Ominous Clouds

I could not resist the temptation to get my camera out for this as I was having a coffee in the new Western Harbour area of Malmö where there used to be an enormous shipyard. Now it is full of innovative and interesting buildings with a distinct international feel to it. We all needed a good, strong coffee the day after my brother's birthday party. In Bar Italia I had the best Latte of my life so far.

What you see in the picture is the bridge, part of a link including bridge, tunnel and man-made island, between Malmö in Sweden and Copenhagen in Denmark. But the dominating feature is the rain cloud, which, together with the water, makes up one solid mass of grey-blue with only two dots of orange on the water. So had a fisherman not put out his net there, this photo would have been very close to monochrome.

Oh, What a Party!

We went to Sweden (Malmö) to celebrate my brother’s 50^th birthday. Before the party itself, one of the highlights of the trip took place, when my mother met little Hampus, her great grandchild, for the first time.

But I kept hold of him most of the time, what else did you expect?

The party had been moved to 6^th June, which just happens to be the Swedish National Day, hence the abundance of flags.

Then the party got underway with interesting drinks, delicious food, good company, loud music and dancing, some funny and emotional speeches, a musical tribute and a lot of good humour.

By the time I went to bed at nearly three in the morning (!) this was the view from my mother's balcony.

The sun seems to be hiding only just below the horizon. Some party people might have been hiding in bed the day after, and some might even have been in need of these to get back into shape.

(Only joking; it's my mum's weekly medication, but you knew that.)

Throats were a little sore from talking over loud music and the body knew it had been dancing for far too long. But it was all worth it; we all had a great time, everybody from my mother (86) down to Hampus and Måns (2 1/2 wks), who went for the quiet option.

Who said it is not fun getting older? I certainly had a lot of fun when my brother got much, much older than before.

No Excuse, Just an Explanation

No, I have not disappeared, I'm still here, but work, other commitments and a holiday got in the way. It is my busiest period of the year at the moment, so I have had no time to spare. Blogging has sadly suffered.

I have used my new netbook, Samsung NC 10, for a lot of writing. My plan seems to be working. When we went to our house in France for half term holidays my new friend was by my side all the time. It began when we stayed overnight as usual in Albert. I intended to read some e-book on my netbook, turned it on and to my astonishment it told me it had detected a wireless connection. I clicked, as you do, to investigate, and found myself connected to the internet. I read some Swedish newspapers instead and even watched a music video before tucking in. Great, I thought, I did not expect this. I ended up later in the week walking the streets of various places with netbook in hand to search for internet connections. I must have looked a right fool!

It also struck me that, as late as in the sixties, people in the UK used the word wireless for a radio, which no young person of today would know, unless they watch black-and-white films.

As always when we return to our house and garden, the house needs airing and the garden needs, well, chopping down. The lawn was a meadow with half a metre of grass and flowers and had to be strimmed before it could be mowed. But we settled in straight away as usual and the week just flew by.

Now we are back, but the coming weekend we will go to my (kid) brother's 50th birthday party, so I will continue to be a bad blogger for some more time. I have however a collection of photos from our holiday in this post, and I will put up some more here and on my photo blog of interesting bird activity in our garden in other posts. See you soon bloglings!

Mural, Albert	Floral Decoration, Albert
Lawn before	Lawn after
Neighbours' Lovely Front	With a Sense of Humour
Can You See the Moon?	Not So Naked Trees

My New Little Blue One

I have found it increasingly difficult to focus on my "writing project", "literary ambitions", you know, the book that I am trying to write.

When I am at my PC with its wonderful big screen and many temptations, like blogging, online papers and much more, my self-discipline often lets me down. I feel I am getting nowhere with my writing, so I came up with a "cunning plan", just like Baldrick in Blackadder, but hopefully somewhat cleverer.

Sometimes when I have been away from my study and used good old pen and paper, or even better, my wife's work laptop when we've been on holiday, I have produced many more pages than I normally do at home. So here comes my cunning plan.

I have bought myself a netbook, a mini laptop, to use mainly for writing but also for storing photos that I can show to people when travelling to Sweden for instance.

My new little blue one is a Samsung NC10, a beautiful little thing. After some internet research I decided that the NC10 was the best option for me. It has a near-full-size keyboard with nice, big keys and a crispy clear screen. One negative aspect is that there is no CD/DVD drive, but I intend to use my external hard drive from the PC to copy and then transfer data to the netbook. For smaller amounts of data I will use my USB stick. The best feature of this wonderful little machine, which definitely clinched it, is the battery, which gives you up to 5-6 hours. That beats all competition easily; some other popular netbooks only give you 2-3 hours before the battery is flat and needs recharging.

As the icing on the cake, I also bought a blue-tooth mouse, which of course also is blue, my favourite colour.

Now it only remains to see if my cunning plan will bear fruit, as in Fruits of My Mind (!), or not. Time will tell. (And I apologise to my bloglings (blogger friends), whose blogs I have not visited often enough of late. I have been preoccupied with other stuff and feel very guilty, sorry!)

Blackbirds - The Next Generation

As I wrote in a previous post, I was worried that I had scared away the blackbird couple from their nest for too long when I trimmed the hedge. The single, beautifully blue egg might not make it without the parental body heat for a longer period, I thought.

Yesterday when I had returned from a run and was warming down and stretching in the garden, I decided to take another look. There was little light due to drizzly, dull weather, but I could just about make out a tiny silhouette next to, or partly under, the bigger parent.

So I rushed inside, still in my sweaty outfit, got the camera, put the long lens on and took a series of photos just to document it. My hands were not as steady as I had wished, but it is possible to see the young one just above the edge of the nest; even an eye is visible.

I felt much better now that I knew I had not committed a terrible, environmental crime. I am looking forward to seeing the fledgling trying its wings later. Better keep my camera ready!

Getting Back Home from the Garage

When we lived in west London my Vauxhall garage was quite a long way away. Getting there to hand in the car for service or repairs took about fifteen minutes, but getting back home by bus was a totally different kettle of fish!

First I had to walk to Richmond station (10-15 min), then wait for the bus. Well, you know about buses, how they seem to hunt in packs like wolves. It could take anything between a few minutes and, let's say, twenty minutes. If traffic was not too bad, what with negotiating through the very crowded centre of Richmond, the bus ride took roughly another twenty minutes. Add to that nearly ten minutes to walk to our flat. I make that approximately an hour.

Now take a look at these pictures to see what the corresponding walk back (35 min) from the garage through the German countryside offers. Which would you prefer?

  

  

    Not the most difficult decision to make, was it?

Where Have All the Birdies Gone? .......

... Gone to hatch and lie upon...

... a new generation!

I wondered why there were so many fewer birds round the feeders. How could I forget? I found the answer when I was doing garden work and spotted this blackbird in the hedge at the bottom of our garden. I had scared them off unintentionally when I trimmed the hedge a couple of weeks ago, but they have obviously returned. In a few weeks time the garden will be hosting the great spectacle of parents trying to feed their young ones. Last year we had at least four big families of various birds flocking around the feeders. Sometimes there were about thirty birds. Big, big show.

 

1st of May Walk

 

 

On Our Doorstep	Mandatory Sky Picture
1st of May Fun	Cyclists Approaching
Any Luck?	One of the Residents
Coming in for Landing	Taking Off

 

Click on them for a better view!

 

I did not include a picture of my beer, because you might get the wrong idea! But it was rather convenient that they were open for another ten minutes when we arrived at the lake. As we were sitting there some geese came in for landing in two groups. I just about managed to get some shots of the second group, and they look wonderfully clumsy when they prepare to hit the water. If you click on that one in particular, you will see what I mean.

Sweet Squirrel Show

This morning I was cheered up by some furry fellas. The greasy ball with seeds is meant for little birds like the Blue Tit, but sometimes an adventurous squirrel makes it down the long string to the ball. He is awkwardly big though, however agile he might be, and cannot sit there for very long before it gets too difficult. Look how he bends his tail round the ball to keep his balance. He soon jumped off to go for a safer option.

 

The easiest option is to have some left-overs, seeds discarded by birds on the feeders. Visiting squirrels help keeping the ground tidy under the feeders and the ball, and they normally come alone or in twos, but this morning I had a real treat. Three of them turned up and put on a wonderful show. They ran around, jumped around, sat quietly and nibbled, ran off and hid, came back again, and I just kept snapping. Squirrel show in the morning sunshine made for a good start to the month of May.

 

 

 

(Photos taken through glass patio door. Click on them to enlarge.)