Sunday - going to the auctions

Every other Sunday,

..there is a great auction going on at Smågårde just outside Visby, Gotland. In the summer, it´s crowded with people from the mainland with money in their pockets. But now, in October, we, the natives can make real bargains. Entire farms from the island are often auctioned off - and the quality range from the very exquisite to affordable "wanna-have" bric-a-bracs.
So we went, last Sunday.

My sister made a successful bid for this stereoscopy (see end of this blog comment) from the turn of the last century. (above)

A great gadget with a number of old pictures/photos from the past!
(a bit of burlesque and daring photos too, no doubt!)

Popular auctioneer, Ulf in action. He is a master at creating a jolly ambiance and there are a lot of laughter amidst the efficiency!

However, bidding can be serious stuff..

An impressive 17th century bible for sale. Unfortunately not entirely intact.

Nena and Mia discussing if the pair of binoculars on the table are good enough for birdwatching -
-one of Mia´s great interests.

A pretty hand embroidered bridal footstool.

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"
"Ce trois pipes!"
(Magritte ref: pipe and passport)

We landed the bid for this old tureen!

I haven´t the slightest .. what this is? Do you?
Nor this.. :-)

A towel rack from the beginning of the 20th century.

Now:
Guess what I brought home? My sister and my friend stuffed my car so full of good I could hardly close the booth! And I? I bought nothing. I am presently busy insulating my little well-over-100-year-old farmstead before the winter. Talking about antiquities!
And those many repairing activities do not exactly cost
" needle money" - as the saying goes in Sweden.
"Rather warm feet,
than hand embroidered sheet!"


Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopic or 3-D imaging) refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth. Three strategies have been used to accomplish this: have the viewer wear eyeglasses to combine separate images from two offset sources, have the viewer wear eyeglasses to filter offset images from a single source separated to each eye, or have the lightsource split the images directionally into the viewer's eyes (no glasses required; known as Autostereoscopy).
(Wiki)

Tribute to Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011

I want to put a ding in the universe..

Life before the computer

Memory was something you lost with age

An application was filed for employment

A program was a radio- or TV show

A cursor used profanity

A keyboard was a piano

A web was made by a spider

A virus meant a runny nose

A CD was a bank account

A hard drive was a tough trip in your car

A mouse pad a place for the mouse to crash

And if you had a 3,5 inch floppy -

you just hoped nobody would find out

(Free interpretation from Funny.com)

"And the White Knight is talking backwards.."

Sunday, I spent decorating a wall in the old section of the house which has not yet been renovated. The fog was rolling outside and I stayed indoors painting Alice! Here she is growing after eating the strange mushroom! The rest of the walls in this corner room beaming with light will be covered with other Wonderland motives. A rabbit or two? An evil off-with-her-head queen of Diamonds?

I remember what we used to call that mushroom back in Berkeley in 68, grooving to Jefferson Airplane´s record: "The white rabbit" - which I have to admit, I still adore:
Grace Slick paying tribute to Alice´s famous trip to Wonderland. (At Woodstock, -69)

White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall

And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Call Alice
When she was just small

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said;
"Keep YOUR HEAD

Keep your head"

Indian summer..

October is soon upon us and Sweden (at least the southern parts) is really experiencing a great "Indian Summer" with warm and sunny days. Tuesday, I did not leave the boundries of my paradise garden for a moment. The lawns are emerald green, the grass is studded with a variety of apples in all apple colors.
The sun was burning my cheeks while I picked the late, huge,sweet rasberries.

Presently,the kirchen is covered with buckets full of golden apple must and I am trying to make some cider too. What a nice feeling it will be to open a bottle of perfectly ecological must when the winter storms rattle the dark windows!
I will most probably finish them off long before that!
(The bottles that is - not the ratteling windows!)

The old barns are painted in the impressionistic
light of late September..
Some roses are still flowering to the joy of ambitious bees who are flying in for a last sip.

The nasturtium is heading towards the sky - oh, how I love their typical smell that brings back childhood memories..
The pears are just about to ripe and these big ones above tastes delicious,
- warmed by the late early autumn sun.

The small green grapes are full of seeds and growing by a southern wall.
Not much for wine making, really!
(The cider will do just fine!)

The Jerusalem artichokes In the background are almost three meters tall by now and the small lumps will not be dug up from the soil below until the first frost!
Then, we shall make a delicious soup!
(It´s the first season I grow these - cost a small fortune for two plants!)

The dahlias are in now in bloom.

And there is a crimson sky almost every evening. Soon, to soon, the entire garden will turn the same colors, gold, purple, orange and crimson..
I wonder why the Anglo world calls the warm fall days "Indian summer"?
So we consult Wiki as always:
An Indian summer is a meteorological phenomenon that occurs in the autumn. It refers to a period of considerably above normal temperatures, accompanied by dry and hazy conditions, usually after there has been a killing frost. Depending on latitude and elevation, the phenomenon can occur in the Northern Hemisphere between late September and mid November. In Sweden we say "Britt summer" because of the namesday of Britt or Britta that occurrs on the 7th of October.

As imperceptibly as grief..

..The summer lapsed away, --

Too imperceptible, at last,

To seem like perfidy.

A quietness distilled,

As twilight long begun,

Or Nature, spending with herself

Sequestered afternoon.

The dusk drew earlier in,

The morning foreign shone, --

A courteous, yet harrowing grace,

As guest who would be gone.

And thus, without a wing,

Or service of a keel,

Our summer made her light escape

Into the beautiful.

--As Imperceptibly as Grief by Emily Dickinson

The Fårö night - "Fårönatta"

Once a year, the small island north of Gotland - Fårö (at the very northern tip of the map above ) celebrates an entire night every September with a fiesta which is marking The Grand Finale of Summer. It is called "Fårönatta" (The special night of Fårö).

Fårö the small island separated from Gotland by a short ferry trip, is perhaps internationally mostly known through famous film director Ingemar Bergman who spent a large part of his life here. He brought a spectrum of Swedish and international actors to the island and made Fårö a superb setting for many of his great films.The film maker lived here where he had his heart, work, studios and home..

(Ingemar Bergman right with Sven Nykvist)
It is well known that the Fårö natives portected the genius´ privacy carefully. It is said that you never got the right information on how to find his house situated near a stony beach.
http://bergmancenter.se/en/
During the years he lived there, you could ask any of the locals about the whereabouts of his houses and they most likely would point in all kinds of directions and scratch their heads respectively..
The island provided settings for his Fårö trilogy of: Hour of the Wolf, The Passion of Anna and Skammen, as well as Persona. Andrey Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice was also filmed on Fårö.

Link to Ingmar Bergman official website Face To Face.

Back to Fårönatta. Our first stop were at wellknown Kuten´s - a great place for nostalgica with focus on the 60´s. At first, the sight of a junk yard meets you. Here, Kuten, - a groovy ..
(Photo: Sverige Radio)
..hippie drop-in, runs a great Creperie speak-easy which serves lovely galettes and crepes. And a book store across the road which bears quite some resemblance to "Shakespeare´s" intellectual hang-out in Paris.

This is the psychedelic entrance! (below)

Next to the Creperie, there is an out-of-sight bar brimming with all the paraphernalia bling bling from the 50´and 60´s you can think of. On stage, bands play music from the era and here they celebrate odd evenings with vigils like the death parties of Elvis´s and Marilyn´s and other deceased icons!
And all courses on the menu carry names like "Galette Hopper," " Brando" or "Marilyn" etc. (I had the Hopper with Chorizo, with all kinds of goodies baked á lá minute into the delicious durum pancakes. You bet your sweet bippie!!)

The entrance. Far out! Can you dig it?

Bar graffiti. Groovy man, groovy!
The Blue Grass band rehearsing before the invasion of the Party Night crowds.
Bar action, hey hey let´s get stoooned..
(Photo: Gotland net)

A gas pump from Anno Dazumal.

The junk that meets the eye!

On the northern tip of Fårö..

Fårö Lighthouse is a Swedish lighthouse located on the island´s easternmost tip.
In the 19th century there had been many complaints from sea authorities that the coastlines on Gotland had very few lighthouses. So the decision was made to build one on the north side of Gotland. This lighthouse was constructed one year after the one on Hoburgen at the south tip of Gotland.The light ran on a colza oil lamp at first. In 1882 a paraffin lamp replaced the old one, and in 1953 it was electrified. From 1891 to 1976 the tower had a first-order Fresnel lens installed in its lantern which made the lighthouse very powerful. It is remote-controlled since 1976 and owned by the Swedish Maritime Administration. (Wikipedia)
Unfortunately, the lighthouse was not open to the public this year on this night.

Langhammars at Fårö. (photo: Gotland net)
(photo: Gotland net)
The Laterna Magica theater, (Laterna Magica is the title of Ingemar Bergman´s biography).. held a surprise performance in the night..
(photo: Gotland net)
The "FåröNatta" event is an effort to present Fårö as an all -year-round-island-resort, where a number of enterprises, businesses, individuals and associations join forces to show that Fårö is very much alive all year around!

And all through the night once a year!

Every 30 minutes there are ferries from Gotland to the island. The easiest way to travel is by car (for rent in Visby). In the summer you can reach Gotland by plane from Stockholm, Göteborg, Ängelholm, Sundsvall, Ronneby, Norrköping, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Oslo and Hamburg as well.

Stockholm under the rainbow..

From the ferry to Djurgården cruising in the beautiful Stockholm harbor, this stunning September rainbow was captured..
(Photo: Lina Ehrenpreis)

Late summer pleasures..

Sweet corn harvested on Gotland. Yummy!

The pretty apple trees of my garden in the late afternoon sun, Saturday.

The grapes are still pretty sour.. :-(

Are there any apples called "Blushing cheeks?" (In case not: I thy hereby christen you, my favourite apples anonymously hidden in the woods in the back of the garden to...)

Happy Birthday,Thalia!

She turns 3 years today, my grandchild Thalia! Have a great party in DC ,in your new day care school and at home! Hip hip hurray!
I´ll see you soon my darling!