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ullehaddock

Writer of sorts with a soft spot for Photo. Writes about life and what comes into my mind.
Haze

Haze

You walk around in a haze. Trying hard not to bump into other people. Watch your step! Forget it, your feet are gone in a fog that makes the area around a chain smoker look clear. Should you by any change see through the mist, your sight will be blocked by something blue or white sticking out over your nose.

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You try to breathe. Like a steam train pulling to many wagons loaded with iron ore. Or high up in the mountains carrying your skis in deep snow for that offpist. You try, oh well not so difficult in the fog, to avoid the young peoples pitiful eyes. They look at you with “are you having a heart attack old man” written in the question mark over their heads.

Don’t try to speak. The stubble on your cheeks will pull it down. You try to adjust it. Only to get an angry look from the old lady in front of you. “No you should not touch it” she says with a high-pitched voice that makes the damp on your glasses freeze. At least the fog went away. Now everything looks much more psychedelic. What was it really in that coffee?

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You stumble of the train. As soon as you are alone you rip it of with a sigh of relief. Only to see your expensive glasses go to the ground. The spectacle sidepiece stuck in the lace of the FACE MASK! You put on your spare spectacles on only to see a lady in the next car get out and easily put the mask on. She wants to look good so she uses a car window as a mirror to adjust it. Four pair of eyes from inside looks up with a very surprised expressions.

No I will not take a stand for or against Face Masks but tomorrow I will get contact lenses. If I can find my way home! Hope you enjoyed. You know the drill, like, comment and subscribe.

A Sheep Video

A Sheep Video

As I read other peoples blogs I get inspired to try new things. So here it goes a Video, or really a slide show! I hope it works.

Photos by Ulle Haddock. Music Breaking Free by Edvin Leander ©.

The sheep you see in the slide show is Bruno, Dos, Tress and Mojäng. They don’t really want to stay behind the fence. Often they run away and eat good stuff in the gardens around. They are therefore sentenced to spend the summers on a small island. It is named Killingen but we call it Alcatraz. Now they are back on the main land for the season so lets hope they don’t run away and eat my wife’s flowers.

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Meet my family

Meet my family

It is only the closest family, she said. My grandparents and my parents. It will only take a few minutes. Then we can go on our dinner date. It is my grandfathers birthday.

She held his hand and looked up at him with her blue eyes. He drowned in them again, like the first time they met. He could not argue against those blue eyes. Her dimples made her lovely face even lovelier as she smiled up at him.

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Even though he felt it to be too soon to meet her parents on the third date he went along with butterflies in his stomach. Holding her soft hand as they walked across the village. He felt like walking on clouds. A connection he never felt before.

Her grandparents lived in a retirement home at the center of the village. The butterflies in his stomach turned into full grown seagulls as they walked along the corridor to her grandparents room. Was it a bit noisy behind the door?

They knocked and the door slammed open. He immediately wanted to turn on his heels and run. The small room was filled, no crowded, with people. Was it even possible to find room for them there? With a nervous smile he entered the room with a firm grip in her hand. An image of sardines, popped up in his head for some reason!

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She pulled him across the room, eyes starring, to the side of the bed where her grandfather lay. He was suffering from a lung disease and could hardly get out of bed anymore. Even if he was very sick his eyes was full of life and humor. The grandfather took his hand and held it tight. He said with an wink of the eye and a smile that he would have his hands full with the granddaughter.

Now introductions to the rest of the family started. Three uncles and two aunts with spouses. Then there was all the cousins! Even if he felt heartily welcomed he still have not learned all the cousins names after twenty years of marriage.

Hope you like this Saturday story. You know what to do then. click here for more.

Calm

Calm

Today I took a walk before dark. With the thick clouds there was not much light but I grabbed the camera anyway. I’m glad I did. Hope you like it too.

A Calm november evening. Clouds real thick. Reflections in the water. So many colors and shades. Grey, blue, red, green. Light struggles to get through the clouds.

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Mr and Mrs Svan kept their distance. Got to borrow that lens from my father in-law.

Stonewall

Stonewall

He took of his cap and dried the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The linnen cap was already soaking from sweat. He gazed towards the sun. Sun burning his eyes.

He called out to his son to bring him some water. His son hurried to bring him the water bottle that he handed over with his head bowed. With a trembling voice he told his father that the water was almost out. His father bent down. Held him hard around the neck and with his dark growling voice asked him; “Well why don’t run to the well and get some more”!

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He took the bottle and writhed out of his fathers grip. He could feel the slap in the air behind him. With a long harang of swearword the father resumed his struggle with a large stone in the dry soil. As he placed it with the others in the stonewall he looked at it. This would help keeping the neighbors sheep in their place. But the poor soil in the field he was clearing would not feed many mouths.

Was it this stonewall? Today hidden in the forest.

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To my brother

To my brother

By Ulf Kalkyl

I knew I wanted to make a speech at my brothers funeral. Much for my own sake, but also for my brother. It has been an impossible task to find the right words. I want to tell you everything, without having to say anything. It is hard to find a way forward in my own sorrow and loss. I want to say farewell without saying, god bye.

The strangest things catch your attention when you mourn. I got stuck in the grammar of sorrow. When someone passes away many tenses can no longer be used. Most obvious is tense for now, present tense. My brother will never again play his grand piano, code on his computer or drive his boat. We are left with past tense, preteritum. My brother was a fantastic musician, he could dance, he welded this and that.

When a young person passes away, tense of the forthcoming is used more, future tense. More accurately we use futurum preterit and futurum preterit exaktum. These two describes a possible future that never came to be. My brother would be an engineer, he would be a cantor, he would live many more years.

But I refuse to give in to the grammar of sorrow. You can speak of my brother in present tense. He is and remains my brother. Nothing in the whole world can break that bond. My brother is important and irreplaceable to me. I have only one brother, the finest brother a sibling can have. I am infinitely proud to call you my brother.

I’m proud over how he manged to graduate High School, get his drivers licence and get accepted in his dreams University, Chalmers. I’m proud over how he excelled in everything he did. From coding a compiler to replacing a catalyst converter. I’m proud in how he managed to excel me in most things.

My brother was never much for the meaningless. Grammar definitely falls into that category. But there is no point in drowning in “What if’s”. When I look ahead it is with all my brother is, and was that I carry with me. I carry with me what a fantastic, multifaceted, Renaissance man my brother was. I carry with me all his music, his puns and moments we spent together as brothers. I carry all the memories.

My brother, you are for ever my baby brother and I am forever you big brother. I love you, I miss you.

Ulf Kalkyl is a pseudonym of my oldest son. He held this speech at my youngest sons funeral. Ulf Kalkyl studies at University of Göteborg to become a High School teacher in Swedish and History.

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