Off the hook

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday I found that electronic components share a characteristic with buttered bread: they always land upside down when they drop. Also, when you turn them around, they are always the wrong way. Then, when you try to turn them right, you drop them again.

Yes, I'm making electronics at work. It goes so-so. Hopefully I'll learn to do it better.

This spring M said to me that there doesn't seem to be any frogspawn in the pond. It's usually full of them, so that was a little of a disappointment. But yesterday I looked into the pond, and suddenly there were plenty of little betailed specks floating about.

Maybe there were fewer eggs than usual, or they were all hidden under something, so we didn't see them.

There's an installation on the meadow. It looks like a black globe hanging inside a tent in the middle of it. We think it has something to do with the horses. Who else would put things up on our grounds without telling us?

A fly catcher?

M and I spent a week in Rovaniemi in Finland, with M's sister and her husband. We expected to see snow when we came up, and there was indeed quite a lot of it -- at home it was mostly gone. The fascinating thing in northen Finland was that the half-metre or so of snow was shrinking visibly each day, and it gave off a notable amount of water. I'd go for walks along nearby footpaths and observe it.

Sunday morning we set off home. It was excellent driving weather: blue sky, a degree or two below freezing. We drove via Tornio/Haparanda, and down the Swedish coast.

At Härnösand, the snow hit us. The sun disappeared, the windshield clogged with slush, and we had to slow down considerably. It wasn't dangerous, so much as really annoying, as we crawled down the E4. In the end, we stopped at Birsta, did some very quick window shopping, and sat down with a cup of tea for a while. After that it was a little better.

So now we're covered with snow, and it's soft, and wet, and does nothing to protect you from the very soft and wet and slippery ground underneath. Welcome, Norrlandian spring!

I found something new: a refill package of shampoo. It was on the bottom shelf in the grocery store.

When I came home, I found that I happened to have an empty bottle of exactly that kind of shampoo, so I filled that up. Well, I suppose it would have worked with any kind of bottle.

I think I have, half-consciously, been waiting for this. It stands to reason, that you should buy things in as light and simple packaging as possible, and keep the more sturdy containers at home. I already buy spices in those little paper packages when available. And sometimes liquid soap, but that doesn't work so well, in my opinion.

Today's weather warning: grassfire.

I can't say it doesn't worry me, but what's really alarming is the thought of what will happen in a month or two, when there's grass that's not covered in snow and ice.

Do we need to prepare for quick evacuation?

Yesterday's interesting adventure was a live broadcast from Ljungaverk. This is a project of my boss's: local television.

What happened in Ljungaverk yesterday was that a new grocery store opened. This is noteworthy in itself for Norrland, where depopulation has been the norm for decades, but this was an unmanned, always open store.

My immediate reaction on entering was: Do they only sell candy? It turned out to be not quite right: there were indeed several shelves with diffent kinds of candy, and soft drinks, and variuos snacks -- all prominently on display :), but once I came to the shelves at the back, I saw bread, diary products, dry groceries and a reasonable assortment of readymade meals. What they didn't have was fruits and vegetables, but that may be understandable.

We were there to film the opening, and the first customers. There was actually a lot of people milling about, including one from my choir. I had mostly come along to help with getting stuff in and out, but I did some "extra" duty, walking around with a basket, looking at things. I also tried to push some people towards the reporter, to be interviewed.

People seemed very pleased with this solution. Maybe we'll see more of it.

We need to cut down a couple of trees to put up a greenhouse. I think I'm going to do a few on Sunday, when it's going to be above freezing. Then I need to ask M for help with the bigger ones. And finally, we have to remove the roots, which looks like the fun part.

At least the firewood is going to come in handy in a winter or two. Fire has turned out to be very useful on cold days, and sometimes on not so cold ones too -- when it's around zero, the indoor climate gets unpleasant here.

This is my first post in a long time.

I hope you're ok. I'm doing quite well here in my backwater. Loffe is sleeping in front of my chair.

We have Norrlandian winter, but hopefully it won't be too cold in the coming weeks, maybe even a few degrees above freezing.

I intend to try to post regularly, maybe twice a week, no promises to be interesting.