Hats and woolies

We've had to buy new thermal underwear for the girls; they're growing so fast. Miss T looks me straight in the eye at the moment. Any day soon, she'll be looking down on me.

Many Happy Returns

Happy 100th Birthday Gran!
My darling daughters made me this cake for my birthday last week and you're all welcome to a piece, especially Pat's TL who had a birthday yesterday. My daughters gave me a beautiful day, waking me up with a cup of tea in bed and a pile of presents: a pillow case in pale blue with little white ghosts on it, sewn by Miss. T, pictures of spiders and ghouls and even a lady vampire who moved her eyes from side to side, a skeleton that waggles arms and legs and a poem to treasure from Strawberry.

The cold sets in

The temperature has dropped to minus 15 C. and the stream is starting to freeze over, but still no snow.

Lax i laxask

It's good to have friends.

Rainbow behind Barn

Sunset snap

Rainbow behind the wires

Old bird?

A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Now wasn't that a wise old bird?

Bear in mind?

Bear kisses?

Too many bear kisses and you'll get bear teeth.
Lots of bear hugs to the birthday boy.
Many Happy Returns Pa.
XXXX

Still in Stockholm

We know what happens when you kiss a frog, but what happens when you try to kiss a bear?

Messing about in Stockholm

...way back in August, when bears weren't so scarce. Now they're in season.

Fungus!

Sorry I haven't been very productive for a few weeks. Other stuff has taken priority, but I shall now try and get back on top, and post more. Summer is over, we've had our last swim in the lake and taken our last fishing trip with the boat. The fungus are out in full and our first snow will soon be here.

Pride Parade

Leaving the two teens to take the bus to the airport, Miss T., Strawbs and myself made our way across Stockholm. It took several hours as 45 000 people had decided to parade through the centre demonstrating for sexual equality at exactly the same time. As it was pouring, the girls and I took shelter in the biggest toy store and watched the show from a rain-spattered window.



The firebrigade, the police, the army, doctors, nurses, angels and devils, political parties, they were all there showing their support and some baring all, well almost, for the cause.
More from Stockholm soon.

Snap!

This one is for my nice nieces, who left us on Saturday, after surviving 3 weeks spent partly in a tiny appartment or in a small house in the middle of nowhere together with a sick uncle, 2 terrorizing younger cousins and a nagging aunt. The amazing thing is, it was actually good fun, but I think they were glad to return home. The girls and I followed them down to Stockholm on the train and spent a few days there. More pictures from that trip soon.

Blondie...

I want to look like this at 63. They started playing at quarter to one in the morning and didn't finish until well after two with The Tide is High. We didn't get Debbie Harry's shoes, which she threw into the crowd, but we got one of Clem's drum sticks...


...beautifully caught by Clayton, it will be on its way to England tomorrow.

It was our second drumstick of the evening, we got one from local gothic rock band Myrah earlier in the evening.

We all rolled safely into bed at 5 am. I've been instructed to wake the two teens at 2 pm as they have to pack before the train leaves just before nine.

Right now we are in the middle of a partial eclipse of the sun, maybe I should wake them up early so they don't miss it;)

Trying to stay on top...

Looking after two extra during the last few weeks has meant less time to keep up, plus both my computers are usually occupied whilst they chat with each other from one room to the other. But I have enjoyed myself and there will be tears shed when we send them home to England on Saturday. Now we have to prepare for Blondie.

Following Rainbows

We didn't stop to dig, or break into containers looking for crocks, but followed the rainbows to the land where dreams come true.

Once there we found fields full of gold,

slides of silver,

and in the flower garden, a little bunny wabbit.

The real reason for not stopping was that we had a plane to catch and flying only with hand luggage we didn't have a spade with us, as sharp items etc. are no longer permissable on flights, although somebody did get caught in customs with a pair of scissors in her pencil case.

Good trip

We drove down through the night stopping here on the way for a couple of hours sleep. I couldn't say exactly where it is, because we had taken a wrong turn, (my fault, I was reading the map, which in my defence was ancient, 1980's, and the road numbers had all changed). But it was a few miles north of Carl Larsson's home, which could be anywhere because everyone, almost, is called Carl Larsson, but I mean Carl Larsson the artist.

We also saw a tripple rainbow on the way down, between the double rainbow, arching up from the trees at a different angle, if you enlarge the photo, you can see a third rainbow.
We took it as a good sign.

Back soon

We're off to England for a week to celebrate my grandmother's 100th birthday.

Logging

Appart from the beach our other favourite place is the open air museum.

Hardened

Here are some summery pictures, this is the sort of thing we do in July, and inspite of the low temperature these two still want to got to the beach. I wasn't tempted to join them in the water.

Pirate Party

Captain Nobeard invited us aboard on Saturday afternoon. Anne Bonny and Captain William Kidd pictured above ended up walking the plank, but by then they had already found and eaten all the gold, so they were happy.