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.

School's out!

Of course it rained and was cold and windy on the last day of school, but it's a little warmer now, just in time for the mid summer celebrations. The girls have spent this week at home while I finished off at work. They have been really good, fixing their own breakfasts, washing up, shopping and cleaning while MOTH kept an eye on them. Now we can relax over the weekend. We are going to try and walk up to the boat and catch some fish for Mid Summer.

Too hot!

Last weekend, with the temperature in the low twenties, a bike ride down by the lake was enough to cool us down.

This Thursday with the temperature just over thirty we had to get into the lake to cool off. We have had temperatures of between 20-30 for over a week now. For the poor M.O.T.H. it is too hot. With his own temperature just over forty and another course of anti-biotics whose side-effects are probably worse than the infection itself , he's not feeling his best.
On the bright side, I have finished grading and Strawberry has finally had her birthday party. Her birthday is in March, so it was about time. Now we just have one week left of term and then one more week of planning and after that eight glorious weeks of freedom.

This is where we were for the bloody school trip, a beautiful spot,
but watch out for the natives they're easily irritated.

Hot... well almost

This was actually taken a couple of weeks ago,

when we still had some snow left,

but the temperature and weather were about the same as today,
beautiful blue skies and around 20C.

This bronze is about 8o miles away from where I just spent the weekend. If you look in the same direction as the head you can just see it on the horizon. The trip was quite successful, I didn't lose any students this time, but four of them were not exactly whole when I returned them to their parents. Never the less we all enjoyed the excitement, and the cleaning lady very kindly took care of all the blood stains.

Catching up slowly...

The pile of washing has now been reduced, but with only three weeks of term left I still have piles of marking and grading to keep up with, plus a school trip over the weekend. Lets hope I don't lose any this time.
This was taken last weekend when the temperature shot up to over 20 C. Since then it has snowed and hailed, nearly every day, but it was a beautiful weekend.

Snows almost gone!

Sorry, not much time for posting: mountains of marking and washing to do.
These were taken last weekend when I managed to escape from the mountains for a few minutes. Will be round to see you all, just as soon as the grades are set and the final class trip has been endured, in a couple of weeks time.

Happy Valborg

We have four days off, so I am taking my marking and my washing out to the woods for a short break. There's an old wasboard somewhere in the barn that the girls might find fun. The saga of the washing machines (we have been through three washing machines in three weeks and I have a mountain of dirty laundry) can wait until we return, maybe by then the company involved will have returned my calls and e mails. The fireworks and the bonfire are always held on the last day of April here to welcome back the Spring. Hurray Spring is here!

The sun is out...

It's getting much warmer and the children are growing fast,
but I still haven't got a washing machine. We've been through three machines in three weeks.

Milk Mustache

Still got some snow!

These were all taken last week here in town. We've got even more snow out at the cottage, but this week has been much warmer and there isn't so much snow left. Snowdrops and crocus are pushing their way through, and an Englishman who lives here has changed into his shorts for the summer. We don't usually have a very long Spring, we seem to go straight from Winter into Summer.

Fancy dress