A family trip to Gothenburg

Travelling with a large family is very expensive. We can't take the best hotel or travelling methods if we are going away all of us 6. I've promised Oskar a trip to Gothenburg and Liseberg fun park long enough. 

We took the bus to the trainstation, then the train. In Gothenburgh we took the tram to our hostel, were we rented a 6 beds room in a very simple standard. But it was ok and went ok to live like this for a few days.

I also realized that this way to travel is far more friendly to the environment.

My goal for the trip were the rollercoasters of Liseberg :). Balder; the one built of wood was extremely fun to ride, with a 70 grade slope, negative G forces and the shaking woodenframe.

Here's a view of Balder and the too short Canon (with loops).

View to the other side of the old Ferris wheel (the new Ferris wheel and a piece of the large rollercoaster). 

Gustav; you can see the top of his head, had no problem with riding the rollercoasters at all but the Ferris wheel where frightening, it was too high up for him. 

It is interesting to look at people on a fun park. Every one has extremely bad taste (ok I was dressing casual for the day as well). I mean, what to they think of these people; a 9 year old boy with a cap with the words; I love haters, a ca 20 year old girl with a shirt saying; I just came and a troll face, at the hostel a young girl with a neck tatto saying; for you I will (it could be follow underneath but that was all I saw). For me, this is bad taste, what do you think?

We visited Universeum the next day. It's a museum with aquariums of swedish fishes and nature, a tropical hall with huge aquariums with sharks and pirayas, birds and butterflies. A crime lab, space and natural forces exhibition and more. 

Alfons is dressing up as a builder in the childrens job exhibition.

Last day was travel day. Half the day was shopping at the big mall, everyone were extremely tired and sour. When we got on the train it had no food serving and it got 1 hour late. Half way home we had to change to a bus, yet nothing to drink. We came home about midnight with a whole day of nothing to eat or drink. I think the kids were amazingly patient during the whole trip (in contrary to me).

 Imagine travelling with this huge shark balloon. 

Book reviews

I have finally time to read books at night. At the booksale this spring, I bought the three books in a serie written by Libba Bray. A great and terrible beauty, Rebel Angels, The sweet far thing are the titles in original language. The books tells the adventures of Gemma Doyle and her friends at a girls private school outside London during the 1890's. It starts with a personal tradgedy that gets her involved in a deep mystery and treasure hunt through both the real world and an unreal.

The story isn't predictable witch is very good. You don't really know who's the bad ones or the good ones, or if they are something in between. How everything will end is dependent on the heroine herself and the choises she makes. The unrealistic happenings can be a bit confusing somethimes but if you would like to read something that has an air of steampunk (no airships or googles though), I will highly recommend the books.

I don't think this book is available in other language than Swedish. Frida Arwen Rosesund is running an independent book publisher with a few writers. The novels are in genres of the supernatural, queer, fantasy and horror. They are available in pdf-format for downloading as well as paper. 

I recieved this copy because I was chosen to preread the book before publishing. I read it and send her my thoughts about the plotline and language.

The title can be translated to "That they in time may be woken". Something lurks in the forests around the small villages, something that slays those who dares to walk alone at night. Hilda is a girl that is mysteriously pregnant, she runs from home and is taken care by strange twinsisters. A preacherman moves in the neighbourhood with his wife and holding sermons using the peoples fear for the monster in the woods.

The book is very exciting and horryfying. What is lovely with this book is that it is describing the forests in my neighbour community, not far from where I grew up. 

I got news about a following book will be written now :)

I will post another review when I finished American gods and Miss Peregrines School for Peculiar children :)

Vacation activities

I finally got some time to just sit and rest. It's not easy with children around and lots of things that need to be done. Thank godness for headphones and Cathedral 13, the only way for me to get peace to write a post.
Otherwise..I heard a rumour that the cloudberries are ripe, well they are out for now but a few days ago, I took a short walk up in the forest with a bucket to a nearby bog were I know there is cloudberries to find.
As these berries are treasurous, I will not tell were to find them. This is how the place looks like. The moss is soft and wet and you have to be a bit careful were you walk.

See the tiny red plant in the middle of the picture. It's a fly eating plant.

This is how a ripe cloudberry look like. You can pick for hours and only get a few litres, but it's worth it. The taste is like a combination of honey, dried apricots and a tint of moss.

I was supposed to go to a farm to pick strawberries but it was closed (even if it was said it wasn't :( . By a coincident we took the wrong way and drove by a nature reserve. We stop by to have a look. Frostbrunnsdalen as it is called is a huge natural spring were ice cold water running up from the ground. This spring is keeping a whole city with fresh water (not this part of it though). As many natural springs, this is also an ancient sacred place from the time of the vikings (and propably further back) to christian time, there's a large medeival church nearby. 

We drank the water and bathed our feets in the freezing cold water. 

Alfons is testing one of the holes in the sand, trying to se how deep it is.

These three had a contest how long they could bare to stand in the cold water. Red feets!

 Annoyed about the closed farm I went by the market and bought 20 litres of strawberries. We have been eating ripe strawberries a couple of days now and I've made jam and syrup.

Last picture. Alfons dancing rainddance in a water puddle, it ended with him washing his shoes and the raincoat and himself lying in it splashing. It isn't obvious in this picture but there were two very distinct rainbows, on the inside of the first, the rain is pouring and on the other side it's clear.

End of blog post and time for doing all that is waiting to be done. Picking currants, taking a run, building a garden wall, weeding....

Nice start of the vacation

We have been talking lots about taking an after work beer together in the city but haven't taken the time until after our last day at work. The town isn't far from were I work so I could take the bike. I dared to wear the crow claw necklace at work. I guess they don't understand that it is a real claw grasping a glass bead. I feel morbid wearing it. I bought it at the medeival market a couple of months ago.

We ate a salad first at one place, then hopped to a bar with outdoor tables were Johan ordered a very strange tasting beer for us. It was a bit sour, I dont think beer should taste like this so he got half of mine too.

Beside the pub were Gina Tricot havin a huge sale. We went inside and I bought some bijouteries. See pictures below.  They also had tights with crosses on that I bought very cheap.

Second beer was at another place, I chosed an Hawaiian pale ale (forgot the name) for us, it was very tasty. It was so hot that day and our companino had chosen to stay at home by her pool, so after this second beer we decided to take our bikes over to her place.

First a stop at the liqour store to buy some more beer and then of to our friend exchanging the warm beers in our plastic bag to cold ones from her fridge. She lives in an apartment in her grand parents house so we sat with their pleasant company chatting and drinking till late evening.

Our friends lives by a beautiful cemetary and she guided us to the old mausoleum. I will definitely bring my camera and take some pictures someday.

Garden project

I'm working on a new project in my garden. Behind the garage is a small slope where it's impossible to cut the lawn. As its a warm and sunny spot of the garden, it's perfect for growing herbs. By building a wall of natural stones I don't have to bend down as much and the wall will absorb the sun heat, giving a nice climate for the plants.

It annoys me

 a bit that the photo looks so two dimensional.  I had to shovel away a half meter of the slope and throw the soil upwards.  I use concrete and small stones as wedges, to secure the larger stones.

Farmer beans are a vegetable I've become fond of last years.  The flowers are very beautiful if you look closely and smells very nice.    

Down the rabbithole

She's a naughty little creature our bunny. In an instant moment she has dig a hole a few meters under ground. Alfons tried to close it but she was there to do an protest action.

This is something that happens every year, it's in her nature.

Look how she shoveling away the dirt behind her.  I have never clipped her claws and it's obviously not neccessary.

Oops! Down she goes.

And gone she is...

Since we barricaded her hole she was crossed for a day and refused to look at us.

It doesn't look much for the world right now, my lot for beans and peas. But there is two months left of the growing season. I have started to use the empty space between the rows of peas, maché salad and leaves from beetroot is perfect and ready to harvest now. 

Magical midsummers eve

A typical swedish midsummer is celebrated with friends and family, eating herring and dancing around a maypole, plus for some, lots of booze.

Instead of joining all the fuzz, we fled to the cottage and had am amazing weekend all by ourselves. 

It was the first midsummer at the cottage so slightly different flowers met  us.

After breakfast at midsummer eve we took a long walk up to a mountain nearby.  First stop was at the natural spring were we get our water to the cottage. See the hose in the corner? Natural springs like this are often holy places. I wonder if the vikings held ceremonies here. It's special because of the almost round shape.

Further by on the path we passed a fen. I had to go to it to see if I could find any cloudberry plants around it (for later picking). I found them and also cranberries in bloom (pic below), lots of them.

There were also so many orchids in bloom, that was amazing to see.

Something that makes the wet land so beautiful this time of year is the fen cotton. 

It looks like snowballs hovering over the ground. 

I saw the largest footprint of a moose, this one had been in a hurry because the two "spurs" at the back are usually not visible in a footprint on flat ground and next footprint was 1,5 meters away.

Hunting season begins in october so the moose was running for something else. This is a slaughter place for the hunters, I estimated the height to 4 meters.

After entering the end of the road we started to walk upwards. I passed a large stone that had broken pieces and tried to balance some of them.

This is the stunning view after some walking, and we had a good way left.

The vegetation was a bit sadly very thick at the top. The other side of the mountain has a 400 meter high steep. You can see some blue spots between the trees, that is small lakes. 

By the steep is a small metal box were visitors can write a note about their visits. Johan saw lots of relatives from the summer cottages. The first notes were from 1960.

 

Of course we left a note and started to walk down hill. When I passed these blocks I had to take a picture of that place, there must be trolls living there.

After a quick lunch, we walked to the lake for some bathing and washing ourselves.

The day ended with a dinner for two on the porch. After that we both were exhausted and went to bed as early as 9 pm, yeah, ha ha, right, like old people. It is weird but one get so tired when we stay there. I have no problem sleeping for 12 hours.

Midsummers day rained away and the mosquitos made it a hell being outdoors. It was the warm humid air that woke them. This was the view from the table were I sat writing letters, playing cards and on my android tablet.