outside town where my parents used to live. Her daughter sings in the choir, based in another small town in the area. (We were also accompanied by E's daughter's ex-husband's mother. As there is no simple word for that kind of relationship, I gave up on trying to fit that into the first sentence... They're all still on friendly terms, though.) 

I did not take any photo of the church on the outside on this occasion, but below are two from previous visits:

Fristad church, August 2024

 

April 2023

In April 2023 we were there for a concert with the same choir in the same church.

The concert now was a charity concert for a national Swedish fundraising campaign for "the Children of the World" which has been taking place in October every year for around 25 years now. 

One of the songs that the choir sang this time was ABBA's Chiquitita (Spanish: 'little girl') - below in the original version, with lyrics.  

 

Autumnal Equinox - September Evening Skies (2)

 

19.9 - 19:54

22.9 - 19:01

25.9 - 19:22

Tonight it's raining, and the sky all grey and dark at around 19.30 when I'm posting this. 

Linking to Skywatch Friday 

The Autumn of Life

 

We had another sunny September weekend - and probably a last farewell to what has felt like an unusually prolonged summer - starting already at the beginning of May, and lasting almost through September.

 

Now it seems autumn has started to take over, though. Raining today; and all at once, it feels a lot more autumn-like...

On my Sunday walk across the old cemetery, I happened to meet an older woman with a rollator walker (with a seat). She stopped and asked me the time, saying she had forgotten her watch at home. As I had remembered mine,  I could oblige. (Besides,  I also had my mobile/cell phone.)

However, after that she kept on talking... And as I was in no hurry, I remained to listen for a while. In the course of the conversation I learned that she was a widow since some years back, still living on her own in a flat somewhere nearby, spending a lot of time just waiting for home care staff (who never seemed to come on time), had applied for a place at some assisted living or nursing home and had been waiting a long time for that - but had also recently turned down an offer of such a place in a part of town with which she wasn't familiar, as she really wanted to be in the town centre. She had used to go and have lunch at a restaurant at some such place there sometimes; but was no longer able to walk there, as it was too far away for her now. She missed her husband; and all her old friends were gone (dead) too. She had a twin sister (alive but living somewhere else, was my impression) but did not get along with her (waste-of-space) brother-in-law, and never had... One thing upon another; and on the whole she came across as rather tired of life. (In spite of which, she had got herself out for a walk, all by herself, though, and did also seem to have spark enough to get upset about things.) As for me, she kept referring to me as "young"... Not really feeling all that young myself any more (at 69), I did finally ask her straight out how old she was, and it turned out she was 92 (born 1932). I.e. of the same generation as my parents, born 30/31, and gone since 15 vs 13 years now. So of course "entitled" to feel old and tired... and one might think that at that age just wanting to move to a care home of some kind should really be reason enough, But I do know that there are not nearly enough such places, and thus also queues... I do hope she won't have to wait much longer for a place somewhere where she'll feel less lonely. 

(For my own part, I came away from that meeting feeling unusually young and fit...)

Busy Bee

 

Yesterday I sat for a good while on my balcony, watching this busy bee making the most of the pelargoniums next to me. 

 
    What do you call a bee that can't make up its mind? A maybee.
    What do you call a bee that misses its target? A fumble bee.
    How do bees communicate with each other? They use bee-mail.
   
 ---

PS. "Pelargonium is a genus of flowering plants that includes about 280 species of perennials, succulents, and shrubs, commonly called geraniums, pelargoniums, or storksbills. Geranium is also the botanical name and common name of a separate genus of related plants, also known as cranesbills. Both genera belong to the family Geraniaceae, and Carl Linnaeus originally included all the species in one genus, Geranium; they were later separated into two genera by Charles Louis L'Héritier de Brutelle in 1789." (Wikipedia)

Weekend Street/Reflections

 

I snapped these photos on one of my recent walks through the city centre - proving that the fashion trend this autumn seems to be black, grey, white and beige, and not much else!

Linking to Weekend/Street Reflections #191

Light and Dark

The sun keeps shining - but the same cannot be said about the basement lights ...

We're having another glourious September week, with afternoon temperatures reminding more of high summer than autumn. 

On Monday I walked into town for a haircut, and also could not resist snapping a couple more reflection photos.

On Tuesday I walked in the opposite direction, to the supermarket for a few things (no photos).

Wednesday (yesterday) was Laundry day for me, so then I did not go far from home - just a turn around the neighbourhood when I was done with that. 

 

Red berries in the old cemetery;
their name unknown to me.  

Before that, my laundry afternoon was a somewhat spooky adventure this week, though. First of all, the lights in the (windowless) basement corridor weren't working. They're of the kind that are supposed to come on automatically when sensing movement - but yesterday only the one just opposite the lift (elevator) was functioning... It was ok inside the laundry room itself, though.

When I got back up to my flat, I made an online report of that, and also a separate report of having noted that the dustpan was missing from the laundry room cleaning equipment. 

Next time I got down, both brooms had disappeared as well! So then I thought okay, someone must have borrowed them all temporarily... (Why first only the dustpan, and then also the brooms, still mystifies me, though!)

However, when I got back down the last time to collect my final load from the drier, all three cleaning tools had been replaced. It was not the same old ones that had been put back, though, but different ones. Definitely not brand new (very far from) - but also definitely not the same ones. I can only presume that the service staff must be keeping a secret stack of old runaway brooms and dustpans somewhere and circulate them when needed...

AI generated image

 (As for the lack of light in the corridor, after my first wander in the dark, the next times I went down I brought a pocket flashlight with me...)

Swedish whitebeam tree. There are several of these around the housing estate and street where I live.
 
Today, I walked into town again in the morning - this time for a pharmacy errand - and on the way, I noted a definite change of colour now in certain trees...
 

In the afternoon, I also went for a shorter walk to the nearby district library again, to return the book I borrowed last time, and look for another (ended up borrowing two). 

 

This time, I also remembered to take a photo of an interior detail that caught my eye already on the first visit - these wonderfully decorated dark door frames... Most of the doors have been removed to enable visitors to circulate through the rooms, but I also noticed one now with the door still there, and closed.

Not easy to do photographic justice to, but enlarged and with some adjusting of colour you can see the pattern:

 

Plenty of Time?

Last week I borrowed a book at our district library, written by a Swedish physicist and author, Bodil Jönsson (born 1942). Between 1999 and 2019, she wrote about 20 books. As far as I can find, only her first book has been translated to English, though - entitled Ten Thoughts About Time. 

The book that I borrowed now (and have been reading over this past week) is a sort of sequel to that first one, written 20 years later (2019). Using the same headlines for each chapter as in the first one, she is updating her ideas a bit; now weighing in changes in our concepts and uses of time that have occurred over the past two decades, related to the progress of technology etc. The title of this one could be translated Plenty of Time (but as I said, it does not seem to have been published in English). The Swedish cover has an image reminding me of the new mural seen from our town park - which is why I chose that photo above. Below is the cover of the book in Swedish:

What I remember best from the first book (and I think that's also what got most talked about here back then in media reviews etc) was her emphasis on the importance of something that in Swedish she calls ställtid. I'm not sure what word is used in the English edition, but probably changeover, a word from industrial context meaning "the process of converting a line or machine from running one product to another". Anyway, she keeps coming back to the importance of pauses between various tasks, giving us time both to reflect, and to mentally prepare for what is coming up next. Whether it's about bigger changes, or just (for example) the time we regularly spend travelling (or walking) between work and home. One of her main ideas (as I understand it) is that even the time when we seem to be doing "nothing" is actually essential when it comes to being efficient; because we need such times (sometimes short, sometimes longer) in order to reset our thoughts and feelings etc as we go from one task or role or context to another.

What I think I'll be taking with me from the new-ish (2019) book that I just read, is that here she also encourages us to try to change our contemporary perspective of thinking about of time as running away from us (so that we constantly feel that we'll never be able to catch up), to instead think of time as coming towards us. Easier said than done, perhaps - but may be worth some contemplation...

 

More Weekend Reflections

 

 

The glorious early autumn weather has continued over the weekend. On Saturday I avoided the town centre through, as I knew there would be a big running competition going on, and crowds of people was not really what I was in the mood for. Today, however, I counted on things being a lot calmer - and they were. Above is the swimming hall situated in the town park, reflected in the river.

 

In the comment section on my previous post, someone wondered if the decorated building above (and below) is a parking garage. No, it's not. It's an apartment building.

Part of the building in the photo below, however, is a parking garage:

 

Walking on along the river, at the entrance to a walkway under a bridge I discovered another mural that I can't remember having seen before. I'm not sure if it's an official or an unofficial one - I could not see any signature. Somehow it reminded me of the recent media reports from the SpaceX Spacewalk...! 

Under the same bridge, there is an older mural which is definitely at its best on a calm day like this, when the river is very still, acting as a mirror...

A bit further on, this summer's art installation of floating sculptures is still there. (I think until the end of this month?)

 

Photo from the other side of the river.

I have a few more photos from today's walk, but will save those for another post, and will instead finish this post with a couple of photos from home:

On Saturday afternoon, I sat for a while in the sun on my own balcony.
Most sunny afternoons during summer have been way too hot for that...

My harvest of (cherry) tomatoes (to the right) has not been overwhelmingly impressive; but I have been able to pick a few now and then, and I may get a few more before it's over.

My indoors autumn/fall decorations are subtle, compared to what I see on certain American blogs... Basically they just consist of a touch of orange in my vase of fake flowers, a couple of orange candles, and my two ceramic owls...

 (The larger of the owls is hollow and one can put a tealight inside it. Preferably a fake one.)

Meike asked after Barbie and Skipper, who willingly agreed to pose for another photo. At the moment, they're both in classic outfits rather suitable for nice sunny early autumn weather. Trousers/jeans and tops for both of them sewn by my mum back in the 1960s. And In the background, you see a trivet with an image painted by my water colour artist friend Lena. (Link to a post from last summer when I visited an exhibition of hers.)

 

Weekend Reflections

 

We're having a lovely early autumn weekend here. The 'unnatural' heat has given way to much cooler temperatures, but at the same time it's been sunny. Both Friday and Saturday have been really lovely. Photos from a walk downtown yesterday.

Linking to Weekend Reflections

Evening Skies

During the heatwave we've had over the past two weeks or so (breaking old heat records for September - but it seems to be over now) it was much to hot to sit on my balcony in the afternoons (or even have the door open). But around sunset there were some interesting skies... 

I used my separate camera for all of the photos below; and they are straight out of the camera, with no editing. (Time = summer/daylight saving time.)

26.8 - 20:03

29.8 - 20:05

30.8 - 20:52

3.9 - 19:58

 

 

6.9 - 19:52

 

6.9 - 19:52

6.9 - 19:52

6.9 - 19:53

 

7.9 - 19:59

8.9 - 18:43

"Autumn glows upon us
like a splendid evening;
it is the very sunset of the year."

Mary Russell Mitford

- - -

Linking to Mersad's Through My Lens Nr. 450