One Day at a Time

 

Left: Friday - Right: Saturday

 
The snow that fell during the week remains. Today has been sunny, but cold. Around -8'C (17-18 F) according to my weather apps - and probably feeling even colder because of wind. (Today I haven't been out at all.)

Yesterday I was expecting a delivery of groceries between 10-13. I was among the last on their list that day, and with the snow and everything, they didn't arrive until shortly after 13 this time. (And then it took me nearly an hour to unpack and sort everything into fridge, freezer and various cabinets. Because of all the holidays it was my first delivery in three weeks.) As I live only 1 km or so from the supermarket, I'm usually either among the very first or the very last on their route - and I never know which until the same day. But then I can follow updates of expected time of delivery on their app, and also get a text message when I'm next. With the present snow situation, one has to be prepared for delays; but they were only like 10 minutes late in the end, and I got everything I had ordered.   

Today I had the laundry room booked for the afternoon, starting at 12. Normally I try to avoid booking weekends; but again, with all the red days lately, normal routines have been set aside. Recently I've felt more need of keeping the few non-holidays "free", in case I should need to transport myself somewhere for some errand or other. (But with the snow situation, combined with my knee, have ended up mostly just staying in anyway...) 

One result of all this is that just now, I still frequently have to keep reminding myself what day of the week it really is!  

We have a word for this in Swedish which doesn't have an exact translation in English (to be veckovill). I asked Google AI for an equivalent in English, but instead of just admitting that it didn't know, it came up with suggestions way off the mark (like "weekly").

Turning to an old and trusted printed Swedish-English dictionary, that simply gives the matter-of-fact paraphrase: "not know what day of the week it is". 

 

Still Snowed In

Black-and-white view from the window down in the basement laundry room today. With all the red days falling on weekdays lately, I ended up doing weekday work on the weekend...

(From this short post you should be able to conclude that while it's still snowing, electricity and water and the internet are still functioning here, and I'm "ok"...)

 

Make Believe

(Meme copied from Facebook)

"I need a day between every day to
recover from the day before and
prepare for the upcoming day."  

And that, of course, becomes even more true with an unusually intense week behind me...

For me it was only 2 days + 1 night away from home; but altogether I had ~ 4 days with my brother (three whole days + two half days). And I took lots of photos. So I'm going to take my time blogging about it.

P drove down here from Karlstad on Monday afternoon (7 Aug) and arrived towards evening. (For him a journey of around 300 km/185 miles.) Because of the weather (very rainy) we had decided not to set off for the coast until Wednesday (which might give us at least one sunny day on Thursday). So on Tuesday we had a fairly relaxed day with lunch at home, and in the afternoon just went for a short trip by car across town to the Abecita Art Museum (click if you want to know more about it) to see their current photo art exhibitons. The museum is spread over three large floors, and with five different current exhibitions (+ some permanent works from their own collection) we spent quite a while there.

The  exhibiton that I liked best was 'Make Believe' by photographer Erik Johansson. (Link to his own website.)

Some of his works fitted the rainy weather very well... ;)

And the one below made me think of Ginny of the blog Let Your Light Shine and her many wonderful photos of the Moon... ;)  (I cropped this image a little to get rid of some disturbing reflections in my own photo.)

 

 

 Looking out from a window at the Abecita Art Museum towards the shopping centre nearby.

We had coffee/tea in the museum café before we left; and before we went back home we also stopped at one of the nearby shopping malls, where I managed to find a pair of rubber boots. (Or 'wellingtons' or 'rain boots' or whatever - tell me your preferred name for them in the comments, if you like!) 

I had searched a couple of shoe shops in the city centre the week before without finding any in my size (not really surprising, after a whole month of rain!!) - but now at last found a pair that fit me, in a sport shop. Living in town, I've been managing without any for years - but realized that at least for one of our planned adventures, I'd probably really need them... 

The rest of the day was spent packing (for me), planning for the trip, and general "catching up talk".

 

(PS. Speaking of catching up... In case someone is wondering, I have been reading/ catching up with more blog posts by my online friends than I've commented on.)

Reality Check

This message unexpectedly turned up on my screen the other day -  I think while I was trying to log into a hotel booking site. It took them a while (long enough for me to be able to grab the camera to snap the shot abouve), but eventually I was let in. So I suppose I must have passed the test!

'We are currently checking if you are human' - images by Bing (AI)

To retaliate, I later gave Bing the same message. They responded with various photos of masked people holding up signs in 'Gibberish' - plus the weird-looking man on the left whose face looks like it's been put together from two different photos.

I also asked Bing for illustrations of a woman making holiday plans. This was the best of those. There are no weird-looking airplanes (or palm trees) involved in my holiday dreams - but I'm very likely to need the umbrella.

The plan is that my brother will drive down here in a couple of days, and then we also hope to go off on a little trip together to the west coast (with one night away, which needed to be booked). We're still having very rainy weather though, so our plans still depend a bit on how the weather forecasts develop...

Swedish West Coast according to Bing

Anyway - if you don't see me around in the Blog World as much as usual next week, it may be beacuse I've managed to sneak off on adventures "out of town" for a change. (I don't quite believe it until I see it!)

Postcards for the Weekend – Winter Scenes

Postcrossing card from Belarus, January 2018 

In Sweden, 13th January is St Knut’s Day, or the 20th day of Christmas; and traditionally this is when we “throw out Christmas” (the tree and other decorations) and eat up left-overs like the ginger bread house (if we made one!). At least that was still the tradition back in my childhood (1950s/early 60s). There were usually one or more children’s “Christmas tree plundering parties” to go to this time of year – and I think my mum hosted one or two of those, too (for me and some of my neighbourhood friends/ primary school classmates).

Postcrossing card from France, January 2018

Christmas card from a Swedish friend living in Norway

Not really sure how well the Knut Day traditions have been ♥preserved♥ throughout the years… My impression is that many people nowadays throw out Christmas earlier (maybe because they also start decorating earlier). As for myself, I do usually still keep my decorations up until mid January. Anyway, this year I did, with the extra excuse that I also had my brother visiting Wednesday-Friday this past week. Today, I did not feel inspired to get on with it either – feeling I had enough other things to do (including the important task of just lying on my back and read most of the afternoon...) Maybe Monday??  

Outdoors it’s been another grey week here; with bare ground and temperatures hovering just around 0°C (freezing point).

Postcards for the Weekend 68: Winter Scenes

Postcards for the Weekend - from the U.K.

For this weekend, Maria has given us the PFTW theme
”from a country/ favorite place you have visited”

The foreign country that I have visited the most, even if it was long ago, is the U.K. In recent years, I have also received several postcards to remind me of those holidays spent in England, Wales and Scotland back in the 1970’s. Some have come from strangers via Postcrossing; but even more have dropped in from one particular postcrossing friend. 

Postcrossing card (GB-554872) 2014: The Houses of Parliament – London
Our first family holiday to Britain was a week in London in 1969.
I also visited London again in 1972.

 

From John, January 2016 - Piccadilly Circus, photo from 1893/94
This photo was taken a bit before my time!
But I have been there.

Windsor – The Henry III Tower and Round Tower
From John, 2014

While in London in 1969, we also went on one or two bus tours out of the big city, and visited both Windsor Castle (above), and Anne Hathaway’s cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon (below). (Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare, and this cottage is where she lived as a child.)

Anne Hathaway’s cottage, Stratford-upon-Avon – from John, 2014

Devon Cottages - from John, 2013

My memories of Devon are rather vague, but I know we must have passed through there in 1974 to get to Cornwall…

Thatched roof cottages always remind me (still) of a book my mum used to read to me when I was even younger, about a little English girl by name of Milly-Molly who lived in such a cottage. Actually (I have learned more recently), in English she is called Milly-Molly-Mandy. But in the Swedish translation they skipped Mandy. So I know her as just Milly-Molly.

Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire - from John, 2016

One day on our family trip in 1971, my parents left me with a penfriend of mine and her family in Stoke-on-Trent. (First time I was left “all alone” with no choice but to speak English!) Together with them I visited this magnificent Tudor manor house from the 1500’s – Little Moreton Hall. I don’t think there was a straight angle in the whole building!

Scotland - From John, 2014

In 1971, we also drove up to Scotland (as far north as Inverness and Loch Ness). Lots of moors and sheep and hills and mountains… And I do seem to remember that we may also have seen/heard some bagpipers at Edinburgh Castle. (Not THE famous Edinburgh Tattoo event, but something minor, for tourists. Or perhaps my memory deceives me? Not sure…)

Scottish Bagpiper – from John, 2014

Postcrossing card (GB-612364), 2014

  We also visited both these castles in Wales.
▲Caernarvon in 1971, and Conway in 1974.▼

Conwy Castle, Wales – from John, 2016

 

Llanfair… – from John, 2014

And also the Welsh village Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, or…

(Wikipedia)

The long form of the name was invented for promotional purposes in the 1860s. With 58 characters it is the longest place name in Europe... And my dad, railway and steam engines enthusiast, wanted to visit it to get a platform ticket from there – and photos of the station house with sign, of course.

Platform ticket (scanned from my photo album from 1974)

 

My dad’s photo of the railway station
… which I recently found in a “surprise” envelope that fell out of an old writing pad that I must haven taken home when we emptied the House a few years ago. Besides this photo the envelope contained  a cutting from some magazine with the Swedish translation of that long name + two other railway photos.

(Now that you’ve seen that name four times in a row, you know it by heart, right? … Just kidding…) 

Rörstrand Porcelain Museum (Lidköping)

(July 2015)

In Lidköping by Vänern we had lunch at the Rörstrand Porcelain Museum. Even if our table in their café was not laid out as elegantly as this one in the museum, it was still a very nice place to have lunch.

Rörstrand is one of the most famous Swedish porcelain manufacturers; initially founded in Stockholm; in the 1930’s, they moved to Lidköping. Nowadays the company has been taken over by Finnish Iittala, production has been moved abroad and the factory in Lidköping closed down. But the museum is still there to enjoy – and entrance is free.

Many of Rörstrand’s classic tableware patterns are very well known in Sweden. Some of them have a long history, going back 100 years or more; and some patterns taken out of production for a while have proved so popular that they were reintroduced again later.

One of those is ‘Green Anna’, first created around the turn of the century 1900. It was out of production between 1943-1966; but then reintroduced on the market again until 2002. I myself chose this series to collect when I first moved away from home to live on my own in the mid 1970’s. I have dinner plates, soup plates, and side plates in this pattern, and also the teacups which you can see here. The plates I’m still using almost daily. The teacups are not my favourite design to hold and drink from though, so they don’t get used very often now (as I have others that I prefer).

My paternal grandmother’s everyday tableware (she got married in 1930, so probably bought around then) was another Rörstrand design, Bengali Blue (which I did not see in the museum).

 

When we cleared out my parents’ house, I found the soup plates from this series to still be in good condition (obviously not having been used much, compared to the flat ones that were used all the time and got well worn and cracked over the years). So I  kept those – and I’m glad I did. While I find them rather too flat for soup (my Green Anna ones are better for that purpose– deeper and more bowl-shaped), these are just perfect for my “TV dinners” (salad etc).

They also match my grandmother’s teacups rather well…

  

But the teacups and saucers are of a different make, and from England!

 

Linking to Mosaic Monday