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.
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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 🙂 🙂 🙂
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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.
I had a few rolls of film developed and these two photos were taken with the Flexaret II
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.
These three were taken with the Agfa Ambi Silette..
Well since the wetaher will be more wintery than what I prefer I’ll come back next weekend again.
So a new year is here and I doubt that it’ll be any different from the last one. Well there’s a risk that many will lose their jobs because of a recession but otherwise I’m pretty sure it’ll stay the same. I never have any higher hopes for a coming year and that’s why I never feel disappointed about how it ended up 🙂 🙂 🙂 Over here the year started grey and dull, some drizzle and thankfully some fog. If we won’t have any sunshine I think we at least should have some fog 🙂
...It was around here where Albin suddenly started to look behind us 🙂
Yesterday when we were out walking in the morning we walked down to the creek. We walk a lot there now since the dogs still are a bit hesitant to walk out on the bog, even when we just walk out on the peninsula they’re a bit more attentive than usual. So anyway we were walking down the long gravel road to the creek when Albin suddenly started to look behind us. At first just a glance every now and again but then he stopped, turned around and took a long look behind us. I must admit that it feels a bit worrisome when a dog like Albin does something like that 🙂 🙂 🙂 Nova rarely cares about what happens behind us and Alma, well Alma is like she is and rarely notice anything 🙂 🙂
It was just as dark yesterday and even though I looked around as good as I could I never saw anything...
We followed the creek out to the fields and then suddenly Nova too realizes that something is close to us and she starts to hurry. I wasn’t really worried until Alma reacted as well 🙂 🙂 but suddenly instead of looking behind us they all started to look towards our left side. I could never see anything but the dogs were all in a hurry to get home. Later when it had become dark and was going outside in the garden they went to the side of the cottage, sniffed some in the air and went back indoors. I was out there too, with my headlamp on but I still couldn’t see anything out there. We walked the same way today and none of them seemed to care about anything and behaved just like always. I must say though that Alma behaved really well yesterday and today she barely pulled the leash at all. That in it self is a very strange behaviour from her 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Besides that very little has happened here. I wasn’t up when we went in to the new year, I rarely am to be honest. I did start to look at the film Murder on the Orient Express but I must admit that it wasn’t as good as I remembered it to be. Mostly I was annoyed about the man playing Hercule Poirot changed his accent from time to time, he’s supposed to have a french accent byt every now and again he did sound more like he came from Italy 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I never finished it but instead went to bed 🙂 🙂 🙂 There are never any fireworks here since we have lots of cattle and horses here so it was almost as quiet as it always is here. I could hear fireworks from a far distance but that was it. I still have a weeks vacation before I have to go back to work and I’ll enjoy every second of it 🙂
And it was here they started to look towards our left side. There’s an open field just after the end of the trees here but I could still not see anything special...
Have a good continuing of the new year!
Salmiak was sitting in the middle of the road when we returned back home. He doesn’t like my dogs at all but he sat there for quite some time before he decided it was best to move 🙂
Older photos today, no snow left and no photos taken since we couldn’t take any walk in the forest while we had daylight.
Today has been a day of relaxation, well the previous ones as well but today we took an extra long nap after lunch. The hunters were out for the most part of the day when we still had daylight and it has also rained quite a lot so none of the dogs were outside for any longer period of time. I could hear the hunting dogs every time I went outdoors so I guess they never met any of the potential wolves out there.
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I was planning on going to the grocery store tomorrow but we’ll have sunshine so I’ll postpone it until Wednesday instead (it looks like the rest of the week will be mostly rainy here, I don’t mind but it would be nice if we could have some sunshine and above freezing now when I have my vacation). I really don’t need that much but seeds for the birds are running low and I forgot to buy gingerbread last week so I haven’t had any this entire christmas, to be honest I haven’t eaten more than a couple this entire December so I feel that is one thing I need to correct 🙂 I’ll also buy some julmust, haven’t had much of that either.
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It’s the season to start thinking of seeds again. Either one buy seeds for perennials that needs a winter to start germinating or buy those vegetable seeds one want to grow this summer. I wasn’t that successful with peas but I did get a lot of beans. My white cabbage never became bigger than a tennis ball so I’ll sow some other kind instead. The lettuce however grew better than expected but then again lettuce isn’t especially hard to grow, they don’t like hot summers so spring or early autumn usually works perfectly. So far my Pawpaws look living and healthy and I do hope that if winter decides to come back again that it at least stays just below freezing and not much lower, they are still really small and need a few years before they manages our rather long dark period during winter.
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It’s time to get something to eat and then see if there’s anything worth watching on tv. I don’t dare to fall asleep again because I’m pretty sure that would make it impossible to fall asleep later tonight 🙂
Last Sunday when we took a walk out on the bog I found some tracks in the snow when we walked on my favorite island out there. beneath the canopy there was just a thin layer of powdered snow so I really couldn’t see what animals they came from but it was clear that they weren’t from pigs or any kind of deer or moose. Fairly big and my dogs were really unhappy about them. From what I could figure out there must have been at least three of these animals passing by. It looked like the animals had done their best to walk in each others foot steps though. Since the dogs were so unhappy about them I guessed that we must have wolves here again. Today I thought we should walk the same way again but it didn’t take long until suddenly the dogs refused to go on, they all sniffed in the air and just wouldn’t walk. So we turned back and I think that must have been the first time all dogs had the same goal, just to leave the area as fast as possible. So I guess those wolves are still out there and who knows perhaps they were watching us while we left in a hurry.
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I don’t mind wolves myself but I really don’t want to risk meeting several of them while walking in an area where we not easily can get away from them. A dog is just another wolf in their eyes and will kill and eat them if they can. I’m not sure if they would have come even close to use while me, a human, is with the dogs but I’m not willing to try and test it 🙂 🙂 🙂 There weren’t any tracks from any other animal but hares and a fox out there either and that’s usually a sign that something has changed, like wolves staying in the area. So instead we walked down to the creek and back home again. I talked with my neighbor and he had seen some paw prints behind one of his cars so we took a look at them. The prints were much bigger than Almas but perhaps not as big as the only real paw print I’ve seen in snow that actually came from a wolf, so either a really big dogs or a rather young wolf I guess. Kind of cool that they’ve passed just outside my garden but at the same time I better follow my dogs outside in to the garden now when it’s dark outside. Just in case it will return. Anyway I did send a text message to the hunters that will be out hunting tomorrow, they’ll be using dogs and I really don’t want any dog to risk getting killed by a wolf. To be honest, if I hadn’t had the dogs with me today and thought there might be wolves around I would have continued out on the bog just to see if I could see any 🙂 🙂 🙂
.This is where we stopped and walked back when the dogs refused to continue.Up at the left corner is where we were so we walked back and down to the creek instead.Fortunately I took some photos last Sunday while we were out walking there 🙂
These are the times to also keep an eye open fro trolls and other beings while out walking according to our folklore. Trolls, who actually origins from the Norse faith can be out and about any time of day since they look much like us humans. Well not the mountain trolls up in the north of course, they are really big and human like even though they quite often are rather ugly, shrewd as few but not especially smart and they really dislike us humans. The other trolls however are much more like us but with the difference that they have a long tail. Sort of downy all they way to the tip where they have a big fluffy “ball” of hair. If one leave them alone they’ll leave us along but they will be forever grateful of one help them when they are in need. They occasionally tends to swap their children with ours but it is easy to make them swap back again, just threaten to hit the child and the troll mother will be there in no time to get their child back. A troll would never ever hurt their own child no matter what. Most of the rest of the beings will mostly come out when it gets dark and this time of year it’s dark almost all the time, especially if it is cloudy as it has been today. Never interact with them unless it is to help them (happens extremely rare), they will reward anyone who will give them a hand when they need it. Also it is a good thing to have some pieces of silver in the pockets, they love silver and will help if one give them some of it.
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The gnome is, from what I’ve read, never seen during daytime. The house gnome or perhaps more correct the farm gnome is said to be the spirit of the first owner of the farm, the one who once built the place. He stays just because he wants to make sure the place is well taken care of. He helps with the animals on the farmers do their best as well. However if the farmer is lazy the gnome will punish him one way or the other and if the farmers are really bad it happens that the gnomes simply burns the place down. The gnome is always a male and he usually wears grey or green, rather worn woolen clothes. One shouldn’t however bring him new clothes as a thank you because if he feels he is too well dressed he most likely will leave for good, he will of course not wear good clothes while working in the barn 🙂 The gnome can live in the barn but he can also live in the care tree that should be growing in every home. A care tree (or vårdträd as we call it in swedish) is a tree that is planted just for eventual sprits and beings to live in. Normally it would be an Elm tree, Ash tree or perhaps a Linden but it could also be, like in my garden a Rowan tree or perhaps an Oak or a Chestnut tree. What ever one does ever never hurt a care tree, not even by mistake, because the spirits and beings living there will punish You, perhaps even with death, if one does. On the other hand if one takes good care of it they will instead make sure one will have a good life.
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It is time to give the dogs their dinner and I might even have something myself. I’ll be back tomorrow but after that I won’t write anything until new years eve I think.
We got a white christmas, or Jul as we call it, after all. Just a few days ago we had lots of snow and it was bitterly cold when suddenly a warm front arrived with some rain and melted it all away. Ok it also gave us freezing rain which made it rather exciting to drive home from work one day and to work the next 🙂 But with the warm weather the feeling that life most likely would go on arrived and it felt rather nice. The cold weather however hadn’t given up it seems, so suddenly the temperature dropped again and we also got a thin cover of snow. I must admit that it was beautiful this morning, when first the sun rose and then fog rolled in over the village. The fog didn’t last more than a few minutes before the cold light from the sun pushed it away again.
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Christmas eve, or Julafton as it’s called in Swedish, is the big day here in Sweden. Today is trhe day when children will meet the Yule Gnome, or jultomten as we say. He usually arrives around noon and even though there will be lots of packages under the branches of the Yule spruce he still has a sack filled with presents. Well perhaps this year with the running inflation and high power prices it’ll be slightly less filled to be honest. Personally I hated to have to go to the yule gnome to get a present, he scared the c..p of me 🙂 🙂 and I for one never felt sad when I heard he wasn’t real 🙂 🙂 🙂 Most families then let the kids play with their new toys until three pm when they show Donald Ducks christmas on tv. This is a tradition that has been going on since 1960 here in Sweden. Every year they think less people will watch it because they rarely change any of the films during the years, still it is one of the most watched tv programs we have in this country 🙂
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The eating starts after Donald Duck and the menu is much the same every year, a christmassy smorgasbord. Pickled herring in more variations You would ever guess there is. Salmon in one way or the other. The christmas ham of course and lots of sausages and meatballs. It varies depending on where one lives of course, some must have smoked eel. some baked brown beans, and perhaps oven made omelette covered in a chanterelle stew. Red cabbage or brown cabbage are big in some parts of the country and we always have beetroot salad which goes perfect with the sausages, meatballs and the ham. Preferable there will be lots of different cheese there as well. At least one made from cream which is impossible to get slices from but very rarely any kind of blue cheese or camembert. When everyone is so full that they want to puke the rice porridge is served and lots of it. Many make way too much so there will be quite a lot of the porridge left until christmas day when we make Risalamande from it. Just mix the rice with lots and lots of whipped cream and then use what kind of fresh fruit of berry You want to have with it. Some let the fruit and berries lay on the surface while others, like me, whisk it down into the rice and cream mix. Of course lots of sugar should be added as well, preferable vanilla sugar.
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Back in the days our Yule Gnome looked slightly different than today, today he looks very much like Santa Claus to be honest. If one look at old christmas cards he usually was rather thin and most likely dressed in green (and of course on cards he usually was quite small but I doubt that was especially important). He also brought the presents in a small sled pulled by a goat or if it was a wealthy family a sled pulled by a horse. We’ve never had reindeers here and our gnome lives in Lappland, a huge and sparsely populated area in northern Sweden (where they funnily enough have lots of reindeers 🙂 🙂 ) Our Yule Gnome is of course based somewhat on our folk lore gnomes, some from Sinterklaas and also some from Santa Claus and I’ll come back either tomorrow or the day after to tell You a bit about our gnomes and perhaps a little about our other beings and folk lore.
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I now am on a two week christmas vacation. I started yesterday by going home a bit early (most people had already taken the day off and we who still came went home a bit earlier than usual. As soon as I had come home and the dogs had gotten their food we all took a long nap. It looked like we all were just as tired after we woke up so we had an early night 🙂 Today I’ve had my rice porridge for breakfast, so easy now when I once again have a slow cooker 🙂 Befor that however we went out on our morning walk. The sun rose and fog rolled in over our little village. It didn’t last for long though because the sun, even though it didn’t give away and noticeable heat still burned the fog away. Today I used my “new” camera that I bought as a christmas present (julklapp in Swedish) to myself. A Nikon D7100. I bought it from our ebay called Tradera fairly cheap and they hade only taken around 8000 photos with it, in digital camera world that means it’s almost unused since a digital camera should be able to take 150000 photos before it starts to break down. We are still getting used to each other but I have figured out the basics.
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I couldn’t understand why several photos were so blurry since I do have stabilization in the lens. Turns out that one can chose shutter priority or focus priority in this camera?! So either the shutter close no matter if one is focused or not or it tries to focus no matter what until the photo can be taken. I’ve now changed it to focus priority and I’ll see what happens tomorrow 🙂 The camera itself will of course not make my photos better (except for perhaps a bit sharper) because that’s all up to me I’m afraid 🙂 We’ll have below 32F temperatures until the night towards Monday and I can’t pretend I like that but knowing how horribly cold it has been and perhaps still are in big parts of the US I really shouldn’t complain. I also must admit that my home, especially the floors, are much cleaner when the ground is frozen. Still I really prefer above 32F nex week since that’s when they decide what my electricity will cost per kilowatt hour in January. A warm and windy last week in December will lower the price pretty much so hold Your thumbs for nicer weather for all of us 🙂
The weather has been rather pleasant today, we went out as soon as I noticed that the sun rose but since it felt a bit chilly I decided to put on the winter jacket. Too bad that Alma decided that today was the day she would stop behaving at all 🙂 🙂 It felt like I was walking in a sauna in that jacket. It felt like I had run a marathon after just have passed the beekeepers cottage and that’s just 150 meter (much the same in yards) away from home 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I needed a long nap after that walk and the sun shone when I woke up again. I went downstairs and opened the kitchen door and noticed that while the sun was shining the rain was also pouring down. There was a tine cloud just above us but I didn’t think that it was big enough to pour down that amount of water.
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Nothing much else has happened here. We never see much wild life any more because of Almas shouting and me scolding her for pulling the leash 🙂 but we do here a lot of ravens and jays. I guess those are the only birds that manages to be louder than us 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did put down my carnivorous plants in my cool cellar today though, the venus fly traps and the pitcher plants. All north american but not hardy enough to stay outdoors all winter. Well so far it has been much warmer than normal so they could have stayed outdoors much longer but I tend to forget to bring them in before it is to late normally.
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Tomorrow will be much the same as always. I’ll wake up early, start with the laundry. After that I’ll make dinner to have at work next week and I’ll use the slow cooker of course. I’ve been really lazy lately so I’ve just made pasta and meat sauce and will do so for the coming week as well. I might change my routine if I would win lots of money in the smaller lottery today (the one where I only 🙂 can win 150 millions 🙂 🙂 The big one didn’t have any winner yesterday so anyone winning it in the end will be filthy rich 🙂 Well to be honest 150 millions isn’t that bad either 🙂 🙂 🙂
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It is time for something to eat and I think I’ll have warm cocoa with it.
Have a great day!
I think most of us call this one Christmas cactus now days. Back in the days however there were several different species we had, some flowered in November so they were called November cactus here and the other ones were called Christmas cactus just because they were in bloom around Christmas. Now days they are so mixed with each other that they flower any time of year really. This one used to be clear white but like always they tend to turn pink after a few years.
All photos are older since it now gets dark early in the evening.
Nova is lying on her back beside my chair and demands belly rubbings. It’s a bit tricky to do that while typing and she also lets out the most horrible farts so I refuse to do any belly rubbing on her right now 🙂 🙂 🙂 She is very picky when it comes to where she wants them, if I miss if so the slightest she gets annoyed and walks away 🙂 🙂
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It hasn’t rained in two days and the first thing I do when I come home is to check if Alma has tried to escape again. Yesterday they got their new chewing bones and toys so she hadn’t bothered to do anything. Today those toys and bones were yesterdays news so of course she had tried her best to get out again. So the first thing I had to do was to undo the damage she had done 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I guess that Albin getting older and not having just as much energy any longer plays a big part in her tries to get out. Back in the days he was the annoying one with loads of energy and now he has to pay the price 🙂 🙂 🙂 He behaves just as Sune did when I come home from work. Alma is the first one out, then Nova, who after all is the queen of the universe so Alma doesn’t dare doing anything towards her. After that it’s is me going outside and Albin close after.
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Alm,a tends to jump towards him and then start chewing on Albins neck. She isn’t gentle either so once I tossed all the water thatw as left over her when Albin loudly complained about her behaviour. Now days I always show her the water bowl and she leaves him alone 🙂 🙂 After that they tend to play a long time in the garden. I once saw a picture that showed a T-rex, beneath the picture it said German Shepherd up to 24 months of age 🙂 🙂 I do hope she will calm down (hopefully earlier) when she’s 24 months old too 🙂 🙂
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The people of Sweden were stupid enough to vote for a right wing government supported by a fascist party. Mostly because they promised that we would get instant compensation for the high electrical bills we’ll get this winter. So today they showed us what they’ll give us. For one thing it will be a compensation for what we payed too much last winter, when the prices were rather low compared to what they’ll be this winter and as best we’ll get those pennies some time next year. Some electricity companies have told their customers to talk to their banks so that they have those extra $ 5000 they might need to pay for the electricity this winter. The compensation we’ll get will stay closer to maximum $ 400 US for a normal house hold. I never can understand how anyone ever can believe a right wing government supported by a fascist party!!
My Black Walnut still has almost all its leafs left. It stands very protected against the winds though so they might hang on for another week. The tree is now almost as high as my cottage.
The rain has been pouring down for two days now. So no walks after work since none of the dogs would follow me outside 🙂 🙂 The grass on the entrance side is now so wet and soggy that not even the dogs will walk there, well walk is the wrong word since sliding in the mud is more accurate.
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One really good thing with the rain though is that Alma has stayed indoors in the dog houseand the old garage the entire time so she hasn’t been outside to try and escape again 🙂 She’s quite intelligent when she likes to. She really listens to everything I tell her to do when we’re at home. She studies the weak points in the dog yard and starts to work on them when she has figured out what and how to do it. She however still can’t walk properly when leashed 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I have things to paint at work but the one putting them in to our computer system is sick so I can’t paint them. A bit annoying to be honest. I have had loads to do anyway so time has passed fairly quick anyway.lots of people have colds now and many have been staying at home so there’s no risk I would get time over to be bored 🙂 🙂 It would be nice if I for once missed one of these colds, I feel I’ve had way too many this year as it is 🙂
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I think it is time for a cup of warm cocoa and perhaps a couple of digestives. I have no blue cheese at home but to be honest any kind of cheese works with digestives 🙂
I’ve done all my chores early today and to be honest there weren’t that many to do. The laundry, dinner for next week and dinner for today. We had pancakes today and we also had pancakes yesterday 🙂 The dogs get one each and I’ll have as many I can get out from the batter 🙂
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Most of yesterday morning and also this morning rained away, I didn’t mind really because today the hunters were out hunting so we couldn’t do much anyway and yesterday the afternoon was quite nice even though there was no sign of the sun. It’ll be much the same the coming week, rain in the beginning of the week but just grey and dull for the rest of it.
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No one won the big lottery last week so now one person can win one billion Swedish kronor on Tuesday (that would be something around, depending on the value of the US dollar,$ 90- 100 million US. That’s so much money that I can’t understand it but I’m willing to win it just to try and actually understand how much it is 🙂 🙂 So I didn’t win the jackpot but I did get back twice to what I payed so that’s always nice. I know of only two universal truths, one is that anything that lives will die and the second one is that I’ll never be happy with how much I’ll win on the lottery 🙂 🙂 🙂 but I am willing to be proven wrong in that latter one 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I checked the place where Alma had escaped the dog yard and she had already started to work hard on that place again, so I have now strengthened that area so that it at least will take a day or so before she can do a real try to get out again. I will also buy more toys and put in the dog house. The problem is that either one or all of them do their best to hide the things from the other dogs. A bit annoying to be honest. I’m sometimes lucky to find one toy because the one responsible for digging it down did a lousy job not covering it properly 🙂 🙂 🙂
These are called Finger mushrooms here.The castle owners have cut down lots of trees lately. Only Spruces though because of the bark beetle..
My neighbor is out chopping fire wood. For some reason sandy ground lead the sound really well so I can hear it here in my cottage, the sound when the chopped logs fall to the wooden floor in their wood shed sounds really strange. At first it sounded as if someone fired away fireworks 🙂 🙂 For a while I did wonder if the Russians possibly could attack us so I went downstairs and opened the door and that’s when I realized he was chopping fire wood 🙂 🙂 🙂 I can also hear when they use a hammer in their cellar, it’s really odd 🙂 🙂
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It would be nice to take a nap but I’m pretty sure that if I do I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight. Then again I know I’ll most likely fall asleep in front of the tv tonight so perhaps I just as well should take a nap 🙂
All photos comes from the folder “For a rainy day”, today was too grey and dull to take any photos. This photo comes from my old Flexaret III camera.
So yesterday while I was working I suddenly got a phone cal from my neighbor and I thought that can’t be a good thing. Either my cottage is burning down or Alma has escaped from the dog yard again. Thankfully it was the latter one 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I had to drive home to fix the place where she had escaped from. The weather was really nice, sunshine, no wind and therefore rather warm.
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I’m so glad that Albin actually is a really obedient dog that knows he isn’t allowed to leave the dog yard when I’m not at home because it would have been much harder to find him if he had seen anything moving because he had run after it 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m never worried about Nova 🙂 Alma spent most of the time with my neighbors and I’m so glad they really love her. Alma is now really good friends with their three year old daughter. They even filmed Almas visit to them 🙂 🙂 🙂 I did go back to work for almost an hour before it was time to go back home again and everyone at work found it hilarious 🙂 🙂
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It was a bit slow at work today (no phone calls from my neighbors thankfully). I had plenty to do but time passed so slowly. Days like that sort of stuns the brain so when I went to the grocery store after work I wanted to renew my lottery tickets. Nothing strange but today I really couldn’t get it right. Here when we’re playing the lottery or any other thing like that we must get our identity card or drivers license registred in the machine. I really wanted to give her my license but instead tried with my bank card 🙂 When I finally got it right I thought I just as well renew it for two more times but forgot to say that, so when I was about to pay I thought that it was way too cheap. So we had to re do it again and behind me the queue grew large.
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I had a written note with me so I knew exactly what I wanted to buy today and it wasn’t until I had paid that I realized that I had forgotten to buy anything for dinner at work next week, so back in to the store and find something. I was lucky though because some kids were stopping most people to get to the till so I could sort of go around them all and get first in line again 🙂 🙂
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It was really nice to come home and to see that all the dogs were where they were supposed to be 🙂 I let the dogs run around in the garden but thought I saw how Alma jumped over the fence to the neighbors again. So I shouted out her name and it turns out that she was at the opposite side of the garden. I thought it must have been a cat or a big bird going that way instead so I said to her that she was a good bird 🙂 🙂 It took a couple of time before I managed to say good girl 🙂 🙂
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We have an Englishman working at the factory now days, he works the evening shift but we do meet for a couple of hours every day. He has lived in Sweden for around 18 years but he has a little problem, when ever someone understands he’s from England they automatically starts to talk English to him 🙂 🙂 He thinks he’s bad in swedish though so we (are of course no better) all talk english with him 🙂 He sked me where I got my accent from because it does sound as if I’ve lived in England. He knows that I’ve just passed by as best, so I told him that when I lived in Gothenburg we had cable tv and the only channel I watched back then was a channel called BBC Prime. I must have worked all evenings or nights then because I watched Good Morning Britain every day.
Three from the Hasselblad. I managed to get the film damp but some photos turned out rather good anyway. I had forgotten about these photos from older cameras..
I realized that I didn’t speak english as they did on tv so I started to repeat more or less every word they said until I came close enough to how they sounded. I call it BBC english 🙂 🙂 So I can only than the two who hosted good morning britain, Ms Anne Diamond and Nick Owen for how I speak english 🙂 🙂 🙂 He laughed out loud and says it sounds posh and I think that is the only thing posh about me 🙂 🙂 🙂
Yesterday night I didn’t get much sleep. Nova got some kind of stomach flu and had to go outside every now and again, usually just as I started to fall asleep again. Also at 1:30 am I needed to go to the bathroom myself and after that it was even harder to fall asleep.
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So I was so tired at work that I went home a couple of hours early. I wanted to leave earlier than I could but suddenly some job came in (that we’ve been waiting for a long time) so I had to finish that before I could leave. So I thought it would be too late to take a nap because I didn’t want to have trouble falling asleep in the evening again. I made fish and rice for Nova (well the other two got some too of course) and after that I sat down in my recliner.
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I did wake up every now and again to let the dogs go outside in to the garden but mostly they wouldn’t since the rain was pouring down the entire day and well into the night. So when it was time to actually go to bed I just went upstairs and fell to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow 🙂 🙂 🙂 Novas stomach had calmed down so I didn’t have to get up because of her either. I still was nasty tired when I woke up but that feeling just vanished when I had my big cup of tea 🙂
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The world outside was pretty cold when I let the dogs out. Didn’t feel that bad because there was no wind but I realized how cold it was when I was about to scrape off the ice from the car. Concrete ice I call it. I managed to scrape off enough so I could drive till the end of the village road, there I stopped and scraped off the rest 🙂 🙂 Tomorrow morning will be much the same they say and I’m not looking forward to it.
There was some early morning mist yesterday morning.
The rain is pouring down and even here where the ground mostly contains sand it’s now impossible to walk around on the lawn without sliding around 🙂 🙂 Still we need it so that the ground water levels finally rise again. We’ve had a warning about our ground water levels for well over half a year now so I do hope this rain will help some.
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The heaviest showers have passed but it will continue to rain well into the night. We had rain yesterday as well and also lots of thunder. I didn’t hear much of it because I fell asleep in the sofa when it passed this area 🙂 🙂 We did have lots of sunshine yesterday as well and it was fairly warm so we did manage to take a walk after the hunters had left and before the rains arrived.
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I hadn’t used my water boiler for quite some time until yesterday. One day when it was rather nice outside I sat on the kitchen stairs and wanted a cup of te, for once I used tea bags. So I went indoors fetched the water boiler and poured the hot water in my cup. That was when I noticed that some potted plants needed water and though: well I can’t use boiling water, so I went to the rain water barrel and dipped the boiler into it.
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Not a smart thing to do since the electric wired to the heat source is at the bottom of it and not water proof 🙂 🙂 🙂 So I’ve let it dry for several weeks and yesterday I tried it for the first time. I was prepared to have to change the fuse but nothing happened 🙂 🙂 I’ve missed it and now I don’t have to buy a new one. I looked ad ads via google and it is amazing how much some of those boilers can cost!
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The most expensive one I found would cost something around $ 300 US! The cheapest one would cost something like $ 9 US. I do wonder what that expensive water boiler either did to the water or could do more than just boiling it to excuse that nasty high price. I must admit though that it did look rather nice 🙂
The Cottage by the crane lake. 