The first pick..

Yesterday´s "harvest" from my garden- proudly presented!
I am now browsing for all kinds of recipies on "How to make fruit syrup of rhubarbs and that lovely plum marmelade my sister-in-law Ann used to serve with rusks at tea time.." This is all great undertakings but sooo very time consuming! For an old unexperienced "city slicker" like me!
Needless to say, my deep freezer is filling up with jam, marmelades and juices..
Makes you feel quite rich! Satisfied..
In my cellar I recently noticed all the hooks mounted on to the celing. For hanging rabbits and deer after the hunt. The rumor has it that he people who used to live in my present surroundings were rarley seen in any stores. They were quite self contained with milk,eggs, fowls, game from the woods, etc.
Well, good for them!
I feel quite happy with my berries and fruits! And I don´t mind going to the stores once in a while!
But..I have a baking machine! I might try to set a dough in it to make rusks to match the marmelades.
Maybe next year..

Shifting focus..

..from the garden (due to nasty weather for a couple of days) to the neverending interior decoration and renovation work of my old farm house, I yesterday went to the Second Hand Market in Visby and bought this little gem of a drawers chest for my bed room..

And an old card table with a flap for the adjacent morning room renovated this spring..

..and a well kept Emma easy chair..

This it what the room looked like last night with all the new items in place..

..and this is what the very same room looked like one year ago before I bought the old farmhouse..
The weather in Gotland is now gradually turning better, and for me, it will be in-and-out-of-the-garden again today with a big basked to collect all the fruit that fell to the ground during the heavy winds of the past days..
Meanwhile, this lovely little book is kept by my bedside these days of late summer. Check it out on the link above.I am sure you will just love it - as I do.. (Thanks Lina for this great gift!)

Harvest time is drawing closer..

..in my garden..

Saturday morning. The weather is beautiful and crisp after a night of almost tropical rainfall..

The wind is gently rocking some apples in the hammock.

The 100-year old garden holds many different varieties of apples.

And two kinds of pear trees..

The morning light filtering through the fruit trees..

The grape wine.I have now learned how to prune them. Quite an exciting new experience! I have never been a wine grower before inspite of having had a lot of good wines in my days! Imagine making your own wine! (How important it is to have dreams and goals! And not to have to think about the approaching swine flu that the media is painting such horrifying portraits of these days of the starting of the new school semester. Meanwhile, I´ll be busy gulping some lovely Ecological Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa. Ha! A swineflu antidote for gods and alike?)

A kind of Hydragea, I think this is. I tried to bring some into the house the other day - but they immediately bowed down in a sad state and signalled that they rather preferred the outdoors in lieu of my vase..

Roses, coming to an end of the season..

..and hazelnuts in the making..

Diving deep down..

..into my long stored moving crates I recently came across this marvellous vinyl that I bought in San Francisco in 1968. It contains all the juicy pieces by Janis Joplin from this great era of free love, psycadelica, music, cretivity, politics, freeky stuffs, drugs, freedom fights and student and Black Panther rebellion! And the "not so great era" of the Vietnam war! The campus recruitments of sodiers for this war. The friends who came back from war in black plastic body bags..The repression,the police shootings, the mass arrests of protesters, the using of the campuses as testing grounds for certain chemicals to be deployed in Vietnam, the spraying of "maze" - a tear gas the Oakland police (the infamous Blue Meanies) used to break up student demonstrations..
The awsome cover of this first Janice record is made by Robert Culp - a great cartoonist and artist whom I actually met at a party in Berkeley in those days. He was considered "very dirty" back then in the days of the dawning sexual revolution.

I saw Janice live once in a concert at the Winterland in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. She was "giving it all" together with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Sipping her Sudden Comfort in the short intervalls instead of catching her breath. They put on the most marvellous light show as back drop of the Winterland stage that night, I remember. Outside the Winterland, sales were going on and people were pushing for anything you could possibly want in those days.

Janis Joplin and the Big Brothers.
After Bessie Smith, there was nothing. Until Janis came along. And after Janis there is a big vacuum. Have you ever heard "Summetime" sung the way Janice does it?
Man, there is a voice for you! And a feeling!
Groovy!
(Unfortunately, my Janice vinyl is full of scratches. And, I AM NOT GOING TO SELL IT!)

Rauk- n´- roll..

On our way to Faro (or Fårö with the Swedish dots..)we stop to have the most exquisite lunch at the legendary "Kuten´s Bensin.." where we enjoyed magnificent salmon crepes in his rusty junk jard of a great paraphenalia from the 50´s and 60´s. This is a "luke warm beer" heaven for rock-and-roll freaks, and this is the place to commemorate the passing of Elvis on the 15 of August. Check it out on the link above!

A rock-and-roll night at Kutens!

Fårö retains a special barren beauty appealing to a great many people of whom Ingmar Bergman is probably the most wellknown. He is now buried on his beloved little island..

Fårö lighthouse. (Photoshopped by me in a creative spell!)

For me, this impressive lighthouse brings sweet memories of the past.

So, it was great to be back for a quick dip in the cold Baltic.

The limestones of Gotland that sometimes take on the most marvellous shapes are called "rauks" in the local lingo.
The famous "Jungfrun" (The Virgin) in Lickershamn.
Speaking of which - my sister suddenly drowe up in front of my barn yesterday in
her new cab! Fire engine red it is.(Ferrari red according to sis!) She has just bought it! Not quite the latest Golf model as you can see. However, she is now happy to invite her sister to cabbed down rides in the hot Gotland summer days!
"Yeah! Let your blond hair fly babe!"
Wroooom! And a bit of rock-and-roll on the radio! Loud!
"In the summertime, trallala la, we go riding.."

Sweden´s Medieval Times..

..returns for a hectic week every August to Visby, Gotland.
The Medieval Week on Gotland – you travel 600 years back in time
during eight days in August when the Middle Age is back. Gotland’s special settings, Visby’s 200 medieval houses on winding lanes, splendid church ruins, and the magnificent city wall frame a spectacle without equal.
Markets and music, theater and lectures. Knights clash in tournaments. It is an unforgettable journey in time and space.

It is a great event and the heavy drumbeat of those days lingers over the medeval town of Visby and mixes with the smells of roasted wild boars..

Many elements you associate with this era are there.. jesters..

..blacksmiths..

..fair maidens in decked out in dresses they made during long northern winter nights by the light from the kerosene lamps..

The ale brewess..In Gotland the typical ale is called "dricku"..

Monks and salesmen..

This man holding my sister, tells me he has made his impressive mail coat himself..Ring by ring..

A Medieval flirt in the sunshine..

Oh, this outfit is so warm! It is really a hot summer day! My medieval feet are acing. Can we go home now? Where on earth did we park the horse and carriage? Do we really have to stay for the tournament games?
Thanks god! I have been heading in the right direction!
The sign reads in old Swedish: "Full bath: a dime" "Foot bath: half a dime" "Back Scrub by Young Maid two dimes" "By Old Maid Half a dime.." "Soft soap and birch branches used."
However, I am too shy on a Medeval kind of way to ask the price of a back scrub by a young guy with a six pack body..Hmmm. It is not listed anywhere and the place is full of those in handsome outfits! (But then again - six pack did not exist in those days! How on earth can such heretical thoughts dawn upon me? )
The sun sets after a long day. exposing the Middle Age silhouette of Visby..

On my trips to Rome..

..I am priviledged to be able to stay with my friends Annika and Anders at the Swedish embassy residence close to the Termini station. This time en route to Capri I slept in Crown princess Victoria´suite, alas! (and found no pea under the matress! Ha!)

The entrance hall.
The residence of the Swedish Ambassador is some 1.500 sqm and situated in a lovely garden in the centre of Rome. This palace like mansion was acquired by the Swedish state in 1922.

The dining area.

The parlour, facing the lush gardens..

The stairwell to the second floor and the Ambassador´s private quarters.

The balcony (in the private quarters) facing the garden is a beautiful cool spot for long, Roman summer suppers..

Back home in Gotland..

..after one month´s of absence, I found that my entire basement has been filled with water. Due to heavy rains in Gotland this summer, the ground has been thoroughly saturated and many basement valves are spilling over..I am not he only one. It smells like a mushroom patch down below! I will just hope for better weather and keep the doors open for the rest of the summer and hope that it will do the trick!
Meanwhile, my sister and I receive a bunch of great guests from the mainland - some of whom arrived on magnificent Harley Davidsons - and that called for a celebration like a dinner party at Ihrebaden by the long white beach in northern Gotland last night!
While monsterous mosquitoes were devouring us, we were devouring salmon and roasted Gotland lamb with some sparkling for starters.. mmm..

Thalia in Sandhamn!

Thalia - a true water freak.. 

Thalia on her very first visit to Sweden! She spent a few weeks resting and "partying" in the lovely Stockholm archipelago after her long trip Washington-Paris-Naples-Capri-Naples-Paris-Stockholm. In Sandhamn she stayed in her grandmother´s house in Trouville . And she seemed to just love it! Here she is leafing through the Swedish daily papers with her father Malcolm in granma´s garden. Thalia is now 10 months old and just about to walk..