Walking Round in Circles

We’re still in the firm grip of cold weather here. Time seems to have got lost in an eternal flurry of white and grey lately; and if not for a few photos I’ve quite lost count of which days were the coldest, the windiest, the snowiest, the iciest or the sunniest. Most of the time when I’ve been out I’ve had to keep my eyes firmly fixed on the ground and my mind on being very careful with each step – plus, with winter gloves (mitten type) and two Nordic Walking poles, the camera is not really easy to handle. But that said, here are some photos anyway. 

The first lot is from 21st February, just after we had had quite a lot of fresh snow coming down “all at once”. While the city has the resposibiity for clearing the major roads and streets, with the sidewalks the responsibility lies with the property owners. This can make a short walk around a few blocks quite a varied challenge. Every now and then I do take up that challenge, though; and sometimes even with the camera.

Taken from a bridge over the railway.

Advertising sign for ice-cream, outside a small corner shop.
(I wonder how much ice-cream they sell in February?)

A sculpture in the park on the estate where I live: a boy balancing on the back of a turtle. Just now he looks more like he’s riding a snowboard…

The second lot is from a few days later, the 26th – cold, but with enough sun to make shadows.

 

Still not feeling quite in picnic mood, though – thanks.

…

There were the tracks; crossing over each other here, getting muddled up with each other there; but quite plainly, every now and then, the tracks of four sets of paws.

‘I think,’ said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of his nose too, and found that it brought very little comfort, ‘I think that I have just remembered something that I forgot to do yesterday and shan’t be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose I really ought to go back and do it now.’

(from ‘Pooh and Piglet nearly catch a Woozle’)

It rained and it rained and it rained

"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately," said Owl.

"The what?"

"It has been raining," explained Owl.

"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has."

"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height."

"The who?"

"There's a lot of water about," explained Owl.

"Yes," said Christopher Robin, "there is."

~ Winne the Pooh, Chapter 9 ~

Young seagull, zoomed in from my window.

Borås, although generally reputed to be one of the rainiest towns in Sweden, is not flooded. Other parts of the country are, though. In the province of Småland in the south-east for example, the situation has been officially declared as a natural disaster. (See video clip at YouTube.)

Personally I’ve been having a tired and aching kind of staying-in day today… but I’m keeping dry!

My Turn

… to take a couple of days “off” from blogging.

Happy Midsummer to you all!

or as Christopher Robin would say:

GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON

Owl looked at the notice again.
To one of his education the reading of it was easy.

“Gone out, Backson. Bisy, Backson.”
Just the sort of thing you’d expect to see on a notice.

“It is quite clear what has happened, my dear Rabbit,” 
he said. “Christopher Robin has gone out somewhere 
with Backson. He and Backson are busy together.”

And it rained, and it rained, and it rained…

… and he slept and he slept and he slept.

…

Two days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and there, beside him, were four pots of honey....

Three days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and there beside him, was one pot of honey.

Four days later, there was Pooh . . .

~Winnie-the-Pooh, Chapter 9~

… Read More …

ABC - W for Wednesday and Winnie-the-Pooh

I had intended to stay off all memes and themes this week, having too many other things on my mind. But then it struck me that for ABC Wednesday I did not really have to stretch my mind to think of a word, since this week’s letter is W.

Time is a whirlwind just now. The calendar tells me today is Wednesday; but yesterday felt like a Friday rather than a Tuesday, because for me it was the kind of day when certain things had to get sorted out before the end of the day or it would all have to be postponed until next week.

To add to the confusion, the real Friday this week is Midsummer’s Eve, which here in Sweden means that it is treated as a Saturday; because Saturday, which is Midsummer’s Day, is a “red day” in the calendar, and treated like a Sunday. All this in turn means that Thursday will also in some ways be like a Friday.

So for me this is a week with three Fridays and two Sundays and no wonder perhaps if Wednesday feels little bit wobbly and is wondering whether it might be Saturday or Thursday instead…

Having got this far in my ramblings, Winnie-the-Pooh popped into my mind, saying “I wrote a poem very much like that once…”

Lines Written by a Bear of Very Little Brains

On Monday, when the sun is hot
I wonder to myself a lot:
’Now is it true, or is it not,
That what is which and which is what?’

On Tuesday, when it hails and snows,
The feeling on me grows and grows,
That hardly anybody knows
If those are these or these are those.

On Wednesday, when the sky is blue
And I have nothing else to do,
I sometimes wonder if it’s true
That who is what and what is who.

On Thursday, when it starts to freeze,
And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees,
How very readily one sees,
That these are whose – but whose are these?

On Friday –

(A.A. Milne)

I’m afraid Kanga interrupted Pooh there, so we never got to know what happened on Friday.

What happened on my Tuesday-which-felt-like-a-Friday was that before the end of the day, we had come up with a date for dad’s funeral/memorial; and a death notice for the newspaper to be published tomorrow, i.e. the Thursday-before-Midsummer-which-will-also-be-like-a-Friday.

The funeral will be on Wednesday 13th July.

---

PS. The picture, of course, is a dandelion, by most considered a weed,
but also a symbol of life and strength.