After the Storm

We had a storm passing by yesterday (by name of Svea, which is the ‘name of the day’ for 2nd January in our calendar) . I stayed indoors yesterday, but when going out today I could see that the wind had managed to cause a bit of a “mess” even if no major damage just around here. (It also ripped a tarpaulin from the bench on my balcony… But it got stuck against the rail and I heard and saw it and managed to salvage it.)

Trains between here and the coast were cancelled; and one of my guests on New Year’s Eve (who lives on the coast) was one of many who got delayed and had to take a replacement bus instead of the train when going home yesterday (I learned from her sister).

A video on YouTube shows the waves on the coast.
Not as bad as was expected, but still quite impressive: http://youtu.be/5GnU5vv2gW0

PS. For those of you who missed my 1st January post: if you go back to it before 10th January, there’s still a chance to win one of my photo calendars for 2015.

New Year, Leftovers and a Giveaway

I woke up this morning around 9:30 (shortly – it seemed! - after having gone to bed around 1:30), and could not help but start the day with some philosophical bemusements (is that a word?!) – possibly helped along by listening to a philosophical discussion about Time on the radio while doing the washing up from my New Year Eve’s party the night before…

Now here’s my question to you: How come every New Year seems to start with leftovers rather than the clean slates we always seem to be longing for?

A walk around the neighbourhood and seeing all the left-overs of pyrotechnics just proved my point – and reminded me further of politics. (Fiery political discussions here in Sweden during the autumn also included a lot of questions about who laid vs cleared the table for whom.)

I got cheered up when I opened a leftover Kinder Egg with my afternoon tea, though, and found this:

The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it. --- All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped out on to the table…’'
---
‘I’ve decided to call him Norbert,’ said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes.
(Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Ch. 14)

At least this is something that’s never been on my blog before: A newborn dragon, fresh from the egg!

Naughty little fellow – he coloured my thumb green while we were getting acquainted (turned out he has a tiny green felt pen inside).

Then I taught him to ride the blue-and-orange bicycle I built yesterday (found in another Kinder Egg). And I who thought I would find no use for that. Silly me!

(Yes, we had a fun New Year’s Eve.)

A Giveaway

It so happens I find myself with three spare wall calendars for 2015 (made from my own photos), and have decided to put these up for a giveaway.

(I did the same thing once before, in 2012, to celebrate my 3rd Blogoversary. Can hardly believe three more years have gone by since then!)

All you have to do to have a chance to win one of them is to be a follower of this blog and to leave a comment on this post before next Saturday - 10th January (CET). I’ll then write down the names on separate pieces of paper and have a lottery and announce the winners here on my blog. (If I have an email address I’ll also let them know by email.)

Good Luck!

Happy New Year

Gott Nytt År – Happy New Year
to all my friends around the world!

The sunrise photo is from Monday morning this week. Today we’re having very foggy weather (and thaw). Not a great outlook for those who are planning fireworks tonight. I’m celebrating at home with a handful of friends – a tradition going back many years for us.

♥ See you all next year! ♥

Snowy

It’s been a week since my last post – I’m not sure why. Somehow I seem to have managed to keep myself busy over Christmas in spite of no special plans.

Compared to last Monday, the snow is now in its proper place, though: outdoors! (rather than filling my freezer) 

The morning of Christmas Eve was still free of ice and snow, which meant I could start Christmas by walking into town to attend a Nativity church service.

A “First” for me this Christmas was a Skype get-together with my brother at present-opening time on Christmas Eve (which is when we traditionally open Christmas presents in Sweden).

On Christmas Day the weather turned frosty but the ground was still dry. It remained the same on Friday, but on Saturday I woke up to snow and really cold weather (like around -10°C). It’s predicted not to last very much longer though. So yesterday I took the opportunity to defrost my freezer (putting the frozen food out on the balcony in the meantime). All back in order now!

Still cold outside today. I decided to venture into town for a few fresh groceries though – and some photos:

Views from where I wait for the bus into town.

Main square with the Christmas tree and the Court House (and to the right a building a block away from there).

Another view of the main square: The double bow with the mistletoe in the middle is a new winter decoration this year. (The stone chairs are there all year round. The red market stalls in the background were put up for the Christmas market, they’ll be taken down soon.)

The church is the one I went to on Christmas Eve (built in the 1600s).

This is one of few surviving old wooden buildings in the town centre. I snapped this while waiting for the bus back home. It’s often hard to get a good view of it without vehicles in front, as it faces the “bus square” where most of the bus lines meet.

At the grocery shop I visited there was something a bit unusual going on. Alas I have no pictures of that, as I had my hands full… But they had actually had to reserve a member of the staff for the very special task of blocking a stubborn pigeon from walking into the store. The pigeon (or possibly more than one of them, I’m not sure) was quite determined to enjoy the warmth of the heated entrance rather than the cold sidewalk outside. So when I arrived, there was a member of the staff trying to shoo it out… But of course with automatic doors opening every time some human passes in our out, it was soon back. So when I was done with my shopping and came back out – the “duel” between man and pigeon was still going on: The young man trying to block the pigeon with his feet – without hurting it, just putting his heels together and pointing his feet outwards – much like a classic clown posture!

http://www.computerclipart.com

(The last thing I saw before I headed off towards my bus home, was the pigeon trying to even sneak past the young man in through the next door between the entrance and the actual shop… It seemed to be enjoying the game!)

Frosty

Outdoors it’s raining. Meanwhile, indoors – as in inside my new built-in freezer – it’s getting very frosty…

This started after they mounted the wooden cupboard “front” on the freezer door last Monday. I didn’t realize immediately, but towards the end of the week I became aware that unnaturally thick layers of frost had been building up very quickly in the top compartment over the last few days.  Actually it was more like it had been “snowing” in there!

… And it keeps on snowing (in there) …

So over the weekend I’ve had to start every morning by emptying the top compartment in the freezer to scrape/brush/shovel off new snow and ice. (I reorganized, and now keep only bread up there as that’s the easiest to remove.) More often than not I end up having to remove the box below as well though (because when I do my brushing “upstairs” some of it falls through to below).

Today (Monday morning) I called my housing company’s office to report it. The lady whose job it is to listen to complaints all day said she’d pass it on to the area administrator.

Since today is the Day before the Day before Christmas Eve, I have had my doubts about getting any help until next week. (Actually I won’t be too surprised if I’ll have to live with the situation until Next Year. Desperate and upset, maybe. But not surprised.) – Apologies to Santa & helpers. Two guys turned up at 5 p.m. the same day and adjusted the freezer door + even put a handle on it. Remains to be seen if that actually fixed the frosty problem; but at least they made an effort!

Good thing, I guess, that I was planning on  a “quiet” Christmas this year – not involving a lot of cooking. (Not too crazy on traditional Christmas food myself.)

As extra precaution, I decided not to include any new frozen items on my shopping list for tomorrow (leaving some room in the freezer for all the ice…)

By the way – I think I might have forgotten to mention here, that as of last month my Supermarket introduced something that’s been on my wish-list for years: online ordering with home delivery service.

(Extra thanks to Santa or the Christmas Fairy or Whoever, for making this happen before Christmas…)

I’ve given the system a couple of test runs. It seems to work well (if I just remember to tick vs. untick all boxes correctly – like whether I accept replacement for a certain item or not). And it literally means a huge weight off my shoulders. So I’ll continue to make use of it – probably not every week, but when I feel it would be helpful. Anyway, since the day before Christmas Eve is always extra crazy in the shops, I decided already before the weekend to make sure to book another delivery for tomorrow afternoon... Once booked, one can keep making changes on the list until 11 pm the night before the delivery day.