Visiting the Golf Club

Sunday 4 August was cloudy, and rain was expected in the afternoon. To still get out from town a bit, I suggested driving out to the golf club south of town for lunch. Neither of us (me and my brother) plays golf, but the golf club restaurant is open to the public, and a nice place to have lunch... 

The large windows on the white building belong to the restaurant. We were sitting at a table right by those windows, and below is or view from there:

The wooden sculpture out in the foyer is slightly taller than an ordinary person.

 

It was not yet raining, so after our meal we also went for a little stroll outside before we drove back to town. But dark clouds were gathering, as you can see in this photo!

 

 

An old storage building, obviously from back in the days when this estate was a farm rather than a golf course.

 

Rowan berries

After our visit to the golf course and restaurant, we drove to a shopping mall at the other end of town, where I found, and bought, a new carpet for my study. On our way back from there, we also visited the Textile Museum. No new photos from there, as I was also there on my own just recently (towards the end of July), and blogged about that then. 

But here is a photo of my study with the new carpet:

(The old carpet was red - matching the chair - and with a more classic oriental sort of pattern. With time, it got very worn in certain places, from me rolling my chair to and fro between the desk and the computer table...)

Time Travel (On the Trail of Our Ancestors)

(3 August, continued)  

On our way back from lunch at the old mill café, I wanted (if possible) to check some distances between a few places in the neighbourhood of where our paternal grandparents grew up. Back in July 2012 we managed to locate both the farm where our grandmother was born and lived until she got married (easy enough to find), and the small wooden cottage on the grounds of a neighbouring farm where our grandfather grew up (more difficult to find the way to). But I forgot back then to make note of the distances. Over the years since then, I have been going through a lot more old photos and letters and family history; and often find myself wishing I had a better grip of places frequently mentioned.

However, this time we even failed to find our way back to the childhood home of our grandfather. Rereading my old post from 2012 again now, I'm thinking we probably made some of the same mistakes now as we did back then - and gave up quicker... On the other hand, as our last expedition was 12 years ago, even more thoroughfares on narrow dirt roads across farm land may also actually have been closed to the public since then. So we decided not to pursue. I did get one distance properly confirmed, though - between the farm house and the railway station (which back at the beginning of the previous century also served as post office) it's around 1½ km (or 1 English mile). Just about the same distance as my own walk into the town centre these days - so not really "all that" far.

We also drove a roundabout way (more car-friendly) to one of the other places often mentioned in my grandmother's letters (Komlösa). A hundred years ago, I understand there was a chapel there that she walked to sometimes. Nowadays there is a rural museum with a collection of old wagons at an old farm in that neighbourhood. They're the kind of museum that is only open occasionally, though - or on special request. Their website did say it would be open on Saturday afternoons throughout summer (June-August); but when we got there, it looked as closed as the last time we tried (also years ago). We wandered around a bit outside but no person appeared. Never mind - I got a few nice countryside photos, anyway!

 

Old Mill Café

 

Quite a few old mills here and there in Sweden have been preserved by turning them into cafés and tourist attractions. This one at Vänga, a half hour drive or so to the north of Borås, still produces some flour to be used and sold in their own bakery. Their popular café also offers options for a light lunch, so we went there for lunch on Saturday (3 August). We sat on the small terrace to the right (overlooking the stream) and had a piece of pie + salad. (They also have tables outdoors across the stream.) Afterwards we went for a little stroll around the place. We've both been there before, but it's one of those places that it's always nice to return to in the summer.

 

Vänga Kvarn   (kvarn = mill)

They also have a souvenir shop where they sell various arts and crafts.
I did not buy anything, but it's always fun to have a look...

 

 

The old copper kettles are not for sale (I think) but just for decoration.
And the same goes for the rusty old objects on display outside...

Cows were grazing in a field across the road.

 

A Church Concert

Yesterday evening I went with my friend E to a concert in a countryside church in the village outside town where my parents lived in their retirement years - and my paternal grandparents all their life. They + more relatives are also buried in the churchyard there. 

When we arrived, I first went for a stroll around the churchyard to check on 'my' graves, while E went into the church to make sure we got good seats. She also knew a few more people who were coming - including one of her own daughters singing in the choir.

No flowers had been planted yet on the graves tended by the church (a service we pay an annual fee for, and pansies will probably appear there any day now); but to my surprise I found this little angel keeping watch on my parents' grave. As it was not me or my brother who put it there, I'm intrigued who did... As I've never seen any of our other family graves adorned with such ornaments either, I suspect it's most likely that it really belongs to a neighbouring grave, adorned by several similar items. (Could have fallen over, and got picked up by churchyard staff not knowing where it belonged.) But as I don't know, I did nothing about it. (If it really does belong on the other grave I suppose they will recognise it and take it back.)

Fristad Church

It had been raining earlier in the day, but the rain stopped in the afternoon - I did not need the umbrella I had brought "just in case". After a very summery Saturday, I was back in my winter coat, though!

Photo of the interior taken while we were waiting for the concert to begin. We were there early as quite a large audience could be expected (and so it also turned out). A nice surprise for me was to also meet another old friend there (84 years old now) whom I hadn't seen in years. One of his sons was also in the choir. He sat down with us and he and I had a nice catching up chat before the concert started - while E was chatting with some other friends.

The concert was a musical Mass entitled Gloria, by Tore Aas. (Originally in Norwegian, and performed by the Oslo Gospel Choir. If you want to get an idea of what the music sounds like, you can find it on YouTube.)

Standing ovations at the end of the performance...
 

... and the choir repeating the last part... 

During the concert, the evening sun had come out of hiding and the sky was blue again.

December 20 - Friday

"On the road" ... somewhere in Skåne

Typical landscape for Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden.

Old Farmhouse at Duvemåla

Road Trip 2018, Part 7

Our next stop between Växjö and Kalmar involved a little detour that took us off the main roads and out into the rural countryside – to an old farmhouse which has been kept as a museum, and also offers a charming garden café.

It was here, at Duvemåla, that the author Vilhelm Moberg got much of his inspiration for his Emigrant Novels (previously introduced in the post including our visit to the House of Emigrants in Växjö).

Moberg’s grandmother Johanna was born in Duvemåla in 1833. At the age of 43, Johanna was left a widow with seven children. She never emigrated to America, but six of her children did (and she never saw them again). The only one who remained in Sweden was her daughter Ida; who in turn also had seven children.  One of those was Vilhelm Moberg - 13 years old when his grandmother died in 1912. Later in life, he paid tribute to her in his novels by letting the main female character in the Emigrants series, Kristina, come from Duvemåla (and when Kristina and Karl-Oskar emigrated to Minnesota, they called their new home over there New Duvemåla).

The house where Johanna was born was torn down in the 1930s. But another farmhouse in the little village still stands pretty much as it would have been in the mid 1800s. The people who used to live here were four siblings born in the early 1900s – two sisters and two brothers. Neither of them ever got married, and they kept running the farm just as it had been done in their parents’ day. They never introduced electricity or running water or any kind of modern machinery. No telephone, no TV, etc. They let the forest grow; and saved their money. They did all the farmwork the old-fashioned way (using horses etc), and they were the last farm in the village to keep livestock. The last of the four siblings died in 1989. And as there was no will and no immediate heir, the whole estate then went to the Swedish Inheritance Fund*, which in this case granted an application from the municipality to take over the property and keep it as a cultural heritage.

*[Allmänna arvsfonden - When a person in Sweden dies without a written will and no living spouse or close family, his or her property is transferred to this fund, which in turn supports various charities etc.]

We finished off our visit with delicious home-made apple cake and vanilla custard out in the garden, under an apple tree… (In Moberg’s books, Kristina brings apple seeds from Sweden and plants them – eventually –  at their new home in Minnesota…)