Gotland presented itself..

..from its sunny best around midsummer when most of Sweden had quite lousy weather..

The old crowd I met in Nicaragua some years ago when I stayed in Managua for a month came together in Gotland for midsummer. We payed a visit to the small fishing port of Lickershamn where they have a great shop for smoked fish and shrimps. Here are Don Oscar - who used to work as a driver for the Swedish embassy in Managua and took me on many trips around Nicaragua -and Eva who was our former ambassador in the Nicaragua. Eva is presently stationed as Sweden´s ambassador in Chile.

Bo, Pia, Oscar and Eva in Lickershamn, Sunday. We are all great Nicaragua-friends..

Lickershamn fishing boat.

Sunday dinner. Dessert. Strawberries, melons and peonies.

Old beauty..

The cornflowers start mingling with the poppies in my neighbouring midsummer field..

Iran: It´s building..

Analysis
Jon Leyne, BBC News, Tehran:

"The opposition is keeping up the pressure. On the other side
I get the impression the government hasn't really worked out
a comprehensive response, instead they're sort of harassing
the opposition.
There have been more arrests of opposition
figures - not the most senior leaders, but still pretty well-known
names. They've been sending in their thugs, basically, their militia,
to attack student dormitories, and they've been arresting journalists.
At the moment, there's absolutely no sign of loss of momentum, in fact it's building."

What this election result has unleashed is just a deep frustration,
an anger that I've certainly sensed in the two years I've lived here.
People are so frustrated and angry with the system, which seems to
treat them with contempt.

"It is not easy being green.."

Lummelunda is poppy red.. June 16th, 2009

As time goes by...

Soon now, in Capri..

..we have this wedding coming up.. My daughter Lina and her longtime fiancée,Pontus,are getting married on the
2 of July at San Michele! Oh joy!

The Blue Grotto, Capri

Thalia in Washington June 2009.

Soon she will be on her first flight to Europe and travel to San Michele,
Capri where we finally will meet again at auntie Lina´s wedding in Italy!

The Siren´s cliffs, Capri - from which they used to lure the poor sailors by their songs to navigate far too close to these impressive rocks and wreck their ships ..Once I lived for some weeks as a scolar at San Michele, Anacapri, and I can tell you that this island is not only one of the most romantic islands in the world, but also an island with a astonishing and sometimes both decadent and brutal, long, long history..

Blue egg falls..

Yesterday, I found this beautiful diminutive blue egg shell that had crash landed after a fall from my gutter.

It had landed and cracked open on one of my limestone slabs placed in the garden. I had no clue on who produced such a beautiful egg. The garden is a heaven for all kinds of species of birds since ther are an abundance of wetlands in the vecinity. Must have been a very small bird though..

Consulting my computer and Wikipedia, I found that it must have been a European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), or, in Anglophone Europe, simply Robin, is a small insectivorous passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae), but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher (Muscicapidae). Around 12.5–14.0 cm (5.0–5.5 in) in length, the male and female are similar in colouration, with an orange breast and face lined with grey, brown upperparts and a whitish belly. It is found across Europe, east to Western Siberia and south to North Africa; it is sedentary in most of its range except the far north.

The term Robin is also applied to some unrelated birds with red breasts. These include the American Robin (Turdus migratorius), which is a thrush, and the Australian red robins of the genus Petroica, which are more closely related to crows.
Well, it became very clear that I just have to put up some more birdhouses in my garden to prevent my delicate cohabitants from nesting in my narrow gutters and from taking blue egg falls like this!

A tune that stuck to your mind for decades..

Out of order..and cyber sweating..

Something´s failed as to the access to my blog lately. It s been driving my almost crazy not to be able to log in. It´s been quite frustrating and the feeling has been that of a squash ball bouncing to and fro between the walls..user names..user accounts, upload new versions, check mails för temporary shutdowns etc.

So I almost gave up and decided that I was done with blogging. And THEN!! Oh! I saw the LIGHT! Halleluja! I found the passwords to log into the new mail, that gave me the new passwords to the accounts that gave me new user names to the blog...and on and on

So I will just test publish for the moment this favorite photo of mine (from the archipelago outside Sandhamn that I took some years ago) that kind of brings me distance and harmony! Quite needed after this debacle!

So this is just: TESTING, TESTING --no yet over and out..

I will now raise from the computer and step out into the beautiful garden (it is still cold here like November!) and breathe the crisp air and the strong smells from all the lilacs and stop thinking "cyber!" for a while..

And to you dear blog followers..thanks for your patience.

Well this calls for this one : ( Like my old friend Tore Z used to say when things occationally got out of hand)

"You can`t be perfect all the time!" :-)

Early Monday morning..

..the small harbour of Sandhamn is calm and quite beautiful and I wait with my good friend Paivi - who gave me a smooth ride to the village on her electrical moped - on the jetty for the ferry to take me back to the mainland.

And after a night ride on yet another ferry I am back in my house in Gotland. In the morning after some hours sleep, I walk around in my nightie in the garden amazed over the turn it has taken.

I feel I am walking in paradise in the midst of the heavy smells of allt the various kinds of lillies and peonies in all colors.The fruit trees are all in bloom..

A bouquet is picked that will fill the house with the loveliest smells..

The early morning sun ..

..filters through the trees..

..and the rape fields in a distance are a glowing yellow..

Whitsuntide in Sandhamn..

..in the Stockholm archipelago. Marvellous summer it is and the island is visited by 1000´s of day-tourists - here trying to get on the Cinderella ferry back to the mainland on Sunday at 13.00.

Today, I found new inhabitants in my barrel in the garden. They were five newly hatched great tits constantly hollering for food. Their mother is loosing a few feathers being busy tending to her demanding kin. I know the mother quite well - she is quite tame and likes sometimes to sit on my shoulder when I read in the garden. I will leave some cheese for her before I leave tomorrow..

My porch in the early morning hours. The sea can be seen through the pines. This is one of my favourite places in the whole world. I love to get up around 5 o´clock in the morning and watch the sunrise over the sea. And to have a nice little cup of tea with honey and lemon.
And to listen to the sounds of the great variety of birds of the archipelago.
Quality time...

A friend, who lives here all year round, is tending her garden down in the little pictoresque village, donning a great red hat to protect from the blazing Sunday sun.

My good friend Paivi can´t wait to have a nibble from the freshly baked bread outside the Sandhamn bakery..

Anders is the island baker of many years. His is also a great artist and boule player and acting as an extra in a Swedish film presently being shot on the island. Almost the entire island is involved in this film which will show events that took place here in the 70´s. So everybody living here are signed up as extras and running around with long false whiskers and tobacco brown suits and ugly glasses.
Here he is relaxing after a long baking day commencing at 4.00 AM in the morning..
Tomorrow, I will leave the island of my childhood and head for Gotland. There is a garden to attend to down in the southern part of the Baltic! The ferry woun´t be as crowded Monday morning and it will take one hour through the archipelago to the mainland. Then I will get on another ferry in the evening for 3,5 hours to travel to the more distant island of Gotland. I guess I will be rather finished when I arrive at my house down there around 1 o´clock at night. But it is summertime and the nights are so bright this time of year here in Scandinavia. Not a big deal to stay up late, really..