Today we solemnly contemplate..

..the 8 years that have passed since the 9/11 attack on World Trade Centre in New York.
The attack and single event that more than anything in modern times for ever changed the course of history in the world. The event that eventually led to the wars in Irak and Afganistan..the Guantanamo..unbelievable scars in the minds of survivors, families, friends, firemen, hospital staff..
Perhaps the attack and its unprecedented impact also have contributed to tighten the world´s consciousness of the importance of keeping and increasing the levels of democracy. 

Today, on Swedish newscasts -all channels- people are recollecting where they were and what they were doing exactly the moment when they heard of the planes crasing into the twin towers. You will remember this very moment all your life as the older generation remembers what they did when they heard about the killing of Kennedy in Dallas, or how my great granddad probably remembered the two bullets fired on a Sarajevo
street on a sunny June morning in 1914 set in motion a series of events that shaped the world we live in today. World War One, World War Two, the Cold War and its conclusion all trace their origins to the gunshots that interrupted that summer day.

Today, 8 years after 9/11 is a day for reflections.

The beaches..

"Going back to Sweden!"  as the Gotlanders have it when the tourists leave for the mainland after the summer season. They don´t consider themselves very "Swedish", these people of Gotland. "Sweden" is way back there on the mainland..

Gotland has its own flag and most certainly - its people a great and distinct dialect sometimes hard to follow. Click to listen.
So by now, when the vacationers have left for Sweden, the beaches are recovering in their splendid prefall solitude.

The water is still warm, clear and breathtakingly beautiful.

The sea mussels are collecting on the beaches- non edible in the Baltic - unfortunately..

Small clams sheltering in the rippled sand are slowly rocked by the gentle waves..
A link on some of Gotland´s very interesting history, if you care..

Late summer..

..and the grapes of Gotland are turning deep blue. Gotland is one of the few provinces in Sweden with a climate -and soil- suitable for growing grapes. These I photographed today in my sister´s garden. The grapes in my garden are not quite so matured yet- it probably has to to something with my sisters boosting her vines with nourishing horse manure..

More restoration efforts..

This is one of the loveliest rooms in the old part of the Gotland house. Sunny and with a great view of the lush garden this first part was built in the year of 1900, still with handblown window glasses that "lives" and are a far cry from todays industrial products. Unfortunately, they are totally unisulated as is the whole section of this part of the house. So I close it down for the winter. For this summer though, I made a quick makeover of the rooms with some old stuff I had from before for putting up guests that keep coming. Below is a photo I took of the same room before I bought the house. These are such rewarding excercises and a source of so much joy!

The library in the making..

Lately, I have been working on decorating my new library in the old house. My books which are part of my life as important as old friends had been in the moving crates far too long!
I went to browsing through Gotland´s second hand stores once again and found an old fashioned sofa and easy chair and bookshelves to march. With small means this TV/library room is slowly becoming quite cosy! Below is a picture what the same room looked like before I bought the house!

Sepia portraits..

May I introduce: Edla "Mollis" and Axel Ehrnberg, parents of my paternal grandmother.
An construction engineer, he had been born into one of  Karlskrona´s leading and quite wealthy families, and he was one of the people in charge of surveilling the construction of  the first railway through Sweden, the Stambanan - the principal artery of the railway system all the way from south to north in the last half of the 19th century.
That was quite a distance!

Since the hotels were seldom found in the remote areas in those days, Axel had to put up at various farms en route when on his working missions. At one particular homestead in Jämtland - where he stayed for a long time - he got to know the estate owner´s daughter, Mollis, and fell in love. She was a free, wild girl of the woods who used to ride with flying hair across the estate - which took 7 days to accomplish! A far cry from the corsetted ladies of upper crust Karlskrona in those days. But could the she be tamed this wild girl and moved south to the plush plutocracy of Karlskrona?
He slipped the engagement ring on her finger and left for six years and then he came back for her. Love seemed to have endured and he brought her down south to marry and meet the society of his home town.

I can see her in my imagination, sitting sipping coffee in a beautiful corsetted gown under the measuring glances of the upscale new world around her. She was never to ride again and to this day I wonder how she coped with this transition..
I met her when I was a little girl, when she was very old and widowed, living with my grandma in a huge apartment in Kungsholmen. And here they are, above, she and Axel with a firm grip on to his field glasses, all dressed up and with the traditional backdrop of the photo studio. I think of her off and on and one day I will go north to her farm in Sveg and take a tour of nostalgia. I hope.

This is her daughter - my grandmother - Astrid - in Karlskrona before getting married there to Paul Isberg Sr. Below with her first born (not my father) She had four children. And the well-to-do woman´s choice of monsterhats..

In her old age, she spent her summers in Sandhamn where I grew up, so I got to see quite a lot of my grandma and hear the stories of her untamed mother´s adventures far up in the north in Sweden a long, long time ago. Long before love´s inevitable committments and the restrictions and the absurde hats of another different world put an end to freedom and adventure.
And the feeling of the wind blowing freely through the hair.

Sandhamn - on the the web..

..and dressed in the early signs of fall. The heather in massive bloom, the crisp mornings and the archipelago turning into a new set of colorings. The stillness before the start of inevitable the autumn storms.

The catch of the day..

..the perches of the Baltic in the Stockholm archipleago!
Not bad, hey?

Back in Sandhamn again!

The island is coming to the end of the season - a bit of calming down - and is showing its  most enjoyable side in my opinion. The sea is warm and so is the gentle breeze. The heather is in bloom, and there is a lingering smell of honey over the island´s moorlands. The lingonberries are in glowing red in the underbrush just waiting to get picked.

I have to ride one ferry from Gotland for 3,5 hours to the mainland, take a bus or car to the Stavsnäs outpost some 40 kms from Stockholm and then ride another ferry to the village of the island of Sandhamn (above) and then ride a bike for15 minutes to get to my house here. But you kind of get used to it..
On Saturday we will compete in the Sandhamn Open Tournament in Boule which is one of the high peaks of the season here.

Only the islands inhabitants or people with some connection to the island are allowed compete in this great gathering! The Tournament is traditionally closing with a banquet with prizes and speeches and there is dancing through the night!
The fishing season is peaking too, and there will be fresh turbot on the table tonight caught some days ago by a good friend in the waters close to Sandhamn..

Letting in the light..

Handyman Bosse came in last week and started to tear down a wall
between the living room and the pretty little front porch....

A new front door will be added in a few weeks with a matching window to give the porch a look of a conservatory. "Letting a piece of garden into the living room.." is the idea.

Helping hands..

After a hot summer´s day in Gotland busy working on the house restoration, we took a refreshing break on this decorated beach (all phallos symbols it is widely assumed) with the famous "Jungfrun" in the background, and had some great smoked shrimps with aioli from the little boat house nearby. Immediate rewards are sometimes needed! The renovation miracles take a bit longer!
(Meanwhile, we sold the small Beagle pup below to a nice girl from Uppsala!)