the path of good intentions

Lots of nifty ideas and plans for the weekend turned into a lot of reading, thinking, watching movies, sleeping (not very well due to heat) instead. And, sadly, not even eating anything particularly nice. Yes the cherries were reasonably nice, but not as juicy, sweet delicious as I prefer them. (Perfectly free picked outside a nearby day care center, seems an awful waste not to eat them though.)

Garden looks reasonably nice, so instead of blabbing more nonsense, here are some more glimpses of that (ol' reliable)~

This tiny, perfect red rose I got some years ago from a dear friend. We've lost contact - for reasons to me unknown, but that's another story. I miss her though. And our talks - but the rose diligently appears every mid summer. A wee beauty.

Rudbeckia, sturdy, colourful and very bumblebee friendly.

The pink clematis is the only one of my three clematises that's planted by yours truly. The first summer in this house, which was seven years ago. Needless to say (really) it hasn't thrived as the other two that came with the house. Still pretty, but still small.

Some claim poppies are easy and grateful to grow. I say not. I've tried to please them countless of times, in vain. Now I've spotted two of them, not in flower bed but in lawn, source unknown. Kind of sweet just the same.

One (hairy) loaf also thought it was a rather humidly warm, lazy weekend. That just about sums it up. My weekend.

wishes of a lovely weekend

here's to a peaceful,
picturesque weekend,

restful, joyous hopefully with

many wonderful sightings,
scents and
possible sweet treats ~

angel hat

Sometimes window shopping is enough. Quite more than enough. I'm still contemplating whether this is one of the most horrific hats I've ever seen or if it can perhaps, maybe, possibly fill some sort of purpose.

eating out - Lea's

At tiny place Lea's - previously known as Lotta i Stockholm originally known as Cesanna's - you'll find healthy fast food in the shape of flatbread wraps (and salads) with different savoury fillings and freshly squeezed delectable fruit juices and smoothies.

The vegetarian wrap is deliciously stuffed with boiled potatoes, grated carrots, grated beetroot, lettuce, dash of spicy dressing and roasted onion. Quite a perfect simple, quick meal teamed with a freshly made juice all year round. The experience gets even better if the weather permits outdoor eating, watching people walk by at the busy street.

For those who want coffee and dessert, previously mentioned Blooms lies within very reasonable walking distance...

Lea's
Hornsgatan 18, Stockholm
+46 (0)8 641 01 10

I noticed today (July 16 2009) that they're closed for vacation at the moment, they probably open again sometime in August at the latest.

owl earrings

The sweet woodland songbirds whispered in my ears that they wanted company from home. Nothing less than owls would do and who was I to refuse to get them friends shaped in a sibling mold? Promptly a couple of matching sweet, carefully sculpted owls moved in. The songbirds are very pleased and so am I.

Days when I feel extra daring I might even wear one owl and one bird in ears. And no, that won't make me feel like a scarecrow at all.

more work from the sparrow's nest

garden state july

there are wild strawberries to be savoured,

there's and abundance of gorgeous red roses
(their only flaw complete lack of scent),

strange creatures with even

stranger pink attachments.

then you saw it, now you don't.
instead there's a ghostly vision visible

(to the botton right).
bye, bye lilac hedge for this season...

purple clematis has began to bloom,

and so has the white.

the omnipresent garden watchers.
who needless to say are quite comforting,
for a lot of reasons.

the strangest thing of all though,
is the discovery of a tiny strawberry plant

- five berries so far -

that saw it fit to plant roots in a patch,

without specific invitation.

a tale of two loafs

I carried this mummy of a bread a long, long way home with me. It wasn't until I unwrapped it I realised that either the baker had had a lot of fun shaping it or the fermentation-oven time had shaped it into something you don't have to have a scrap of imagination to see the resemblance with.

Showing the borderline X-rated bread pictures would probably give sensitive readers nightmares, so instead I give you the sweet child proof version of the tale of two loafs ~

The one to the right is the huge levain sourdough bread (from Kringelgården), the one to the left is one slightly heavier and hairier loafie dog. Other than that, they could be twins.

PopCo

"PopCo" is another amazing book by Scarlett Thomas with a cover that promise greatness and manage to deliver it.

I loved it. Loved it, loved, l.o.v.e.d. it. LOVED. IT.

Possibly even more than I loved "The End of Mr. Y" (published after "PopCo"). This is truly the kind of book that can change your life. And to be honest, great books are a plethora, but it's not terribly often one get the joy of the possibly life changing ones.

The book certainly made me think. Even more than usual. It's just such a brilliant concoction of thought provoking ideas, a fascinatingly ambitious plot - the width, the research and the preparatory work is quite impressive - that's both easy to relate to, easy to read but at the same time highly enlightening (even to someone that really doesn't need convincing).

It's a marvellous roller coaster read about greedy multinational corporations, marketing, code-breaking, mathematics (me not being a number buff was rather mesmerized by their meaning in this book), animal rights, veganism, philosophy, fashion, social criticism, religion, politics, love, life...

Some food for thought quotes from the book;

"Is it marketing that makes us think that something like being a vegetarian is as stupid as wearing shoulder pads and too much blusher? Is it just marketing that makes us feel good about tucking into a 99p slab of dead cow at lunchtime? That, and the fact that everyone else does it. The more people that do something, the more likely you are to do it too."

"Hitler tried to impose his shiny, blonde, neat, sparkling world on us all and we resisted. So how is it that when McDonald's, Disney, Gap and L'Oréal and all the others try to do the same thing we say 'OK'? Hitler needed marketing, that's all. What a great idea, to make people feel that they belong to something, that their identity makes them special. If Hitler had been able to enlist a twenty-first-century marketing department, would he have been able to sell Nazism to everyone? You can just see a beautiful, thin woman with her long blonde hair moving softly in the breeze and the tagline 'Because I'm worth it'. I am worth it. Me. I am worth the life of others."

Do read this fantastic book ~

random monday musings

:: after two pretty intense, but frightfully fun, weeks of computer classes I'm now allowed to breath and reload for some holidayic weeks, before it continues in August. If I could have chose I would have continued with the course for at least a couple of more weeks and postponed my vacational time. It has been such a fun learning process, that perfect mix of rekindling with stuff one already knew and eureka problem solving moments.

I'm so pleased there's no forced socializing involved, that you're actually allowed to be a completely absorbed by learning nerd, that hi and goodbye is pretty much all you have to utter during the day, and if you have any questions there's always teachers around to ask.

I love that I after a short introduction have been left to my own devices and it's been a blast to read, practise and solve tasks. And as I did finish the first project just before vacation time I can't wait to continue with the next one.

It would also be awfully nice if all this learning could actually lead to some great challenges with a pleasing income attached, and not just another nifty thing to add to the CV...

:: Finally. I'm now a (somewhat) proud owner of a bicycle helmet. I do wonder how we survived all those years riding bikes without one. But as we live in Sweden, the land of safety addiction, it's the prudent thing to have. As I really didn't want one of those butt-ugly Darth Vader style helmets it took for ages to get one.

But the perfect one revealed itself recently and I opted for not a pink (not because it looked like I was wearing a giant strawberry ice cream cone on my head, but because it seemed to get dirty within a blink of an eye), not a black (reasonably nice, but somewhat bland, as usual with black) but a khaki green. The shade is apparently called dirty, which will team well with my all pink bike.

My pink bike that I actually inherited from my grandfather. He was not only a man with green fingers and a passion for art, he also rode a pink bike. I like that.

:: One would think that being a busy bee these past two weeks would have made me read less, nope, quite the opposite. As commuting is usually such a dull thing the reading has been very scheduled and an as always very helpful relief from dullness. I've finished not only one, but three, soon to be four books. Reviews to come. All quite, quite good, one even brilliant and of course the latest entry on my-favourite-read-ever-list. Hint - PopCo.

:: I haven't felt very inclined to try new recipes for quite a while. Suddenly I have an inclination again. If they turn out plus edible there might be some more recipes posted in a blog near here. Still this is not, nor will it ever be, a food blog. But still, I do love to praise vegetarian cooking whenever I can. As the benefits, both ethical and health wise, are endless.

:: I've never been much of a history buff, it might have something to do with less than engaging school teachers and more than a sneaky suspicion that historical "facts" are very less than reliable since history is infamous for being written by "the winners". Now and then I do find history and its "facts" quite fascinating though.

One such example is the TV-series - and book that I just placed an online order of, I think I deserve a refill on the heap after being a such a diligent little reader these past weeks... Every excuse is a good excuse - Terry Jones' Barbarians. Which shows quite another truth than that claimed by the ancient Romans. Interesting glimpses of the bloody European history presented in an easy and humorous way. I wish I had had history teachers like Terry Jones in school.

Btw, I never knew goths were suppose to have originated from Swedish island Gotland. Go figure.

:: Now. Bedtime. To spend some quality time with new books. Who could ask for more a fine summer night like this? (Yes, there were red berries involved in dinner.)

strawberry summer chocolate

Dry frozen strawberries in classic Swedish milk chocolate. If there's such a thing as summer chocolate heaven I do believe this match was made there. Because this combination is quite, quite lovely and very, very strawberryish in flavour.

Limited summer only edition from Swedish chocolate brand Marabou (the one with the special park).