Rings on the water, a brief moment alone Expanding rings connect, overflow and gone Tossed in to the world, flat stone slightly curved Flying elegantly with a bounce, one, two, three, four, five Then sink to be sunk, stone bound to take a dive
Sometimes on a Monday evening those moments just appears, ha de Gött!
I promised in a comment to write about the three additional letters we have in the Swedish alphabet, so here it is. Yes it’s true we have three more letters after A to Z as in the English alphabet. Åå, Ää and Öö. Not to be show off’s, they have these with a different spelling, and pronunciation, in Danish and Norwegian also. Let’s just say it’s a Scandinavian thing.
Lets start with Å. A friend of mine tried to explain this in a London pub when we were young backpackers. “It’s an a with a prick on”, he said. Took a while to figure out why the men laughed and the girls blushed. Dot is in Swedish “prick”. It is pronounced as ooh. Even for native Swedish it’s sometimes difficult to know when to use O or Å.
Moving on to the A with two pricks on, Ä. Pronounced eah. If you have sheep close by listen to them, they go bäää. Use Google translate to listen. Just copy from this text and paste in Google translate. Very common use and a real struggle for all English speakers moving to Sweden.
So the last letter the O with two pricks on, Ö. This is actually also an entire word that translates to island. You just have to listen to this on Google. There is nothing even close in English that I can think of. I think this is a happy little letter. Used to drive my teacher crazy when I made a smiley of it.
Just remember that sometimes less is more, ha de Gött!
On a shelf by the water below a 10 meter steep drop, we saw something as we passed by with the boat. Maneuvering closer we saw two goats settling down for an evening rest. For a human this cliff shelf is only accessible by boat or climbing down attached to a rope. Truly amazing climbers with their small feet.
Make sure your foothold is good, ha de Gött!
Adam the adventures ant Left with a bold chant Walked out the anthill Fearlessly into the evening chill Strongest of animals I am Six times my size, god damn He ran out of luck Six legs was stuck Had to succum' To a chewing gum
You never know what to ant-icipate, ha de Gött!
Like a family of little yellow gnomes, popping out of the decaying oak tree root.
Safely hidden in the fading autumn green leafs, reaching out for the eluding sun.
With yellow hats and casual collars, curiously sniffing the fresh chilly evening air.
Mycel safely connected to the root, signaling celebration their biodiversity flair.
I have not been able to find out what the name is these are, but they are beautiful still. Ha de Gött!
Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) or Sloe berries. In Swedish “Slånbär”. A bush with long sharp thorns that creates a thicket more or less impenetrable. It’s eatable but rather tart and astringent unless it has been subject to a few frosty nights.
Retract your thorns, ha de Gött!
Sometimes Forestry Ulle dress in civilian clothes and walk the city streets like a normal person. Last Friday was such an occasion. The city was Göteborg a two hour drive from the meadows of home.
You see “Stora Hamnkanalen” or “Main Harbor Canal” in the photo. City hall with the German Church behind on the right side. If some of my Dutch readers feel at home you’re probably not mistaken. City planners and engineers was hired to build the city and gave it the nickname “Little Amsterdam”. Later during the industrial revolution many British entrepreneurs found their luck here, so the nickname changed to “Little London” and that remains still today.
The city was founded in 1621 by the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf. With its strategic position as a wedge to the west and the North Sea between Norway and Denmark, it was built as a fortress. Surrounded by high walls and canals in a marshland with the river Göta Älv on one side. From there ships could unload goods to smaller boats that then was rowed in to the Hamnkanal.
You can often hear my catch phrase “ha de gött” in Göteborg when people leave a shop or a tram. Stay tuned for more pictures, ha de Gött!
Sometimes all the poetry is in the picture. Ha de Gött!
I finally got around to go out to the lighthouse with the boat. The weather was fairly calm so it was okay to go in my small boat. Unfortunately I was loosing light but I still got some nice pictures. Below is a picture of the same lighthouse in storm.
The lighthouse is called “Väcker” from the small island where it’s placed. It was built in 1939 to guide ships in an area with many dangerous shallow rocks and strong winds. Several waterways intersect here. In the past goods and fishing ships depended on this for navigation but today it’s more of a landmark, or sea mark.
Light up someones day, ha de Gött!
Sometimes feel like a shadow a fraud bleak reflection of the beautiful and bright against the wall but sometimes in the setting autumn sun the shadow is the center center of the stage
We all depend upon the sun, ha de Gött!
UlleHaddock 