Bagpipes, Games and Crowds - Sepia Saturday 562

A crowd at a football(?) match, and a Scottish bagpipe band - what are my chances of matching those Sepia Saturday prompts? Considering my disinterest in all kinds of sports, I decided my best chance of perhaps finding a bagpipe would probably be my photo album from 1971. (Counting on my fingers... 71, 81, 91, 01, 11, 21... 50 years ago?!) 

1971 was the year of our first family road trip through England, Wales and Scotland by car. (We had previously been to London for a week in 1969, but then by plane.) Scotland included Edinburgh. Edinburgh included the Castle, and the famous Tattoo - or at least I seem to recall some minor version of it. (?)

In my album, I find no photo evidence of actually having watched the bagpipers, though. Only of having visited the castle, with a crowd of other tourists - and having bought a postcard.

Me (15 going on 16) and my brother (9) looking down on the views from Edinburgh Castle.
 

 

A few pages further on, I find us playing golf at St. Andrews. No crowd to cheer us on, but it is a game, and it includes hitting a ball...

 

And, surprise: At the very back of the same photo album, there are also some photos included from a school event the next spring (1972). It seems that at least once in my life did I actually watch a football match, and I even took photos of it. I'm not sure whether it was a teachers vs students game, or mixed teams from two different schools. My form in upper secondary school (classical/arts kind of program) was all girls, but a couple of the older guys in these photos were my teachers. The one in glasses was my form-master, and I think the one second from the left in the bottom row in the last photo was my art teacher.

  Linking to Sepia Saturday 562

Spring, Jump, Climb and Run

One of the modern signs of spring around here is when you innocently walk into town on a Saturday and find the city centre turned into, for example, a giant obstacle course for an ActionRun.

Aren’t there any normal people around??

I made my escape while there was still a chance to sneak out of the crazy maze without climbing, jumping, running or swimming.

(This last one obviously not mine, but snapped from the local newspaper.)

Sporty Weekend Reflections

As mentioned in my “shoot out” post from last weekend, this past week we’ve had a lot of different sports activities going on here – Swedish Championship Week (‘SM’) in about 40 various types of sport.

Some of the days unfortunetly turned out very rainy, and as I’m not one of those sports enthusiasts who will glady stand around getting wet and cold in order to see other people getting even wetter, it wasn’t until yesterday I joined the crowds for a while with my camera. But then the weather was rather perfect for both participants and spectators.

Just getting into town at all was a bit tricky since the streets between the town center and where I live had been turned into a cycle-racing track surrounded by fences, and with guards at every pedestrian crossing.

In the river, there were various wet acitivites going on:

I’m not sure if the water polo players found the temperature in the river perfect as well.

Up on land, next to the river, they have been throwing stones smashing squash balls in a glasshouse…

… and in the main square, as I passed by, what was previously in the week a sandy boules court, was now being converted into a basket ball ground.

There was also a lion let loose in town. Probably a friendly one, but some children preferred to keep a wary distance. (Wise kids. Best ask mummy first.)

All in all, “something for everyone”, I guess.

Myself, I did not hang around long enough in one place  to watch any game in full, but I enjoyed the walkabout.

Linking to Weekend Reflections (first photo in particular).

[PS. Sorry to have no sunset picture for FMTSO... Some days the sun has refused to show it’s face at all; and when it did come out, it popped out of bed before me, and stayed up later than I did!]

Wet Saturday Surprises (FMTSO)

… Ooops! …
Water seems to be coming from all directions today!

Not to worry. Nothing sprung a leak. It’s a fountain.

On a hot day it looks quite refreshing.
On a wet day, however… Just weird!

Quite a few people did find it worth while going into town in the rain today, though.

One reason may have been that there was a Birthday Party going on in the main square – to celebrate the town’s 393rd birthday. We really don’t want to miss the opportunity of Free Cake, just because of a little rain!

Even more weird stuff to wonder about:

Why has half the square been filled with sand, with terraces for spectators on each side?

And what on earth are they building here?

Having been born (I can only suppose) with a sports filter pre-installed in my brain, it has totally slipped me by until today, that next week (the whole week) Borås will be hosting the Swedish Championship in about 40 different types of sports (some of which I don’t even know what they are).

Apparently this was decided in June 2012.
Which just proves how very efficient my sports-filter is!

Linking to

Friday My Town Shoot Out – Open Theme

 

A Patchwork Ramble, or Waiting for the Big Bang

There are so many things going on at the moment that I think I shall have to do a Scriptor-like ramble today.

Bomb Threat

This is the Court House situated by our main square.

I took this photo on Thursday evening when walking back from having been to the unveiling of The House of Knowledge sculpture (see my recent FMTSO post). This was around 6:30 pm when most of the nearby shops had already closed for the day, so not a lot of people about. Looks rather peaceful, doesn’t it? – The next day, Friday, was a hot and humid kind of day with temperature rising close to +30° in the shadow, almost tropical storm blowing, and the whole of Nature just seeming to be waiting for thunder. I had intended to go into town in the afternoon, but didn’t. Just as well, because if I had, I would have found central town deserted and the shops around the square closed; because of a bomb threat to the Court House (which is still being used as such). Someone left a message in the late morning, that a bomb was to go off there at 3 pm. So the court house and all the nearby buildings had to be evacuated. However, no explosion took place, and the police found nothing. And I did not know anything about it all until the evening news on TV!!! (What?! In my town?!??)

Action

If we got any thunder here during the night, I slept through it. We did get rain through, and the air was a lot cooler and fresher the next morning. So I set off into town for my postponed errands; hoping to find things in a state of “business as usual”.

Well, shops were open – just not all easy to get to!
To my consternation, as I approached the town centre, I found it had turned into a gigantic obstacle course. Not the work of terrorists though – even if to someone like me (out for a bit of ordinary Saturday shopping) it might seem so…

I guess my “sports filter” had kicked in as usual when reading the morning paper, and I had completely missed the fact that a big Action Run event was going to take place in town that day.

Apparently, various ways of getting wet was considered part of the “fun”.

I can only guess that the bomb threat the day before must indeed have been instigated by someone with a grudge against the judicial system rather than by someone wanting to cause chaos in general; because for the latter purpose, Saturday would (in my humble opinion) have been the more effectful choice. Or, instead of the court house, perhaps…

The Textile Fashion Center / Textile Museum

Because that’s where everyone else was, who did not prefer climbing rubber walls or running through car wash showers or balancing on narrow timber logs across the river.

The inauguration ceremony (re-opening of the Textile Museum in its new premises, after a move that has taken two years to prepare) took place on Friday afternoon. I did not attend, because of the oppressive weather already mentioned. But they also had Open House all weekend, both at the museum and in the rest of the Fashion Center; and I ended up spending both Saturday and Sunday afternoon strolling around the place with my camera, because there was sooo much to see.

As a result I have have more pictures and impressions than I can find the time (just now) to organise and share! So I will be getting back to this place in several posts to come, just sharing a few things each time. Otherwise all our heads will end up spinning… Just like these chairs below!

The goathi or lappkåta makes sense in a “punny” way, if you know Swedish…“Lapp” in Swedish = “patch” but is also a (dated) word for the Sami people (cf. Lapland, the region in the north of Scandinavia where they live).

In the planning of the new museum, the public was asked to send in various kinds of patches of a certain size to the museum; and a textile artist made use of some of them for the decoration surrounding the entrance (as seen above); but evidently there were a lot more patches sent in than needed for that purpose…

EU Election

Today was also election day for the European Union Parliament; and on my way to the Textile Museum I popped in at my polling place (a technical senior high school) to vote. They had art on their wall too:

I can’t claim to be very engaged in political issues, but I do find it better to vote than not to vote – because even if I’m not 100% sure which party I agree with the most (for the Americans: we have more than two!), I do feel more sure about some I don’t wish to see increase their influence… Which really makes any one of the others a better alternative!

The results of the election are coming in as I’m writing this but I’m not going into any analysis here. I consider that I’ve done my tiny little bit by voting.