Weekend Fashion Reflections

On a walk downtown last weekend, I snapped some shots of spring fashion on display in shop windows - and managed to catch some reflections of buildings across the square behind me at the same time.  

While "in my head" I've felt tempted to perhaps update my wardrobe with a new item or two for spring, I have to confess that the displays around town just now don't really encourage me to open up my wallet. 

 

 

Knitted or crocheted skirt with big holes in it, and ending in a long fringe?? And combined with a shiny sportsy-looking bomber jacket??

 

 

 Bulky knitted pullovers so short they'll leave your tummy bare??

Violently pink coat and bag together with orange trousers??

Hmm... I think I'd better hold on to whatever is already in my wardrobe, and await the next fashion change...

 

 Linking to Weekend Street/Reflections (#63)

Behind Closed Curtains

 

It's been a strange kind of week. Rain one day, snow the next. (Or snow during the night, and rain and slush during the day.) On top of that, sometimes Men At Work stomping about outside my windows, and sometimes not. "Step by step" the scaffolding around the building has kept growing, though. An outdoors staircase has now also come up right outside the window in my study.

While they are At Work, I draw the curtains. Still not very inspiring to spend much time in that room while they're busy climbing about on that side of the building, though...

Luckily, my flat runs across the building; I can usually be rather flexible with my own activities; and out of my four rooms (including kitchen), the study is really where having a staircase to the roof outside the window will probably bother me the least. 

Just now, I'm taking advantage of the weekend to catch up with various desk and computer jobs. If you don't see me about much in the blog world during the weeks for a while, I may still be there lurking in the background, though (reading on my tablet or phone but skipping most of the commenting).

 

Communication

 

Pettson & Findus by Sven Nordqvist
(postcard)

Back in mid March, in the Postcrossing 'lottery' I drew an address in Russia. PC has a 'postal monitor' that keeps track of which countries don't send or receive mail (for reasons of war or corona or whatever); but back then, Sweden had not yet stopped sending mail to Russia. A week or so later, that changed.

On their profile, the person had added apologies "for what is done by my country" but also said that with the motto "people should talk to people" s/he had decided to go on with postcrossing, hoping s/he wouldn't be shut up.

I sent the postcard above (chosen based on the person's wish-list), although in doubt whether it would ever reach its destination. I kept the message neutral. 

Today I got a Postcrossing email that the card had been received:

A reminder that not everyone in the country is behind the actions by their government.

 

Visiting an Art Gallery

 

Today we've had a mix of snow (!) and rain here, and I haven't set foot outdoors.The photo above is from Saturday. Then I went for a walk into town, and passed these spring flowers on the way. The whole month of March was very dry here, and the water level in the river is low at the moment. So no reason to complain about a bit of rain today - but going back to snow did seem rather unnecessary this morning. (It's already gone again now, though.)

Downtown, on Saturday, I visited a small art gallery, situated in a charming old wooden building (one of very few old wooden houses in our town center, as most of those were destroyed in fires in previous centuries). 

 

 

The photos above are from the inner courtyard; the entrance to the gallery is to the right in the second picture. 

The current exhibition mixes sculptures by one artist (Annika Wennberg) and paintings by another (Louise Villa). I'm not familiar with either of them since before, I just saw an article in the local newspaper in connection with the opening of this exhibition.

The rough wooden sculptures weren't really "my cup of tea"...
But I liked some of the paintings.

 

This one, entitled "The Message", was my favourite. If I had had the right space for it, I would have been tempted to buy it. In reality, though, it's probably the kind of painting that, once up on the wall, would not only require changing other paintings and wall hangings around, but might even demand new furniture, carpet, curtains and who-knows-what... ;)

It Has Begun

To sum up the month of March here, it was unusually sunny and dry, but still chilly. Now April is here, and so far no big change in that respect. The next couple of months are likely to bring more changes, though - and not just in nature. The Men At Work, putting new tiles on the roofs around here, are just getting started on 'my' building as well.

How much disturbance and noise it will mean to my daily life still remains to be seen. So far they're just building the scaffolding, and it's not been too bad. They seem to be well organized, having been through the process on several similar buildings already now. But living on the 2nd floor, I'm not used to having people climbing about outside my windows!

I'll probably end up having the Venetian blinds down and at least 'half-closed' during the days (whether the sun is shining or not). Besides protecting my own privacy, this might also protect the Men at Work from being harassed by the crazy woman with the camera!

The bottom photo in the collage shows the last finished roof. You can see that they've added solar panels on top! That was a surprise to me, as they did not do that on the first few roofs they've been working on over winter. But perhaps they'll go back and add them there too. Anyway, solar panels where ever possible seems like an excellent idea!