Sandhamn. Weekend remix.

Autumn is almost there..

A strange kind of peace starts settling upon you like some weather proof outfit.. Outdoor activities are traded by indoor occupations at the tune of the rain drumming on the windows accompanied by an unmercyful wind from the restless, greying sea.

So.

Today I brought out the paint brushes. Long time no seen, friends!

And practised on a bit my roses.
I wonder how many of those I have painted over the years in my interior decoration store? On furniture, linens, fabrics and on canvases.. A rose is a rose is a rose..
It worked quite OK so I made this one (see below) from memories of the rooftops of Paris instead.
I always dream of Paris, particularly in the fall-then who doesn´t? To take afternoon tea in Jardin de Luxembourg..
..enjoying the fragrance of the abundance of asters this time of year in this huge garden "très ravissant"..
In this small studio (below) I stayed when the deadly cyclonic windstorm hit Paris 10 years ago. I spent all night fully dressed clasping my passport and handbag by the entrance door rigging all the stuff I could find against the only studio window.
Well that was a night to remember. In the morning when the storm had faded somewhat, I hit the deserted streets of Paris - and was chocked. It looked like Paris had been under a siege.The Seine had overflowed. Huge parts of buildings and balconies had landed on the streets. Broken glass were cracking and scrunching under my feet.
Below is the Paris rooftop painting I made this morning out of memory of the little studio window just before the storm:

A doorway in Paris.
Click for a great Paris blog: Peter´s Paris from which this picture is taken. Makes you long even more..

Hip hip hurray!

Thalia is turning 2 years old today!

September the 2nd, Thalia turns 2 years! It feels just like yesterday you were born and a tiny little baby. (Yes, I was there when you were just a few days old..) Happy birthday my dear grandchild far away over there in the US! I so wish I could be with you on your birthday! Love and kisses from Grandma in Sandhamn!

Photos from today..

..painted in virtual painter!
It is so great!
(Photo above: Paivi M. virtually painted bu me)

And fun to do! And the results are just great!

You can do it in bed with the computer on the blanket. No
wet paint och brushes..

Suites a lazybone like me..

You get a creative urge, take a few pics and start the computer.

These photos are taken in Sandhamn - the island in the Stockholm archipelago.
Please observe there is not a single sailing boat in sight!
(Sandhamn is the sailing centre of Sweden and there is hardly a photo from here without a sailing boat or yacht!)

Les Volets Jaunes..

Goddamit! Today I found a photo of my old summer boarding school in Switzerland on the net:

Les Volets Jaunes (The Yellow shutters) in Chateau d´Oex - near Montreux. Oh memories!

Situated in a beautiful valley near Lake Geneva the Les Volets Jaunes boarding school taught English and French - and manners - to teenagers from all over Europe. School regime was very strict with the boy´s dorm on the upper floor and the girl´s on the lower. "Instructive games" were played at night - well chaperoned by the teachers. BUT we had fun! And we surely learned about languages, each other and... some realities of life:
The French teacher who used to chase the girls down the alp slopes with an Edelweiss stuck behind his ear, happily joodeling!
Towards the end of the term, I could not stand the strict regime anymore - being Swedish and all that - and escaped from the school and hitched down to the Riviera. In a red wide brimmed hat. Being 16 years old. Hm. Adventure started to beacon..

The first thing I did upon hitting St Tropez was to order a Cuba Libre in a bar (early in the morning) and slot a coin into the Juke box to listen to "North to Alaska" sipping my freedom..

Later on this trip, I by accident run into my favourite cousin Bitte in Basel, and we made Europe together until we finally reached Stockholm Central station (we got friendly with a train conductor and managed to hitch another free ride in a sleeping compartment all the way to Copenhagen) our fathers were there (they were brothers) to pick us up! Smiling- but shaking their heads! " Our wild daughters" they seemed to say while they hugged us.. I guess they were happy we were all in one piece.
Anyway, I just found out that Les Volets Jaunes has been transformed to a hotel these days. The bording school days of strict regimes are now gone.
However:
How I would love to go there and check into my old room once more!And to practise a bit of the long forgotten joodeling skills of youth..

Collectables..

..in my Sandhamn cottage. I built the larger house in the outpost of the Stockholm archipelago back in 1991. Over the years and after many trips near and afar there are now quite a few items gathered in the house that sparks one or two memories..
The America clock was bought locally in a Stockholm antique shop and was provided by me with a nose, a mouth on the pendulum and a gleaming eye..

This putty I once found totally broken on a garbage dump. I fell in love with the little baby Jesus and spent some time mending and painting it. He is now attached to a secure snow boot from the Canadian army.

"We are in the village"..(as opposed to "gone fishing" when you turn it over) ..I painted on a piece of driftwood..

A long piece of driftwood with rusty nails serves as hat stand..

Peter Rabbit in porcelain has traded mr McGregor´s garden for my living room. Safer there..

The lovely kite I bought in Lombook, Indonesia.

Well. Yeah. That was a night in Paris to remember..

This little fellow I had a hard time leaving behind on the Jaipur market, India. Just had to bring him home. Here is has settled in the windy archipelao playing his little sad tones on his bag pipe. I sometimes wonder if he misses the hot Jaipur nights and his missus.
(They came in pairs..)

This grim prince has been with me for many years now. I think I picked him up in Vera Cruz, Mexico, when I lived there a long time ago. He watches over me still.

The old wall medical cupboard that still smells heavily of camphor, I picked up at a market in Juan-les-Pines on the Riviera. The "old" dolls are replicas and I sold a lot of those in my former boutique "Village Corner".

Lanterns, and old ship model and a box camera that I picked up in Harare, Zimbabwe. A lot of people left that country (rightly so it turned out!) when Mugabe came into power and they in turn left great many antiques behind that they were not able to carry. I arrived in the country at that time 1982 - but did not have any money to buy many these antique bargains. However some old cameras I was able to afford..

Old tools and a masai necklace I was given my the Masai at one of their biannual meetings on a sacred hill in northern Tanzania. I went to this event with the (then) Minister of Interior in Tanzania and could thus attend - not being Masai. The Masai tribes gathered here from all over the East African region preforming all kinds of rites. As a greeting one of the Chiefs spat me right in the face. A token of his esteem! And I got the necklace with the hanging beads symbolizing my marital status. A fair compensation!

Going hipstamatic..

Yes. I bought a new IPhone.( The old one was beyond repair). And downloaded the Hipstamatic application at once. It is great to experiment with the various lenses and films it provides..

Upon returning to Sandhamn, I found these prints of my little grandchild´s small feet..
..left for me on the cottage table. The just had to go into a silver frame I happened to have at home!

The roses on my old cottage table..And the old coffee grinder in the background. Fits well with the old fashioned photo technique..

And here is a photo of the Sandhamn harbour from a few days ago - looking like it was taken in the 50´s with my old box camera! (The photos called temporarily for another, older font to match - Times. Pity Blogger only have so few of those to chose from..)

Today, we went Medieval in Visby:

But before we took off to join the festivities we shot some pics of Sis and me rigged up as Middle Age maidens. :-) !!
The slide show was made by my brother in law Mats and was shot in the old blacksmith´s house at my sister´s and his farm at Lugnet. This oldest house on the farm is like a museum and contains a number of old, marvellous paraphernalia.

Nostalgica..

Once in a while I get a bit tired of digital photograhy.

I then found a way to experiment with another form of photography - the old fashioned way.
It seems to be very right for the moment: you´ll find those "yellowing" pictures turning up off and on in blogs and web pages. Here are four versions of old fashioned "analogue" photography experiments I made from the very same Sandhamnrose - a new Dawn.

The pics were taken with an apps I had downloaded on to my new IPhone.
Quite fun it is (was!) and with good results too - I find!

However, the new phone with its great camera dived into the cold water at high sea when I was riding an open boat a week ago and the IPhone is no more. (I have not quite gotten over the loss yet!) All that is left are the experiments with the old fashioned pictures of the sweet smelling roses I had downloaded to the computer. Like old book markers they are - the ones you used to trade with your little girlfriends around the age of 10...
Remember?

Beach findings..

The vast beaches of Gotland are covered with an abundance of fossils. Here are a few which I picked yesterday on a nearby beach..

In fact the entire island of Gotland is built from fossils. Of these petrified animals we know about 1.500 different species trilobites on this island. They are about 400 million years old!

I just wonder just what these small creatures from the beginning of creation really are ..

Ancestors of plankton, shrimps, mussles , corals and crawfish?

Most probably.

In the old days the long Silurian period was in as a matter of fact called Gotlandikum!
Orthoceratites
The last two photos by Bernt Enderborg at Gute Info