Sepia Saturday: Sisters

  

In his introduction of Sepia Saturday 824, the host Alan Burnett writes:  

"If you are wanting a theme you can have celebrations or cakes or two splendid ladies - the choice, as always, is yours."

What came to mind for me this week was my own mother (who liked to bake cakes), and her sister, who celebrated her 90th birthday this week. 

Below is a photo of the two of them together, from 1966 - i.e. 60 years ago.

Mum (36) to the left, and my aunt (30) to the right, sitting on the lawn outside the house where we had been living for about one year then. My aunt and uncle lived in the nearby town back then, and my little brother and our oldest cousin (also a boy) were the same age. So the two families used to get together quite frequently.

Later on, my aunt and her family moved farther away, and family get-togethers got less frequent. However, when my dad retired (at age 60), my parents moved back to their home town/area, which was by then also where I lived (and still live). And as my aunt and uncle also had both family and old friends here, we all saw each other a bit more often again. After my parents died (2009/11), my aunt and uncle also still visited me when they were in this area. Since a few years, they no longer drive this far from home, though. But my brother and I last met up with them last summer in Linköping, where they live.

My mum died in 2009, a few months after turning 79; and my dad did not live to celebrate his 80th either. But (as already mentioned) my aunt turned 90 this week. I sent her a parcel, and also phoned her on the day. Her main celebration will be with her own sons and grandchildren this weekend - and it seems that at age 90, she finds that enough. I kind of assume that a birthday cake in some form will probably be part of the celebration, though. What that one might look like I don't know, but here is one that my mum baked for some other occasion in the past (probably Christmas, judging by the table cloth):

PS. My aunt used to read my blog sometimes, but I'm not sure if she still does. I think in the past I've just referred to her and her husband as my aunt and uncle, no names mentioned, so I decided to stick to that with this post as well.

Kitchen Gnomes (Part 2)

 

On the small wooden corner shelf in my kitchen you'll find my wooden gnomes. (The other items are there all year round.) The shelf itself belonged to my paternal grandmother, and once upon a time used to sit in her kitchen. 

The wooden house (a model of a kind of storehouse that used to be common in the north of Sweden) comes from my mum's side of the family (my maternal grandfather was from "up north") - and so does the little carved dog. The boat-like thing next to the house is a souvenir bought on a family trip up north in my early teens - a wooden cup, a traditional Sami kind of item. The little ceramic deer and the "nutty" squirrel were presents from friends some time in the past; and the little grey gnome I think was originally part of some Christmas flower arrangement. 

The two gnomes to the left on the middle shelf I remember buying when visiting a Christmas market in a friend's church back in my upper teens. And the grey one on the same shelf was a Christmas gift from a Swedish penfriend some 20+ years ago. 

A random collection of things, but with one thing in common: 
They're all bearers of memories of family and friends.

Preserve Your Memories

Today is Mother's Day in Sweden. (Here, that's always the last Sunday in May.) This year, it coincides with the exact date when my own mother died - 26th May, 2009. 

I had started my first blog a few months earlier, in January that year. Going back there now, I find that I wrote a short post about it two days later: Life is fragile. 

The years that followed were rather chaotic, as my dad was not well either, and he died two years later. 

Looking back now from further down the road, I'm still thankful that I had started blogging (and making some online friends) some time before all that happened. Blogging has been helpful through the ups and downs in all sorts of ways: Sometimes to sum up what is happening; and at other times, to forget about it for a while. And in retrospect, I also find it helpful sometimes to be able to go back and check what I did (or didn't) write at a certain point in time.

 Photo of my parents, taken by a friend of theirs in 2007.

Always reminding me of these lyrics by Paul Simon:

Old Friends

...

Can you imagine us
Years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange
To be seventy

Old friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear

Time it was
And what a time it was
It was . . .
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago . . . it must be . . .
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you

 

Forget-Me-Not (26.5)

Four mornings in a row now I’ve been out walking (‘Nordic’ style) around the old cemetery. Yesterday I stopped at this old grave – ‘forgotten’ in the sense of no one actively tending it any more, but still full of lovely forget-me-nots!

Today, 26th May, it’s six years since my mum died; and in a few weeks, it will be four years since my dad joined her. I can’t visit their grave in the village churchyard very often; but it is of course being taken care of (we’re paying for that service as we cannot do it ourselves).

You’re not forgotten. 

Photo of my parents taken by a friend of theirs in 2007.

Tulips Tulips

▲ For Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos

20 February was my mother’s birthday. She was born in 1930; died in May 2009. I was thinking about her today as I walked to a nearby florist’s to buy a bunch of tulips.

Around this time in February is usually also when I get the urge to take down the last of my “winter” decorations and tablecloths etc and replace them with “spring” ones. Even if it’s still rather wintry outside, there is something about the light, the sun getting warmer and the days longer… So yesterday I started my colour changes, and today I finished off by changing back to my yellow kitchen curtains (from red-and-white in winter).

And then I also feel the need of some fresh flowering plants on the window sills (like a yellow begonia in the kitchen window) – and a bunch of tulips!

Me and my twin at the florist’s! (They have mirrors in the cold room where they keep the cut flowers… So that it looks like there’s MORE of everything. Me included! A bit confusing, but of course it tempted me to take out the camera…)

Thursday, but not Thirsty!

… Thankful for Water …

On Monday there was a notice put up on the entrance door where I live, to inform all tenants that on Thursday, we would be out of tap water between 8 am to 4 pm because of some repair work.

Had this been back in my working days (when I was away from home during those hours anyway) I’d just have shrugged my shoulders and tried (but probably failed) to be prepared for hissing and splurting water taps when I got back home again.

No longer working and with nowhere to go (at least nowhere I’d feel comfortable to spend a whole day in mid winter!), my first reaction came close to (a moment of) panic.

First of all, shouldn’t an important message like that be put in everyone’s letterbox instead of just on the entrance door? Because there might actually be old or sick people living on their own who might stay in their flat for three days (especially in the winter cold of -10°C we’re having at the moment) and so never get to see the warning…

So I muttered on about that to myself for a while. But of course I never got round to calling the landlord’s office to complain – since, after all, I had seen the message...

Half way through the 8 waterless hours  – I’m beginning to realize that I still over-panicked “just a little” in my own preparations. I just had no grip how much water I’d need to get through a day with none coming out of the taps! So before going to bed yesterday I filled just about every bottle and jug and bucket that I had… Don’t really know what I was thinking!!!

(I shall probably have to keep flushing the toilet manually the rest of the week to empty those buckets in the bathroom!)

Well - at least it serves as a reminder to be truly thankful for one of those everyday things it’s so easy to take for granted in this corner of the world: Clean, fresh, cold or hot water from the tap, any time of the day.

It strikes me that my somewhat over-panicky preparations may be subconsciously related to childhood memories. In the village where I lived then, whenever there was a power cut (likely to occur in the winter storms), we also had no water. So dad used to go round putting cups over the levers on the toilets etc, to remind us not to use them. This morning, just before 8, I found myself doing the same thing… Having just realized, going through my mornings routines, how much of it we do automatically, without really thinking about it. Flush the toilet, wash our hands, brush our teeth and clean the toothbrush under running water; fill the kettle in the kitchen; rinse out a cup or a glass; fill the sink to do the washing up… etc.

To finish off this post… a favourite family photo of my paternal grandparents, proudly posing at the water well on the property where they were about to build their house back in 1930:

What-A-Week-Ramble

What a week it’s been. Weather-wise Monday started out with almost spring-like weather, followed by snowfall in the evening. On Tuesday everything was covered in the white stuff; but the sky all grey (while forecasts had predicted sun). On Wednesday, not a trace of snow left, and the sun shining from a blue sky (while forecasts had predicted rain). Thursday back to heavy rain and storm! Friday sunny again, but still windy and very chilly.

My brother drove down on Monday and arrived before the worst snowfall set in. He and the dog stayed at The House outside town, but he stopped by here for a cup of tea since he had to go into town to pick up some things anyway.

Tuesday morning he came in again to fetch me, and we both spent the day at The House. The chairman from the local history society also came over (as planned), to have a look at our inherited “archives”… 

… What?! I wrote “chair(wo)man”, and the “wo” turned into a little briefcase! That’s almost as distracting as walking through a doorway!!!  …

… and she ended up relieving us of several carrier bags (not briefcases) full of old notes and photos from our granddad (who was a journalist with special interest in local history). The local history society will have a look at these and then pass them on to the Town Archive to be kept there for the future.

It’s still really just a drop in the lake… But it’s a start!

Wednesday was Per’s birthday, so I took him out to lunch at a restaurant in town. Later, back at the House, we went for a sunny walk down to the beach…

… er, what beach?! The water is so high this winter that there is almost no beach left to walk along! Compare the view in summer:

Thursday Per went back home. Outside it rained and it rained and it rained… Well, for my part I had indoors things to do anyway – like taking down Christmas decorations. My window lights may remain up for another week or so though: Gradual withdrawal treatment!  … (Besides, I might need an extra week to make sure I’ve found all the gnomes…)

 

Hanging Art

Browsing some blogs today I was amused to find a post about Hanging My Art by Katherine at The Last Visible Dog. (Go help her when you’ve finished reading mine!) Amused because last weekend I took home some paintings that belonged to my parents and grandparents, and just spent the whole week scratching my head over where and how to hang what; and how to combine old with new.

Buying something new and taking it home is one thing, and can be challenge enough when your home is already pretty full. With inherited artwork comes the extra strangeness of it being familiar and new all at the same time. You’ve been used to seeing it hang in a certain way, on a certain wall, together with certain other things. Taking some such items out of their earlier context, and bringing them home to mix with your own things, is a strange feeling.

It’s not like I had an empty wall waiting for just those paintings; so of course it led to a rearranging of things that were already there. It also led to buying new frames for some of the water colours, both old and ‘new’. And to the removal of one or two of my own that no longer seemed to fit in.

I’m still not sure I’m “done” but I think I’m getting there.

Some of the paintings in my parents’ home in turn came from my paternal grandparents: oil paintings in dark colours set in big heavy gilded frames. They may have fit the earlier generations’ style of interior decoration (maybe); but as for me, too much of that would make me feel like I was living in a museum.

So out of the bigger oil paintings, I chose to keep only one:

`
(60x52 cm including frame)

… which, in spite of being a winter scene, is one of the brightest.
It fits in with other colours in my flat, and it is also special because I know it was bought by my paternal grandparents as a wedding gift for my parents. So it’s been there all my life.

I also chose this small pastel (25x30) with similar colour scheme and the bare branches in common with the one above:

… and have now hanged those two together with a water colour (possibly gouache?) painted my maternal grandfather (have a closer look at that one here) …

The painted casket is another inherited item – it belonged to my paternal grandmother and still contains some old notebooks and things of hers.

Enough for today. Now don’t forget to stop by Katherine’s!

 

 

Continued Ramble

(Photo from recent visit to the Textile Museum)

Oh dear… From comments to my Weekend Reflections post I gather that I (mis)lead some of you to expect I’d pick up the thread in the next post and go on straight forward from where I left off… Not likely! Life’s all twists and turns at the moment and so are my thoughts.

I said in that post that after my friends left last Thursday I had to turn my attention to other matters. This referred to the fact that on Friday my brother was coming down for a meeting with the bank re our father’s estate. We also spent the Saturday in “the House”, where there is still a lot of “stuff” left to sort out. Much still belongs in the category of not quite knowing where to turn next. In some ways we’re lucky – like no immediate pressure to get the house sold “yesterday” – but in other ways perhaps less fortunate (like neither of us really having the energy to get on with things very efficiently).

As I’ve mentioned before Dad had a collector’s instincts and was reluctant to throw things away. In younger days however he was also known for keeping things in meticulous order. Going through the top layer in his study now, it seems it was about twelve years ago he started just piling things up instead: Important, unimportant, originals, copies, brochures, magazines, press cuttings, envelopes, private papers, bills, photos, research notes (family and local history and national railway history) etc all mixed up. Which means it all has to be sorted through envelope by envelope,  sheet by sheet. We have made progress; but still a long way to go. Besides from being a shoulder-aching procedure, it is also sometimes kind of heart-breaking!

To be thankful for:
* Some of our grandfather’s local history research was published in a posthumous book (by our parents).
* A lot of dad’s extensive railway history research was also published in the form of (four) books.

 

 

 

My Grandparents

From my other blog, DawnTreader’s Picture Book, I take part in Friday My Town Shoot Out, with a different theme each week. This week’s theme is Grandparents’ Day. We do not have a special Grandparents’ day in Sweden, but I did (of course!) have grandparents… So I posted their wedding photos for FMTSO. But since I’m trying to sum up some family history anyway, I got inspired do an extended post here. It might be followed by more family history posts later as I continue to go through old albums and notes – we’ll see.

▲ My maternal grandparents, Gunborg and Hugo, 1928.

▲ The cottage far up in the north of Sweden where my grandfather Hugo (born 1901) grew up, with his parents and four or five siblings. His father was a sawmill worker. Hugo too started out working at the sawmill, but also studied per correspondence, and went on to become a teacher, and later in life headmaster.

▲ The house (here in Borås) where my grandmother Gunborg (born 1902) grew up. The house was demolished in the 1970s, but I remember it from my childhood, when two cousins of my grandmother’s still lived there. In Gunborg’s childhood, her family (with four children) shared the house with her aunt and uncle-in-law and their five children. All the children grew up like one family. Gunborg’s father was a clerk; and Gunborg herself before her marriage worked as a secretary.

Hugo and Gunborg actually got to know each other per correspondence – and in shorthand at that! The first couple of years of their marriage they lived up in the north; but then a year or so after my mother was born they came to live down here.

--- --- ---

▲ My paternal grandparents, Gustaf and Sally, 1930.

▲The cottage where my grandfather Gustaf (born 1904) grew up. He was born ‘out of wedlock’ and was raised mainly by his maternal grandparents.

In his youth Gustaf started out as a shoemaker’s apprentice; but later became a journalist, photographer and editor at the local newspaper, with a special interest in local history.

▲ The farmhouse where my grandmother Sally (born 1900) grew up. She continued to live there until she got married at the age of 30. She never had a job outside the home.

Sally’s parents were both widowed when they got married to each other. The father had nine children by his first wife (two of them died before my grandmother was born), and the mother had one daughter from her first marriage, eight years older than Sally. When Sally was two, she also had a little brother.

Her half-siblings on the father’s side were all grown up, but some of them still lived on the farm in her childhood. The eldest half-brother (30 years older than Sally) remained single and took over the farm a few years before the father died in 1907 (when Sally was 7 years old). Another of the elder brothers later also moved back to help with the farm. From then until 1930, the family on the farm seems to have consisted of those two brothers + their father’s widow with her two daughters and one younger son.

▲ My grandmother Sally on the right; her sister and brother-in-law(-to-be) on the left, and their mother in the middle.

I’m not sure when or how Sally and Gustaf first got to know each other. I know that for a while before they got married Gustaf lived at the farm too, as a lodger, but I think that was probably after he and Sally got engaged. In 1930 they got married and moved into their own brand new house – but not alone. 1930 was a year of Big Change because all three the younger siblings got married and moved out. Sally’s sister and brother-in-law moved in with Sally and Gustaf in their new house, and so did their mother (69 years old by then). In my dad’s early childhood, they were still all an ‘extended family’: He and his parents living in one room and kitchen downstairs; his grandmother and aunt and uncle-in-law sharing the upstairs flat. Later, the aunt and uncle built their own house just down the road. The grandmother died in 1941.

One of the things that strike me from the family history is how both my grandfathers “worked their way up” from rather poor circumstances; and also how both grandmothers grew up in large extended families (but in houses that still suggest a somewhat higher standard).

Little Me, Little You

 

Finding some old framed photos lying around ‘out of context’ in the house, one of them (above) made me ask my brother: “Is this Little Me or Little You?” Below is the reason why I was not sure at first glance:

The first photo is Little Me; the second is my Little Brother, born 6 years later. (6 years, 4 months and a couple of weeks…).

Going through old family things and photos stirs up memories, and it strikes me that when we were born does make quite a difference as to what we remember from our respective childhood, even though we grew up in the same family.

First of all, I was an only child (and the only grandchild for both sets of grandparents) for six years before Little Brother came into the picture. This also means I have personal memories of more people from our grandparents’ generation than he does.

For example: My brother never met our maternal grandmother, because she died a few months before he was born. I was six at the time, and I do have my own memories of her.

Our maternal grandfather got married again only a couple of years later. For me, his new wife was a “stranger” coming into the family; while my brother cannot remember a time when she was not in the picture.

I also have memories of my paternal grandfather from when he was still an active and healthy journalist with special interest in local history. He died of Parkinson’s disease when my brother was about 7, and I 13. My brother only remembers him from the years when he was ill. 

One of my maternal grandmother’s half-sisters and her husband lived a couple of houses down the road from my grandparents. Our great-aunt (who was quite a character) died when I was 9, my brother 2½. So he has only heard stories, but has no personal memories of her; only of her husband. I suspect it’s the same thing with more people of that generation.

My brother also only remembers the house we moved into when he was three years old. He says his very first memories are from a visit to that house while it was being built. For me, that was my third home, I was ten when we moved in there. I also have clear memories not only of the house we lived in before that (for five years) but also my first home, which was a town flat.

The same year that my brother was born (in January), I started school (in August). When it was time for him to start school, I was entering my Teens – the time when Friends are suddenly getting a lot more interesting than Family – and taking the bus into town to school. And when my brother was entering his teens, I moved out, and went off to live in another town 200 km away.

In the early 1980’s for a few years we both lived in the same town, both in our ‘twenties’, and both studying at university (I was in my second round of studies then after a few years of work). But then I moved again – and as it happened, to the town and area where our parents grew up, and where our grandparents used to live (and where I’m still living now).

I suppose one reason why it’s I who am collecting the family documents now, might be that I’m the one with more “living” memories of their generation.    

Go With the Flow

For Straight Out of the Camera Sunday:
One can tell from the flow of water in the river at the old mill that it’s been raining a lot lately. Saturday the sun came out so we could go for a nice walk (brother, dog and I); but all Friday the rain was just “streaming down”…

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I can’t believe it’s been five days since I posted on this blog! Or actually – I can believe it, because I’ve been very busy with “off line” things this week; and rather tired when not busy.

On Friday my brother came down for a meeting regarding the inventory of the estate after my father. We had help by a solicitor to draw up the proper documents. Now will have to wait for those to be registered with the authorities, which might take a while. Since there’s only the two of us and we’re not in disagreement about things, it should hopefully not be too complicated though.

I also spent most of Saturday with my brother out at the House, continuing to (more literally) sort through things there. While Per did certain things he had to do, I this time concentrated on gathering some of the files and photo albums to do with our own family history; which I have now taken back home with me. The problem is all my bookshelves and cupboards are full of ‘my own stuff’ already…! And I really don’t want my own study to end up looking like my dad’s… So the sorting has to continue…

It tickled my curiosity when I found it seems both dad and his dad before him did more genealogy research than I was aware of. Most of it comes in bits and pieces though and it’s quite a puzzle to fit things together. Since before I’ve added what I knew to a genealogy site on the internet; but with the notes that I’ve now found, I should be able to make some revisions there.

I doubt I’ll be digging much further than trying to put together the facts that my dad and granddad already gathered, but I guess that remains to be seen.

ABC Wednesday - X for Unknown

“The usage of x to represent an independent or unknown variable can be traced back to the Arabic word šay' شيء = “thing,” used in Arabic algebra texts…” (Wikipedia)

Hence X is often also used to represent other unknowns.

Sometimes life seems X-tra full of X-factors and crossroads.
My brother and I have some Unknown territory ahead of us now, after the recent death of our father. A lot of stuff to sort through, and (when we’re done with that, which will take a while) selling the House; which, although it was not our childhood home (but dad’s), has been there all our lives. (The link goes to a blog post of mine back in February 2010. Six months later dad had to move into an ‘assisted living’ kind of nursing home.)

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.

In Memoriam – My Parents

19 June was my parents’ wedding anniversary.

My mother, Birgit, born 20 February 1930, died on 26 May 2009, i.e. shortly before their 55th anniversary. My father, Bertil, born 29 August 1931, “joined her” yesterday, 18 June 2011 – the evening before the 57th anniversary of their wedding.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace. Amen.

… … ..

Hard Times

Sorry for my absence from Blogland at the moment. My dad is in the hospital's stroke-ward since Monday;  unconscious since yesterday. They say now it's a matter of days (or less) before he'll be leaving this life. I'm thankful for having had the support of my mum's sister and her husband for a few days this week. They went back home yesterday but then my brother came last night (they missed each other by a few hours).

I don't feel up to much writing just now but I do occasionally look at some of your blogs while in bedrest (neck-rest) position. (I/we are not at the hospital around the clock.) Thankful for your thoughts and prayers.

(Paint-Shop edited water lilies from last year)

Catching Up

Visiting Ginny’s post All Ears yesterday made me realize that perhaps for the first time (?) I put up no Easter decorations at all in my flat this year. Not that I have a lot of them, but usually I do take out the few items that I have. This year, I completely forgot about them!

I think it was the fact that Easter was so late, and that Nature decided to provide outdoor decorations of its own. Starting with the blue canvas of the sky, the sun as its brush, and bird song for encouragement, over Easter it painted the treetops green, and added splashes of colour in every glade, park and garden: white wood anemones, blue hepatica, yellow daffodils and forsythia bushes, pink cherry blossoms, and lots of others besides. 

It was perhaps also the fact that my brother and I spent most of Friday and Saturday at The House outside town which has been standing empty since last summer (when dad had to go into hospital and from there moved to a geriatric care center). N.b. “empty” refers to absence of residents – not “stuff”…

Our grandparents built the original house in 1930. Dad grew up there. In our childhood and youth, our grandparents still lived there. Then for a while it was kept as summer cottage. In the early 90s an extension was added, and our parents moved in, and lived there for  17 years. There’s also an outbuilding as old as the original house. (Full of… Not sure what, but full!)

We’re planning to hire a rubbish container for a week in the summer, but even that will just mean making a start. (The only things burning in this picture are branches that had fallen from the trees in the winter.)

In the meantime we’ve at least managed to secure the services of the same guy who mowed the lawns and did some other outdoor jobs for us last summer. Just to basically try to stop the garden from getting totally overgrown.

We also visited dad where he is living now. (Unfortunately he is in need of too much help now for it to be possible for us to take him with us to his old home even for a short visit.)

And we stopped by the cemetery where mum is buried, and several ancestor’s on dad’s side of the family.

So it was a strange kind of Easter in some ways; but the fine weather did help.

I also had to spend some time on tax declaration forms this week; and tomorrow I’m expecting a visit from friends who will be staying the night. So if I’m not around visiting other blogs as much as usual (or even my own) just now… that’s why!