Flower Boxes on the Bridge

In the summer, the railings of this walking bridge are decorated with flower boxes.
There is a café on the other side; you’ll get to see a bit more of that in tomorrow’s post.

Celebration

It’s been a while since I last had a really big birthday party, so I thought… No, just kidding! But I did have strawberry cake for lunch today, and so did a lot of other people. The “birthday child” though was our Town. It celebrated its 389th birthday. What? Never heard of celebrating a 389th birthday before? Well, now you have. You might prefer to call it anniversary rather than birthday, but still – how many 389th anything have you been to??

Today was the hottest day of summer so far. And usually I would not have said that my favourite place to be at noon on a hot summer day is in a crowd of people in the town square. Since I became a blogger, though, I find myself doing many strange things! 

And, in case you wonder – that really was a delicious cake!

Wood Cranesbill - Midsommarblomster

In Swedish, we call this flower midsommarblomster (= Midsummer flower).
The Latin name is Geranium sylvaticum. In England it is called Wood Cranesbill and is the county flower of Sheffield; and in North America it goes by the name of Woodland Geranium.

Depending on soil conditions, the flowers range from a mauve color to sky blue. It can also be found with white flowers. From the flower a blue-gray dye can be produced, which was used in the past to dye war cloaks (according to Wikipedia).

I came across these on my way to the Midsummer celebration; and again it was one of those occasions when the name just popped up in my memory from I-don’t-know-where-or-when.

Mosaic Monday: Drops of Water

For more Monday Mosaics, visit Mary’s Little Red House.

Yellow Iris

Below the museum park where the midsummer celebrations took place (see yesterday’s post), there is a little lake. I walked by it on my way home and found masses of these large yellow flowers in bloom along the shores. They looked like irises to me and I think I’ve now established that they are indeed Yellow Iris or Yellow Flag. The latin name is Iris pseudacorus. In Swedish we call it svärdslilja which means ‘sword’s lily’.

Swedish Midsummer Eve Celebration

Midsummer, celebrated on the Friday and Saturday that fall between June 19th and June 25th is probably the most uniquely Swedish of all our holidays. The main celebrations take place on the Friday, Midsummer Eve and traditionally include raising and dancing around a huge maypole (majstång), nowadays more commonly called midsummer-pole (midsommarstång), decorated with leaves and flowers.  Folk musicians and dancers often wear traditional costumes.

I went to the midsummer celebration in our museum park this afternoon in the hope of getting some pictures of a folk dance performance. It turned out to be so crowded I could not get close enough for that. But the photos will give you an idea of the popularity of the celebration.

You may notice some girls and women wearing flower wreaths on their heads. That is one midsummer tradition. Another is to pick seven or nine different wild flowers and put them under your pillow at night. Then in your dream you are supposed to see your future spouse. Traditionally, Midsummer was thought to be one of the times of the year when magic was strong, so a good night to perform rituals to look into the future.

The old buildings in the museum park have been moved there from their original sites.

In the second picture, if you wonder about the stony ground, that is a classic labyrinth (link to Wikipedia article).

PS. Inspired by a question about the labyrinth I’m putting in a separate post about that in my Island of Voices blog – Labyrinth of Life.

In the Deep Heart’s Core

See more views of the sky from around the world at Skywatch Friday.

Lake View

A walk by the lake with my brother and his dog, a couple of weeks ago.
The lake is close to where our paternal grandparents lived when we were young, which is also where our dad lives now.

Cottongrass - Ängsull

 

Funny how things sometimes just come back to you like from out of nowhere. Last time my brother and I were visiting our dad, we went for a walk down by the lake. One of the paths we took was one I remember walking often with my paternal grandmother back in my childhood and teens. She used to tell me the names of wild flowers that we passed, and sometimes now I find names popping up in my head that I didn’t even know that I knew. Like with these white woolly things: Ängsull. The direct translation of the Swedish name into English would be meadow-wool. But I find when looking it up now that the English name is Cottongrass. Latin: Eriophorum angustifolium. These usually grow on boggy ground, so serve to warn you that you might get your feet wet if you proceed in that direction… That, too, I remembered – so had to settle for taking my photos from some distance… ;)

Veronica and Buttercup

These blue flowers I remember from my childhood as “grandma’s eyeglasses” – in Swedish, “mormors glasögon”. I never had any idea why. Checking the Swedish Wikipedia article now I find the explanation that in the past, extracts from this plant were used to cure various eye diseases. The leaves have also been used to make herbal tea. Another Swedish name for it is Tea-Veronica. The Latin name is Veronica chamaedrys; in English the plant is also called Germander Speedwell.

The yellow ones are  Ranunculus acris –  English: Buttercup, Swedish: smörblomma ( “butterflower”).
A very common wild flower in Sweden.

Mosaic Monday: Do You Remember?

Exhibition of clothes from the 60s and 70s. This was in the entrance hall to the temporary Fashion Outlet I showed some pictures from at my Island of the Voices blog last week.

For more Monday Mosaics, visit Mary's Little Red House.

Giant Poppies

 

A Day for Swedish Colours

From a celebration of the National Day of Sweden on 6 June in my home town.

 
On 19 June this year there will be a lot of flag-waving too, because today (in Stockholm) our Crown Princess Victoria, also Duchess of Västergötland, is getting married to Daniel Westling – a “man of the people”, who after the wedding will be entitled Prince, and Duke of Västergötland.

The media have been full of wedding talk and royal gossip for weeks and months back… I wonder if the hype will last, or if when the wedding is over it will be like letting the air out of a balloon? By the way, I read in the paper (Friday) that the couple have decided they want no fireworks, no balloons, and no confetti – out of concern for the environment.

On this blog I usually only publish my own photos. But I’ll make an exception:

 

Crown Princess Victoria and her fiancé Daniel Westling
celebrating the National Day of Sweden in Stockholm, 6 June 2010
(photo from Swedish Wikipedia article)

The Freedom of Summer (Skywatch Friday)

The school holidays started last weekend. Still a little chilly to be going in for a swim.
But just going down to the lake and have a look is a beginning…

Visit Skywatch Friday to see the sky from all the corners of the Earth.

At The Zoo

On 15 June Sandra = MadSnapper and her friend SquirrelQueen are encouraging us to post SILLY PHOTOS on our blogs and link them to SquirrelQueen’s post at The Road To Here.


I’m doing a different kind of “silly photo” post in my Island of the Voices blog (more of the blooper and guess-what kind), but here in the Picture Book, I thought I’d go back to a visit to the zoo last autumn and do a post that I’ve been thinking of for a while… Using the lyrics to Paul Simon’s At The Zoo.


You can listen to the song HERE (YouTube).

 

Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it, I do believe it's true


 

It's a light and tumble journey from the East Side to the park;
Just a fine and fancy ramble to the zoo.
 
 

But you can take the crosstown bus if it's raining or it's cold,
And the animals will love it If you do.





Somethin' tells me it's all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it, I do believe it's true.

 


The monkeys stand for honesty,





Giraffes are insincere,


 

And the elephants are kindly but they're dumb.


 

Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages,


 

And the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

 


Zebras are reactionaries,





Antelopes are missionaries,





(Pigeons) Penguins plot in secrecy,





And (hamsters) peacocks turn on frequently.

What a gas! You gotta come and see
At the zoo.
 



THE END


PS. Since this was an unusually long post for this blog, I’m going to compensate by taking a break for a few days, with the intention of putting some energy into getting my pictures better organized on my hard drive… I’ll be back on this blog on Saturday (if not sooner).

Mosaic Monday: Surrounded by Lilacs

See more Monday Mosaics at Mary’s Little Red House.

Whitebeam Flowers

 

Horse Chestnut Flowers

Most horse chestnut trees around here have white flowers, but there is also a pink variety.

More Rhododendron

 

Old factory building now housing a bank and part of a conference centre.