Laugh, and be jolly - Sepia Saturday 510

While Alan's prompt picture (below) shows jolly people on a beach, I managed to find a group of people being jolly in spite of colder climate. It's another photo from my mum's childhood album - which I have continued to explore a bit, together with her memories written down many years later in a separate notebook. 

The photo is from 1933, and mum is the little girl sitting furthest to the right on the wheel barrow, three years old. The photo was taken at the farm where she and her parents were living back then. My grandparents were not farmers (my grandfather was a teacher), but  rented a flat in a house at that farm (~1932-39).  There were no other small children in the neighbourhood for my mum to play with; but the couple who owned the farm had four grown up ones - two sons and two daughters. The jolly people with my mum in this photo are those four young adults, plus three visiting friends. 

Sepia Saturday 510

Hoarding

One or two other bloggers I follow have already mentioned 'hoarding' as one result of the fear of the corona virus spreading around the world just now. The same hoarding phenomenon is being reported here too now - even if I did not notice much evidence of it when visiting my supermarket earlier this week. However, I was not really out to buy a lot of things myself on that occasion, but  only a few small items. 


Since a few years back (when 'my' supermarket was first in town to introduce the system), it's been my routine to order groceries and other household items online with home delivery, twice a month or so. I then try to include everything heavy and bulky, and things that can be stocked for a while without going bad.

Combined with living alone and no car, this means I've got used to a certain level of 'hoarding' some basic stuff; especially in winter, when bad weather as well as a common cold or flu might make it necessary for me to stay in for a few days. Besides groceries and kitchen paper and such, I also try to keep a certain supply of medicines and toileteries etc. Even if one cannot be prepared for everything, it's in my nature (and upbringing) to try to be prepared for things I know may happen.

So far, I don't think fear of the corona virus changed my behaviour much compared to a normal winter (flu) season. Possibly I've also lately been extra careful to avoid going by bus - but actually I haven't really wanted or needed to go further from home than I prefer to walk anyway.

The number of confirmed corona cases in Sweden keeps rising now, though (it was thirty something this morning but has tripled during the day - including one case in my town now). It seems that so far everyone still either got it from visits abroad - especially northern Italy - or by close contact with someone else who in turn got it abroad. (But of course the more people who turn out to have caught it, the harder it must be to keep it under control.)

This morning I walked into town, and popped into my favourite tea shop to get an extra supply of two of my favourite teas... I also went to my local convenience shop and bought some extra eggs and bananas. Hoping this will tide me over until my next online order! ;)

What about you? Are you a hoarder / planner by nature, or do you wait until you discover the fridge or pantry is all empty? And how is the "virus situation" developing where you live?

...

The image is a photo from when I was sorting through my kitchen cabinets back in January (and putting in new shelf paper). (Edited using 'colour reduction'.) 

Down Memory Lane

Graham at Eagleton Notes recently posted about his childhood bicycles and tricycles - and I promised in a comment to look up a photo my first bicycle, which was of a construction somewhere in between: It was a two-wheeler, but with the pedals on the front wheel, like on a tricycle. 

The only photo I found is to the left in the collage below. I probably got it for my 5th birthday. I've been trying to remember if I had a tricycle before it, but cannot find any evidence that I did. Then it struck me that until I was nearly five, we lived in a flat in town, and maybe it was not practical or safe for me to have one there. And by the time we moved out to the village, I was too big for a tricycle, but still too young for the "grown-up" kind... So this was probably considered a compromise.

The one on the right is of my first "proper" bicycle, from when I was 10. I seem to recall it took me a while to learn to ride that one; but by the time I was willing to pose with it for a photo, I was probably also able to use it!

From my drawing (also in the photo album), it is made clear that one of my favourite places to cycle to was 'the libbrary'... (deliberately misspelled here to reflect that I had not yet learned the Swedish word correctly: biblioteket...) 

I think I also usually cycled to school (in grade 4-6). The school (and also the library) was around 2 km away (at 'the other end' of the spread out village where I lived). Before I learned to cycle, I had to walk. Except in winter, because then we (a bunch of us who lived in the same neighbourhood) got to go by taxi. I have no photo of that, but it looked like an old big black London cab. I suppose our parents preferred that solution to have us out walking and cycling on the main road in snow and ice.

From grade 7 onwards, I went to school in town, and then we went by bus.

Not A Smile Amongst Them - Sepia Saturday 509

I decided to once again turn back to my mum's photo album in search of something to connect to this week's Sepia Saturday theme - "that forgotten genre - the miserable photograph". *

I found her first school photo (1938):

Either they weren't looking forward to the summer holidays at all - or else they were specifically instructed not to smile... :-)

Mum must be the one standing in the middle, wearing a flowery dress. (I would have added "with a big bow in her hair, and looking serious" - but that would apply to every one of them!)

In a separate notebook from 1979, forty years later, mum wrote down some comments and memories connected to some of the photos in this early photo album of hers. On the first page, she says that she was inspired to do this because she and dad had just been going through a lot of other old photos, and having difficulties identifying people etc. 1979 was the year when my paternal grandmother died; and her old albums have almost no notes at all - plus there are lots of loose photos not sorted into albums as well. (I still have those albums and boxes of photos as well.) So I totally get - and appreciate - why mum had this thought.

Even so, it strikes me now that even mum's notes do not always verify for example who is who (including herself) in a group photo. (Because to her it was obvious - but...)

I guess the same is probably true with my own albums.


* Sepia Saturday 509 theme image:
"Six people sat around a table and not a smile amongst them."

Skywatch Friday

Dogon by Claes Hake

Just as we had all given up any expectations of seeing "real" winter at all in the southern parts of Sweden this winter ... Suddenly the temperatures dropped, the rain turned into snow for a couple of days - and then, yesterday, the sky turned magically blue, and the sun decided to show its face as well. I took my camera for a walk into the city center and a stroll around the park. Besides the various permanent works of art there, I also found a couple of temporary surprises by Unknown artists (the last two photos)...

Upside Down by Claes Hake

Hotel Grand (Borås, Sweden)

Mural by Fintan Magee

The Lynx by Arvid Knöppel (1952)

Mate Hunting by Marianne Lindberg De Geer

Vibration by Xavier Veilhan

▲ "Here today, gone tomorrow..." ▼