Early Autumn Colours

 

The counting of the votes from the recent Swedish election has been finished, resulting in the left-wing "red+green" opposition winning by 176 vs 173 (members of parliament) over our old "right-wing" government. 

The old government will continue as transition government until a new one has been sorted out. It remains to be seen if that will happen before the trees have lost all their leaves, though - as there are disagreements to sort out among the four parties on the winning "side" as well. So speculations are still running high as to whether they'll succeed or not. And no doubt this will continue to dominate all our newscasts for quite a while yet.

▲Crab apple tree in my neighbourhood▼

  

 

 

Autumn colours in a flower bed in the cemetery 

 

 
Another project that is still only in the phase of Chaos rather than Progress is the transformation of the old football field to a "park"...

 

Post Election (Still Counting...)

 

Our polling stations closed at 8 pm last night. Most votes have been counted but some remain, and all will be re-counted one more time before we get the final figures - which won't be until Wednesday night or even Thursday. 

So far it points to the Social Democrats getting the first chance of forming a new government together with (or supported by) three smaller parties - but as all of the parties "on that side" (center/green/left) aren't 100% "best buddies" either, that is likely to take some diplomacy and negotiating in itself. I'm hoping they will be able to reach some kind of compromise in the end - but forming a new government is probably (again) going to take time. 

The photo above (and below) is of a horse chestnut tree in the cemetery that I passed on my walk today. The  chestnuts are still enclosed in green and spiky shells - only a very few have yet fallen to the ground and opened up.

 Horse chestnuts are not edible. In Britain I know they're called "conkers" and are used in a game by the same name - played by two players.  With a conker threaded onto a piece of string they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks. 

How my brain came to associate horse chestnuts with politics I leave to my readers to figure out for yourselves... ;)

Pre-Election Saturday

Waking up fairly cough-free this morning, I decided to try and get myself into town for a couple of errands that I didn't feel up for earlier in the week. I took the bus part of the way there, but then walked back.

With the election coming up tomorrow, there were quite a lot of people about in the main square, as all the political parties have information booths up (no doubt they've been there all week). There's also a portable cabin for early voting, and today there was a long queue of people waiting to make use of that. 

Reports in the media say we've already broken previous records this year when it comes to the number of people preferring to vote early - and I made my contribution to that myself back on Monday. (I didn't have to go into town for that, as I could do it at a place closer to home.) 

 

These flags across a shopping street in the city centre are part of the past summer's art biennial. I did not stop to try and figure out the symbolism - and just as well that I didn't, as I'd never have succeeded...  Looking it up now on the Art Museum's Instagram page:

"Michelle Eistrup’s series of flags along Stora Brogatan draws on the heritage of Bakongo culture from Central Africa, which spread across the Americas due to the transatlantic slave trade. The flags form a “dictionary” of Bakongo gestures and evoke diasporic knowledge systems. They are organized into four sections, which represent the parallel cycles of the sun and of human life — sunrise and spiritual awakening, noon and maturity, sunset and decline, midnight and regeneration." 

On my way home, I walked through a corner of the city park, and noted that there are autumn colours to be seen in some of the trees now.

 

One of my favourite sculptures - I don't recall its name now, but I think it's been there since one of our first art biennials. For me as "Narnian" (referring to my blog name) it always makes me think of ancient mythological portals between worlds... 

Linking to Weekend Street/Reflection #294

Foggy Head, Foggy Future

 

I'll let this foggy photo from Sunday morning represent two different things. 

First, the fact that over the past week the inside of my head has been feeling rather foggy as well; as during the previous weekend I managed to contract a cold, involving all the usual ingredients, from a sore throat and headaches to running nose and a barking cough. No point in trying to pin down exactly where I might have caught it from, as last weekend, with my brother here, we spent three days visiting several different restaurants, shops, museums - and public restrooms...

Second, the foggy view may also represent the fact that we have a general election coming up in Sweden next Sunday. As usual (every four years) we have three elections at the same time: National (parliament), regional and local. So both national and local media lately have been full of political debates, and little else - and that will continue for a while yet!

In our parliament we currently have eight parties, divided into two opposing "blocks". The previous election result four years ago took a long time to sort out and ended in a right-wing government. We're probably in for a similar situation once again this time - i.e. that it may again take time to sort out the results, and who is willing to cooperate with whom, to form a new government.   

While nursing myself through the various foggy stages of cold symptoms this week I've also personally spent a bit of time looking at "vote compasses" online.  I actually did five of them (three national, one local and one regional). As they all came out rather alike for me, I decided yesterday that I'm not likely to change my mind, but might as well go and vote early (which we're allowed to do). I've made use of that a few times in later years, to avoid the queues on the final election day; and did so again today. It's still a week of "wait and see" ahead until votes are counted - and even longer until we have a new government sorted. But at least for my own part I won't have to worry about whether it will be raining or not on Sunday...

If anyone would like more details about the election as such, see Wikipedia: 2026 Swedish general election