Winter Chill

Real winter is finally upon us and it´s minus 28 degrees Celsius outside today. I read in the papers that it´s the polar vortex that shifted and the coldspell that was over North America is now over us. Isn´t it usually over us? Feels like it... It´s Sunday, so we are staying indoors. The sky has that frosty pink tint.

Snapped, Crackled... and Pooped

We had a quiet New Year´s Eve with mum-in-law and left her in front of the television, to enjoy the traditional reading of Tennyson, twenty minutes before midnight. We, of course, wanted to see the fireworks at the northern harbour, which is the local tradition. Unfortunately, it had been snowing earlier in the day and clouds were dense and low.

After a few initial sparkles on the grey, foggy background (it took some major tweaking to develope an acceptable photo from what I got), the gunpowder smoke mixed with the clouds and the "ooohhh!"s and the "aaahhh!"s turned into sober comments like "well, at least you can hear it" as the fireworks, no doubt spectacular, crackled somewhere in the fog before us. I turned my camera to the side of the cloud and among the thirty or so frames I shot, I got one with a bit of sparkle in it.

Expectant crowds.

First snap.

Side-crackle.

It was more fun to photograph the crowds as the party-people were trying to find their way back inside. Or find the after-party, perhaps. Some seemed ready for bed... I have been looking a lot at black-and-white photography lately, so that´s what I experimented with.

As we say in Sweden: Good Continuation!

Resolutions

I am always tempted to make resolutions the week after Christmas. It is natural, I think, as the old year draws to a close and you buy a new calendar, to sum things up, reflect on what you have achieved, and think about what lies ahead. Also, there is the hangover from the gluttony, food-related and otherwise, of December, and the long, dark winter. I long for water, natural hunger, sunlight, a warm breeze.

This year, I am thinking about buying more elk and reindeer meat; I like the idea of eating animals that have enjoyed a natural lifestyle. I am also thinking about making more hot vegetable- and fruit dishes. The husband wants to eat more fish; I am fine with that as long as I don´t have to eat salmon all the time. I am thinking about less sugar (and eating home-made, chocolate-covered cindertoffee as I write this). He says, more hours in the gym. I say, I want to see more concerts and theatre. And shopping, do we really need to do that ever again? We probably own more clothes now than our grandparents did in their lifetime. Local produce, wholefood, ecological, it´s a no-brainer, really. The trick is just getting out of the rut and establish new patterns of behaviour.

I just watched a programme on television about the climate change and now I feel terribly bad about planning to fly to England this summer. However, I have wanted for years to take the freight vessel from Gothenburg to Immingham, so perhaps that is what we should do, and at least halve our flying. I know, those planes will still fly whether I´m on them or not, but if everyone wanted to go by boat, wouldn´t they start the ferry traffic again? Whatever I do it seems useless against the horrid pollution suffered by inhabitants of places like Beijing, the melting glaciers, and the rising temperatures. And the thought creeps up on me that neither democracy nor capitalism seems able to solve this particular problem...

..but I shake it off and focus on organizing my desk and my wardrobe. And I make the firm resolution to read one Alice Munro short story a week for the entirety of 2014. Last year, I felt that I was at the end of something old and stale; this year, I feel like I am at the beginning of something new, something I can´t really grasp yet. It´s a good feeling and I am quite eager to begin.

A Happy New Year to you all!

A Boxing Day Walk...

... at noon, and it was a clear enough sky to see the sun for a bit. These photos were shot at 11:54. However, as everyone keep pointing out, it´s getting lighter and lighter, day by day!

Have an Excellent Christmas

The other day I came across a reference (I think it was in the Guardian) to art critic, etc John Berger´s BBC series "Ways of seeing" from 1972. All the episodes are on youtube and it was two well spent hours, though I confess I did skip most of the episode two feminist discussion about the male gaze. I understand the text that this series is based on is still used for educational purposes. What Berger pointed out, among other things, and that I hadn´t really thought of like that, is how the history of the photograph and the culture of photography is very much linked to advertising, which is about depicting what is desirable. Or, as Berger puts it, glamorous.

I remember a kid I know, who a few years back, when I asked him to pose for my camera, immediately started behaving like a fashion or glamour model. It was a bit eerie, he would have been six or seven, but telling, I think, of the photographic culture that he had grown up in. And don´t we all, really, attempt to make ourselves, our home, and our lives look just a little bit extra charming, enviable, and desirable for photos? Most of us probably don´t even feel particularly weird about the idea that we are selling ourselves to the world, even to those we call friends and family.

Yesterday we visited five supermarkets in our search for everything we need to make a perfect Christmas for our closest family. We try to make it simple and traditional, but it seems we have rather particular demands on certain things, like the brand, type, and weight of the ham. As we stood in one check-out line after another, I saw many women´s faces marked by stress and anxiety, whimpering kids, and grumpy grandpas. And it occured to me that Christmas has also become glamourized. Even if we don´t buy magazines, most of the supermarket chains send their own versions to all registered bonus point-collecting customers, and the newspapers all have lifestyle supplements. There is no getting away from it. 

The only way I can think of to resist, is to be aware. I am reading Brooks Jensen again, and in my notebook I have written "What is my definition of excellence?". He is writing about photographic projects of course, but it´s a good question to ask oneself concerning most endeavours, I think. What is my definition of an excellent Christmas? What is yours?

Four Days Until Christmas

It´s been raining all over my Christmas spirit. This photo is taken at 2 am yesterday but it might as well have been at 3 pm. Also, someone at the post office has "mis-sorted" a parcel of mine, and they can´t find it. Nor do they seem very interested in looking for it. It contains a 50´s watch I bought on Ebay, a kind that I have been wanting for a long time, so I am pretty distressed about it.

At least my traditional vörtbröd (a traditional rye bread made with brewer´s wort) came out smashing this year, and in triumph I carried part of the loaf to mum-in-law. She had, in spite of near blindness, made a second attempt in as many days to bake hallongrottor (literally: raspberry caves).
She showed me a tin full:
"I think this batch looks much better than the first one."
Well, I could see the raspberry, but no cave; there was a sorry pat of jam on top of a slightly burned, thin layer of flour in the paper baking cups she had used.
"I think you may not have used enough flour", I said.
"But I followed the recipe exactly!"

There was a lot more Christmas spirit at my friend Oscar´s tenth birthday bash, as his mother is a champion decorator and a black-belt shopper. She was particularly happy about the tree this year, and rightly so, I thought.

I am trying to learn how to use my camera better, and this low-light season is very challenging. As you know, the road to proficiency goes uphill and is paved with failure, and I came home with around eighty very, very bad photos. Sometimes, however, a bad photo goes so bad, it turns around and comes back kind of good in an unexpected way. This is, of course, not a sign of improved skill, but rather blind luck.

Today, I have the big pre-Christmas cleaning to do, Sunday is the big Christmas shopping day, and Monday is meatballs and ham frying day. Tuesday, it´s Christmas Eve, which is the Big Day for us in Sweden, when we eat ourselves sick and watch the eternal and obligatory re-run of "Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul" (= Donald Duck and his friends wish a Merry Christmas). And drink liters of glögg.

Here Be Dragons

It´s been a crap kind of winter so far, with temperatures bouncing up and down every other day between plus five and minus ten. This morning we had kramsnö, which is a wet, heavy kind of snow that is excellent to make snowmen from. This didn´t just lure out the kids, but a pair of artistically inclined, grown-up neighbours, and this is what they made:

It only lasted a couple of hours, though. I took this photo at half past one (the sun was setting, as you can tell), and by the time I got home, at six, it had fallen to pieces. Great initiative, I think.

Panache

My new favourite drink is something I have just been taught by my Swiss sister: it´s called Panache, and it´s a 50-50 mix of lager and Sprite (or German lemonade, if you have it). She says that in Germany it´s called a Radler (cyclist) because of it´s refreshing and low-alcoholic qualities; it is unlikely to make you so drunk that you cycle back home by way of a ditch (or, in the Alps, a deadly-steep slope). I googled this and it appears to be a version of what the British call shandy. Mixing their beer with anything is not something Swedes are inclined to do (we have light beer, after all), but it really is highly recommendable!

Manic Pixie Luddite

 Came across this quote:

There’s nothing worse for plots than cellphones. Once your characters have one, there’s no reason for them to get lost or stranded. Or miss each other at the top of the Empire State Building. If you want anything like that to happen, you either have to explain upfront what happened to the phones or you have to make at least one character some sort of manic pixie Luddite who doesn’t carry one.  - RAINBOW ROWELL

 Well, my cellphone looks like this:

And I usually forget it, or just leave it, at home when I go out. This may be one reason why I´m writing a novel set in the Iron Age.

Officially Winter

When the first flakes fell on me yesterday, I thought it was pretty darn early. But my calendar says the first snow came exactly the same day last year.

Bring on the Rain!

We saw this sign in a shop window this summer, when we were seeking shelter from the rain, actually. That said, we have been very lucky weather-wise on our trips to England over the years. Not very much rain at all. Nor has it been scorching hot, which is perfect for excursions. As a far-up-northerner, I thing the Brits complain a bit too much about their weather.

Come to think of it, I am probably wearing my raincoat in most of our vacationsnaps. I also wore it all last winter, with an anorak underneath. I suppose the trick is to buy as stylish a raincoat as you can; if you can get it for 4.95 (even in British Pounds), you´re lucky!

Taking a look at what Pinterest has on display, it occurs to me that really, with such stylish options around, is there any reason to ever buy a coat that is not a raincoat? I mean, I want them all! Even the Ralph Lauren Dog Raincoat. I particularly want that one, with the cute dog to match!

Clearly, a good raincoat is universally appreciated. They should probably have a hood or a matching hat, though. This one looks really nice. An evening raincoat is genious! And this one is my favourit - I think it would make me look like a cartoon character.

I feel like I just had some profound epiphany. Perhaps I have over-estimated my intelligence these last 47 years...

What does Obama say?

The mum-in-law has been in and out of the hospital much lately, and we visit every day, hoping for the best but often fearing the worst. We know that one day she will not bounce back.

Tuesday, I called before I went in, to see if she needed anything. She answered her phone, sounding like she´d had a stroke, saying they were going to discharge her the next day. I had a minor panic attack, called the husband at work, he called the doctor, who assured him that they wouldn´t let her go unless she was feeling better. When I arrived, an hour later, she was sitting in an armchair with a walker in front of her, looking grand. Apparently, my call had woken her from a nap and her lips had been dried to her teeth...

We talked about her coming home the next day, and suddenly she says:
"I haven´t heard any news while in here - what does Obama say about Syria?"
"Öhum, I don´t know."
She looks irritated.
"Well, I have had other things on my mind," I defend myself.
She purses her lips and snorts.
"Well," she says, "I suppose I shall have to try to catch up when I get home."

On the bus home, I feel mildly annoyed. Then it occurs to me that I´m so lucky that she still, at 93, is around to annoy me with her vitality and commitment, not just to her immediate community, but to the fate of humanity.

At the Heart of Swedish Lapland

Last Saturday, we were invited to a crayfish party at my cousin-in-law´s. They live in the house where my mother-in-law was born and raised, and they have made it into an absolutely amazing place. It so darn beautiful, our hostess has the most unbelievable hand with details, and it feels like walking into the pages of a lifestyle magazine to visit them. Of course, I went crazy with the camera (as did the husband, we passed it back and forth) and here are some results of our efforts. 

On the way up, passing over Lule river.