Catching Up

 I just realised it's been a week since I last put in a "proper" blog post among the pre-scheduled calendar posts. The weather lately has been dominantly dark grey, foggy and cold; and there's not been much to inspire neither photograpy nor writing. 

On Monday this week we had a bit of a break in the clouds though, and I took advantage of that for a walk into town for a haircut + a couple of other errands. (I phoned my hairdresser in the morning and she was able to fit me in.)

The low sun put a spotlight on this view over the park (and church tower in the background) as I approached the town centre.

The Christmas decorations on the footbridges over the river to/from the park have been the same for a few years now. Stars on one, hearts + 'mistletoe' on another.

 

(After the haircut)

 

My artist friend Lena, living on the west coast, recently published a book with a selection of her seaside water colours. I bought one (she sent it to me by post), and decided to have that book as my "Advent calendar" this December. (It will last beyond Christmas, though.) So for now I have put it on an easel, and try to keep to turning just one page a day! (Last summer I visited one of Lena's exhibitions and blogged about that here.)

At home I've also been keeping busy with things like writing my Swedish Christmas cards, and yesterday (Tuesday) I got those plus a couple of parcels posted down at the main post office down by the railway. With post only delivered every other weekday here nowadays, one had better not cut it too close...

This is not the post office, but an old house that I like, in a street where I walk to get there.  (I don't know its history, but nowadays it seems to be an estate agent's office.) 

Recently having seen that Postnord (our postal services) will be raising the postage again in January by another shocking 22%, I also bought some more stamps (of the "forever" kind) while they're still sold at this year's price. I've already cut down a lot on sending postcards (especially via Postcrossing) - but during the years that I've been into that, I've also somehow managed to collect quite a stock of unwritten cards; and it seems a shame not to continue to give those a chance to travel as intended... There's quite a bit of irony to the situation, as one of my reasons to join Postcrossing in the first place was that I inherited a lot of stamps... (Out of which most of the ones usable for sending postcards abroad have long since been used up...) 

However, I just found a way to even things out a bit... Swedish friends living in Thailand sadly had their house flooded back in the summer and a lot of their belongings destroyed. By now they've managed to get most things sorted and renewed etc with help from friends and insurances; but of course they're still missing a lot of personal stuff of the kind hard to replace. The other day my friend mentioned (on FB) wanting to send someone a card and then missing that box of cards that she'd been collecting over a long time (and which did not survive the flood).  So yesterday I put together a varied mix of postcards to send to her. Ironically, it turns out  that the postage needed for sending a package of around a hundred unwritten cards across the world is just about the same as sending three (3) individual cards the same distance...