Heartfelt Wishes

I'm still feeling a bit "lost in time", after weeks of rather monotonous winter weather.

For some reason (or rather - no reason), I've been thinking all week that on Friday it will be Valentine's Day - here in Sweden known  as Alla Hjärtans Dag = All Hearts' Day" ... Only to suddenly realise, just as I started preparing this post today, that no, that's not until Saturday!

But I decided to go ahead and post this for Friday anyway. Who knows - the need for some extra heartfelt good wishes might perhaps be even bigger on Friday the 13th...!  

I've never really been in the habit of doing a lot extra of decorations especially for All Hearts' Day.  But I put a table runner with embroidered hearts on the living room table...

   

... and hung some red hearts on the branches in the vase on the old chest in the same room. 

That vase, by the way, is really just plain brown, but in the photo below it has been given an interesting striped pattern by the sun shining in through the blinds in the window! Which just goes to show that there's always something new to discover, if one looks hard enough.

 

And on that note, I wish you good luck both for the 13th and the 14th. 
And keep your hearts as well as your eyes open to notice the details around you!

 (Owl copied from some website with free images.)

A Quiet All Saints' Day

 

With the arrival of November, I changed the arrangement in my brown vase - and added a couple of more owls... (Cf. a previous post here.)  The bigger owls (on the other side of the bowl) will remain where they are at least until it's time for Christmas decorations, I think.

During a break in the rain, some time before noon, I took out a couple of bags to the bins at the corner of my building, and extended that walk just a little bit - without photo stops, as it was pretty much the same round as on Friday.

Did not have to put much work into preparing lunch, so instead I decided to put that effort into baking a tray of my favourite cocoa/blueberry muffins, which is something I haven't done for a few weeks either. I've changed the original recipe so that I replace 3/4 of the sugar with stevia sweetener, and half the amount of wheat flour with oats.

 

More Weekend Reflections

 

 

The glorious early autumn weather has continued over the weekend. On Saturday I avoided the town centre through, as I knew there would be a big running competition going on, and crowds of people was not really what I was in the mood for. Today, however, I counted on things being a lot calmer - and they were. Above is the swimming hall situated in the town park, reflected in the river.

 

In the comment section on my previous post, someone wondered if the decorated building above (and below) is a parking garage. No, it's not. It's an apartment building.

Part of the building in the photo below, however, is a parking garage:

 

Walking on along the river, at the entrance to a walkway under a bridge I discovered another mural that I can't remember having seen before. I'm not sure if it's an official or an unofficial one - I could not see any signature. Somehow it reminded me of the recent media reports from the SpaceX Spacewalk...! 

Under the same bridge, there is an older mural which is definitely at its best on a calm day like this, when the river is very still, acting as a mirror...

A bit further on, this summer's art installation of floating sculptures is still there. (I think until the end of this month?)

 

Photo from the other side of the river.

I have a few more photos from today's walk, but will save those for another post, and will instead finish this post with a couple of photos from home:

On Saturday afternoon, I sat for a while in the sun on my own balcony.
Most sunny afternoons during summer have been way too hot for that...

My harvest of (cherry) tomatoes (to the right) has not been overwhelmingly impressive; but I have been able to pick a few now and then, and I may get a few more before it's over.

My indoors autumn/fall decorations are subtle, compared to what I see on certain American blogs... Basically they just consist of a touch of orange in my vase of fake flowers, a couple of orange candles, and my two ceramic owls...

 (The larger of the owls is hollow and one can put a tealight inside it. Preferably a fake one.)

Meike asked after Barbie and Skipper, who willingly agreed to pose for another photo. At the moment, they're both in classic outfits rather suitable for nice sunny early autumn weather. Trousers/jeans and tops for both of them sewn by my mum back in the 1960s. And In the background, you see a trivet with an image painted by my water colour artist friend Lena. (Link to a post from last summer when I visited an exhibition of hers.)

 

"Novent"

A new word keeps popping up in Swedish media lately: Novent, as in a mix of November + Advent. The definition is a bit vague though... I get the impression that the word was invented by people who love decorating lavishly for Christmas and want to bring it all on early; but at the same time, there seems to be others who prefer it to denote "the calm before the storm"... Like, a time to start certain crafts and decorations, and more lights and candles etc - but still a no-no to the colour red until proper Advent / December...  So I guess Novent can really be whatever you want it to be! ;-)

Shops and supermarkets do of course get started on Christmas decorations as soon as Halloween is behind us nowadays - if they even wait that long... 

For my own part, I've probably been moderately noventing long before I ever had a special word for it. November is a dark and dull pre-winter month here in Sweden, so it does feel rather natural to at least start bringing in some more candles and lights; but at the same time I'm among those who don't like starting full Christmas decorations too early.  For my own part, I have very few presents to buy nowadays, so not all that much shopping involved for me; but I do tend to get started early with preparations for Christmas cards and letters (esp. those to be sent abroad).  

Yesterday, we had a break in the rain that allowed me a walk into the city centre for a couple of errands. 

The bookshop downtown has just reopened after having been closed ever since a fire on a the top floor of the building back in June, which caused smoke damage etc even to the shops down on the ground floor. They now have a Christmas tree up already at the entrance to signal that they're open for business again. I went inside to browse for a bit and get acquainted with changes in their layout. Besides getting some refill cartridges for my crossword pens (on my shopping list), I also ended up buying a Christmas present for myself. (As it's one I can't use until next year anyway, I've wrapped it and put it aside to be "half forgotten" until Christmas...)

In a flower shop, I also bought myself two new fake branches for my big brown vase in the living room. (One with needles and small cones, and the other with dark leaves and white berries - both rather discreet.) I have a number of such fake branches (flowers, leaves, berries, all different) that I use in different combinations for different seasons. So when I got back home, I made a new arrangement for Novent...

This in turn also inspired me to a slight change of colour scheme in the kitchen - where I also don't want to "go red" just yet... So for now, I just exchanged a green table runner for a dark purple one.

I don't remember if I showed this tray before - I bought it back in August when visiting my friend Lena's art exhibition on the west coast. (She's a water colour artists and she has some of her works printed on trays and coasters and things like that. I have couple of different ones since before.) 

View from the window. The big trees are bare now but the lilac shrubs are still holding on to their leaves.

More of the Same

Rowan tree

 I'm still collecting autumn leaves on my daily walks - "hands on" as well as with the camera...

Besides maintaining my park bench installation, I also made a temporary arrangement on a family grave in the cemetery - the flowerbed on it being bare at the moment, waiting for its "official" winter decorations. (I should perhaps add that it's my own great-grandparents' grave... I'm not haunting those belonging to strangers!)

I also took home some leaves, pressed them over night (in a newspaper, under heavy books), and used those for a decoration on the inside of the door to my flat - using a combination of fridge magnets and glue-tack to attach them. (It's a "security door" so beneath a fake layer imitating wood, it's metal.)

Autumn Decorations (Outdoors and Indoors)

  

Nature's own autumn decorations (rose hips)

November is here. The sound of leaf blowers and similar machines have been constantly in the background for weeks... Some trees have lost all of their leaves; others are still holding on to some of theirs. There was a glimpse of the sun on Sunday (Oct 31), but this week we are back to grey and foggy.

Indoors, my few "autumn decorations" have been up since the beginning of October. An old chest in my living room is the main place where I change decorations with the seasons:

The bananas are real (so not always there!) but the branches in the brown vase are artificial. I have collected a number of different ones over the years, and I change those around in different combinations every now and then. (This autumn I added a couple of new ones - the olive branch on the left, and the purple flowers to the right.)

These two little owls came with some potted plant that I either bought for myself or was given on some occasion, I don't recall when.
 

This bigger owl belonged to my parents. I think mum got it from my aunt on some occasion. It's made to hold a tealight inside; which when lit makes it look a bit spooky in the dark. In a friendly way, though! And that's as far I take my 'Halloween' decorations...

Passing these shelves at my supermarket earlier in the autumn I snapped a couple of photos - but did not feel tempted to buy anything!

The Art of Amusing Oneself (Happy Easter)

 

Yet another Easter when we're told to keep distance and stay in our own bubble... How many people are there in yours? In mine there are... let's see... Me, Myself & I... 

 

We're still doing our best to cheer ourselves up by playing with the decorations, though!

 

 

On the Ledge

 In a comment to my recent post A Tale of Two Paintings, Sandra asked me to post a close up of the picture shelves above my sofa that could be seen on the last photo. I replied that if you google picture shelf or picture ledge, you'll find similar ones at for example Ikea or Amazon. They are also called floating wall shelves in some ads, and they can be used for displaying anything from paintings to photos to small objects and figurines; with the advantage that you can easily change decorations around without making new holes in the wall.  I bought mine in a local shop when I moved into my present flat (12 years ago). Not that I usually move pictures around all that much, but it happens.

Today I started taking down some of my Christmas decorations - starting with tomtar, i.e. little gnomes and Santa figurines. (Just as I put up decorations gradually during December, I also tend to take them down gradually during January, one category at a time.) 

As it happens, one tomte family of little dolls knitted by my mum, spend their Christmases on one of those picture shelves. And just as I stretched out my hand to take them down to send them back to their rest-of-the-year-home (a box in my storage room), I heard tomtefar (Father Christmas) say: "Hey! How about some photos? I know it's on Sandra's wish list, and it would be a pity to keep her waiting until next Christmas..."

So, here is a collage showing the shelf at Christmas vs the rest of the year:

The painting of Tower Bridge is one that my parents bought from a "street artist" in London back in 1969, on our first family holiday to England/London. And it's one of the paintings from my parents' house that I wanted to keep, as I remember so well when we bought it. I thought I might even have a photo of the artist with his works spread out on the pavement. But when I check my photo album, there is no such photo there - only in my memory.

In the Dark (Friday My Town)

One week of November has gone by already, here in Sweden we are back on winter time since two weeks, and darkness is falling earlier with every day…

I went looking for some new winter decoration lights for my balcony; and fell in love with this little tree with white LED bulbs that in the daytime look rather like snowberries. As bare branches somehow look less “christmassy” than spruce garlands, I decided it would be OK to put it up already for Halloween… So I did!

So far we’ve been having mild and rather still autumn weather. I’ve tried to tie the tree tight to the rail – but it remains yet to be seen when proper winter storms set in (as no doubt sooner or later they will) if I’ve done a good enough job of it!

…

Yesterday, while I was tapping away on my computer writing an email, the display on my screen suddenly changed; and resolution, size and font and whatever went bigger and distorted – for no reason at all, as far as I was aware of. I then tried to restart, hoping that would fix it - but was rebuked by the computer, who (strange how personal appliances suddenly get when things like that happen!) told me I was not allowed to do that (implying that even worse things might happen if I did). Apparently It had much more important stuff to deal with than my email.

So I left it alone for a while and went away to do other things. When later on I found it had turned itself off, I tried waking it again, only to find it was still in a grumpy mood – showing the same weird display. I made some attempts at setting it right, but to no avail. At best I managed to get the text back to somewhere close to the right “height”, but everything was kind of flattened out and elongated sideways. Round icons for example weren’t round but oval. So I gave up and went to bed…

This afternoon I gave it another go. Alas no mircale had happened over night. It took me three hours or more of continued trial and error to get the settings back to looking right. For starters, I could not for the life of me remember (nor find) what my screen resolution had been before it went wrong…

Finally it seems I managed to get it right, though. (Note to self in case it happens again: 1600 x 900). Hopefully I’ve learned something about various other settings in the process as well. But I still haven’t got a clue why it played up in the first place! (Anyone else out there who had similar problems with display settings in Windows 10?)

Friday My Town – Darkness

Mosaic Monday: Easter Decorations

These are some of my Easter decorations at home.
The cross-stich wall hanging was made by my mum.

The fluffy little chickens on the kitchen corner shelf have been with me since my childhood or teens.

And so have some of the paper eggs.

One Easter symbol that never quite took root here in Sweden is the Easter Bunny, even if they do appear now and then in imported decorations. The egg above has different images on the top vs bottom half – bunny on one side, chicken on the other. On the inside it has the stamp “Made in GDR” (German Democratic Republic) – which should mean that it’s at least over 25 years old (but not over 65!)

 

Linking to Mosaic Monday