everyday life

kärleksmums

kärleksmums, originally uploaded by catsfalk.

I do love to bake a yummy cake! But if I bake at home I eat it all up by myself and that is not a great idea! So last Friday I made this chocolate cake to my lovey co-workers. Chocolate cake with chunky chocolate bites and chocolate frosting. Needless to say - but everybody loooooooooved it! The recipie can be found in Leila Lindholms amazing cake book "A Piece of Cake".

my favorite season is here

My favorite season is the autumn, the fall, hösten! It doesn't matterif the sun is shining or if it's raining. This is my favorite time of the year. Here I give you: The autumn in my neighbourhood!

yesterday, october 25

 

 

october 19

 

 

Today, in the rain!

thåström

Thåström, Joakim Thåström is a Swedish singer. He formed the most known Swedish punk band in 1977, Ebba Grön and I heard them first through a friend of mine, Isabella around 1978-79. Uptil then I had mostly listen to Abba, but suddenly I realized there where other music out there.

Ebba Grön - Staten & Kapitalet from, Ebba- the movie

 In 1983, Thåström formed a band called Imperiet and Imperiet became one of the biggest rock groups during the 80s. This band stopped playing 1988 and I saw them a couple of times during their farewell tour.

Imperiet - Du ska va' president, 1984

1989 Thåström released his first solo album and I and saw him live (again) that autumn. During all these years Thåström wrote his songs in Swedish. Mid 90s he formed a new band Peace, Love & Pitbulls and began to write in English. I was still a fan, but I missed the old Thåström.

Caveman - Peace, Love & Pitbulls, 1997

1999 he was back solo and in Swedish again and the fans loved it.

Thåström - Två+två, 1999

Thåström - Om Black Jim, 2005

Thåström sings "Keops Pyramid". A TV broadcast concert celebrating the singer/composer Mikael Wiehe, 2006.

Today I have been playing through my Thåström collection. We started to talk about him at work this morning and most of my fellow archivist around the age of 40 has this man as a favorite since late the 70s. Looking forward to next CD!

on the needles; a clapotis

clapotis, originally uploaded by catsfalk.

Recently I have been knitting on my first Clapotis. I'm using the lovely yarn I got from Claire last november. I can't say I love knitting this piece, it's kind of boring - but it's a great pattern to knit while watching TV or a DVD.

I'm guessing I'm going to run out of yarn before I'm done, but I have some alpaca in similar colours to save me.

churches, gotland

The island of Gotland has about 92 medieval churches. During my trip to Gotland I saw two of them. Anga and Dalhem.

anga

Anga Church is from 13th century. It's one of the smallest church on Gotland.  And the medieval paintings are the most preservde mural paintings on the island. 

the older paintings

The oldest mural paintings is from 13th century and the younger is from 15th century. 

the younger paintings are showing the life of Jesus.

 

dalhems church, part of the doorway

Dalhem is another medieval church, on of the biggest churches on the island. But between 1899- 1914 they did some major work on this church, and made new paintings, to look like medieval paintings and destroyed the real medieval ones.

 

The medieval windows in Dalhems church.

roma abbey ruins

On Friday morning we had breakfast at the hotel - Hamnhotellet. And after breakfast we were divided in 7 groups. Every group was walking off or driving off in buses in different directions. My group headed to the east side of the island. Our first stop was at Roma Kloster  - Roma Abbey ruins.

 

the ruins of roma abbey

The Abbey was founded 1163 by  Cistercian monks from the Nydala Abbey in Småland (on the mainland Sweden). The governing abbey was Clairvaux in France. The abbey became a religious and agricultural centre for the region around the Baltic sea. It was a prosperous time for Roma.

 

With the reformation, 1530s, the abbey was abandoned and was resigned into the Danish Crown's(Gotland was part of  Denmark at this time) ownership. When Gotland became Swedish 1645, the abbey was in a very sad state and when the Governor began to build a new residence at Roma, he took the stones from the abbey and put in the abbey doorways in the new buildings.

the (former) govonor residence, roma kungsgård

During the 1930, 1940s the area become in the hands of the military, they left in the 1970s. Nowdays you can see theatre in ruins. Every summer a Roma theatre companysets up an Shakespeare play and it's very popular. In the former residence you can find a crafts and arts shop and in one of the buildings next to the residencet you can find the Roma Glasbruk.

Click on the photo's to come to my Flickr page for more Gotland.

visby

Last Thursday and Friday was spent on the beautiful island of Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. Since October 1st my company has an office on the island, in the town of Visby and the trip was kick off the new office and to visit our colleauges who has moved from Stockholm to Visby. It was great to see the gang  in Visby and to see the new office. 

  the great hall at artillerigatan in visby, before the party begins

Later in the evening we had a party, about 500 guests, great food and great band playing, Bacchi Bröder - photo below.

Even later that evening we ended up at one of the classic Visby joints - Munkkällaren . It looks the same as it did when I was here the first time in 1991 (?).

...and look who is standing in the bar...

Next post will be more about this trip. See 'ya.

going east

So, today I'm on the roads again. If I did west last time, I'm going east today. In a couple of hours I will go to my nearest airport, just 15 minutes from my apartment with a car, to Bromma Airport. (I can see and hear a plane take off at this very moment, when I sit in my sofa in my living room. ) I'm going to take a flight to Visby and Gotland this afternoon.

Visby domkyrka - Visby Cathedral

It's a work related trip, and I'm not  the only one who's going. My closest 250 colleauges are going too, to Visby today, by the ferry or by air. Parts of my company has moved to Visby this month and today we will have a kick off to celebrate this occation. So we will have a party tonight and tomorrow we will have bus tours around the island to see sights of medieval churches and  ancient sights. I'm looking forward to see the sights around Roma.

So next post will be filled with new photos from this trip!

örebro

Saturday morning, I took a train, and headed west. About 2 hours west of Stockholm you have the city of Örebro, in Närke. In the 80s Örebro was the nearest big city for me, so here we did a lot of shopping. I still have some friends living in Örebroor just outside of the city and the past weekend I visit a friend, Katarina,  I have known since Junior High. We had a great weekend with lots of laughter and reminiscence of the old days.

And yet again, I did some shopping in Örebro. I came home with some booths, and I found them on SALE. Yay! Well, you can't own to may pairs of shoes and booths, right?

 

Örebro Castle a landmark in Örebro and it's a medieval castle fortification. It was expanded during the reign of the royal family Vasa (House of Vasa) and finally rebuilt about 1900. The castle lies beautifully on an island in river Svartån.

charity

I have a good life. I have a Job, I'm ok with my paycheck, I'm healthy, I have an apartment, I have friends and a family who cares about me. There are those who hasn't got these things, those who are less fortunate than me, so I need to contribute to their life to get better. So this winter I will knit socks, hats and scarfs to these men and women. I read about Hjälpstickan on other blogs, I decided I wanted to help.

I have also change my electric company, from the big and "evil" Vattenfall to the small and good God El and donate my money to Stockholms Stadsmission. I feel good!

Charity socks, 2 pairs, size 39
yarn: Opal, 6-ply
needles: metal dpn 3,5 mm
pattern: www.3ug.se/britttext/Opal6socka.pdf

design: Britt Andersson
started: September 20, 2008 finished: October 2, 2008
yarnsorce: Syfestivalen, Sollentuna, 2005