It´s early morning..

..December 2nd. The full moon which woke me up in the middle of the night with a full blazing light show through my bedroom window is saying goodbye and sinking slowly behind the horizon. The wakening sky is painted in intense cobalt..

 

The timers for the Xmas lights now turns on around the house..

 The little neighbouring church which is illuminated during the dark season has now switched off its comforting night illuminations .

And there is a need for flowers. The morning sky is so very blue just before sunrise. In the evening the Frenc call it "L´heure bleue" - do they have a name for the same stage in the mornings? I wonder.

 

This candelabra below I bought yesterday in the fleamarket organized by Gotland´s Home for stray cats, for equv. 8 dollars! Soooo happy with it! (I caught a small stray cat the other night with the help of a cat trap from the Cat Home. The small cat  had been hanging around my garden all summer, hungry and a stomac full of worms. When I caught her, I found out she was pregnant. She is now happily installed in my sister´s stable, dewormed, not hungry anymore and tucked into a warm basket with a Gotland sheep fur. She slowly learns to purr and gradualy getting acquainted with all the horses in her new home. We named her "Spinett" after a beloved cat my grandma once had a long time ago. I will visit her today and see how she fares. Will bring the camera and post some pics of the little-mother-to-be. And then later, of the kittens!)

 The moon disappears and here comes the sun!

 

Have a great December the 2nd everyone! I am off for the kitchen downstairs for some polenta porridge with home made apple sauce. Blogging makes U hungry!

There he was..

..a handless Bobby Kennedy behind bars squeezed between one of the guarding wolves of Rumulus and Remus and Michelangelo´s ever mourning Pietá. I found him in the marble town Pietrasanta, in Tuscany a few years back. In spite of being surrounded by famous philosophers and other historic gigants made from the white Carrarra marble, this sight of him was a bit chocking in a strange way. Poor Bobby. Where will you end up? In a rich Roman´s garden? Will they eventually add your  hands?

I saw Bobby four days before he was shot. Suntanned, waving with both hands and grinning from the back of an open campaign van in Oakland, California. Healthy and alive. A lot of hopes for the future was pinned to Bobby in this era of the Vietnam war.
I remember he was so close I could have reached out an arm and touched him.

And then, four days later:

Bhopal, mon amour - 25 years have passed..

25 years ago one of the worst human/environmental disasters the word has known,occurred.

 On December 3, 1984, more than 27 tons of poisonous gases leaked from a storage tank at a Union Carbide pesticide factory into the heart of Bhopal city, immediately killing 8,000 people.On that day soon 25 years ago, nearly half a million people were exposed to poisonous methyl isocyanate during a runaway chemical reaction at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal . Since then, more than 22,000 people have died and 150,000 survivors continue to be chronically ill, as the Indian government and Dow (Union Carbide's owner) have repeatedly failed to address their liabilities for the atrocities of the world’s worst industrial disaster. Survivors and their children continue to suffer long-term health effects ranging from cancer and tuberculosis to birth defects and chronic fevers. Multiple studies have found mercury, nickel and other toxins in the local groundwater and dangerous levels of toxins including lead in the breast milk of women who live near the factory zone.


Most of the current generation doesnt even know or remember what happened here nearly 25 years ago. What is harder to imagine is that, after all of these years, second and third generations of Bhopali children are still being poisoned by toxins left at the factory that have been steadily seeping into their water supply. There are still children being born without lips, noses or ears. Sometimes complete hands are missing. Women have severe reproductive problems.

Let´s not forget Bhopal, mon amour..ever.

Sunday..

..brings us "Dimanche à Bamako" a trailer with Amadou & Mariam of Sénégal Fast Food. I have a great need for their music right now before the Jingle Bell season sets in..and found this trailer on Youtube.
Enjoy a "Sunday in Bamako" by the Niger in Mali - a country I have long been dying to visit. I keep making fake visits there on Google Earth over and over again. So this will have to do for the moment:

 

Sénégal Fast Food:




Some of my own film clips from Africa - like the great wedding dance (Rwanda) can be viewed on my travel site on Reseguiden.se

A favourite picture..

..I took some years ago of my sweet niece a beautiful summer day in Gotland at my sister´s farm long before I bought my own house here. Sis had been growing rhubarbs of which I picked a huge leaf and asked little Stella to sit down on it and pretend to be Thumbelina (Tummelisa) from the lovely fairy tale by H C Andersen. This she did and I took the photo and later placed it on top of another photo taken in Sandhamn of the glittering summer sea out there in the archipelago. And then I merged them together in PhotoShop. I was so happy with the result above! It actually looks like she is floating on water the way Tummelisa/Tiny did in the famous saga.
 
"Thumbelina" (Danish: Tommelise) is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a thumb-sized girl and her many adventures before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size. "Thumbelina" is mainly Andersen's invention, although he did take inspiration from tales of miniature people such as "Tom Thumb". . The earliest English translation of "Thumbelina" is dated 1846. The tale has been adapted to various media including song and animated film:

"When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. "

 (The classic saga illustrated by Elsa Beskow.)

"This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower. "

Tummelisa in a garden i Denmark

More Photo shop interpretations of Thumbelina.
The talented Dutch artist Sarah Haras´  painting "The toad kept Thumbelina captured on a lily leaf."

 Don Bluth´s animated film on Thumbelina, part 1

November in Gotland..

 ..is a true bliss! The old chestnut tree outside my bathroom window turns into gold..

 

..and the low rays of a bleak sun turns the living room a glowing yellow. The sun now starts to set around 3.30 PM! The "candle" season has started!

 

It is time for some clearing of the rich hazelbush vegetation in the back of the garden.

 

And to collect the last winter apples - the delicious Ingrid Maries. I wrap them in newspaper and store them in the barn and they will last for months.

  Last night we held the annual charity auction in our parish at Lummelunda.

 

 Coffee, cookies and a happy priest whose bid landed him two decoration pillows (made by the "apron lady") . My sister with her back to the camera..

..an experienced auction goer - landed a number of pretty things for her Xmas tables at her farm nearby.

Mårbacka geranium in bloom. This is one of the favourite geraniums of the Swedes. Old fashioned, pale pink and very very pretty and said to derive from Selma Lagerlöf´s 

(author of Nils Holgersson) homestead of "Mårbacka"

Great animal prints to yearn for..

A gentleman and a decorated Bengal tiger general pompously posing for this monumental portrait that will eventually be hanged in the Tiger Palace Board room in Eastern Bengal.  

(All silly comments are mine)

The gentleman cheetah has obviously "been around" and lost one amber colored eye - maybe on one of his long dangerous missions in the Indian Ocean of which he rarely speaks. Especially the pirate hunting sessions outside the Puntland coast..

The famous meercat Red Baron, the most successful flying ace of the Imperial German Army Air Service during World War I, stylishly groomed for the sitting of this impressive "preussian" portrait.

I found these great humorous animal prints on:

..and just loved them! Click on logo to see more!

Grey November days,..

.and there is a almost a desperate need for vivid colors!

And balls and parties! And pretty dresses! (Click on painting to see entire picture)

Turmoil in a doll´s house..

It did not take long to realize that he new nanny  in the old doll´s house rather preferred to play the grand piano naked than to engage in the training of the baby on the chamber pot! She took every chance she could.. One day, the master of the house came back from the office earlier than expected and sneeked into the living room and sat down trying to get a grip on the situation..

 Things are getting complicated in the little doll´s house when the mistress of the household turns up looking for her piece of crochet work and finds her husband moaningly admiring the living room scene and the baby happily wetting the floor..

 

The end. The shake-up.
The the dyllic little dollhouse in the countryside is lost in irreparable turmoil...

Three pictures from my niece´s old fashioned doll´s house in Gotland in the state it was found  when I photographed it a few years back. And sparked this mini story in my mind. I wonder if she has put things straight by now when a few years have passed? Or maybe she (now 11 years old) is not interested in dolls any more and the nanny is still there on the cold floor kicking? Legs in the air? And is the baby still wetting the living room floor?

Pictures posing a lot of philosophical questions..

These  minibabies are frequently called "the marzipane babies!"

 I found these amazing creations and a few other artistic food expressions..

 

..on the link Break4Fun

 

 However: One comment to these baby pics states the following: "These babies are NOT made of marzipan. They are polymer clay sculptures by an artist named Camille Allen."
I feel relieved. Not marzipane. Cannot eat. Pjuuh.
Camille is only 25 years old. Her dolls are exhibited in museums sells all over the world.

How about sleeping in a Sandwich Bed?

Or plunging your dough into a bacon wallet?
Cannot eat?

The link also features the designer David Blazquez who use the nude human body as furniture: book shelve, bed, dining table, sofa, lamp, bathtub…

The amazing human bookshelf.

 

David Blazquez human ironing board.

Check out more of his artistic human expressions here.