Lights in the Dark

Starting on Thursday afternoon, and continuing on Friday, I've been putting up my decorations for the 1st Advent weekend:

Kitchen

Living room

Bedroom and Study

 Happy First Advent Sunday, everyone!

As usual, I'll be adding to the Christmas decorations gradually during December. Basically I always start with the candle holders and stars for 1st Advent, plus changing some textiles (kitchen curtains and table cloths/runners). Some angels may appear around St Lucy's day (13th Dec); while elves/gnomes and my little Christmas tree rarely come into the picture until much closer to Christmas Eve.

And Winter Came (2)

 Continued from my previous post (Monday, 21 Nov).

 

 

That was on Monday. Already on Tuesday, the snow started to thaw and melt away again, though. I just haven't got round to posting these remaining snowy pictures until today.

 Linking to Skywatch Friday

And Winter Came (1)

The first snow is here. On the east coast of Sweden they've had a lot more (really a lot). Here, just about enough to cover the ground, and make the streets and walkways treacherously icy. But Monday afternoon was sunny, and I ventured out for a while (with studded boots + walking poles for support)... (Saving some photos for another day, as for some reason I got trouble with uploading them half way into this post.) The title I borrowed from a favourite CD by Enya.

 

Linking to:

The Railway Murders - Book Review

 

 

The Railway Murders
A Yorkshire Murder Mystery #8

by J.R. Ellis (2022)
Audible narration by Michael Page, 8:15 h

The 8th installment in J.R. Ellis' series about DCI Oldroyd & co in Yorkshire. I enjoy these books for a combination of reasons: The Yorkshire setting, likeable main characters, and focus on classic mystery solving rather than on too much detail of violence and forensics etc. 

In The Railway Murders each chapter starts with a reference to classic films/books about other murder mysteries involving trains. In this book, the setting is a museum railway, and the murder takes place in connection with a film shoot. It's a classic "locked room" mystery, as a film star has been shot dead in a train carriage, with the cameras rolling outside. But the victim was alone in the carriage, and nobody else was seen going in or out... So the mystery is as much about figuring out how it was done, as by whom.

For me, it was easy to imagine the setting of this book... My father was a railway and steam engine enthusiast, and on two family holidays by car in England and Wales back in the early 1970s, we visited several museum railways like this, also including train rides. 

What I also appreciate about this series is that besides the Kindle books being fairly cheap, one can also add the audio book at a real bargain price when buying it together with the Kindle book. I don't really know who Michael Page is, but I find listening to him reading these stories a joy in itself. So I mostly listened to this book, even if I also bought the Kindle.

That Time of the Year

And suddenly we're past mid November, with only one more week to go to 1st Advent weekend... Looking out of my windows, all the trees are bare now, and it's getting dark early in the afternoon. (Sunset 3:45 pm.) The last few days there have also been chilly winds blowing, with temperatures close to freezing point in the mornings - and not much better during the day either. I'm thankful that I did manage to get my flu vaccination over with on Monday (see previous post) while it was still quite mild, and no wind. Queuing outdoors for 45 minutes later in the week would no doubt have been more of an ordeal!

I was still feeling tired for a couple of days afterwards, though; hard to say if side-effect of the vaccination or just "anyway". (Not exactly ill, just a bit "slow".) But yesterday, I decided it was a good day to change my kitchen curtains - as I always do around this time of year. Other decorations for Advent will wait until next weekend; but I always prefer to get the curtain job over with beforehand, choosing a day when I have the time, and feel up for it.

Today, I woke up to the news on the radio that the east coast of Sweden was having the first snow storm of the year - as much as 30-40 cm in some places.

Which told me it was also time to get on with the final "winter preparations" on my own balcony... So today I've covered my clematis (climbing on a trellis against the wall) with a layer of fibre cloth, and wrapped my strawberry boxes in old newspapers and shoved those under the bench - which was already covered with a plastic tarpaulin for winter. 

Seems I was just in time. Looking out the window tonight, I see we're now having a light snowfall going on here as well... Whether it will remain just light, or turn worse, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

For my own part, there's nowhere special I need to be tomorrow. Might be a good day to just stay in and get started on some Christmas correspondence...