Plans for Christmas coffee

In December I invited my blog friends to a very special Shop and cafe. I wrote about it in my post Come with me for Christmas coffee and I felt so honored when they all answered with comments on the post and I will never forget it. The Cafe is only open some weeks before Christmas and in the summer so I haven't been there since I wrote that post until now. 

It's been very warm today and when my oldest girl and I biked home from the city we stopped at the Cafe for tea and sandwich.  It was a wonderful moment to sit in the shadow on the porch sipping my lemon tea. Once again I had you all in my mind and I even fantasized about sending you a new invitation for this Christmas. I guess I'm a little bit crazy who think about the cold December a hot day like today, maybe I've got sunstroke....

Midsummer

The night before Midsummer Eve showed a beautiful sky but we also realized that the pink color meant a changing weather, from sun to rain. And we woke up to a wet landscape....

But that didn't stop us from taking our bikes after lunch and go to the The Church Town where they have a traditional way of celebrating Midsummer every year. We came a little bit to late so we missed the dance around the maypole. But we stood under the umbrella and enjoyed some young musicians and singers performing ballads and jazz.

The rain decreased and we strolled around among the small alleys and watched the houses that a day like this were visited by their owners with families and friends. They are like small apartments and sometimes it happens that they are for sale.

The atmosphere was very jolly and we stopped and listen to this group of fiddlers playing violin and accordion.

I'm not very interested in cars but I must say that I almost fell in love with this little red one and with that environment I couldn't resist taking this photo. After that we had to get home to prepare the dinner before our friends and their children would come.

 I don't know if we stayed in the Church Town too long or if I had planed for too much food but when the guests arrived they had to assist with the last things. But we have wonderful friends and they were glad to help us. I wish I had taken a photo of the whole smorgasbord but there was no time for that.    I just had a photo from the day after when we had lunch and ate residues. At midsummer we usually have different kind of pickled herring, potato, salmon, shrimp and barbecue meet.

We had a great evening and I was very tired at midnight. I felt pleased that I didn't have to go out and pick seven different flowers to put under my pillow. Which we did when we were younger to dream about the man we were going to marry....

I'm so pleased that I'm already married with my Hubby that stayed up this night and waited for our teenagers to come home.

Daylight at Midnight

Maybe someone remember when I wrote and complained about our few hours of daylight in December. Now we have some weeks with the opposite. It never gets dark! But I don't complain this time. I like this even if it's a bit hard sometimes to get the kids to bed. Both of the photos was taken yesterday at midnight. We can't see the sun at that time where I live, but on the second photo I took the shot against the sunlight. All this has to do with the solstice and the axial tilt. If you are north of the Arctic Circle you can see the sun the whole night.

Our word for the sun is from the latin word "sol" and if you read about the solstice you can see that it has strong connections with our celebrating of Midsummer. Which I think will be my next post on the blog. A very important thing that everybody already talks about and the newspaper writes about is: What weather will there be on Friday (Midsummer Eve)??!! Because everybody wants to eat and play games outside.

Well, right now the weather forecast doesn't look so well, but they have been wrong before... Or we have to dress up with raincoats!

Summer "semester" in Sweden

Warning! This post is a bit random, but sometimes one thought just leads to another...

On the bike trip home from work today I had to stop and watch the construction of the new walk/bike bridge over the river. I think it will be very beautiful. It's made of wood and wires. We have companies in our town that builds large bridges and high-rise of wood instead of concrete. I only have one more day at work before the summer holiday will start and this semester is over. But in Swedish we call holiday "semester"! So here, everybody looks forward to this word now because it means so much, hopefully with traveling, visiting friends and family or time in a country house.

Now when I use two languages I've began to think about different words sometimes. The Swedish language has taken many English words like in sports, technology and especially all about computers. But there are also words that I think has followed the Vikings to England and also the European immigrants to the US. During the years some of the words has change a bit and that will maybe explain why the word "semester" means different things.

Another word I've thought about is the Swedish word for purple that is "lila" which is very close to the English word for lilac. I think that's just perfect for a purple-fan like me who loves lilacs and have four different shades in the garden growing close together.  

A bike, a park and a film

                                                                     Photo from A view of cities

My H and I were out late, yesterday evening, riding our bikes through the city. We still had a magical warm weather and there were crowded everywhere on the streets and along the river. The restaurants served mostly outside on terraces. When we finally got home I saw that one of my favorite bloggers Bart Boehlert's Beautiful Things had written something new that I had to check out.

As a coincidence, he wrote about when he was riding his bike with a friend. For me it's so natural to take the bike but I'm so fascinated that he does that in NY. But I like it when my view or opinion of something changes and turn out to be something much better than I thought it was. Bart has given me much of that and so have many of the bloggers I follow.

Bart showed some photos from a park and they felt so familiar to me although I've never been there! Than I realized that it was that black iron fence I recognized. I had seen that before and finally I knew that it's from  the film You've got Mail, which Bart wrote later in the post. I love that film so much because it's both romantic and has my kind of humor.  I've seen it many times since I got it for free when I bought my first computer. The end is so good, when Meg Ryan stands in River side Park waiting for Tom Hanks and the dog comes running.... Klick on the link if you want to see it:
You've got Mail

The story about the stepmothers violet

Some weeks ago when I read about the violet on Bill's blog, I wrote a comment and told him that my favorite is the Heartsease. Than I got a mail from one of his other readers with a photo of Heartsease from this persons garden in Germany. I was told that they call it Little stepmother which is almost the same name as we have for this little beauty. I will now share the story about how she got her name.

                                                   Stepmother and her daughters

The lower and more yellow petal symbolizes the stepmother who sit on two cushions / chairs. Turn on the flower and see the two green sepals at the bottom of her petals. She sits on them with a yellow butter dish in her knee. The middle two petals on either side of her are her own daughters, who sit on the opposite cushions (sepals) and also at a comfortable distance from the butterdish. The two slightly narrower petals are her two step-daughters, who huddle together and are forced to share a pad and they almost don't reach the good butter. So they will have to eat their sandwiches without any butter.

But I have also heard another story which explains that the yellow color is porridge that the stepmother only gives to her own daughters. (A cruel story....)

from 52° to 83° in two days!

This feels totally crazy, but it's been so hot today! Our town has been more like a place in France at the Middle Ocean. When I went home from my work with my bike I saw people every where along the shore of the river. Even in the middle of the city young people laid on the bridge and some of them jumped in the cold water. But I'm to shy to stop and take a photo of them so I took the photo above a little later. As we never know if this will be the warmest day of this summer we really enjoy it and

right know when I write this it's late evening and I'm sitting outside on the porch. The lilacs has blossomed today and their scent is spread over the whole garden. They make me so happy as they remind me of my grandma who had white lilacs that I loved to just stand beside to feel the scent.

My flag

It's Monday today, but not an ordinary one. Today is our national day, but if you excuse me, that isn't the special thing about this day. When I was younger we only called this day the Swedish Flag's Day and that is what I still feel would be the right name. I am proud of my flag and my country, but there haven't been any war for freedom here or anything like that. One good thing with this day is that "we" welcome formally people who have got their Swedish citizenship during the year. But the most of us just have this day as a day of

and hopefully enjoy a wonderful weather and spend the time in the garden or visiting friends. I think that our National day never will be as big as the weekend in June when we celebrate Midsummer. But that's another story (post!).

Red fruits from white flowers

We have almost a whole holiday week now. Thursday was Ascension day and on Monday we have our National day. As we are spending most of the days at home I'm following the transformation in our apple trees. On a distance the tree looks light green but when I get closer I can see how the pink buds are developing to white flowers. But I guess that on Monday the whole tree will look totally white and hopefully attract a lot of insects so it will be possible for us to make an... 

apple pie or apple juice in the autumn. I think this is magic! But I was also surprised when I found these flowers in our garden....

already! We got some plants from a friend some years ago. She had found them on the land of an old farm school where they grew among the grass on a meadow. We planted our few but they have spread themselves and are growing like weeds. But that's not a problem at all. Because this weed is one of the most delicious that I can think of. They won't be ready for the Midsummer cake but maybe in the middle of July I will finally taste them... 

- Mmmm!