Colour

At the end of yesterday's post I mentioned that from recent visits to a couple of clothes shops in our town centre, my impression was that we seem to be facing a rather "beige" autumn... (Which did not really appeal to me at all.)

In the hope of finding other options, today I took the bus "across town" to my favourite clothes shop in one of the malls there. To my relief, there I was indeed met by a wider and more colourful selection. I ended up buying two items from their end-of-summer sale (a thin pink cotton cardigan with zipper + a dark blue T-shirt with print), and three from the autumn collection: Two T-shirts with long sleeves (one burgundy and one dark green), and one pair of stretchy burgundy trousers. Those are all basic colours in my wardrobe since before, and the new items therefore easy to match with older ones.

The downside, I suppose, might be that no one will actually notice I bought anything new! (The upside, though, is that I'm pretty sure I'll feel comfortable in them.)

 

 

Quote/image copied from I'm not sure where...

Hello September

 

September is traditionally counted as an autumn month here, even if weather forecasts seem to indicate that in spite of a few yellowing leaves here and there, summer intends to go on for at least another ten days or so, with temperatures around 20-26'C (68-78'F), and only occasional rain showers.

Yesterday and today the weather has been very pleasant - sunny but not hot. Yesterday I walked into town once again, in spite of nothing but a glue stick on my shopping list. (I would have bought that the day before if I had known then that I needed it - but I didn't discover until that evening that my old one was all used up and needed replacing...). Stopped for an ice cream in the park on my way home; and took the photos above on my walk along the river.

Today I spent part of the (late) morning catching up with some correspondence (of the postcards and letters kind), and then after lunch went for a walk to post the results. 

On the radio I've been hearing people talking of the start of autumn as "Girly New Year" (Swedish: "tjej-nyår") - apparently something trending on TikTok at the moment. I don't use TikTok - but from the radio comments I understood it to refer to a trend that even I remember from my own school days: Just like we make new year resolutions at New Year, autumn is another time of Fresh Starts. As we go back to school or work after summer holidays, we also (perhaps especially girls??) tend to make new resolutions (about losing weight, eating healthier, studying more, or whatever). And to help us along, we tend to also like to get New Things... You know: new fresh school books, and pens and notebooks and and bags; and also some new autumn clothes, and shoes, and whatever...

Even though I'm now 69, I still feel it myself: It's in the very air, this time of year. The stationery I bought the other day is proof enough! And on top of that I'm also feeling a certain urge to go shopping for clothes etc. I have had a look in a few shops downtown but didn't see anything I really wanted (alas, so far we seem to be facing a rather "beige" autumn)... So a bus trip to the shopping malls across town may be coming up as well.

Birthday and Bargains

 

Yesterday was my birthday, and I still have some friends across the world who take the trouble to send me greeting cards by post! (Thank you!) 

Even more greetings kept dropping in during the day via FB and Messenger etc, and they were of course appreciated too.

I also spent a lot more time talking on the phone than I normally do in a week - not least because one friend called with whom I don't chat all that often, but when we do talk, we usually end up talking a lot!

Otherwise I did not really do very much. Weather warnings had been issued well in advance for that day, for both high temperatures and high risk of thunder and torrential rain. So I had ended up deciding beforehand to just stay home - and if staying home anyway, I might as well also order my usual grocery delivery for that day... At least that would bring me a lot of "parcels" to unpack! (haha)

The delivery arrived early, so after that I also managed to fit in a half hour walk - before lunch, before it got "too" hot, and before the expected rain. As it turned out, however, the rain and thunder passed us by here... The afternoon just kept on being hot and humid.

This morning we were back to fresher air and cooler temperatures again, though - a much more pleasant day for a walk downtown for some belated "birthday shopping" (and no need to even bring an umbrella). 

 

My main errand was to the pharmacy - not all birthday-related, but besides a couple of prescriptions I also had a number of non-prescription things on my list for which it turned out that I could make good use of various membership discounts (one of them birthday-related). Checking my receipt now, it seems I ended up with an astounding $37 discount in total.

After that I popped into the book shop next door, because they too had sent me a birthday discount offer, and I decided to make use of that to buy myself some 'luxury' stationery, which is something I haven't done in a long time. So I bought these, below (which should last me a while, as I don't write all that much by hand nowadays).

Adding up the discount from the pharmacy + the discount from the bookshop, I actually got these luxury items for ... nothing! (Now that's the kind of magic math I enjoy...)

Before I returned home, I also went to my favourite tea shop and stocked up on three kinds of favourite teas. (No discount, but never mind! - I just love the atmosphere in that shop...)

Photo from 2011, but it still looks pretty much the same!
 

Summer Reading (By Ear)

 

I've been writing very few book reviews so far this year, and none at all over summer. That does not mean I've not been reading - but since my macular degeneration problem (diagnosed back in the autumn), I'm now reading (and re-reading) even more books "by ear" (i.e. listening to them as audio books) - and I do usually find it harder to write reviews from just listening.

In March/April, I listened (again) to Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series, all three books. 

My old paperback box of LOTR (from 1977)

In March, I also started re-reading (now as audio books) Elly Griffith's series (15 books) about Ruth Galloway, archeologist, and DI Harry Nelson and his team, investigating crimes in one way or another related to archaeology - set in Norfolk, England. Most of them I previously read on Kindle, and I think I've reviewed all of them on this blog in the past. As this is a series I do find worth reading more than once, I decided to now get them all as audio books as well. (Most of them I was able to get at reduced price.)  So between the beginning of March and the end of July, I re-read/listened to that whole series - with one or two exceptions, in the order that they were written. I enjoyed that, and I'm sure I'll do it again. Some of the individual mysteries I remembered better than others - some I found I had forgotten almost completely. But there is also an ongoing story in the background stretching through all of them, involving the main characters with families and friends.

 

* Ruth’s First Christmas Tree is a short story set between the fourth and fifth books

In between those, I also read/listened to a couple of new additions to two other "cosy crime" series that I've also been following for years by now. With both those series, too, I always enjoy getting back together with the main characters/detectives. Both also have the customer-friendly advantage of offering Kindle+Audible version at reduced price (and have stuck to that throughout).

The Canal Murders by J.R. Ellis
(Yorkshire Murder Mysteries, Book 10)
Narrated by: Michael Page

An Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey
(A Lady Hardcastle Mystery, Book 11)
Narrated by: Elizabeth Knowelden

In August, I've also listened to the latest (4th) book in Elly Griffith's series involving detective Harbinder Kaur: The Last Word. (Narrated by: Nina Wadia)  

(Personally, I do prefer the set of characters in the Ruth Galloway series, though.)

Publisher's summary

A cosy, twisty mystery that reintroduces the glorious characters we met in the bestselling The Postscript Murders - shortlisted for the Gold Dagger.

Natalka from Ukraine has quit her job as a carer and joined up with retiree, Edwin, to run a detective agency on England's south coast. Despite a steady stream of minor cases, Natalka is frustrated, longing for a big juicy investigation such as murder to come the agency's way. She is now living with dreamer, Benedict, who continues to run his coffee shack. Life gets complicated when her Ukrainian mother, Viktoria, joins them from her war-torn country - three's a crowd. Viktoria invades the tiny flat, cooking borscht and cleaning things that are already clean. To add to Natalka's irritation, Benedict and Viktoria get on brilliantly.

Edwin is a big reader of obituaries, so when a local obit writer, Dan Haynes, dies, Edwin decides to look further, only to discover a series of unexpected deaths. Are the clues in the obits themselves? Edwin decides to write an obit to see what clues it throws up. Then he disappears.

The chase to find him takes the team to London and back to the south coast, where the solution lies remarkably close to home. 

After that one, I've also listened to three books by a Swedish author, but as her books don't seem to have been translated to English, no use giving details here.

And I've started a few others that I feel I'd better start over, as I kept nodding off too often... (Whether because of the book, the narrator or just myself being tired is not always easy to sort out!)

"A Cathedral in the Middle of Nowhere"

(Tuesday 6 August, continued) 

Seglora Church, Västergötland, Sweden

 

Not very far from Rydal (previous post), in an agricultural area named Seglora,  this impressive church can be seen from far across the surrounding fields. It is not really a cathedral (i.e. not the seat of a bishop) - but it does look more like it would belong in a big city rather than out in the countryside. It was built in 1903 and originally had no less than 800 seats. In connection with a renovation in 1967, that was reduced to 480 - but that is still a lot for a countryside church.

Before this church was built, there had been three wooden churches on the same spot. The first one was destroyed in a fire back in the 1500s. Another wooden church was built to replace it in the 1600s. In 1729, a third wooden church was built - but that one soon became too small, so that already in the 1860s they began to discuss building a larger one - resulting in the decision in 1901 to build this very impressive one, finished in 1903.

Seglora Church at Skansen, Stockholm

After the new church had been built in Seglora, the wooden church from 1729 was moved (1916-18) to the open air museum Skansen in Stockholm , where it is still popular, and used for weddings and concerts etc. (And I'm mentioning this because that one is a lot more famous than the big one above.)

Seglora Old Church at Skansen, Stockholm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seglora

 

To increase our impression of the extremely rural location for this huge church, close to where we had parked the car, there were sheep grazing... The blackheaded one "baah-haa"-ed at us, so we went over to say hello to them before we left.

"The grass always looks greener on the other side..."
 

And those are the last photos from my August holiday week with my brother.
After lunch the next day, he left and drove back home to Karlstad.