Leaving Sandhamn early Monday morning..

Snow has been falling in the night and I expect a tough ride in the small open boat to the mainland..

I am bringing chairs and lots of other stuff from Sandhamn to Gotland that I will be needing in my new home. The boat is heavily loaded and the vision is null for parts of the 1 hour journey and we have to go by the GPS.. Snow is like small rockets in out eyes..The wind is absolutely murderous!

Small ice floes are forming in bays with still waters..
Monday is a real spring backlash! Shame on you King Bore!
I will not be home in Gotland until 1 PM tonight after another 3 hour boat ride - luckily in a nice cosy ferry with reclining seats! ZZZzz. I think I earn an extra hour in bed tomorrow morning!

Sandhamn, March 18

The Stockholm archipelago is slowly coming around. Snow is melting away and a few boats appear in the Sandhamn harbour.The blackbirds have started singing with loud voices and the first eider ducks have been sighted..

Intense sunlight in cold northern winds in the outer archipelago..

The horizon from Dansberget with its huge anchor..

Three camels worth..

Once, I was driving eastwards in the Sudan in my Landrover heading towards Showak by the Blue Nile to visit the American run Lalamba clinic. The desert was hot and the sandstorm - the habub - had made the trails almost invisible. On the "roadside" in the middle of nowhere, was a tired old bedouin just standing there gazing at the horizon. He surely needed a lift to wherever he was going, so I picked him up and he was comfortably seated in the backseat. And we drove on politely exchanging the few words I know in Arabic. After a while I suddenly felt his hand on my arm and he was pinching me; like taking a measure of my skin.
"Ouch!"
"Three camels!?" he bursts out to my photographer sitting next to me. Totally ignoring me - the pinching object.
He obviously wanted to trade his three camels for me.
To tell you frankly, I was not very flattered at his offer..
However it soon turned out that I was too skinny then and obviously not worth more than three lousy camels.
I lost a huge piece of self confidence right there in the desert!
Today after many years have passed, when I look in the mirror, I feel I have regained it! My Self confidence!
I surely look like I am worth at least six camels! He should have seen me now! Maybe seven!
Ouch!

Back in Sandhamn..

..from the largest island in the Baltic to a much smaller one - I am back in Sandhamn for the first time since November last year.

In walking around, I checked out how the winter had taken its toll this year..

I took a ride in a small boat and found that there are no speed limit signs anymore..

An old beautiful door in the village..

Preparations for summer are going on everywhere in face of the expected invasions of summer guests that will need lodging..

The "Dalahorse" - the Swedish national symbol per se in abundance in a village window..

The beauty of an old door..

A window at the picturesque Strindbergsgården in the harbour of the village..

Sanna - the belly dancer!

I have known her since she was almost a baby - Sanna, one of my daughter Lina´s oldest and closest friends. Sanna is very artistic and has among other things worked for me at my workshop/store Village Corner for ages painting furniture in an advanced and old fashioned way. (i.e. making them look antique.) During many years she has studied belly dancing in this country and abroad and has become quite successful at it. Sanna who now performs professionally at parties and resturants has now created a web page on her belly dancing activities I really enjoyed to watch!
We all knew that something very creative was to come out of this sweet girl. An artist like her father- yes! But who would have guessed a belly dancer!! Congrats to the web page Sanna! We wish you good luck and look forward to watch a show with you performing in one of your gorgeous Libaneese dresses! On Gotland maybe?

Finally, my old fashioned..

..wallpapers with gorgeous roses arrived! I am going to put them in the upstairs "morning-room" flooding with light in the morning and with a sloping roof.

I fell totally in love with them and and turned a blind eye to the price of these high quality papers from the Carma "Cottage Prints" collection. They fit the ambiance of this house quite well and I will just have to stick to pea soup and pancakes for the rest of the month after having settled the bill!! But it is worth it! Piece of cake!

Painted panels..

Now, I am ready with oil paint and brushes!

I want to attack my panelled doors like this!

It would be just lovely in an old house with 100 years old doors, like mine!
Here is the page that inspired me: click

Let´s see what will come out of it eventually..
Anyone knows a real artist? (might need a bit of help here!!)

Happy Birthday Malcolm!

An eventful and fantastic year it was for you , Mille! Getting married, buying a big house in Washington DC and becoming a father! We all wish you a happy birthday back here in Sweden with a loud
HIP HIP HURRAY (so you can almost hear it across the Atlantic!!) and wish you a matching year to come!
Kisses and love from Mum

Sunday at the auctions..

Sunday, we spent a good many hours at the auctions in Tofta at Gotland. Financial recession, still winter and no tourists yet on the island in combination with "beginning-of-the-month" not so very full purses, made a few bids quite astonishing bargains! Here is Ulf, the great conductor of the show in action. My sister happily landed the bid on the lovely Gustavian mirror in the background.

An old "nostalgia" radio with bakelite fittings is changing owner at a fair price..

These are some of the items I landed: the small "Emma" easychair at 20 dollars, the beautiful carved chair with hand embroidered seat for 45 dollars and a field easel for summer´s outdoor painting activties for 6 dollars.
Like this maybe: Wilson Irvine painting en plein air with portable easel

Ulf with assistants auctioning off an old wooden chair..

Anticipating auction feet ..

Old copper..and 100 years of fine dust..

Brique-á-braque and a lovely old turn-of-the century straw hat..

Bambi keeps an watchful eye on his items in the box..

I really freaked out over those two lion´s hilarious smiles..

A pretty stuffed fox gazes out through the window and yearning for the freedom of the woods..
"Who will be my new owner?
What will I do? Where will I go?"

The crash..How much can a brave man take?

Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe was headed to a weekend rally in his home region when the accident occurred. State television said the truck swerved on an uneven and notoriously dangerous single-lane stretch of road on the outskirts of the capital, Harare. Tsvangirai's spokesman said the car carrying the prime minister, his wife, driver and bodyguard had sideswiped the truck and rolled at least three times.

Susan Tsvangirai, 50, was pronounced dead soon after arrival at a clinic about 25 miles
(40 kilometers) from Harare. They have six children together and had been married for 30 years.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai left the hospital bandaged and mourning his wife Saturday after a car crash that his supporters blamed partly on insufficient security provided by President Robert Mugabe. Friday's crash nonetheless "could have been avoided" if Tsvangirai had the kind of motorcade that usually travels with Mugabe. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change called for an investigation into the collision with a truck carrying U.S. aid, but cautioned against concluding that it was the latest assassination attempt against the longtime opposition leader.
"We cannot talk of foul play ... until it has been proved what has really transpired," said Tendai Biti, the country's new finance minister and Tsvangirai's No. 2 in the party. He did not say whether his party had requested a larger convoy for Tsvangirai at any time before the crash..
Mugabe sent the prime minister's family a message that called Susan Tsvangirai's death a "tragedy that has fallen on our nation at a time of great hope for our country," state radio reported.
"Great hope for our country"? I think to myself.
."This hypocrite even uses this tragic catastrophy to promote himself and his so called efforts to improve the situation of the disaster he´s caused this poor country over the years of his rule. Even if there has been foul play involved in the accident - how big are the chances that this will be exposed and tried in today´s Mugabeland?"

(Photos/parts of text: AP/Washington Post)