Plenty of Time?

Last week I borrowed a book at our district library, written by a Swedish physicist and author, Bodil Jönsson (born 1942). Between 1999 and 2019, she wrote about 20 books. As far as I can find, only her first book has been translated to English, though - entitled Ten Thoughts About Time. 

The book that I borrowed now (and have been reading over this past week) is a sort of sequel to that first one, written 20 years later (2019). Using the same headlines for each chapter as in the first one, she is updating her ideas a bit; now weighing in changes in our concepts and uses of time that have occurred over the past two decades, related to the progress of technology etc. The title of this one could be translated Plenty of Time (but as I said, it does not seem to have been published in English). The Swedish cover has an image reminding me of the new mural seen from our town park - which is why I chose that photo above. Below is the cover of the book in Swedish:

What I remember best from the first book (and I think that's also what got most talked about here back then in media reviews etc) was her emphasis on the importance of something that in Swedish she calls ställtid. I'm not sure what word is used in the English edition, but probably changeover, a word from industrial context meaning "the process of converting a line or machine from running one product to another". Anyway, she keeps coming back to the importance of pauses between various tasks, giving us time both to reflect, and to mentally prepare for what is coming up next. Whether it's about bigger changes, or just (for example) the time we regularly spend travelling (or walking) between work and home. One of her main ideas (as I understand it) is that even the time when we seem to be doing "nothing" is actually essential when it comes to being efficient; because we need such times (sometimes short, sometimes longer) in order to reset our thoughts and feelings etc as we go from one task or role or context to another.

What I think I'll be taking with me from the new-ish (2019) book that I just read, is that here she also encourages us to try to change our contemporary perspective of thinking about of time as running away from us (so that we constantly feel that we'll never be able to catch up), to instead think of time as coming towards us. Easier said than done, perhaps - but may be worth some contemplation...

 

More Weekend Reflections

 

 

The glorious early autumn weather has continued over the weekend. On Saturday I avoided the town centre through, as I knew there would be a big running competition going on, and crowds of people was not really what I was in the mood for. Today, however, I counted on things being a lot calmer - and they were. Above is the swimming hall situated in the town park, reflected in the river.

 

In the comment section on my previous post, someone wondered if the decorated building above (and below) is a parking garage. No, it's not. It's an apartment building.

Part of the building in the photo below, however, is a parking garage:

 

Walking on along the river, at the entrance to a walkway under a bridge I discovered another mural that I can't remember having seen before. I'm not sure if it's an official or an unofficial one - I could not see any signature. Somehow it reminded me of the recent media reports from the SpaceX Spacewalk...! 

Under the same bridge, there is an older mural which is definitely at its best on a calm day like this, when the river is very still, acting as a mirror...

A bit further on, this summer's art installation of floating sculptures is still there. (I think until the end of this month?)

 

Photo from the other side of the river.

I have a few more photos from today's walk, but will save those for another post, and will instead finish this post with a couple of photos from home:

On Saturday afternoon, I sat for a while in the sun on my own balcony.
Most sunny afternoons during summer have been way too hot for that...

My harvest of (cherry) tomatoes (to the right) has not been overwhelmingly impressive; but I have been able to pick a few now and then, and I may get a few more before it's over.

My indoors autumn/fall decorations are subtle, compared to what I see on certain American blogs... Basically they just consist of a touch of orange in my vase of fake flowers, a couple of orange candles, and my two ceramic owls...

 (The larger of the owls is hollow and one can put a tealight inside it. Preferably a fake one.)

Meike asked after Barbie and Skipper, who willingly agreed to pose for another photo. At the moment, they're both in classic outfits rather suitable for nice sunny early autumn weather. Trousers/jeans and tops for both of them sewn by my mum back in the 1960s. And In the background, you see a trivet with an image painted by my water colour artist friend Lena. (Link to a post from last summer when I visited an exhibition of hers.)

 

Weekend Reflections

 

We're having a lovely early autumn weekend here. The 'unnatural' heat has given way to much cooler temperatures, but at the same time it's been sunny. Both Friday and Saturday have been really lovely. Photos from a walk downtown yesterday.

Linking to Weekend Reflections

Evening Skies

During the heatwave we've had over the past two weeks or so (breaking old heat records for September - but it seems to be over now) it was much to hot to sit on my balcony in the afternoons (or even have the door open). But around sunset there were some interesting skies... 

I used my separate camera for all of the photos below; and they are straight out of the camera, with no editing. (Time = summer/daylight saving time.)

26.8 - 20:03

29.8 - 20:05

30.8 - 20:52

3.9 - 19:58

 

 

6.9 - 19:52

 

6.9 - 19:52

6.9 - 19:52

6.9 - 19:53

 

7.9 - 19:59

8.9 - 18:43

"Autumn glows upon us
like a splendid evening;
it is the very sunset of the year."

Mary Russell Mitford

- - -

Linking to Mersad's Through My Lens Nr. 450

 

Library (2)

 

The unusual September heatwave is breaking up, and we had a bit of rain on and off today. After lunch (and the rain just then more off than on), I went to explore the interior of the new district library (cf. previous post for photos of the exterior).  

Indoors it turned out to be a bit like a labyrinth on first impression, with several small rooms opening into one another in various directions - but turning out to lead round more or less in a circle, ending up back at the reception desk facing the entrance. I only snapped a couple of photos where there were no people at the moment. 

I spent about half an hour trying to get aquainted with how they have organised the books (by genre etc). I also picked one book to borrow, as I also wanted to update my library card and get (re)acquainted with the current registration system they're using. As I also told the librarian at the desk, it's been a while since I last borrowed a physical book - my loans lately have all been e-books and audio books online. I knew I had updated my online data not too long ago, but (as I suspected) it turned out that I also needed a new physical card. 

Even at this small library one can now also borrow and return books by "self scanning"; and as the librarian at the desk happened to have some temporary trouble with her own machine there, I also got an instruction in that.  Either way, the procedure at this small library felt a lot less daunting than all the machinery one has to face at the main library these days. (Cf my post from 2012 that I also linked to in my previous post.) Because of the premises, it also has quite a cosy old-fashioned feel about it. I will probably continue to drop in now and then just for that, even if the bulk of my actual reading is likely to continue to be by digital downloads... ;-)