Supermarket Reorganisation

 

Two days in a row now I've chosen the supermarket as the destination for my walks - primarily because they're in the process of reorganising things, and even though I do most of my grocery shopping online with home delivery (twice a month), I also like to try and keep up with where to find things when I do go there myself.

On both my visits this week, I was too busy with reorientation to think of taking photos; so for this post I asked AI for an illustration. The one above actually comes rather close to reality - some members of staff were still busy moving things, while other people (customers + staff working with home deliveries) were trying to find them... ;-)

On the whole I'm very thankful for the possibility (since 10 years back) to have the bulk of my groceries and everyday stuff delivered, and to neither have to search for them in the store nor carry them home myself. However, there are still certain items now and then that one does prefer to have a proper look at before buying. 

Christmas decorations and such have been put on display now, and I was looking for some battery candles. I don't like to to have real candles lit when going to and fro between rooms, but with battery candles one does not need to worry... I have some battery "tealights" since before, and also a couple of fake thick ones, but had decided that it might also be time for me to get some tall ones, to fit ordinary candlesticks. Yesterday I found and bought two red ones - but then back home decided that I don't want to introduce too much red before December. So today I went back and also bought two white ones of the same type, plus  some batteries of rechargeable kind.

I'm quite impressed with these LED candles, because: 1/ the "flames" move and flicker, so that in the dark, and especially from across the room (like from my TV chair), it's really hard to tell them apart from live ones (except that these candles don't shrink!!); and 2/ if you don't turn them off manually, they have an automatic timer which does that after six hours, and then lights them again after another 18 hours (i.e. the same time next day). 

I also bought an Amaryllis (a real one!) with three buds coming up - hoping it won't grow "too" fast (...but if it does, never mind...)

 

Prayer Candles

 

Photos from Karlstad Cathedral, which I visited back in the summer.

I'm lighting "mental candles" today:

One for a close friend whom I had the privilege to know for nearly half a century (47+ years), but who passed away this weekend. (Also thinking of those she leaves behind - husband, sisters, friends...)

And one for another friend whom I've known as long; having cancer surgery today. 

Halloween / All Saints', Owls and Candles

As mentioned before, in Sweden we celebrate All Saints' Day on the first Saturday in November (i.e. today), rather than on November 1st. (The holiday was moved here back in 1952, which means it's been like that all my life.) It's a rather solemn holiday, mostly about remembering the dead, tending to family graves, and church concerts with requiems.

Nowadays it also tends to get mixed up with American Halloween traditions, though - even if many still claim that those do not belong in our culture; or should at least be limited to the night of October 31st (never mind what day of the week). Others argue that as All Saints has been moved, then Halloween should also be celebrated on the Friday before All Saints. And with schools nowadays also closed a whole week for "autumn leave" (no such thing back in my own school days!), Halloween time now tends to sort of spread out to cover two weekends + the week in between!

For me, All Saints used to be a rather gloomy holiday (sad rather than festive and child-friendly). Nowadays, I feel more free to celebrate or ignore it as I please, though.

In my own home, decorations for autumn/Halloween/All Saints are sparse. Basically, I just change the display on the old chest in my living room a bit - adding a bit of orange, and featuring my owl collection. (If you can call just a handful of something a collection!)

 

These tiny ones sit on the rim of my vase of fake twigs.
(They can also sit on a plant pot.)

 

The big one used to be my mother's. You can put a tea candle inside it. With a real candle, it gets very hot, though... So I sometimes put a battery candle in it instead.

 

Back in summer I found this little one in a souvenir shop and added it to the "collection". It's small but heavy - made of solid concrete. I fell for it because it reminded me of the bigger hollow one, and I thought they might like each other's company... ;-)

On another wall (all year round) hangs an owl made in batik technique, made by my maternal grandfather back in 1976. He made quite a lot of batik art back in those days. I think I got this one for either my birthday or Christmas that year.

 For this weekend, I put a lantern with a battery candle in my living room window. That's for all the family graves that I don't visit... The lantern may get stay up until it's time to put up Advent candles instead, though. (Or until the battery runs out; whichever comes first.)

I did also go out to put a real candle on the one family grave we have in the old cemetery nearby where I "always" walk, though. Someone else had been there before me:

 

December 1 - 1st Advent Sunday

The true light that gives light to
every man was coming into the world.
(St. John 1:9)

Photo from Hammarlöv Church, Skåne, Sweden

Decemer 18 - Battery Candles

These are especially for Sandra the Madsnapper, who posted about her own battery candles recently. Mine are a bit different, as they have no bulb sticking up, pretending to be the flame. Especially seen from the side, they look very real. And when touching them, the outside feels just like real candles too.

I'm not quite sure I would trust the Madsnapper with my fake candles though...

... because when these are not lit, they look so much like real ones that someone might actually try to light them by putting a match to them...

I'm not kidding! A few years ago I put one of this kind in a lantern on my parents' grave for Halloween. It seemed like a good idea, because they also have a built-in timer. From when first turned on, they will burn for five hours, and then will put themselves out for the next 19 hours, and turn themselves on again automatically at the same time the next day. So will burn every night for a few weeks without change of batteries.

However, I did not get to visit the village churchyard again until months later; and then when I took the candle out of the lantern, I deduced from the sooty marks on it, that at some point in between, someone (probably some old friend of my parents from the village) must have tried to light it with real fire - not realising that it was a fake one! Ooops...

So since then, I have not tried using these kinds of candles on graves again!

I often use these two on the table in my living room by the sofa, though - because it's safe to leave them burning while I go to and fro; and no fear of anything catching fire if I sit nearby and read a newspaper either. I do light real candles too, sometimes - but only when I feel it's safe... :)
  

Weekend Reflections & Shadows

I have to confess I’m suffering from writer’s block just now. My thoughts seem to escape and wander off, refusing to get trapped into words and organised to make sense of things…

It’s been a week of big black news headlines.

First it was my own country, Sweden, reintroducing border controls in the south (on Thursday 12th Nov), in an attempt to cope with the rapidly increasing number of refugees arriving by ferries, or across the bridge from Denmark. (10.000 seeking asylum here only last week.)

Then on Friday 13th there was the terror attack in Paris, which probably hasn’t escaped anyone, wherever you live.

For now I’m really just making note of the dates here for my own memory. And repeating, as I wrote to a friend earlier today: I so do not envy the leading politicians and officials (in Sweden and elsewhere) who right now have to stay alert 24/7, making lots of important decisions, one upon another. And in between have to try to explain it all to the media and the rest of us.

The last three photos are from the memorial chapel in the cemetery close to where I live; which was open to visitors for prayer and reflection at Halloween.

Linking to:

Weekend Reflections

 Shadow Shot Sunday 2