The last bouquet?

The beginning of fall with stormy winds had been upon us the last couple of days.

 On Gotland those winds sweeping over the flat island are especially nasty. Just before it started, I collected probably the last flowers of the garden -or "My Park" as I cheerfully like to call it - tongue-in-cheek.
It is amazing that there are still so many varieties of beautiful flowers around in October! So here I give to you a little bouquet of a Gotland summer still hanging on..

Visby on a sunny afternoon..

 ..in the end of September. The tourist season is over. There is still a feeling of the sun drenched warmth of summer in the cobblestoned, peaceful streets.
The Yellow House Café is a favourite place with a small walled garden with lavendel plants and fig trees, home baked bread and pastries and a warm and cheerful staff.

The garden of the Yellow Café. Madeleine, Heléne och Nena can be spotted at the table in the back munching Gotland pastries.

The sign on this pretty door´mail box reads in Swedish:
"No ads or scrap mail - preferably loveletters only!"

 

 

The famous roses of  Visby are everywhere..

 

  The roses of Visby´s Botanical Gardens are magnificient this time of year.

Young love on a "Monet" bridge in the Botanical gardens

Below: The marvellous "Falu Rödfärg" traditional paint..

Afternoon light and an old house painted in the most common type of exterior paint in Sweden. It is inexpensive, easy to apply, organic and has a great preservative effect! And it is pretty and even smells good of the linseed oil and soft soap mixture..

Decorating with silk flowers..

Today, I was happy to find a basket full of candle-rings of various silk flowers in all shapes and sizes at a flea market in Visby, and paid an astonishing four dollars for the lot!

And I had no idea what to do with them at that point..just had to have them! When I got back home I spread them on the floor pondering upon how to make the best use of them.

  Half an hour later this is where most of them ended up!

 

  How easy wasn´t it to thread them on to an old curtain wire I found at home..
And I assembled them rather tightly as you can se from this close-up.
I know this pretty flowery festoon will please me immensely, especially when the winter storms start whipping the windows in a few months.

 

The remainder of the candle-rings ended up here along the edge of a wrought iron lamp in the kitchen.

Those had of course to be cut open before attachment..
This is an idea I bluntly stole from my sister who has a great arrangement ..

 

..like this in her big country kitchen.

Snow White´s apple?

 

 Today. Lina found this beautiful apple in the garden..

 

I just had to take a few pictures of its exceptional and strange beauty..
I figure that if I take a big bite of this strange fruit, I will promptly fall asleep and subsequently wake up by the sweet kiss of a Gotland prince..

You never know..

Produce from the neighbourhood..

 Fall is in the making and it is time to take care of the rich supply of produce of our immediate surroundings..

 

Yesterday I preserved some of the garden´s pears in ginger and dark rum.
Next to the jar are the lovely chanterelles!

 

  My daughter and her husband - both great cooks! - are visiting and last night they were unpacking a late wedding gift: An Alessio espresso brewer ..

 

Lina is preparing the marvellous dessert based on the apples from the garden.

 

  Pontus is frying the chanterells from to go with the freshly fished cod from the Baltic nearby..

 

Everything on the dinner plate from last night is produced in the immediate neighbourhood. Only the wine came from South Africa. My own grapes in the garden are far from ripe unfortunately. Will they be before winter?
This is my first year on the farm and there are so many things to find out and discover as the seasons turns..
This morning, the fisherman knocked on my door quite early asking if I would like to buy some flounders! Oh do I feel priviledged to live on Gotland!
A nice and culinary weekend to you all!

Itching..

..to take off again..
A few months have passed since I was riding on this train from Napoli to Rome reading about Yoko and taking the views of the countryside from the express train..

 

I am slowly getting that all too familiar itch again. It is a bit disturbing.. Can cause rashes they say! :-)

 

This is on the ferry Capri-Napoli last July.

 

  Vesuvius in a distance..

 Relaxing with friends at the bustling railway station in Napoli waiting for the train to take us to Rome.

And all its goodies..

Markets..

Art in every shop window..
Yes, a disturbing travel itch is rapidly approaching quite like an express train between Napoli and Rome. You know the feeling?

With fall approaching..

 ..lots of preparations have to be made for the oncoming winter season..

Some of them rather more tedious and tiresome than others..

But you sure will enjoy them when the snow storms of January are raging. I have to put absorbent cotton wool between the window panes to stop humidity - in the old fashioned way.

And others a bit more fun and inspiring..

I found this big IKEA mirror on the community garbage dump when I was getting rid of old boxes and stuff the other day. I quickly threw it into the boot of the car and went home and cleaned it, and since I happened to have this pretty border at home and the proper paperhanger's paste...
This is the result! It turned out quite nicely, I think - and cost absolutely nothing!

And today I have bought a mulberry tree! I have now to find this little expensive
"Morus Nigra"   a proper spot in the garden facing south and well out of the persistent Gotland winds..

Blackberries and dewberries..

..are ripening en masse in the woods. Or brambles as I think the blackberries are also called. In Gotland , you will also find "Salmbär" (in the local lingo) or Dewberries (Rubus sect. Eubatus) that are a group of species closely related to the blackberries. They are small brambles with berries reminiscent of the rasberry but are usually purple to black instead of red.

Salmbär jam is served with the famous Gotland saffron pancake..

So now I have a big pot on the stove and their gorgeous smell fills the house..
The saffron pancake is a fuller variation of pancake made of a porridge on rice, cinnamon, saffron, almonds. What you do is to mix the cinnamon, saffron, with sugar with whole cream , beat the eggs and then mix with the main part of the chopped almonds into the rice porridge, add the rest of the almonds on top and then bake it in the oven at 225C for about 30 minutes.
Serve with whipped cream and jam.
 
2 dl almonds

0.10 g saffron (2 packages)

3 tablespoons sugar
halv a teaspoon vanilla 

1,5 dl whole cream
3 eggs
1 liter of rice porridge

butter for the baking dish

Yummy - particularly now when the days here are getting cooler and crisper..

Getting to know thy neighbours..

 

Today I was cordially invited to the Lummelunda parish sewing circle. I have never, I mean never, attended a sewing circle in my whole life. All kinds of circles, yes, but no way near any with needles and yarn..

 

This was a great opportunity however, I figured, to get to know a bit of your community. These great ladies informed me - tongue in cheek - that the average age in the circle was about 82 years. (Made me feel so young!) I felt quite welcome in this jolly circle in spite of the fact that I hade informed them that I would never ever do any embroidery or sewing efforts whatsoever. I promised however, to do other kinds of charity work like to collect for the maintenance of our pretty church..

..and to help in raising funds for poor people in the Baltic state of Lettland. (One of our neighbouring countries in the Baltic deep in economic crises after the falling of the global financial markets..)

Pretty things they did these ladies..

 

Our parish vicar, Timo Viinikka, in a stylish golden west, paid a visit and helped himself to a piece of the yummy sandwich cake and talked about the forthcoming church auction.

"The porridge makers" ..
Well in time for Christmas - a typical Swedish theme in this piece of hanging tapestry..

A cross-stiched hedgehog - an animal quite common in Gotland. Not the cross-stiched type though.

Gunnel,  who grew up on the farm where I now live and has become a good friend of mine, is admiring a great piece of traditional embroidery on linen.

It was great to get to know these jolly ladies -  many of whom turned out to be related- with such a deep knowledge about their home district to share and I - the newcomer in the community - had a marvellous time - needles or no needles!