Happy New Year

It's New Year's Eve. Barbie is off to a fancy ball and just wants to show off her dress before she leaves. It's another creation of my mum's from back in the 1960s. Originally it had a white "rose" attached on the front, which some 55 years later looked rather dated. But I found a replacement in my crafts box that is a perfect colour match with the dress itself.  

 

Skipper will be staying home with me, watching a film.
We've not yet decided yet which one...

 

Happy New Year, everyone!

 

A New Year (2019)

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
—Seneca

… and somehow, instead of a fresh blank page, every new year always seems to start with sorting out the leftovers from the previous one…

It has become a long-standing tradition for me and 2-3-4 friends to celebrate New Year’s Eve together at my place. Three of us used to be neighbours in the same building for many years in the past. One of them usually has her sister visiting for NY; and the other one now usually has her mum staying with her over the holidays. 

To make things easy we pretty much follow the same procedure every year now… I make quiches (because I can prepare those beforehand and then heat them in the microwave; which gives me time to tidy up, lay the tables, rest and get dressed etc in between, before the guests arrive). The others bring the salad and some of the snacks and drinks (we keep to non-alcoholic).

We start out with a small cup of hot glögg  (‘mulled wine’ – but non-alcoholic) in the living room – just because it’s nice to warm up and greet each other properly and catch up a bit before we eat. Then we have the quiche and salad at my dining table in the kitchen; after which two of the others always help take care of the washing up of those dishes. Then we all move into the living room for coffee/tea, and a coffee table full of bowls of fruit and chocolates and “whatever” to see us through the rest of the evening… Having chatted for a bit, we always watch a film; and after the film chat a bit more. (The film this year was Paddington 2… enjoyed by all of us!)

It has also become somewhat of a tradition that one of my friends buys us Kindereggs (chocolate eggs with a surprise toy inside – sometimes a bit of a challenge to put together). Just a bit of silliness to help keep us awake (and not feeling too old)… Mine this year turned out to contain a little race car… Perhaps a hint that the next year will seem to swish by even faster??

Towards midnight we watch the celebration broadcasted live from Skansen (park) in Stockholm; which includes various artists singing, and just before the midnight countdown and the ringing of bells – and the outbreak of fireworks (of which we also always have plenty going on “live” outside my windows)  – an actor reading a certain poem which has been read in the New Year celebrations there ever since the 1890s or so (i.e. long before there were even any radio broadcasts of the event). The poem is a Swedish translation of Ring Out, Wild Bells by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Actually I’m not sure if I ever read the original until this New Year. It was some other friend quoting it on Facebook that made me do it now. In my ears, it rings even more up-to-date in English…

Here it is (copied from Wikipedia):

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Happy New Year to All of Us!

 

December 31 – New Year’s Eve

A New Year (2018)

A bunch of white tulips that my friends brought on New Year’s Eve 

Once again I celebrated New Year’s Eve with the same friends as usual. Three of us were neighbours for many years back in the 1900s and into this century. One of them usually has her sister visiting for New Year; and in later years, the other friend’s mum has been with us, too. The three of us who used to be neighbours have probably spent most New Years together ever since the late 1980s (although sometimes in the past with more people as well). Since NY 2000/01 it’s been the 4-5 of us, and (for various practical reasons) at my place. (It’s a joint venture though, as they bring some of the food etc too.)

A cup of “glögg” for starters when they arrive has become part of the tradition. (Mulled wine; but low/no alcohol.)

Ah, that table looks so tidy at the beginning of the evening…
Different story towards midnight…!

Another tradition: Opening “Kinder Eggs” while waiting for the midnight fireworks…

We also always watch a film. Usually from my collection, but this year it was one of the others who brought one. A bit of an extra surprise for all of us - including her who brought it! - as it turned out to be in French… It did have Swedish subtexts, though; so we coped! Intouchables, a multi-award-winning film from 2011. (The story of the friendship between a wealthy quadriplegic and his live-in caregiver – with a criminal background, and reluctant to take the job at all to begin with… Based on a true story, according to the end titles.)

Looking in through the window from my balcony, after midnight (guests gone home)… The little lights on the amaryllis plant are reflections of the lights outside!

We had snow again for New Year (but all gone again now)

As usual, I felt kind of “blurry” all of New Year’s Day, and spent most of that day resting and doing “nothing” (oh well, tidying up a bit after the party too). And while doing nothing, I reflected on a book I read over Christmas – on the importance of rest! Written by a Swedish pastor (Tomas Sjödin), popular and well known in Sweden (from TV and radio as well as his books) but I don’t think his books have been translated into English. Anyway, in this one he looks at various ideas of the sabbath, and one of the things he makes a point of is that in the Biblical story of creation (never mind if you interpret it literally or symbolically), God created man on the sixth day, and then rested on the seventh. Which means that for us humans, a state of rest (Garden of Eden) was the beginning rather than the end – and maybe indicating that we might do well sometimes to “put rest first”, so to speak…

And from that perspective, I suppose that beginning a new year with a lazy day may be just the thing, really!

Anyway, however your new year began, I hope it continues well for you! (“God fortsättning” - good continuation - we wish each other in Sweden, in the first days of the new year.)

Postcards for the Weekend – New Year

Some season’s greetings that dropped in after Christmas, but before New Year:

“Dreaming of a White X’mas” from Maria in Singapore

A “jumpstart” to the New Year from a friend ‘Down Under’

Classic British reds in the snow, from Scotland -
and from England, New Year’s greetings with a more modern touch:

***************************
And a big THANK YOU for 2017,
and best wishes for us all for 2018;
from me to all my blogging and
postcrossing friends all over the globe!
***************************

Postcards for the Weekend - NY Symbols/greetings

Another Year (2017)

And once more we’ve said goodbye to an old year, and welcomed a fresh new one. It’s odd how every new year always starts with having to clean up the mess remaining from the old one, though!

It’s a long-standing tradition for me and two old friends (going back to when we were neighbours in the same building for many years) to celebrate New Year together. One friend’s sister, who lives in another town, usually comes too. For some years now, the other friend’s mother has been with us as well. And again this year, all four were able to come. For various practical reasons, we’re always at my place, and keep pretty much the same simple menu and routine every year now – I make quiche, and they bring salad and cider and snacks (and help with the first load of washing up!) We also always watch a film (back in the early days, on VHS – nowadays DVD). This year The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)  - sequel to The Best… (from 2011 – but watched by us in 2013). With that bunch of star actors - like Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton, Judi Dench, Richard Gere – you really can’t go wrong…

In spite of rain and fog, there were a lot of fireworks going on outside all evening as always, with climax around midnight. A law some years ago against launching fireworks in densely populated areas without permission hasn’t made any difference whatsoever that I can notice. Some of the major store chains having stopped selling them also does not seem to have stopped anyone from buying them; nor has a law against buying or handling them if you’re under 18 had much effect. (If anything, it all seems only to increase every year!)

So… something that’s not even really worth trying on New Year’s Eve around here, is going to bed early in the hope of sleeping through the midnight hullaballoo…

Usually the worst of the fireworks has died down around 00:30, though, allowing my guests to go home (by car). After they have gone, I always need some time to wind down – so while the rest of the year I almost never stay up after midnight, on that very first night of the year I rarely get to bed before 2 a.m. 

And as a consequence, my New Year’s Day morning is always lazy, and the rest of the day is usually spent slowly restoring my home to sort of “normal”… (Not taking down my Christmas decorations though. They stay up at least over Twelfth Day / Epiphany.) 

Last Minute Celebrations (2015)

As usual, I spent New Year’s Eve at home with a few friends. Three of us used to be neighbours in the same building from the mid 1980s and some years into the 21st century; and since the New Year 2000/01 we have been celebrating every New Year’s Eve together. Most of those times, the sister of one of those friends has been with us too; and for the last few years, also the other friend’s mum. And again this year all five of us were able to meet up for an enjoyable evening with food, talk, a film, some fireworks (seen from the windows), and a sparkling cider toast to the new year.

My friends also seized the last-few-hours-of-2015 opportunity to celebrate my 60th birthday (back in August) by presenting me with two more Moomin mugs: Moominmamma and Snufkin.

I showed you my previous three in one of my December posts.
(I got one from other friends visiting on my birthday, and then I bought two more myself later in the autumn.)

The film we ended up watching was Paddington from 2014 (with among others Hugh Bonneville, who played the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey – and in this film, Mr Brown).

One my friends in particular can be rather sensitive to anything involving too much suspense or sadness… So safest for these get-togethers is to watch family-friendly feel-good films that I’ve already seen myself (so that I know how they end!)  Usually I try to have two or three different suggestions (of films I’ve seen over the past year or so) and then check with my guests which they prefer. We all enjoyed this one (including me, although it was the 3rd time I watched it).

Happy New Year

Christmas decorations in a roundabout I passed on my way back from town yesterday afternoon - photo taken with my phone. (The building in the background is a school.) As you can see, we still have some snow and ice on the ground... The temperature has stayed close to zero (freezing point) since the snowfall on Sunday. Thawing a little in the daytime, but colder at night.

As some of you know, I had the misfortune of breaking a tooth on Christmas Eve. No pain involved, though, so I survived the weekend without "serious" problems. Phoned my dentist on Monday morning, got an appointment for Tuesday afternoon, and he was able to fix it in one sitting; so that's behind me now. I hope it's not tempting fate (or the tooth fairy) to say that I'm hoping not to have to see the dentist again at least until next year!

New Year's Eve tomorrow I'll be spending as usual with a handful of friends in my own home - a tradition we've been keeping up for 16 years in a row now. (Three of us were neighbours living in the same building back when it began.)

I wish us all a Happy New Year 2016!

Linking to Mersad's Through My Lens

And the Lucky Winners Are…

My New Year Giveaway lottery draw has now been duly performed (by putting folded pieces of paper with the names in the tin above and giving it a good shake, and then closing my eyes while drawing the tickets).

It turned out I actually had four calendars left (three was what I promised); and as the year is ticking on, and as (in spite of postcrossing) I still haven’t run out of inherited stamps, I decided to draw four winners.

And they are:

Scriptor Senex of Rambles from my Chair
Wanda of Got a Minute or Two?
Rae of Sun-Dried Tomato(e)
GB of Eagleton Notes

Well-deserved winners, all four. (But so would any of the others be who commented on that post! That’s why I had to draw lots…) Rae was among the very first followers of the forerunner of this blog back in 2009 (then called The Island of the Voices). Scriptor and GB were not far behind; and have become so much like “extended family” to me that it actually seems odd now to think that there was ever a time when I did not know them (in spite of the fact that I still haven’t actually met them). Wanda officially signed up as follower more recently, but we’ve been visiting each other’s blogs for a good while too.

Congratulations to the winners (and Rae and Wanda, don’t forget to send me your mailing addresses).

And to those who did not win this time – better luck next time! (when and whatever that might be)

And to All of Us, a Happy New Blogging Year!

 

New Year, Leftovers and a Giveaway

I woke up this morning around 9:30 (shortly – it seemed! - after having gone to bed around 1:30), and could not help but start the day with some philosophical bemusements (is that a word?!) – possibly helped along by listening to a philosophical discussion about Time on the radio while doing the washing up from my New Year Eve’s party the night before…

Now here’s my question to you: How come every New Year seems to start with leftovers rather than the clean slates we always seem to be longing for?

A walk around the neighbourhood and seeing all the left-overs of pyrotechnics just proved my point – and reminded me further of politics. (Fiery political discussions here in Sweden during the autumn also included a lot of questions about who laid vs cleared the table for whom.)

I got cheered up when I opened a leftover Kinder Egg with my afternoon tea, though, and found this:

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it. --- All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped out on to the table…’'
---
‘I’ve decided to call him Norbert,’ said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes.
(Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Ch. 14)

At least this is something that’s never been on my blog before: A newborn dragon, fresh from the egg!

Naughty little fellow – he coloured my thumb green while we were getting acquainted (turned out he has a tiny green felt pen inside).

Then I taught him to ride the blue-and-orange bicycle I built yesterday (found in another Kinder Egg). And I who thought I would find no use for that. Silly me!

(Yes, we had a fun New Year’s Eve.)

A Giveaway

It so happens I find myself with three spare wall calendars for 2015 (made from my own photos), and have decided to put these up for a giveaway.

(I did the same thing once before, in 2012, to celebrate my 3rd Blogoversary. Can hardly believe three more years have gone by since then!)

All you have to do to have a chance to win one of them is to be a follower of this blog and to leave a comment on this post before next Saturday - 10th January (CET). I’ll then write down the names on separate pieces of paper and have a lottery and announce the winners here on my blog. (If I have an email address I’ll also let them know by email.)

Good Luck!

Happy New Year

Gott Nytt År – Happy New Year
to all my friends around the world!

The sunrise photo is from Monday morning this week. Today we’re having very foggy weather (and thaw). Not a great outlook for those who are planning fireworks tonight. I’m celebrating at home with a handful of friends – a tradition going back many years for us.

♥ See you all next year! ♥

And there was Evening, and there was Morning

And there was New Year’s Eve 2013; and then that year was no more; but lo, it was the first day of 2014.

For those of you wondering, the film we ended up watching this last (!) year was The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (from 2012), with among others Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton and Judi Dench. (It turned out I was the only one who had seen it before.)

“The New Year never quite starts with a clean slate (plate)...” And if you’re wondering who said that, it was me, this morning! Just a philosphical observation, mind! – not meant to imply that I was left with all the work. (My friends did the first round of washing up after dinner, as well as brought some of the food and drinks consumed during the evening.)

New Year’s Eve is usually the only night in the year nowadays that I stay up after midnight. Even if I weren’t having guests, it would be impossible for me to go to sleep early anyway, because of all the fireworks going on outside all evening, culminating during the hour around midnight.

Luckily, today, on New Year’s Day, I’m free to be as lazy as I please. I think of it as a sort of in-between place, like the Wood between the Worlds in The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis: “It’s not the sort of place where things happen. The trees go on growing, that’s all.”

Hope you all had a good start to the new year.

 

Zzz… And Happy New Year!

Better have one of these ‘zzz’ days today, as tomorrow night I have to stay awake! As has become a long-standing tradition, I will be celebrating New Year’s Eve at home, but with four friends joining me. I think this will be the 14th New Year in a row with two of them (and there were a few times before that too – but not the millennium, which I spent elsewhere). The three of us used to be neighbours as well as friends. The sister of one of them has also been with us for most of these New Year get-togethers. And since a couple of years, also the other friend’s mum.

Our tradition is to eat a little, talk a little, and watch a film. I’ve been trying to recall what films we’ve already seen (together)… and pick out a few suggestions for tomorrow. It’s not all easy… Preferably it should be of the feel-good kind, not overly long, not too complicated (or violent etc) and not too recently seen by any of us.

A bit late in the day (year) to ask for suggestions, as by now I’m restricted to what I already have in my private collection. But I’ll ask anyway. Have you got a favourite film of the kind described, that’s good to watch in the company of friends – and that you would not mind watching again even if you’ve already seen it?

Out with the old, in with the new

In Sweden 6 January is called the Thirteenth Day (trettondagen), and is a holiday; and Twelfth Night is "Thirtheenth Day's Eve" (trettondagsafton)(analogical with Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Easter Eve etc). Most people (I think!) leave their decorations up over the 6th, and some keep them longer. In old Swedish traditions the Christmas tree is/was thrown out on (or around) the "twentieth day" = 13 January.

This year I had to start taking down most of my Christmas decorations straight after New Year; it was not that I was particularly eager to get rid of them, but because the Cable Guys will be coming on Tuesday to install a new optic fibre cable for broadband and whatnot. I muttered back in December about the contradictory info we’ve been receiving about the procedure, and it’s not got much clearer since then. I still don’t know exactly how they’re going to draw the cables; but have been told we don’t have to move bookcases, as they’re going to draw the cables high along the ceiling and not along the floor. So I’m just taking down things on top of the shelves along the walls that I think may be involved. And anything else small that may break if it’s knocked over. Anything heavy (like the TV) I cannot move, however, so therefore I’ll just innocently regard that (and the chest of drawers it’s standing on) as a part of the bookcase and hope for the best!

Before Tuesday there is tomorrow; and tomorrow I’ll start  back to the rehab pool at the hospital again, two mornings a week, for another six months. Hopefully that will be good. It’s just always something of a hassle to get used to getting up early again after not having had to worry about that for months… and especially not over Christmas/New Year…  (Don’t take my complaint too seriouosly. I don’t have to leave home until 8.45 and I’ve chosen the time myself among those available.)

A New Start

“A New Start” is the Swedish-translated-back-into-English title of the DVD with which my friends and I ended the old year last night. No use to go googling for that title, though, because the original is We Bought A Zoo…

Benjamin’s wife died and he is left with two children to take care of: a little girl and a teenage boy. The boy is having some trouble in school since the death of the mother, and father and son don’t communicate very well either. Benjamines decides they all need a new start as a family. The house and property he and the daughter fall in love with turns out to come with a very special surprise challenge, though: It includes a zoo, which is in need of some repair (and has to pass an inspection) before it can be re-opened to the public. It also includes a group of experienced but tired staff, rather sceptical whether the new owners will really be up for seeing the project through…

The film is based on a true story. I did not notice that until the aftertexts (although there was a note about it on the DVD-cover as well) and was a bit surprised, as I found “the plot” as such to be the weakest part of the film.

It’s a charming film however, and much thanks to the actors (both animals and people). Matt Damon plays Benjamin, and Scarlett Johansson the sceptical zookeeper. Maggie Elizabeth Jones in the role of the little daughter is a true ray of sunshine, and Colin Ford does a convincing surly teenage son who mostly prefers to withdraw into his own world, expressing his dark moods in artwork.

It’s a feel good family movie; the plot and some of the side characters rather simplified, but at the same time not too much sugarcoating of the genuine feelings to do with the main characters’ process of dealing with grief and “getting on with their lives”.

Happy New Year

As I know some of my blogging friends will be entering into the new year before I do, better post this early!

Looks like we’ll be having a windy and rainy New Year’s Eve here. Been raining all day today too, and most of the December snow is gone, even from the lawns.

As has become a tradition since more than a decade, I will be spending the Eve with the same friends as usual, at my place. Two single ‘girlfriends’ who used to be my neighbours, the sister of one of them, and since a couple of years also the mother of the other friend. I’ll prepare a quiche (or two) earlier in the day, and they’ll bring salad and some other stuff. We always watch a film… Usually a ‘feel good’ kind, not too heavy or complicated. I have one in mind that I’ve not seen myself yet and I hope the others haven’t either. (If they have, we should be able to find something else in my DVD-collection.)

I wish you all a Happy New Year!

ABC Wednesday: Y

On New Year’s Eve, after waking up with a yawn, I felt the yearning to go out for a walk. And since I was in the mindset that day to look “way over yonder” for strange and wonderful things, my eyes also fell on this birch tree in the shape of the letter Y. “Yippee!” I said to myself. “Why look any further? Here’s the perfect Y for the very first ABC Wednesday in the year 2012!”

Yours,  Monica
a.k.a. DawnTreader

http://youtu.be/Hqx28TxMiZ0

ABC Wednesday - Y

New Year’s Eve: Mosaic and Macro

New Year’s Eve I spent with basically the same little group of friends for the 12th year in a row; gathered in my home. (Five of us this year.) None of them like it much when I get my camera out - and myself I have to confess I prefer it behind the camera rather than in front of. But I think I might dare a little résumé in the form of two collages and a macro.

The end of an old year: The initially carefully laid tables have somehow mysteriously turned into a mess of dirty dishes, empty bottles, and litter to be thrown away. Whatever happened?!

One friend’s eyes grew big when she saw me pointing my camera at my empty plate… What was I taking photos of NOW?!

And that after we had just watched a film - Everlasting Moments - with fascination with photography and catching the moment as one of the main themes…

But she must be excused, I guess… Not being a blogger!

Quarter past New Year: Waiting for the banging of fireworks to die down outside, so as not to be hit by something  (or going deaf) on the way to the parking lot… No snow this year to soften the sounds, so it was really LOUD!

Ah well. They say everything started with a Big Bang, don’t they?

So now we just have to see how the rest of the year develops!

---

Mosaic Monday at Mary’s Little Red House

Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos

Countdown

Oops, a fresh new year waiting just round the corner. Some of you will get there sooner than me, and others later! That thought still feels a little bit strange, even after three years of blogging!!!

Anyway, I thought I’d better post this greeting a day early (from my point of view). In my tomorrow (New Year’s Eve) I probably won’t be around much in Blogland, since I’ll have friends from my other world coming over in the evening. And they expect to be fed!

Luckily the rain stopped, and the sun even broke through today. So I was able to get out and replenish my stock of honey, more honey, lots of chocolate, cakes and cookies acorns and thistles and other wholesome food that we might need to get us from this year to the next one. (Sorry, Pooh got a little carried away there until Piglet and Eeyore corrected him…)

The photo, if anyone wonders, is not last year’s fireworks. It is my neighbour’s Christmas lights seen through the opaque glass wind screen separating our balconies, on a dark and rainy night!

** Have a Sparkling New Year **

Whimsical Wednesday

Do the hard jobs first.
The easy jobs will take care of themselves. 
~ Dale Carnegie ~

This quote turned up in my sidebar Quotes gadget today. Spooky, since I had “sort of” made that principle one of my inner, non-official New Year’s resolutions. It lasted about two days…

To start with, the first week I intentionally gave myself a vacation from the Resolution, allowing myself to focus almost entirely on one “job” – getting this blog moved and re-started and running! Actually that proved to be quite hard work; but it was not really that sort of hard job that I had in mind when I thought about doing “the hard jobs first”.

So I did not really start practicing the Resolution until Monday this week. I followed it for two days. Then this morning I woke up with a headache. Surely the principle of doing the hard jobs first does not apply to days that start with a dizzy spell??

That’s one reason why I don’t make New Year Resolutions. There are too many days in the year that just start out wrong...!

Seriously though… It has become a bit of a temptation lately to start the morning by checking emails and blogs, and get caught up in that for longer than I had intended. So the Resolution has to do with trying to devote the mornings before lunch to other things, and not allow myself to dive into the Blogworld until later.

But hey – no rule without exceptions…!

• If every rule has an exception, then there must be an exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
• If everything is possible, then it is possible for anything to be impossible.
• The only rule is that there are no rules.
• The only thing certain is that nothing is certain.
• If everything has an opposite, then the opposite of there being an opposite to everything, is that there is not an opposite to everything.
• If everything should be taken in moderation, then moderation should itself be taken moderately, meaning that not everything would be taken in moderation.

Source: Wikipedia – Exception Paradox

PS. If you’re wondering about the picture… I’m including it just as an example that not everything has to be “perfect” to be useful!