FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW - IN THE AFTERNOON SUNSHINE

Four things right-right now.

The books above my head.

A cat in the after noon sunshine.

Reading the Egytptian Book of the Dead (but now I got distracted with a documentary on Marie Antoinette's coiffures.)

I want Mikael Hadreas pants.

As a side note; this was the first time I made a post in one sitting without moving anything else than my arms to take photos and grab the laptop. So now we know that!

FOUR THINGS RIGHT NOW: IRANIAN COOKIES AND ALL THE STARS

Things are not too busy over here. I know, but meanwhile in real life I am very busy picking cocktail bites from a silvery platter of burnout. I apparently can't seem to both plan posts and actually post them, just either way, but here's a little bit of almost right here right now -

Eddi came home after a long stay in Iran and now I am having these iranian cookies wiht my evening tea -  a taste of honey, pistachio and cardamom with rose and orange water, kind of like something very sweet and buttery would be drenched in perfume. But they are strangely good.

I am about to assemble yet another Råskog cart for our home. Best little cart ever. But in order for that to go smoothly I had to switch my tea to something a bit stronger.

Karen Dalton is the soundtrack for that.

And outside the November sky is infinite.

(I have been thinking of buying a telescope for some time now. That, and a theremin. And then I'd sit at home with my wine and stare out into the void and play some eerie music. Am all set!)

Ps. My son told me it's only 37 days until Christmas. Toodelido!

AN HOUR BY THE NORTH SEA

When we were in Denmark, in the middle of Jutland (for our Legoland visit)  a couple of weeks ago we took a drive west to the coast and it's endless beaches.

It was the only moment of our trip (apart from a sudden rain in Copenhagen) that it wasn't super hot and sunny. But sometimes weather doesn't matter.

I remember we've been somewhere around the same beaches with my family as well when I was a kid, in the late eighties. Not sure where we were then exactly, but the sand was white, the wind was hard and there were jellyfish everywhere.

This time we only found one and it seemed pretty much not-that-alive-anymore.

And mini starfish!

You may stumble upon jellyfish at home but along our coasts in the Baltic Sea there aren't really any starfish.

Waiting for the waves.

I collected some rocks and sea shells. You have to do that when you go to the beach.

 Dag then got a little carried away.


All soaked but happy.

 But you can dry yourself in the wind!

Although later having to go home in mommy's clothes he was not that happy anymore.

IN THE FOUR YEARS-AGO SUNSHINE

Facebook has this habit of reminding you of old posts and memories, and while the alogorithms often may feed you memories that are rather random ("Oh look, I shared this meme two years ago!") they sometimes do manage to remind you of events that makes you go 'aaaaw'. Some time ago a picture popped up in my feed of me and a growing bump while on vacation in Tenerife four years ago. It's strange that that actually was  that long ago already, but on the other hand it could as well have been twenty years ago. I think most memories turn "timeless" after a while.

As the weather - apart from some really nice and spring-like sunshine yesterday- has been rather grey, foggy and gloomy fro quite some time already I took a look back at the sunshine four years ago. (A lot of pictures that however never really turned into a blog post back then.) We flew to Tenerife with Eddi and the boys as well as my sister and her husband (or, fiancé by then), leased a small house in one of the more quiet areas. An idea we came up with on a rainy day in the archipelago the summer before. I haven't been on vacation anywhere warm since then (or on vacation anywhere at all, actually) and, well, wouldn't say no if the chance came up!

I almost forgot how short I had my hair back then!

 And haha oh my, I remember thinking my belly was sooo big then already...
Well, it would turn twice the size after that and the fella who came out of there is so big by now it's a bit weird, how times go.

REMEMBERING THE SUMMER LIGHT ON THE DARKEST DAYS

A few weeks (three to be exact) ago the paper would state that the sun would set at 15:29 in Helsinki, and rise the following day at 8:45, while the next sunrise in Utsjoki (in Northern Finland) would be on January 16, 2016. That's kaamos for you. Now, with just a couple of days left until winter solstice, we are at Up at 9:22 and Down at 15:12. So one could say it's pretty dark over here yes.

I'm getting a little nostalgic about midsummer, six months away, when the sun rises before 4 in the morning and sets around eleven at night (and above the polare circle it does not set at all) - it never really gets dark.

As there are no snowy slopes and frosty branches to post for the moment, I'll go for some light summer night memories from last midsummer (...that are very relevant now six months later...) instead.

We were out in the archipelago as usual. 

With the big harbour next to us.

Picking flowers and tasting chives.

And having lunch.

My cats turn into archipelago panthers.

Midsummer dinner set. Next week it's time for huge tables and settings and family dinners again, with a Christmas tree instead of birch branches.

The eleven pm sunshine. I love this moment, the long sunset and it's colours.

 

 The sun has set.

Out on a nightly walk by the shore. Here's a silvery trunk that the sea had washed up, shining in the pale blue night. The wood was so soft.

Around 1 or 2 am and a ship comes in.

The pale midsummer night.

On midsummer's day Dag turned three. He got a lion bag for his birthday, which he now uses when he goes to playschool.

And he was very sad that he could not go fishing with the older boys and guys on the wet, slippery rocks.

Dissapointement maximus. He may have been one year older, but still too small for so many things.

But then got a cake and things were fine again. A rubarb cake. Rhubarbrs are in season in June. I wonder if we'll get any next year as the sheep pretty much munched them all away last summer...

And then some sudden sea fog. Kind of what it looks like all the time now, in December -

The fucked up thing is that the weather was almost the same last June as it is now at the end of the year, which was wrong then and is wrong now. Around plus ten and rain, when it should have been ten degrees warmer then and ten degrees colder now (Celcius, obvuiosly)...

This year summer came rather and late, and last year winter arrived just a few days before Christmas- perhaps we'll get lucky this year again, and get a little snow after all just in time?