More Butterflies

I was happy the other day to find another kind of butterfly visiting the little park which over the past few years I have come to think of as my Butterfly Park (but which recently seemed to have been abandoned by them). On Monday afternoon  this week I found about half a dozen or so Painted Ladies fluttering about, enjoying the flowers. A very welcome sight! :) Not very willing to pose for proper macro photos though, so I had to zoom them in from respectful distance.

Painted Lady, Cynthia cardui or Vanessa cardui.
Tistelfjäril in Swedish.

According to the Swedish Wikipedia article, this butterfly migrates here from Southern Europe in the spring, and the ones we see now are the second generation. They cannot hibernate in our climate.

What Are the Chances? (in Postcrossing)

I received a very familiar-looking postcrossing card in the post today. The front was unmistakable (see below), but after all São Paolo is a big city and the carneval famous, so not too surprising that more than one postcrosser might choose to send that card.

(I divided the image into two to be able to show it as big as possible here.)

What was remarkable, however, was that when I turned both cards over, and compared the backsides… Those were identical too, apart from the date:

The sender was of course the same person as well.
I’m just really curious about how common (or rare) that might be! (I know this is probably not the right place to ask the question and get a good answer; I just could not resist showing you.)

PS.  I see from comments that I need to explain further. In postcrossing, you don't write repeatedly to the same person. (If you do, then it's by private agreement and outside the system.) When you get a postcrossing address to write to, it can be anywhere in the world, among over 400 000 members. You don't get to give preferences in that respect. The addresses are distributed randomly (or based on a number of various factors automatically calculated). Each card has a unique ID number. The odd thing is not that this postcrosser sent the same card twice, but that she got my address twice within a month.

Beach Walk

We had another sunny weekend and on Saturday I was out at the House outside town again, and took time to also go for a walk, starting at the beach closest to us and walking along (partly through the woods because one cannot walk by the waterside all the way) to the next one. 

Himalayan Balsam – ‘jättebalsamin’

The water in the lake is low after the long dry summer. When the water level  is high, it’s not possible to pass dry-shod here (the area to the right is a private garden). But just now it is.

This beach is on the far end of the long, narrow lake.
Even when the water level is “high” it’s still very shallow waters here (which makes it a popular beach to visit with small children). And just now it makes for great reflections of the sky on a day like this :)

 

The tall pine trees with their long visible roots always remind me of the Ents in The Lord of the Rings.

Linking to Our World Tuesday

Blue Monday: Sometimes I Wish…

Sometimes I wish The House (my parents’ old place, which we are preparing to sell) were just a very small cottage like this… That’s only a fleeting daydream, though. I know even a summer cottage this size would require more work and care than I’m really able/willing to put in. I was just enchanted by it when I passed by. :)

(This whole cottage would probably fit into the living room in The House.)

Linking to Blue Monday

Take Off

(The photo above is from last year. I might have used it before, I’m not sure.)

This week has been school start week in Sweden. The weather is still summery, but at the same time there is an excitement of change and new beginnings in the air, both in nature and in city life. The buses are back on their normal time tables. The streets are buzzing with people. In the clothes shops there are signs with 50% off on summer sales prices, side by side with new items coming in every day.  In supermarkets and bookshops there are special tables with everything you might need (or want) for school: pencils and erasers, writing pads and book jacket paper, stickers and whatnots.

It’s been many years since I was actively involved in school activities of any kind; and yet I’m still affected by that special atmosphere this time of year.

I’ve not been buying school supplies, but I still have quite a busy shopping week behind me.

“Calories: Tiny creatures that live in your closet and sew your clothes a little bit tighter every night.”

Because I banished the “calories” from my wardrobe this summer, I now have to do their job myself. Or buy new clothes.

We’ve had a long warm summer when I’ve mostly lived on “salad and strawberries” (take that with a pinch of salt, please!), while wearing loose-fitting clothes with elastic and/or drawstring waistbands, and staying away from the summer sales as well as the ice-cream.

When the weather began to grow slightly cooler again, and it was time to start thinking of getting back into clothes I hadn’t been wearing for three months (or more), I discovered that the same clothes I was thinking of getting rid of back in the spring because they were getting too small, now had to be either sewn in or thrown out because they’ve gotten too big!

After some not quite satisfactory experiments with the sewing machine, I decided last week that I probably needed to buy at least one pair of new jeans.

Trying on clothes in shops again was quite a disconcerting experience at first.  Truly, it was really hard to get my head round the fact that I needed to go down not just one, but two sizes compared to just a couple of months ago.

After having made sure that my one new pair of jeans had not shrunk in the bag on the way home (sometimes clothes seems to do that, have you noticed?), I had a major wardrobe clear-out last weekend.

And this week it was back to the shops again…
Tough job, but someone’s gotta do it!