Posts Tagged ‘sweden’

My head finally cleared up enough so I can make a blog post today too. It’s been  a day filled with headache and all I wanted to do was sleep. However, it’s not easy to sleep when it feels like your head is about to explode.
Now I’ve had dinner and almost 2 mugs of java, and some paracetamol…so at least for the time being it’s a lot better :)

The first photo in this post was taken 1973 or something like that. Our family was at one of many parties during the summer and in this photo is my sister and my mom. There used to be a photo of me and dad as well…but I’m not sure what happened to that. Might still be among my old photo’s back in Sweden…or my sister might have it.

This was the time of no worries and no sorrows. We spent most days at the beach, either together with mom and dad, or we took the bikes and went by ourselves. Then of course we had friends all around…and the cousins that arrived from the west coast and who stayed in their cabin until it was time to pack up and leave in the beginning of August again.
When we were a bit younger there were a lot of picnics on the schedule during the summer months. We never knew where we would end up since mom and dad had a way of keeping that a secret :p So it was an adventure every time.

It happened that we ended up in a zoo some place…and one time we went far down south in Sweden to a town that is well known for it’s candy. Guess it’s not that difficult to guess which of the passengers in our car who had sticky fingers…well, sticky everything actually…on our way home from that trip? :pp As dad used to say – we were self adhesive for some time afterwards :p

In the black and white photo is my Granny and me. I’m barely visible to the right…but you can see my white hat :p I think it was one of those sailor hats that were so popular back then. My guess is that it was around 1967 or similar because I can’t remember when it was taken. I’m not sure where mom is, but dad took the photo. It’s also dad’s old Saab in the background…with doors that opened the “wrong” way…heh

The thermos on the table was yellow…and the coffee cups were white with a dark blue line on the inside :p The seats on those chairs were red…and the older I get the more details like that I can remember. My sister and I found that thermos in the back of a cupboard in dad’s kitchen when we cleaned it out years later. He moved to a home for elderly and what he could bring was minimal, so we had to clean out his last apartment and that’s when we found it.

There are things that affects my memory of growing up more these days than they used to do. Smells, mostly…but also photo’s of course. Same with old things that once used to be a part of what was “home” back then. I don’t have any of those things with me here, and these days they are stored by my son. What will happen to them if they move to Gotland, I don’t know yet. But I guess I need to talk to him about it since I can’t ask them to drag all of my old stuff all the way across the country :p
Does anyone remember the spirit duplicators btw? They used those a lot when I was in elementary school and I can still remember the smell from the duplicating fluid used. (I found out much later that the fluid used was a mix of isopropanol and methanol.) There was a machine like that in a corridor they referred to as a library in the school where I spent my first 6 years of elementary school. That machine gave away it’s characteristic smell 24 hours a day, mixed with the smell of coffee from the teachers room and books. The walls in that corridor were dressed with book shelves and that’s where we could borrow books to read on our spare time.

And even though that’s a very long time ago today, I’m almost certain that if I went back to that school, the smell would still be there. Or maybe my memory would recreate it. Anything is possible. Spirit duplicators also went under the name Ditto machine in the US, and here in the UK they were called Banda machine. In Sweden they went by the name of Stencil machines. Geez…now I feel even older…haha Like describing the grandfather or the Xerox machines :p

If someone told me back then that I would be able to put a photo on top of a piece of glass and take a perfect copy of it using a scanner, I probably wouldn’t have believed them. Or tell Granny about the microwave…hehe

Anyway…that’s my snippet of history for today and I hope you’re having a great weekend :D

They say it’s Monday today, but to me it’s Tuesday…and while we were on our way home from town earlier I managed to jump ahead from August to September as well, so this day’s been really whimsical…heh

Ok…so I thought I’d post an old photo again and tell you something about it. While I still remember…haha
Above is my granddad, or mom’s stepdad to be correct. Mom was adopted and I have only a very vague memory of her real dad since I was about 4 or 5 years old when I met him. And even though her stepdad passed away when I was very young, he’s the granddad I remember.

He was a tall man with very big hands and he used to go into town on his moped, which was the kind you had to paddle like a bicycle to get the engine started. And it was quite a trip in that low speed, so he could be gone for hours while my Granny was worried to death that something happened to him. It never did though. He always came back home again in one piece. Back in the days when he was a bit younger he had an entire library under his roof. Anyone living in the village could borrow the books, and I believe it was done that way for the sake of convenience. While horse and carriage was still the main tool of transportation, a trip in to the library in town was too elaborate just for the sake of borrow a couple of books. Same reason why there was so many small grocery stores at the countryside back then.

His name was Efraim and for a while he was a preacher…and that was something he was very good at. Preach. The religious association he was a member of was called The Blue Ribbon, and to be honest I haven’t got a clue what they believed in and what made them different from the others. But it meant that he was ranked a bit higher in that small insignificant spot on the planet they shared with 10 or 12 other farmers.

(On this map, zoom into the “A” and to the left of the location of that “A” there’s a plot that looks like an island. That was their farm :) )

In the photo above he’s involved in a conversation with the hens…heh Dad took some photo’s of him in the 1950′s and I believe this is one of them. He died at home in his own bed after a short time of illness, but I have no idea what it was. He wasn’t very old when he passed away either…in his 60′s at the most. I have (another) vague memory that I heard someone say it was his heart, but I’m not sure. But he was very active and his time as a farmer went back to when they used a horse and plough, and I can’t remember ever seeing him in a tractor. Dad used to help them a lot in the summer time, but it was always him driving the tractor or the harvester, never granddad.

But he was a nice man, always had a smile for us and a lap big enough both for me and my sister :)

Because Heléne and Peter have had problems to get Alexander to sleep since they arrived to Gotland a few days ago, and as a result, no one slept…of course…I haven’t heard a lot from them. Everyone are exhausted and they also managed to catch a cold, which probably is a side effect of the long trip, no sleep and stress.  So the visit seems to be a bit mixed. I know that Heléne is happy to be among her family and people she knows since way back, but it’s also stressful since the sleeping pattern for Alexander changed so dramatic.

However, he seems to be napping whenever he gets a chance to, and in the first photo in this post he’s doing a power nap while they were driving back from a visit at his granddad :)

But things are slowly going back to normal and there are moments for fun with dad too. So it’s not all horrible and sleepless :)

Unfortunately it also means that it would be close to impossible for them to bring Alexander over here for a week or two. If he’s so sensitive to changes it would be very confusing for him to visit us. A new language, food he’s not use to, smells and a lot of other things. All the things that I personally love about travel would most likely put his life upside down. It’s a shame, but it’s probably easier for us to go there than vice verse.

I don’t know for how long they will stay at Gotland this time, but Peter is going back to work at some point, that I do know. I think he’s got 4 weeks of vacation, but I’m not sure if he’s taken all 4 weeks in one go or if he’s saving days for Christmas’n'stuff.

Peter, Helene and Alexander arrived at Gotland last night shortly after 8 PM. It’s a long trip on train, bus, boat and taxi to get from point A to point B, and to travel with a toddler isn’t always easy. But it seemed to have been pretty smooth in spite of that :)

I’m just happy they arrived in one piece :p There’s been some horrible weather lately and you never know what can happen when there are so many different ways to travel involved. And yeah, I guess it’s just me being a nagging old Granny :pp
But you know… :p

Alexander was really entertaining everyone, screaming and laughing as loud as he could…anything to get the attention…heh
The reason for their destination is that Helene was born on that island. That’s also where she grew up and have her parents and siblings :) So she’s really looking forward to spend some time with her family and friends :)

We have a dreary, grey, rainy and horrible day today. The rain isn’t as bad as it’s been in other places around the globe, but it’s still wet :p My son is on the road with his family today, travelling to that big island where Helene grew up. It’s quite a trip and they have to go to Stockholm before they can travel down south and then it’s a ferry over to Gotland. And they’ve had their fair share of water as well. A lot of flooding in a lot of places.

I’m doing dishes right now (or at least when I’m done with this post) and then it’s time to start baking :) Tomorrow I will get myself a hair cut, which is very needed I might add, and I’m bringing some Nutmeg & Cinnamon Biscuits for the girls at the salon :)

The photo in this post is my mom and me in the mid 70′s at some point. A couple of years before she fell ill in breast cancer. It’s the last photo that was taken of us together. A friend of mom was ploughing and we made some coffee and sandwiches and paid a visit :) What I remember the most is how grey that day way…just like today, but a lot colder. Could have been in September or something like that.

Whenever I find photo’s of my mom these days it always amazes me when I realize that she’s younger than me in all of them, no matter what. A very weird feeling. In this photo she might have been 42 at the most and she was gone by the time she was 44. And she was in the last generation of moms who stayed home with their kids since most families managed on one salary.  A lot has changed since then and there are things in my kitchen that I take for granted but that she never saw. I wonder sometimes what she would have said about a microwave…heh Honestly, I haven’t got a clue, but she was pretty open minded, so she probably would have owned and used one.

She should have been 77 years old by now, but somehow I don’t think that was never meant to happen. She was young at heart and it just never fit her to grow old and grey. Since I grew up, more and more of her is shining through in both my looks and personality, so I’m hoping she can grow old with me that way instead :)

Well, I’m off to the kitchen and when I’ll get back here it’s time to finish the painting of Tom Hanks :)
Be good and behave until then…if you have to :p