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!

Gotland - late winter days..

Early morning sunrays.

We are now in a stage after "a long winter of discontent" with an increasing amount of sunrays and daylight hours. Here I took a picture of the first morning rays in the Morning Room.
I love it´s pretentious name: "The Morning Room". It really sounds like I am living in a mansion of 250 rooms of Downton Abbey style!
So I am thinking of sticking to it. However I can promise you I have no intentions so far to dress up for dinner yet as the ladies do in the great TV-series.
Oh, dream away..

Winter is slowly slipping away and the birds are chirping in a new kind of happier way.
Sunday afternoon at Själsö fishing harbour in Gotland.

We turned our pale winter faces for a minute towards the sun and to enjoy the heat on our cheeks.

The stony beachfront and pretty ice formations.

Old fashioned net cradles in straight lines on the shore of the small harbour.

The sun starts setting..

..and the coast changes its icy blue into a warmer color. We return home with a first notion of the oncoming spring in our minds.
"Now is the winter of our discontent,
Soon made glorious summer by that sun of Gotland.."

A small part of the Xi´an Terra Cotta Worriors..

..is presently exhibited in Stockholm. So I took the ferry to the mainland and travelled to the capital to see the impressive worriors before they moved on to other places around the world. Above is a picture how they found the statues in the 70´s. They still held fragments of their former splendour and color. (Which presumably was lost when unearthed)

We brought Niki Isabella, 7 months to see them. She too, was truly fascinated.

A general in armour. I wonder what he once had been holding in his hands?

The smaller in size the lesser military ranks..

This one has a subtle smile on his face..

The horses were beautifully shaped..

This is supposed to be a woman straddling her long fallen horse. You can spot her round breasts. No side saddle business in those days!

The exhibition was situated in Skeppsholmen
(Island in the centre) close to the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm.
Here we finally had a nice lunch.
Niki and Grandpa Dag are playing in the Museum bistro.

The vicarage in Rute

Today, I helped a friend to deliver a car from the old vicarage at Rute in northern Gotland.

The rectory is as pretty as any story book house.

The adjacent Rute church in the grey, moddy Saturday afternoon.

The present vicar is retiering and packing up to move to a more modern dwelling in Visby. He sounded rather happy about this - the rectory is difficult to warm and a big house to take care of for two people - the vicar and his wife.
By the way - the first vicar posted here was a Hercules Davidsson in 1631-1659. He was married and had 9 childern.
The present buildings are from around 1871 though.
The pretty vicarage in summer.
(More about the buildings for interested Swedish readers here)

As they were packing, I spotted the fine Gotland carpented dollhouse just about to be packed. The vicar´s wife is a doll house enthusiast - so I couldn´t help myself to take a few pictures of the packing turmoil of her handmade houses - a mini eco of what was going on at a larger scale in the big house..

The blue tiled stove in the back of the Blue room, the owner had made from the core of a paper roll.
There were so many pretty items but these dolls captured my heart. They were just standing there idly waiting for what was coming to them.. Note the only men here are both covered in cellophane paper. Hmm. Women´s lib at the mini-rectory? I always spin a story in my head when I see things like that.. (well, I woun´t bother you further with my tales..)

Now, this pretty doll was just sitting comfortably in the window waving goodbye to an era at the old rectory in northern Gotland. I just fell in love with her!

The ticklish baby

Oh, this is such a great age!

Niki playing with her mom - so much fun!

My second grandchild, Niki Isabella, now almost 7 months seems like a child of good spirits!

The sun..

..suddenly poked down with its pretty face upon us today and it was time to do a bit of skiing in the immediate surroundings..

..to check all the animal tracks..

..that had been left in the snow over night.

There were deer tracks..

and plenty frolicking imprints of rabbit and hare..

..and of rats, blackbirds and I found a catwalk in the garden.The cat had torn down my garbage bag with shrimp shells which I had hanged high - too lazy to walk the 100 meters to the can in the dead of night. Today I also removed some dead mice from the traps - a thing I truly dislike. I am quite fond of mice - but this is necessary. I know.

In the afternoon, time for tea and some painting. I am doing oil right now and the house smells pleasently of lindseed oil.The days are getting longer now. And we have daylight to well after 4 PM now. I can tell you that makes a diffrence! I have almost forgotten how to spell spring:
s-p-r-a-n-g!!! Sprong? Wrong?
Spring spring spring
Repeat after me... :-)

My first Macaroons!

For a long time now I have been dying to make my own Macarons-

the very pastry "soooo much in fashion" for the moment - according to the media.

So today, a grey and windy day that no one in ther right mind really felt like spending outdoors, I finally had a go at it!
Oh my, if I had only known the amount of how butter-sugar-calorie-rich they were!

They did not turn out half as pretty as I had wanted them to! But for a first go....
at least they tasted well. Next time I´ll grind the almonds into a much finer flour. That might do the trick! The thing is: I have never, ever been able to make meringues rise the way they should. To the shape of small bowler hats..
How on earth do the professionals do it?

Last time I had macaroons was in Washington DC. I know they cost a fortune each, but what a delicacy! The various perfumes of rose, hazel and pistacio!
(No! Wrong! The last time I had a macaroon was last fall at the Truffle-Lagotto-Romagnolo farm here in Gotland. A truffle macaroon!)
This little chef here, by the way, I found at the Red Cross fleamarket
(for a about a dollar) the other day.
He had a very ugly/silly expression on his face (thus the price?) so I gave him a total facial makeover with some oil paint and named him Paul Bocuse after the famous chef below.

I hope he does´t mind. Bocuse that is.
I do not intend to do anything to his grim looks though!

The Wiki on Macrons:
A macaron is a sweet confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food coloring. The macaron is commonly filled with buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. Its name is derived from an Italian word "maccarone" or "maccherone". This word is itself derived from ammaccare, meaning crush or beat, used here in reference to the almond paste which is the principal ingredient. It is meringue-based: made from a mixture of egg whites, almond flour, and both granulated and confectionery sugar.

The confectionery is characterized by its smooth, domed top, ruffled circumference (referred to as the "foot"), flat base, mildly moist and easily melted into mouths.

Macarons can be found in a wide variety of flavors that range from the traditional (raspberry, chocolate) to the new (truffle, green matcha tea). The fillings can range from jams, ganache, or buttercream. Since the English word macaroon can also refer to the Coconut macaroon, many have adopted the French spelling of macaron to distinguish the two items in the English language. However, this has caused confusion over the correct spelling of the cookie. Some recipes exclude the use of macaroon to refer to this French confection while others think that they are synonyms.

How they make them at Sucre´.

And here is a photo and link to my favourite "Macaroon Blog": Paris Breakfasts!