goodbye june, hello july 2021

 

The delicious scent of mock orange has been June for me this year. I think nature has continue to be just as pretty in June as it was in May. But far warmer and exhausting. Too many days of temperatures around +30C. Even if it’s nothing like those global records close to almost +50C in Canada (which is depressingly scary beyond words), it’s still exhausting and dispiriting. 

I miss sleeping properly, thinking, breathing, existing. Today was a day of cooler weather, but it looks like the temperatures will go up again this weekend. Gaaah. 

I booked my second covid-shot earlier this week. And felt pretty excited about it. The next day I realised the trains are for the umpteenth year replaced with buses this summer too. Which  means a one hour single trip will take 2 hours until August 9. Train-bus-subway and a lot of people who don’t know the meaning of social distancing…

A few weeks ago there was a big hullabaloo in my municipality that they now offer vaccinations from buses too. Which in theory sounds great (even if it’s way late to acknowledge not all of us have cars…). However you’re suppose to book the vaccination bus-slot via the Region Stockholm app too. And it did not appear as an option when I booked. 

Two days a week it’s available, and unless I have any other business that need doing down at the center 5 km x 2 km walk I’m not overly keen on getting myself there just to ask if there’s any other way to book a slot (it’s not as if there were people queueing up there the last time I was there…).

So currently I’m thinking that because I booked a morning slot on a Sunday, hopefully there will be less people taking the train/bus/subway. Once I get into the city I can walk those 5k from the station to the church that serves as a vaccination center. I had hoped I could book a slot at the same place as the first one, but no slots available then and I really wanted to get it done on the first day I could. Plus with this replacement bus chaos it wouldn’t have mattered.

Everything is figureoutable, but I’m so sick of all this incompetence when they set (the non existing) strategy of rolling things out and then it ends up being hart near impossible to do because it’s not accessible for us without cars. Ugh. They should have offered vaccination buses from the very start. As the TBE and other vaccinations are offered via buses for years now, this should have been easy peasy, given the vaccine availability. I bet they have been forced to dump a lot of vaccine doses just because people can’t get themselves to those few and far apart vaccination centers. 

I do hope someone will collect all these stories (which is not something exclusive to Sweden, I know) of ridiculousness and incompetence when it comes to the Covid19-vaccination roll out. It needs so much improvement. And someone taking responsability for all the flaws, not the current someone-elses-fault-behaviour from everyone involved.

There. That said, June has also been another pretty decent month for second hand selling on Tradera. In fact, I think it has been such an interesting time learning and grasping the various strategies of selling and buying on this platform that I wrote a piece about it on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-went-from-tradera-newbie-pro-month-lessons-pia-k-t%C3%B6re-wallin

Unfortunately I’ve also had my first encounter with a bat crazy buyer, but that was bound to happen sooner or later.

I have finished four books in these past two weeks, which is, as you know, a big deal in my world of reading these days. My favourite of those recent for was Mhairi McFarlane’s ’If I never met you’. A very unexpectedly relatable and bittersweet feelgood. I have only one library book to finish in July and then I will fully concentrate on reading through my own heaps of acquired books.

With the ongoing replacement buses debacle I don’t see there will be many regular trips into the city, even fully vaccinated, this summer either. Not until August. So summer of reading it is, and that’s actually fine with me. As long as the weather cools down, please. Then me and the books on the sun (shade) bed will be best buds all summer long.

As I think I wrote in a previous post, there were quite the chaos with a leaky roof incident again last month (and in an ideal world I would have been able to get a new roof by now, but an ideal world it is not). I booked a guy to come and take a look at it a few days later. He didn’t turned up. When I called he had made a double booking, which he was sorry about. Though for some reason he hadn’t called to tell me that, but left me waiting for 1,5 hours… Anyway, when he did turn up next week he was able to do a quick emergency fix straight away and I only had to pay a measly price for it. I’m ever so grateful for that sort of  kindness!

In this little limited world of corona June also held a nice little art walk in my suburb. Apart from the La culture c’est moi pig by Carl-Fredrik Reuterswärd of course, and the new Ping Pong piece there were apparently two other public ones easily missed. 

These past couple of months I’ve noticed a weird high influx of blog visitors from Sweden. As Swedish readers are very few, US readers are without a doubt the most common ones, the mad  numbers really stand out, about once per week. I don’t think I have some crazy blog stalker, but the reason for it still remains unknown. Hopefully time will positively tell.

Summers are not only hard on feet proned to blisters - and 2021 has been hell for mine - but also on things proned to chafing. And it has nothing to do with weight, it’s just the way your built. I didn’t experience it until in my 30ies. And it took a ridiculous long time before I realised shorts, and then bicycle tights, were fantastic under dresses and skirts.

I know there are various creams and roll-ons these days, but I find the idea of those less fresh and convenient.

Then I found these less snazzy looking and more granny underwear ones via Instagram. Chub rubs from Snagtights. The size ordered turned out to be 1-2 sizes too big for me, despite following the size chart. So I’m waiting for another two pairs which I hope will be a better fit. I can still wear these though, they stay up anyway. I think they are pretty neat. The only readon I chose that awful Builder’s tea colour to the left was because they were all out of the other perky colours. Putting these on does make me feel like my old aunties when I was a kid though. Or perhaps a bit like Bridget Jones. 

I ended June with treating myself to a fabulous pink linen dress from Marimekko. One dress for all the pieces sold on Tradera. That’s alright me thinks. And the first clothing I’ve bought this year (not counting that second hand green rain anorak find). I’m making progress! And it haz pockets. A few years ago I said I need to get more block colours, not more prints and patterns, in my wardrobe. So it ticks that personal box too. And goes very well with yellow chub rubs, in case you wondered.

And yes, I got tired of the hair growing so fast and looking more tired and grey than ever, I cut it myself again. Planning to try a new dusty pink, vegan colour on it soon. Maybe it’ll work better when the grays are sun-bleached too. 

June, you have been beautiful and lush, colourful, interesting and dashes of nuiscance to make things a bit more interesting. Cheers and thank you so very much!

Welcome July, I wish you will be kind and benevolent, generous and inspiring, the bearer of great news and good food. And please, keep the hot weather at a minimum, okay?

midsummer 2021

 

Hope you have had or having a lovely, kind and loving Midsummer Eve and weekend.

It has mostly been raining all day here, but I’ve loved its unpretentiousness, sweet moments and pretty great vegan food, if I may say so myself. 

The heartshaped cruelty-free cream cake says it all. Imagine there are still people consuming dairy, when there’s this gloriousness available! Ugh. 

Cherries, berries, flowers, lush nature and grumpy cats of mine.

Swedish summer really is amazing. Even more so in the time of corona. 

And on that topic, I’m hopefully having my second covid-19 vaccination in 2-3 weeks. I’m well aware that the vaccine will not miraculously 100% fix the mess humanity has put itself in, and there will be variants, and new viruses, and climate change continuing to speed up its pace. And EVERYONE needs to change their life and eating habits. Period. But, as things are here and now, a little bit of normalcy as we once (1,5 years ago) knew it, goes a long way…

When June turns into July, it’s time for a proper update from the world of mine. Now, a slice of that plantbased cake, please.