Happy Birthday, Pontus!

Many happy returns on your birthday today, dear son-in-law, Pontus, with a big bundle of flowers!
You very first year as a father!
Niki Isabella and her loving father Pontus!
On Grandma´s porch July 2010.

Trouville, Sandhamn last summer.

Soo close you are from the very start!
Hip hip hurrah and have a great year Pontus!

Love is in the air..

Some days ago, I went with my sister to pick up bags of carrots for her carrot-loving horses. I bought a heavy sack for myself to make juice to deep freeze and to make the new favourite: Carrot mousse! (cook pieces like potatoes, add whole cream some salt and pepper and mix to a mash. Delicious! And healthy too - now when we live in the:

"Real-fat-is-IN-era."

This naughty couple was among the carrots I was going to peel today - April Fool´s Day,

and I couldn´t bring myself to kill their cuddly, shy spring love! He really looked like he was making a good pass at her! Had to share! Before the peel-kill!
(And.. give me credit for NOT adding talking bubbles here! Hard to resist though! Could have turned out a bit indecent! )
This is for great laughters! The involuntary "manslaughters" of Autocorrect messaging!
Click here for more!
Have a great April Fool´s day!

Thalia..

..with teeth.

Miss her soooo!

Liz departed:

Funny. My first reaction on yesterday´s news of actress Elizabeth Taylor´s death at the age of 79 was:
"Oh, my, now she is going to meet Burton again! Heaven will never be the same!"
Thank you Liz for all the unforgettable moments you have given to the world through movies, stages, charities and glossy magazines!
The world will never be the same!

Time for the making of Easter eggs!

Yesterday´s production!
I try so hard to make them look like this:
:-)

My criminal past?

All of a sudden, a piece of paper unexpectedly falls out of an old book that had obviously not been read for ages. My very first driver´s licence obtained in Mexico City in the 60´s!

I can´t believe it:

It is me on the photo, dark dyed hair in a Farah Diba hairdo soooo very fashionable in those days! And the name! They -the authorities-had to provide me with a typical Mexican name in order for me to be able to obtain a provisional "Permiso para manejar"
So ..this is the story how I suddenly became married to a certain "Perez!"

And the authorities did that!
I took driving lessons in Mexico City (NOT easy!) for a great old lady who could be cut out of a Oscar Lewis "Children of Sanchez" literary casting. She was a sole provider of a huge family of children, her business went well though and she had bought a plot in the outsskirts of Mexico DF where she was building a big house. In digging the grounds for the projected building they came across heaps of Aztec artefacts which they - as unfortunately is all too common in many developing countries - refrained from reporting to the the authorities.
Who would have stopped the building project.
OK.
As a farewell present from this colorful lady, I got a small Aztec object dug up from her grounds - a little jar with a grinning face - which I subsequently smuggled out of the country hidden among my hair rollers. (Shame!) An object which has become so dear to me. (Not the rollers!) And I guess I was too young/innocent/naive to realise this deploring act in those days!
And..I really wanted the little jar! (Greed takes it´s toll!)
Nor did I realise that later, in applying for my Californian driver´s licence, I had to tick a column saying "Did you ever apply for a driver´s licence under a false namn?"
Oh. Perez!
No, I never met him! But I figure he might have looked something like this!
Well, I will never know but the guy very much has the face of my grinning Aztec jar!
It all ties up, doesn´t it?

The spitting image of self..

Niki Isabella and the discovery of this very interesting person in the mirror..
"Now repeat after me.."

"How does this really work?" I wonder.

"Strange this little hand. A spitting image of mine!"

"There are so many things I really don´t understand. Why are they having such a great time, Mom and Dad??"
(Photos: Lina/Pontus Bjurner Ehrenpreis)

Yesterday I found them..

..the very first spring flowers in the garden! Oh joy! They carry a sweet subtle smell of
oncoming bliss! Soon all the snow will have melted away and the garden will be covered by the yellow winter aconites with a mix-in by snowdrops. The latter are of a beautiful double kind planted many years ago by the family who lived here for generations.
Yesterday, I heard the first blackbird warble -a bit subdued -but still..

This beautiful song I found onYoutube could get anyone into a good mode!
Will probably bore you with many posts on spring progress from now on!

I have been struggling..

..with this oil painting for quite a while now :

A memory from a Paris´cafe.
It is now in a stage when it will run the risk of becoming over worked and I will leave it for a while.
This was a true exercise in "capturing light!"
(How on earth did the old light masters manage?)

This is a painting I made after an old photo found in the family album of my paternal Grandma Astrid as a young girl in the end of the 19th century. Love her dress! (Not her hat alas!)

The happiness of unpacking a new artist´s box full of the loveliest colors and brushes which I did the other day! I feel sad I find too little a time to try them out at present. The house is completely full of ECO-fibers due to a massive isolation process - quite necessary to dodge the draught in this old farm!

So you´ll find me with quite other kinds of brushes in my hands these days! Big ones!
Well - this little water color I just had to make after reports about the winter situation in the Stockholm archipelago. The ice/winter situation has not been as tough for decades in the Baltic! Friends are driving their four-wheelers on the ice all the way to the outer skerries!
(and back, alas! before the ice started cracking. Oh these daredevils - archipelago sons of the rough and tough..
By the way, this gorgeous photo was taken by my friend Paivi M a few days ago from the southern shore of Sandhamn. Keep them coming Paivi!