Storm Floris has passed, the wind has died down, the heatwave from July has given way to somewhat cooler temperatures, and the overall weather situation for the week ahead is looking "okay" for our road trip... My brother will be driving down here today; and tomorrow we set off together for a few days. First destination Linköping, where we hope to meet up with our aunt and uncle on Sunday. I'm not likely to be blogging (or commenting much) until I'm back home again; but I'll probably be "lurking" in the background now and then, reading some friends' blogs on my phone... :)
In Swedish we have a saying: "ha tur i oturen", meaning "to have good luck in the midst of bad luck"... I can't think of a corresponding common expression in English? If you can, please enlighten me!
I got several replies (thanks!) referring to the English quote about "clouds with a silver lining" - while no one seemed to have a different suggestion.
As perhaps not all readers are in the habit of going back to check replies to comments, I decided to put my "afterthoughts" in a separate post as well.
I'm familiar with the saying "every cloud has a
silver lining" in English since before. To me there is a slight difference in
meaning between that and the Swedish expression about having "good luck in the midst of bad luck", but I suppose it's as close as we'll get in finding an
equivalent :)
The Swedish expression kind of involves a turn of
events [i.e. first something bad happens; but after that, something good happens to at least partly kind of balance that out]; while to me the "silver lining" seems to be more about finding a
brighter side to a dark situation.(?)
I looked up the phrase "silver lining" in my copy of Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and here is what they say:
A
silver lining. The prospect of better days, the promise of happier
times. The Saying, Every cloud has a silver lining, is quite an old one;
thus in Milton's Comus, the Lady lost in the wood resolves to hope
on, and sees 'a sable cloud turn forth its silver lining to the night'.
Though outwardly a gloomy shroud The inner half of every cloud Is bright and shining; I therefore turn my clouds about, And always turn them inside out, To show the lining. Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, The Wisdom of Folly
---
I also asked Google AI, which gave me the following summary:
A "silver lining" refers to a positive or hopeful aspect within a difficult or negative situation. It signifies finding something good, even when things seem bleak. The phrase often appears in the idiom "every cloud has a silver lining," suggesting that even in the worst circumstances, there's always a potential for something positive.
The phrase originates from a poetic image of clouds with a bright edge when the sun is behind them. This suggests that even when things are cloudy (bad), they can still have a bright, positive aspect. It's a metaphor for optimism and finding a reason to be hopeful, even when facing adversity.
And Google AI's comment about the Swedish expression "tur i oturen" goes something like this (translated from Swedish to English by me):
"Tur i oturen" is a Swedish expression describing a situation where something bad leads to something good. It's when an accident or adversity brings an unexpected positive result. For example: You miss a train, but because of that, you get the unexpected chance of meeting an interesting person. Or your flight gets delayed, but because of that you get upgraded to first class.
I'm now thinking that perhaps a better translation to English of the Swedish expression would be "bad luck bringing good luck". However, this is not to be interpreted as something that always happens, or is always possible - it's only used when it happens.
I have not yet started the actual "packing", but I've started making lists and gathering things...
Outdoors, the remnants of storm Floris from Britain has been shaking the trees and throwing water at my windows every now and then throughout the day.
I was convinced that I had booked the laundry room (in the basement of my building) for this afternoon (12 onward). However, "something" made me go down already around 9:30 to double check... Good thing that I did! because it turned out I had actually accidentally booked the 4th (yesterday) instead of the 5th! ...
... BUT the laundry room happened to be free until 12... So I hastily re-booked, darted upstairs to gather the things most important to get washed - and managed to get my two loads done before 12. The first one (towels etc) went in the tumble dryer; and even the t-shirts in the second lot got some 20 minutes in the drying cabinet (and actually got almost dry in that time, since there were only a few of them).
In Swedish we have a saying: "ha tur i oturen", meaning "to have good luck in the midst of bad luck"... I can't think of a corresponding common expression in English? If you can, please enlighten me!
Both of these flowers are seen in bloom in abundance here, this time of year - reminding us that summer is coming to an end, and autumn approaching. They often grow along railroads and roads, and I think they're both often regarded as something in between wildflowers and "invasive" here... (As they have a habit of sneaking into gardens as well!)
The English Wikipedia article on the yellow Goldenrods tells me that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this plant was used in Europe to heal wounds, and has well known "astringent, diuretic and antiseptic" properties. I did not know that - and had to look up "astringent"! ("causing the contraction of skin cells and other body tissues")
Wiki also tells me that the American name for the pink ones, Fireweed, "derives from the species' abundance as a colonizer on burnt sites after forest fires and other disturbances". Here in Sweden, the name Rallarros means "navvy rose"; because it so often grows along railways banks here. (Even if in my photos above, it seems that it is the goldenrods that have taken over that particular part of a railway bank in my neighbourhood...)
Photo from a walk I managed to fit in "between showers" today...
- - -
The weather forecasts now seem to be assuming the weather to continue rather like that over the next 10 days. (I.e. a mix of sun and rain showers.) I've been busy most of the weekend trying to sort out the details of plans mentioned in previous post - a few days "roadtrip" with my brother. Including finding hotel rooms that can be cancelled without cost on 1-2 days notice... Hopefully that won't be necessary - but one never knows!
I keep watching the shifting skies this summer, but often find them hard to interpret. Even if the heat hasn't been as bad here in Sweden as in many places further south in Europe, July on the whole offered a lot of weather warnings here too - whether it was for extreme heat, risk of forest fires, or thunderstorms with extreme amounts of rain falling in a very short time, causing flooding. And sometimes all of it at once!
July har turned to August, an I'm still watching the clouds both in the sky and in my various weather apps; wondering when might be the best time for me and my brother to take our usual short trip together, as we've got into the habit of doing in summer. Just now, the forecasts seem to indicate that we're about to head into a rather unstable and rainy week again. But after that, maybe...?? Our intended trip will just be a few days - but with some hotel nights to book, possibly visiting someone along the way, and some other "this and that" to weigh in, quite a bit of "planning" is still needed...
Photos 1,2,3 from 29 July; no 4 from 30 July - and below, 31st July.
"Head in the clouds" is an idiom describing someone who is daydreaming or not paying attention to their surroundings, often because they are lost in their own thoughts or fantasies. It can also imply that someone is impractical, unrealistic, or out of touch with reality. / Google AI
Yorkshire Pudding's recent post entitled Temperance ended with a "How about you?" question. I put in a short reply there, but then also felt inspired to share a memory here on my own blog.
I was born into a teetotaller family. My maternal grandfather was chairman of a local branch of a Temperance organisation. My paternal grandmother's father was among the founders of a free church. My own parents weren't active members of any organisation or church, but there was never any alcohol in our house; nor was it ever served in any family context on either side of the family. For my own part, even in my youth I never felt tempted to start drinking alcohol either. I had enough friends with whom I had fun without any of us drinking anything stronger than tea - while on the other hand, I also came across a few people with serious addiction problems.
The Wine Bottle story that popped to mind for me is this:
Once, back in my teens, some time in the early 1970s, my parents had invited a business friend of my dad's + his wife for dinner; and they came bearing a gift: A bottle of wine. They probably felt some consternation when neither their bottle nor any other wine appeared on the table together with the food. But no drinks stronger than 2,25% apple cider were ever served in our house.
However, my parents must also have felt a reluctance to just get rid of the wine later by opening the bottle and pouring it out. Instead, it was just stored away in the cellar.
Just putting something away in the cellar and forgetting about it is of course not all that odd. (For one thing, my dad was always rather reluctant to throw anything away.) But it did feel odd when decades later, I discovered that wine bottle (still intact) sitting on a shelf in the cellar of the house they moved to some twenty years later (dad's childhood home, which they added to and moved into when he retired). They did actually get rid of quite a lot of other stuff in connection with moving... But for obscure reasons, not that bottle!
The 40+ years old bottle (still unopened) was still there in 2014 when my brother and I finally cleared out that house to sell it (after our parents had passed away).
I too just left it on the shelf, to be dealt with (together with a lot of other odds and ends) by the antique dealer we hired for the final clearing of the house.
For all I know, it may still be sitting unopened on a shelf in someone else's cellar.
I asked Bing Image Creator for "Two 70 year old women with short grey hair and wearing glasses, holding tea cups, sitting and chatting, in the style of Matisse". None of these images really resemble neither me nor my friend very much at all - but I find the "Matisse" twist a refreshing change from the "cartoon" style that I've usually asked Bing for! :)
A friend of mine since nearly 50 years got in touch recently and said she'd be in my town for a few days, working. She's an optician by profession; retired since a few years, but substituting now and then. And the chain she used to work for has shops in various cities; so sometimes she makes it into a kind of "working holiday" to go and help out somewhere different than in her own home town, for a week or so.
Anyway, this time her stay also included a work free Sunday. So I invited her to spend part of that day with me. She came to me for lunch, and as we had a lot to catch up on, she also stayed on for afternoon tea before she went back to her hotel.
We got to know one another in our early twenties up in Karlstad (where we both lived back then), via a church and a youth gospel choir there. Now we are both turning 70 in August. Hard to grasp!!
The last time we met was a couple of years "before the pandemic". During the course of our conversation this afternoon we found ourselves using "before/after the pandemic" as a time marker so many times that it struck us both that covid really did bring about quite a few changes in people's social lives (both our own and other friends').
Over the last seven years or so, we have also both lost quite a few mutual old friends (although not actually to covid, I think). So there was a lot to reminisce about.
And as many times before in later years (whenever getting together with other old friends approaching 70), I was once again reminded of Simon & Garfunkel's song Old Friends/Bookends. Even if today was a summer Sunday, and we were sitting indoors rather than outdoors on a park bench (and it was definitely not cold outside either!)
Old friends
Old friends
Sat on their park bench
Like bookends
---
Can you imagine us
Years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange
To be seventy
Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fears
Time it was
And what a time it was
It was . . .
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago . . . it must be . . .
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you
It's been a week of weather warnings here, but until today, just where I live, nothing much has come of the warnings to do with thunder, rain and flooding. This Friday afternoon we did get our share of it though: with lightning, several clashes of thunder so close and loud that they made me jump, and "the heavens opened" to suddenly let all the water down at once. For a while, the footpaths that I see from my windows seemed to turn into little brooks... The rain fell pretty much straight down, though; and a few hours later, the earth seems to have managed to absorb most of it around here (as far as I can see from home).
From the local newspaper's website I gather that it was worse in other places, though! (The photo below is a screenshot from the local newspaper's website; photographer anonymous.)
"A hare may sit still as a survival tactic, relying on camouflage and stillness to avoid detection by predators. This behavior, known as "freezing," is an instinctual response to perceived danger, where the animal remains motionless to blend into the environment and hope to remain unnoticed." (Google AI)
I have noted this often enough with the hares I sometimes encounter in the cemetery, when they become aware of human presence. Usually they stop on a gravel path or grave, imagining theymselves invisible against a stony beige-brown background... They usually don't remain frozen for all that long, though, but take the first chance they get to disappear.
Last evening when looking out of my kitchen window, I saw the hare from my previous post again (I think it's the same one). This time he was sitting still as a stone statue right on the paved walkway - in a spot where there was little bit of extra grit and few dead brown leaves, which I suppose was the closest thing to camouflage that he was able to find when the need to become suddenly invisible hit him. What it was that had caused him to freeze, I could not see from where I stood. (I could not see any people nearby.) But what I learned from watching him for a while was that hares are able to remain "frozen" for a very long time... He did move one of his hind feet a little bit a couple of times, but otherwise he just sat absolutely still in the same position and looking in the same direction for over 15 minutes. (I don't know how long he had been sitting there when I first spotted him, and I finally gave up on waiting him out, and did not actually watch when he left. But not too long after my last photo.)
The time stamps for the the six photos in the collage are: 19:17 - 19:21 - 19:28 - 19:31 - 19:31 - 19:32
(Not sure if I have the camera set on winter or summer time, but never mind.)
I'm still feeling a bit "knocked out" by the hot weather here. The temperature may have gone down a couple of degrees (C) compared to the weekend; but instead it's now more humid, with occasional thunder and rain showers. Still too warm indoors; and as my study faces south-west, I'm limiting my time at the computer...
Today I managed to get out for a walk (or a "stroll") between 10-11 am; just my usual paths around the old cemetery, and down to the little park by the river for a bit.
Yellow water lilies in the river, blurry because zoomed in from quite a long distance with my phone camera.
A number of similar flowerbeds in blue are found in different "park" areas of the cemetery.
I have shown several photos before of the hares living in the cemetery - or at least I assume that they "live" there, as that's where I usually see them. However, it happens that they also visit the lawns between the apartment buildings where I live. But it's usually in winter evnings that I have spotted them there, and not least when snow on the ground, so I have kind of assumed that it's been when they've had difficulties finding food elsewhere.) But a few nights ago (Saturday) I saw one grazing on the lawn below my balcony, and it wasn't even dark yet! And certainly no lack of greenery in other places, less frequented by humans. (It was unusually quiet in the neighbourhood at the time, though - not children out playing etc.)
Multiple images of one and the same hare, zoomed in from my balcony on Saturday evening.
Even here in Sweden we now seem to be in the grip of the European heat wave, with temperatures up around 29-30'C (85'F) in the afternoon - and even hotter in direct sunlight, of course. (I put a thermometer out on my balcony for a while in the afternoon today and it went up to around 40'C/104'F...) So just now, between noon and sunset, the best alternative is to keep balcony doors and windows shut, and all blinds and curtains drawn - and fans going in every room. (No I don't have A/C. Very few Swedish homes do, and especially not rental apartments. In general, our houses are built to keep heat in, not to let it out.)
I find the heat very tiring, so have had to cut my walks very short the past few days. And my sleeping pattern is even more upside down than usual, as I've also fallen into "siesta" habits (i.e. sleeping in the afternoon). Sometimes for much longer than intended, and even making it hard to recall what day (or time of day) it is when I wake up again!
Below are some more evening "skywatch" photos from my own balcony
14 July
The last three were all taken within the same minute last night (18 July), close to sunset.
It's the time of year when there are not just a lot of birds in the air, but also young ones walking about on the ground. A comment on my post yesterday (about oystercatchers) also reminded me of these photos of a young sea gull that I snapped on my way back from town on Monday.
A number of sea gulls (Larus canus) always come up the river from the coast in spring to nest and bring up their young here over summer. For me their arrival is always a sign of spring... They can indeed be a bit *too* noisy sometimes - not least in their "parenting" season when they hover above their young ones walking about on the ground. And no doubt probably also sometimes a bit too bold when it comes to snatching scraps of food from outdoor restaurants, or picnics in the park... Now and then our local newspaper reports complaints about them. I think I'd actually miss them if they weren't here in summer, though. It's a bit like they bring a whiff of the seaside to our inland town, for us who don't get to travel to the coast ourselves all that often. :)
Adult gull swimming in the river (photo from 2021)
Links to some previous posts of mine about sea gulls:
As you've been able to gather from my recent posts: even if we had some rain here lately, it has hardly been of biblical Deluge proportions. So when this morning I spotted some Eurasian Oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) on the lawn below my balcony, I kind of wondered if they too have come to rely on human weather apps for information, rather than going by their natural instincts... (The Swedish name for them is strandskata, which would literally translate as "Beach Magpie" in English.)
The lawns may have been given a decent watering over the past couple of days, but if they were hoping to find oysters, I think they must have been disappointed...
Just joking, of course. The river is only a few hundred meters away, and I have occasionally seen these birds around the neighbourhood before - even if not recently. They are rare guests compared to our usual everyday summer mix of seagulls, pigeons, magpies, crows and jackdaws. But yesterday morning, three or four visiting Oystercatchers seemed to have taken over the territory of this lawn from all the other kinds of big birds usually seen there, and had it all to themselves. And I found this interesting enough to go and fetch my Sony camera with some zoom possibilites, and snap a few photos...
Wikipedia tells me that despite the bird's name, oysters do not form a large part of the Oystercatcher's diet. It still lives up to its name, though, as few (if any) other wading birds are capable of opening oysters. It seems the shape of their bill can vary between individuals. Oystercatchers with broad bill tips open molluscs by prising them apart or hammering through the shell, whereas pointed-bill birds dig up worms.
So I guess what we see here is more a case of "the early bird hoping the catch the worm"...
My friend E.A. came visiting today, and brought me this coleus plant. Very similar to the one(s) I already have; but not exactly the same:
Coleus plants on my balcony, from cuttings of an older plant of mine.
As I know coleus can shift quite a lot in colour depending on how much light they get (they get much paler indoors in winter) it will be interesting to see if they will continue to differ, or if they will become more alike with time.
Our original plan for this afternoon was for E to drive us both to a lakeside café on the outskirts of town. However, the weather forecasts for today turned out as threatening as yesterday (i.e. more or less predicting the end of the world by lightning and floods). So I suggested that if she was brave enough to venture out at all, perhaps a cup of tea and a muffin in my flat would be adventure enough. She accepted, and as things turned out, she even managed to get a lift with her husband rather than driving herself. (He had some errands in town and then came back to pick her up again after a couple of hours, when he was done with whatever it was he had planned.)
Just like yesterday, lightning and floods decided (presumably) to hit on some other spot rather than just around here, and all we got was some rather ordinary rain. My friend and I both agreed that "staying home" was still a better choice for this afternoon, though.
Looking at various weather apps for tomorrow now, it seems that we may then expect warnings for temperatures rapidly rising to "too hot" instead... Ah well. As Scarlett O'Hara (in Gone with the Wind) would have said - "I'll think about that tomorrow"!
The geraniums I bought for my balcony some time back in late spring are now springing into their "second bloom" (after a period of rest).
Today I haven't been out except on the balcony, because for one thing I had the laundry room booked for the afternoon, and for another it's been a day of severe weather warnings issued: threatening us with storm, heavy downpour, flooding and traffic problems. However, in my immediate neighbourhood, one clash of distant thunder + a few short gentle showers (with the rain falling straight down) have not yet (9:30 pm) lived up to those threats.
But the temperature outdoors has dropped considerably over the past hour or two, so just now I'm letting fresh air in through balcony door and windows before going to bed.
Yesterday was sunny and warm. I called my hairdresser in the morning to ask if she could fit me in. I got an appointment for 1 pm, which meant a rather hot walk into town and back; but at least my hair should not need cutting again until September.
Every now and then I'm still dipping into envelopes of old photos from my dad and granddad. Below is one of me that I had half in mind to link to the past weekend's Sepia Saturday as an example of hairdos from the 1950's... (I didn't get round to it, though, and now it's already a new week.) The thing is, I have just about the same "look" after washing my hair now as I had at the age of 2! (Just not quite as amused about it now as back then!) 😄
After some rainy and windy days, Wednesday brought back the sun, blue skies, fluffy clouds, and rather perfect conditions for some river reflections...
The second photo was taken from the bridge you see in the background of the first one, looking in the opposite direction.
I must have posted hundreds of photos of the same views over my years of blogging - and yet, because of ever changing skies and seasons, they're never exactly the same... :)
"Nature gives to every time and season unique beauty; from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it’s just a succession of changes so soft and comfortable that we hardly notice the progress." — Charles Dickens
I'm familiar with the saying "every cloud has a silver lining" in English since before. To me there is a slight difference in meaning between that and the Swedish expression about having "good luck in the midst of bad luck", but I suppose it's as close as we'll get in finding an equivalent :)
The Swedish expression kind of involves a turn of events [i.e. first something bad happens; but after that, something good happens to at least partly kind of balance that out]; while to me the "silver lining" seems to be more about finding a brighter side to a dark situation.(?)
I looked up the phrase "silver lining" in my copy of Wordsworth Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and here is what they say:
A silver lining. The prospect of better days, the promise of happier times. The Saying, Every cloud has a silver lining, is quite an old one; thus in Milton's Comus, the Lady lost in the wood resolves to hope on, and sees 'a sable cloud turn forth its silver lining to the night'.
Though outwardly a gloomy shroud
The inner half of every cloud
Is bright and shining;
I therefore turn my clouds about,
And always turn them inside out,
To show the lining.
Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, The Wisdom of Folly