A marvel of compact living in Hongkong:

Medieval Week on Gotland Aug 8th-15th 2010

Photo above: The Medieval week´s Official webpage

The Medieval Week on Gotland Aug 8th-15th 2010 is soon on!

For a week now..

..people in Gotland will live in a true Medieval ambiance.

And travel 600 years back in time..
In a journey in time and space!

We will go back in time with the medieval markets and music, theater and lectures in Visby´s old town and surroundings. Knights will clash in tournaments...

During eight days in August 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.

Medieval preparations are taking place all over - here in one of the old church ruins in Visby.
A mixture of sobriety and merriment, education and festivities. The week incorporate music, dance and theatre performed by many different artists and groups.
These are photos I took last year..
..when I was wearing a Medieval garb like above. Which I had borrowed. This year I´ll wear my new Medieval dress that looks like this:
And here are some dresses from last year´s tayloring efforts :
My sister to the left.
And this is a setting truly fit for a knight and all the fair maidens!

Time to be picky! And to make a cell phone casket...

Back in Gotland, harvest time is on. My sister and I left Sandhamn yesterday and spent the 3 hour ferry ride across the water playing the great game of Carcassonne on her IPad! She is back after sailing the Caledonian Canal in Scotland on to Skye where she bought her IPad - the gadget has nor yet reached Sweden. I am dying to get one myself!

Meanwhile, I´ll have to do with starting to pick the berries of my garden. This is today´s harvest. And, since my new IPhone was drenched by a wave in foul weather when I was riding an open boat in the archipelago Saturday, this is what I am trying do do to this dead, drenched cell phone:
Into an absorbent damp eater casket called "Torrbollen" (The "dry ball" in Swedish) it goes! Looks a bit like a cell phone funeral to me. A Dead, Departed, Deseased, Expired Ex-IPhone!
A Done with cellphone:

And of course I don´t have any insurance for the drowning of the IPhone. I have all kinds of more or less absurd insurance coverages - "clearing the debrie if the old barn should burn to the ground" etc. "hitting a one-legged priest while riding my bike after eating cherry cake" And other similar unbelievable stunts.
But no insurance for an IPhone being drenched in the high seas riding an open boat in a rolling, heavy sea? No. A life line to the world! (How studid can you get?) Small text.
So here I am on Gotland with the dead cell phone in a casket, singing a little tune - hymn? to myself - an extraordinary undertaking while gobbling rasberries at the same time. Any insurance for rasberry choking anyone?

The New York Times: Focus on Gotland!

Visby at sunset (Photo: Pia Ehrenpreis)

Yesterday, The New York Times run this piece on Gotland in its Travel Section:

"A Swedish Island for Respite or Revelry:"

"A CURIOUS thing has happened in the Baltic Sea. The Swedish island of Gotland — a singular, sparsely populated place — has become a magnet for two disparate groups: party-crazed club youths who unleash Champagne showers inside neon-lighted nightclubs,
and stressed-out solace-seekers who retreat into the island’s untamed wilderness.
It is a strange dichotomy, and one that is becoming ever more acute.
Gotland, the largest island in the Baltic Sea, lies about 60 miles off the southeastern coast of Sweden. Its geographical size is comparable to Long Island’s, but with a year-round population of less than 60,000, the island is largely undeveloped. Within 10 minutes of leaving Visby, the only sizable town on the island, an idyllic landscape dotted with rustic cottages and rural farmhouses starts to unfold."
The NYT Slideshow on Gotland.
The NYT article here.

Ha, finally Gotland is placed on the map by NYT! I am now soon due back to my rustic cottage and rural farmhouses in the idyllic landscapeof this largely undeveloped island!
And the summer harvest! Oh joy!

Alice M..

..is a young artist, graphic designer and photographer

..who spent her summers here in Sandhamn

..where her parents has a house close to the big beach.

The "M" stands for Murray by the way..

I have seen a lot of artistic expressions of the light and shadows staging their special all-year-around-shows over this particular island, but I dare say that Alice has an outstanding eye for catching the harsh contrasts and sometimes very hard light of the shadows of the sustainable pine trees.

Alice M is studying and working in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

I love this water painting !!
From LA dream. Photos by Alice Murray.
Today, Alice Murray opened her first exhibition here on Sandhamn.
Her artworks were all pinned to her beloved pinetrees!
See more: Her web page is here.

The youngest on the island so far..

And here she is our little princess - two weeks old. Welcome!
The fifth generation and by far the youngest member of the family "to set fot on Sandhamn" ever. I was around one year when I first arrived here, and took my first steps on the village jetty. Thalia arrived fromthe US when she was almost one year ... so this must the family record. Seemingly quite captured by the sound of the sea and the sunlight playing trough the green foliage she seems very content to be here!

Yesterday´s summer photos in golden frames..

Homo Insulani, indeed!

Summer footage!
Barbeque and wine - an evening at Lökholmen..

- an island with a sheltered harbour some 5 minutes from Sandhamn, with all facilities for every sailor. And of course, nice, cosy resturant,too.

Sailor´s footage!
Now, being a full time island dweller (Gotland and Sandhamn), I have now been categorized a true Homo Insulensis! Isn´t that just great!!!

Every year, I have a wonderful accumulation of black birds in my archipelago garden!
The nest is always built on the same secure spot by one of the guest houses. I feed the busy mother fruit occationally and there is always fresh water for her so she does not have to fly very far from her sleepy brood! This year, I found five chicks in her nest. Their older brothers and sisters from passed clutches are serenading me through the summer days. The black bird seems to be quite stationary I am happy to discover..

And so it goes..

A happy Grandad Dag bonding with little" princess-of-no-name yet".
She looks quite like a little doll and she is soon due here on the island to see her Grandma and to enjoy the healthy air and environment of the Stockholm archipelago.
She will now be the 5th generation of the family on this island!
Maybe, in a year or so, she will take her first steps on Sandhamn -just like her Grandma did many years ago!
"And so it goes," as Kurt Vonnegut states in his beloved novel "Slaughterhouse-Five".
So it goes -on and on- generation after generation..

"Sommar" is Summer in Swedish!

Days are hot - a heat wave is hitting Sweden for the moment and temperatures soar to above 30 C! Quite unusual for this northern country. Needless to say, the beaches on the island are now over crowded! However, a stony beach near my house ( from where I have been plunging into the sea ever since I was a child) does not attract the day tourists and are often void of all the fuzz and buzz of the white, silky white-sand beaches ( of which the island is famous !) not far from here.
So there is where we spend the hot days of summer bobbing and frolicking around in the waves. The stones are soft and warm and I found a pretty one and brought home.
One one side I texted with my permanent marker: " Oh, please, turn me over.."
On the other side: "Phjew, that was nice!" :-)
This photo was taken by my friend and neighbour Anita Strömberg with her mobile camera.
I think her picture has it all..