Category: Agfa Ambi Silette.

Christmas isn’t that far away.

November 25, 2024 · 10 Comments ·

Less than one month to christmas or Jul (Yule) as we call it and it is even less left until it stops getting darker and turns toward longer days again. Even though December is just as grey and dreary as any winter month it still feels better just because Christmas really starts at December first. People put up the electric Advent stars and electric Advent candlestick in the windows, some decorate with lights in their gardens, most just a few light chains but at some go all american as we say and decorate with so much strains and figures that most of us say: Yeah their electrical bill will cost a fortune 🙂 🙂 🙂

Mixed photos today because the weather has been nasty with strong winds and rain. Warm though with over 10 C (50 F) temperature. This is from a film camera called Agfa Ambi Silette.

Most outside decorations are pure white but some do get multi colored ones and I really like that. Back in the days people who used colored lights in any christmas decorations were seen as a bit odd, perhaps even tasteless 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m so glad we aren’t that hysterical now days 🙂 🙂 🙂 A lot of people have already started with the decorations of course and it seems as the younger they are the earlier they start which of course more conservative people think destroys the joy and believe that people will get tired of it too early, too bad that those making christmas tv commercials are more conservative because those adds are already tiresome I think since they started in late October 🙂 🙂 🙂

These photos were taken with a camera called Agfa Ambiflex.

However the advent candlestick with live candles must be prepared before Sunday. I usually have one but I never light the candles, I have this phobia when it comes to live candles and living in a wood cottage built 1911 🙂 🙂 🙂 I would have to blow out the candles and then place the whole thing outdoors, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to sleep before I had put it outside 🙂 🙂 🙂 It doesn’t help having a kitten, now also named the monster, walking around burning candles 🙂 🙂

These were taken with a camera called Nikon F75. If You ever want to start with film photography this is the camera I would recommend.

The tradition on when to bring the Yule spruce as the christmas tree is called here and when to dress it varies a lot. Some bring it in already around Advent,dress it as soon as possible and happily throws it out as soon as they can after christmas (usually around the 27th) Others wait to bring it in until the day before christmas which is at the 23d here since our big day is christmas eve and will dress it either late the 23d or more unusual at christmas eve morning. My family brought it in the 13th, the day we celebrate Saint Lucia, for some reason we celebrate a catholic saint in this once strictly Lutheran country 🙂 . WE dressed the tree as soon as it had settled and since we never were able to make it survive for more than a few days and then the needles started to drop we too tossed it outside around the 27th 🙂 🙂 🙂

These were taken with a Voightländer Bessamatic.

The old traditions about celebrating christmas were of course very different than they are now, for some reason we now have a big, fat and jolly Santa (we call him the Yule Gnome) giving out presents, yes the kids meet the Yule Gnome on the 24th here. Also he arrives in a sled pulled by reindeers. Back in the days he came to rich people who could afford presents. Usually a small Yule gnome dressed in green and perhaps a red cap came to the homes followed by either a horse pulling a sled or the same small gnome followed by a goat pulling a smaller sled, I guess he came to those with a good economy but never especially rich people 🙂 🙂 🙂 But to be honest he wasn’t the first one to deliver presents, we had the Yule goat before him. One believes that he either was one of Thor’s goat from the old Norse gods but I’ve also heard from one of the old people when I was a kid, back in the stone age that is 🙂 that he was the devil forced to do good one day every year 🙂 🙂

I’ll tell You all about this the closer we get to Christmas 🙂 It will be rose hip soup again today and not too late because I wake up in the middle of night if I have too much 🙂 🙂

Have a great day!

Bad but also sort of good news for me today.

October 24, 2024 · 10 Comments ·

No photos from today but some from Forentorp meadows where I was yesterday and perhaps other older ones.

So as You know I had the kidney stone a while ago and then two weeks later I had to get a new x-ray so that they could see if it was gone. Well it was gone but they instead found a one cm big hump on the top on one of my kidneys, so I have had a new x-ray with contrast fluid to see what it is, most likely it would be the beginning of a cyst and they don’t do anything about those since they do no harm. It’s actually really common for people over 50 to have cysts on their kidneys without ever knowing it.

I’m not sure how old these trees are but they haven’t cut the forest here for centuries, so my guess is that the Oaks and Beech trees are way older than 500 years.

So I was at the big hospital in Skövde today to hear about what it is, it is a tumor but still so small that they can’t take any tests from it so they can figure out exactly what kind of tumor it is. My doctor said though that I couldn’t get a better prognosis since they found it so early. They’ll do nothing about it for now, I guess they will have to remove the entire kidney because kidneys tends not to heal well and will continue to bleed for ages if they get a damage.

An old pilgrimage is passing through this area.

So I’ll get a new x-ray around next March- April so they can see if the tumor has grown. If it hasn’t we’ll do a new one in six months but if is has they’ll take a test from it to see what it is and if it is a bad one I’ll have to go through surgery and I guess the chemo or the radiation thing. So not the best news but not the worst either. The worst that my doctor think will happen to me is that I’ll lose a kidney, not too fun but as long as my kidneys work as good as they do there wouldn’t be any bigger problems for me.

This is an old Mill dating back to, I think it was, the thirteenth century. Belongs to the old Abbey ruins up on the mountain in Gudhem.

I realized that it most likely wouldn’t be a good thing when I got the new appointment till today because I also got a paper where I would write down all about my health, surgeries and other things 🙂 🙂 So the last weeks I’d already planned what to do with the dogs and kitten the week I would have to remove the kidney 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now I have at least six more moths to plan even better 🙂 🙂 🙂 I am not even the least worried right now, how could I when the doctor wasn’t especially worried either. I mean if I started to worry my stomach soon would give up totally and then I would feel that it was a waste of time giving up Gluten 🙂 🙂 🙂

So when I came home I spent most time of calling around to tell friends and relatives what is happening and try to calm them down if I noticed them being worried. This is actually the second time they’ve discovered me having cancer so early. The first time they removed a liver spot that had changed color but not from brown to black but from red to brown. They didn’t think it was something to worry about but removed it since it had changed color. The same evening the called me and said that it was something to worry about , it was malignant melanoma and already the next day I had to get in and have more flesh removed. I was really lucky that time because they caught it just in the beginning. It had moved around 2 mm in to my body but not more. I had to go on check ups for five years though.

Why not show You some foggy photos taken with an old analog camera called Agfa Ambi Silette. Must be from last winter I think.

It is time for that last cup of tea and a chocolate covered Hobnob 🙂

Have a great day!

the lamps are up and I’ll continue to record my voice :-)

December 10, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

It has been above 0C (32F) all day and will most likely stay there even though it’s just barely. With warmer weather it always looks like strong wind will follow. I can hear it roar outside but it is still coming from a direction that doesn’t hit the cottage. We’ll have a few days that slowly will go colder but then warmer weather will arrive again. How warm it’ll be is hard to guess since the different weather sites says different temperatures. I do hope it’s the Norwegian one because it shows the highest temperatures 🙂

The day has been quite nice since the wind arrived fairly late in the day. We walked down to the creek and no problem getting grip in the snow now when it slowly melts away (we’ll probably still have plenty left when the colder weather starts again though. Lots of the more shy forest birds have now returned there when the sno falls off the vegetation, so no more Bullfinches for a while I guess. The pheasant however comes for a visit every day and I’m starting to think it might be a juvenile rooster because of its size. If it is I do hope it returns for visits when it gets the new darker feathers. I’ve seen photos of melanistic pheasant roosters and they are truly magnificent when the sun hits the feathers.

I’ve put up the two lamps in and outside the dog yard. I tried them yesterday and they worked fine but today they didn’t start to shine when my neighbor drove by. No matter what I did it just stayed dark. Then I remembered that they had a switch on the attachment at the back and voila suddenly they weer glowing like the sun 🙂 🙂 There are three modes to chose from. Number one is that the light continues to shine 100% for twenty seconds after the last movement it can detect but as long as there’s movement it shines. The second mode is that it continues to shine all the time but only 60% of what it can. The third one is the same but 90% all through the night.

So I guess I’ll have the one shining outside the yard on mode three while I have mode one for the one shining in the dog yard. I’ve also started to read the first of the Harry Potter books for the dogs. So far I’ve read two chapters and that took around 48 minutes, great now I’ll only have to read for eight more hours to make sure they can hear my voice all the time after I’ve gone to work 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’ll continue to record my voice for several days so I do hope these lamps will help a lot!

Only twelve more days before it starts to turn towards longer days again and I do long after that day! Also only twelve more days before Christmas vacation starts and I long for that even more to be honest 🙂 🙂

A15265_030A — Four photos taken with the Agfa Ambi Silette last March, that was when winter arrived last time. I do hope that since we now started with winter that when the warmer weather arrives it also means it won’t return 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

The wind is the same but now it’s raining.

May 1, 2023May 1, 2023 · Leave a comment ·

So if yesterdays weather looked nice from indoors todays wetaher doesn’t and isn’t either 🙂 There was at least no wind in the earky morning when we went out for our walk but it did rain consistently for the entire hour we were outside. To be honest, none of the dogs wanted to take a walk but I forced them because I wanted them to get rid of some energy. Albin and Alma can destroy an entire house when they’re going full force playing 🙂 🙂 🙂

The rain did stop and naturally during the time I did the laundry. Almost as soon as I’ve finished it the rain came back 🙂 🙂 During that time I also saw the sun for almost ten whole seconds 🙂 🙂 I wouldn’t mind that much if the wind just could stop blowing, especially since it is just as cold as it was yesterday. The birds doesn’t seem to mind the weather as much though, they sing a bit less I guess but then again lots of them are on the ground eating what ever they can find and it looks like they find a lot.

I did my taxes today and even before I made the car deduction for driving to and from work because I really can’t use public transportation (it would take 150 minutes one way and it takes 30 minutes with a car) I would get a few dollars back 🙂 Can’t remember when that happened the last time With the deduction I’ll get a few more back but since our inflation is insane here that money won’t last for long 🙂 🙂 🙂 Well it’s better than to have to pay back 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15398_002 — Four from the Agfa Ambiflex. A bit too wintery but they make today look nice and cosy in comparison 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Around five? years ago I sowed some Gardenia seeds, I’ve tried before but have always failed. This time however I got five little plants and I still have five living even though one really look more dead than alive 🙂 🙂 🙂 Today I found flower buds on the two of them that I looked at!! I also noticed that they were attacked by something, can’t really say what I only saw the larvae or what it was. So now I’ve sprayed them with soapy water. Soapy water suffocates everything insect-wise and I do hope I didn’t destroy the coming flowers by doing so.

A15265_020A — Four from the Agfa Ambi Silette. These photos on the other hand make today look like a nasty november day 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Tomorrow’s a working day again so back to work it is. I actually almost won back all the money I spent on the lottery, not quite but very close 🙂 🙂 🙂 not enough to stop working but I’ll at least not have to pay more than less of a $ US next week 🙂 🙂 🙂

A15266_004 — Why not ad a wintery photo from the Flexaret VI too.

Have a great day!

The last of the nice days, for now.

April 22, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (1)

Another rather wonderful day, the last one for a while they say. It does however look as that they now are guessing that it won’t be that cold as they first guessed so I guess they were right the first time they guessed 🙂 Even nights will be fairly nice the coming days so that means I don’t have to cover the potted plants I brought up from the cool cellar. They have been though and that saved them from as low temperatures as -6C (21,2F) several nights. The meat eating plants I bought last spring have also survived and are now moved outside. Anything that eat flies are friends of mine 🙂

a (4) — There was still frost on the ground when we were out on our morning walk.

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A week ago I started to cut down a part of the garden that mostly consisted of thorny wild roses and thorny sloe bushes. They spread way too fast and it was impossible to pass without getting caught by all those thorns. It was a paradise for birds and other small animals because no predator could ever reach them in there. Still they had to go but the birds and all other small animals can still enjoy the protection of the thorns because I placed all those thorny branches in a big pile beneath the apple tree. They’ll stay there until next year when I’ll put it all through my compost grinder. It really doesn’t work well with fresh branches so it’ll have to wait a year.

20230416_140402 — Two thirds of what I was cutting down left here.

20230416_140338 — The first pile of thorny branches.

20230422_121329 — Two more piles that were moved to the first one.

20230422_121341 — This is the result. One rose is left and I do hope I saved the right one, the one that doesn’t spread via the roots 🙂 To the right, beside the blue large pot, You can see sand cherry trees. They are actually quite long but tends to follow the ground instead up growing up towards the sky. Gives delicious berries 🙂

Now I’ll have to continue to mow that area no matter what weather we’re having so that no new shoots can grow up again. Either that or cover the area with a hug and rather costly tarpaulin. I used my the little hand chain saw I bought last year and even though it works well the batteries don’t last for long but takes hours to recharge. Now I’ll need to sharpen the chain because sloe is really hard and wears down the chain pretty quick. I have one more place I need to cut down, new bushes grew up in the middle of one of my gooseberry bushes so now there’s very little gooseberry bush but lots of other things instead 🙂 I also mowed the lawn for the first time today and I think I was first in the neighborhood. I’m not that keen to do it as often as the neighbors though 🙂 🙂

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Alma has now adopted my neighbors and is over there just as much as she is here. They thankfully like her a lot, especially since she’s so calm with their older daughter?! She’s never calm here but as soon as she jumps over that fence she the calmest dog in the world playing nicely with a 4 year old 🙂 🙂 🙂 It’s good to know she’s welcome though, otherwise life would be so much more complicated.

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Have a great day!

April 16, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

I really can’t complain about the sunrise this morning. Minutes after and the sky went bland grey.

We’ve had quite a lovely day here today. It started a bit cloudy but was warm enough for me to only have a sweater when walking with the dogs. That would have been enough even when it was as coldest here as well since it at least was impossible not to boil while walking with Alma 🙂 🙂 She has however calmed down considerable even though she still pulls the leash quite a lot.

I haven’t been lazy today though. I’ve done the laundry, like I do every Sunday. I’m baking a bread right now actually and I’ve started to clean my cottage. Well I have at least started to carry out all cardboard boxes out to my car, I’ve also tossed away loads of things that I for a reason I don’t remember had saved. I did also start to saw down a corner of my garden mostly containing old thorny wild roses, thorny blackthorn bushes and false spiraea (Sorbaria sorbifolia). The last one is fairly easy to remove because the roots lay just beneath the surface but it spreads like crazy. I do like it though because pollinating insects love it.

I can’t say that I overdid anything but I did work with a bent back, so now I have huge problems unbending it. It’s the rheumatism that argues with me but I’ll have my sack of rice in the micro later on and put it between my back and the recliner. I would have loved to be able to do the entire place but the batteries needed to be charged and I could for my life not find the charger. Not especially strange to be honest because there’s no charger, just an electric cord put straight in to the battery 🙂 🙂 🙂

When I’m done cutting down it all I’ll push the the lawnmower over it so that no shoots will get a chance of growing up there again. I would have loved to be able to plant there immediately but most of what I cut down now (except for a birch that unfortunately grew up where it shouldn’t) spread via roots and I’m really tired of not being able to walk barefoot in my garden during summers. Well to be honest I’m hesitant to do that anyway because of the dogs using it as a toilet 🙂 🙂 🙂

It is time to go downstairs and check the bread. I still haven’t come up with anything that even remotely could work as french rolls and the scones I make tend to be very brittle. They usually falls to pieces as soon as I come close with a knife to cut them in half 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Have a great day!

A15266_008 — From the Flexaret VI around a year ago.

Not as uneventful as I wish it had been :-)

April 14, 2023 · 6 Comments ·

WordPress have lowered the amount of gigabyte I can use for free, from 3 GB to 1Gb and that would mean I would have to start a new blog so often that I finally caved in and bought more space. Now I have 6GB per year but I’ll have to pay for it. So from now on this is the place I’ll stay at.

A15265_001A — From the Agfa Ambi Silette.

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We’ve had a cloudy week but rather nice temperatures but since it has been so cloudy I’ve taken very few photos so all photos today are older ones. I would have liked to say that the week has been totally uneventful but that would be to lie a bit 🙂 Twice this week I’ve had calls from neighbors telling me that Alma had escaped from the dog yard 🙂 🙂

A15264_005A — From the Voigtländer Bessamatic.

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I have no idea why she does it because she’s miserable when she can’t get back in again 🙂 🙂 I do hope I now have secured the fence enough to make it too difficult for her to get out again until I can fix the dogyard properly again. It is a good thing my neighbors like her a lot 🙂 🙂 but we are all a bit worried that she might get hit by a car, not many comes here to be honest but if anyone who doesn’t know about her habit of escaping comes here I really don’t want her to be hit by them. A good thing though is that she doesn’t approach strangers.

20220827_060429 — From my phone, a Samsung something.

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They are now guessing that it will be really warm towards the end of next week so now people are planning to fill up their outdoor bathtubs and all kinds of things one can do in warm weather. They really shouldn’t since it’s over a week and at best our weather forecasts are slightly worse than bad 🙂 🙂 I’ll be happy if the sun shines, if nothing else it at least makes it feel warmer 🙂

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Have a great day!

I do hope the time of snowstorms are over!

April 1, 2023 · 2 Comments ·

Another snowstorm passed by yesterday, must have been the third in four days, so ow the world is covered in white garbage again. I do have to say though that the days has been rather wonderful with sunshine and above freezing temperatures. The photo shows the morning mist we got and it was better than nothing 🙂 🙂 🙂 They’re guessing that we’ll continue to have this weather until at least Thursday, with cold nights but sunny and warm days, after that the cold nights most likely will give up and most likely the sunshine as well but to be honest they aren’t that great in guessing the weather over here so a new ice age might start before the week is over 🙂

We now have a pack of wolves that made my county their territory. Their sort of home area isn’t that far south of the town Falköping so I guess we’ll have many more visits from them in the future unless hunters do what they usually do and poach them. Hunters can be nice people but they really don’t like competition about the wild life they themselves wants to kill. I do know however that the hunters in my village wouldn’t shoot them, they are usually the first ones to see the wolves and then spread the news to us in the village so we all can keep our eyes open and see them ourselves. No such luck for me yet but I know that at least one followed us, out of sight, at at least one of our walks because the dogs clearly showed me that something was close to us for quite some distance and they really didn’t like it.

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More and more cranes arrive now and so does the crane tourists. long time since I saw that many caravans and mobile homes down by the lake. Lots of other birds arrive here too of course and I do hope that I one day will see at least one of the very few Black Storks that comes here every year. I know that they one year actually nested here but that’s very rare. They are usually more at home on the other side of the Baltic sea.

A15265_015A — These were taken with my Agfa Ambi Silette.

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Last year I bought a pair of shoes that were nasty expensive but they were the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever walked in. Unfortunately the price didn’t show that they were a high quality shoes, I guess they lasted a month or so and the reviews of the company showed that there was no use in trying to send them back or get a new pair. Turns out that the soles just were glued on and with a low quality glue as well. So I’ve been looking at the shoes with some kind of disgust 🙂 until I realized that if I tore the soles off they would work very well as slippers instead 🙂 So now I instead have really comfortable slippers 🙂 🙂 Still to be honest they weren’t worth the price but now I can at least use them again.

a (3) — Sixteen and a half years old, with a bad knee and still has no intentions on walking at the same pace as the rest of us 🙂 🙂 🙂

It’s time to make dinner for the dogs so see You tomorrow again.

Have a great day!

We almost had spring for a while.

March 26, 2023 · 4 Comments ·

a (7)

It really was spring like here for a while so I thought I might start here again, then the rain came and now it snows. They tend to change the weather forecasts faster than a spinning wind power plants but at the moment it looks like we’ll get nasty cold nights and barely survivable warm days. That will of course change next second but that’s what I’ve read so far.

So what has happened since christmas? Well I’ve learned, after 58 years why I’ve always had a wobbly stomach. Turns out I can’t eat gluten. I was at the companies health care service and talked with a nurse there. She asked if I had tried to stop eating products with gluten and I said I had bought one of those rather expensive home tests and it didn’t show anything at all. So she said try and stop eat anything with gluten and see what happens. Well I can tell You that I really don’t use much toilet paper now days 🙂 🙂 🙂

Now days it isn’t that hard to avoid gluten since it has become fashionable to not eating it. however the bread one can buy is an abomination to anything living so I’ve tried different ways to bake bread with other kinds of cereal and now I have bread that is just like any other except I really can’t make a good French roll but I’ll keep on trying till I get close enough.

A15266_001 — I had a few rolls of film developed and these two photos were taken with the Flexaret II

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The dogs are all fine and I must say that Alma has calmed down considerable. She would still be considered awful compared to other dogs but she has really tried to listen to what I tell her. Last time we saw a deer she only screamed for five minutes after she last saw it and that’s a huge improvement. More and more cranes are around now and now I can hear them trumpeting from the lake in the mornings. Well I can hear them for the cow pasture on the other side of the road as well but so far they’ve stayed behind a tiny mound so I haven’t been able to see them yet.

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Well since the wetaher will be more wintery than what I prefer I’ll come back next weekend again.

Have a great day!