Frosty Morning

White frosted hints of winter creating a landscape that is like a ghost of summer

 

and the lake beginning to freeze

The snow that fell last week has all but melted away now. Strange winters.It must be a shock to those who experienced long hard winters in their childhoods/earlier adulthoods,here in Sweden.

Instead....it snows in California!!!  Huh?  Yep! and to prove it here's a picture lifted from Fox News via AP. I have left the comment which appeared below the picture - I'm trying to decide if someone was being humorous or simply another fine example of the excellent accurate reporting available at Fox News (ehem. ..pass the salt please).

the caption says "Dec. 17: A California Highway Patrol vehicle drives up a road in the Angeles Crest area of La Canada, Calif"

heres the link

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Nothing seems as perfect as we would wish...

There I am extolling the many virtues of living in this

wonderful country...and then....

Swedish quake 'strongest in two decades'

The earthquake which rattled southern Sweden on Tuesday morning wasn’t as powerful as  initially thought, according to new data about the tremor  go  HERE

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Readers of this blog (all one of you,heheheheh) will at times have seen

the photos of the delicious coffee I get at my nearby coffee experience shop, 

camera it, in Bengtsfors.

Well, they recently introduced me to this guy

and all his friends with Jeff Dunham

and if you haven't met them yet....you are missing something

FANTASTIC

google Jeff Dunham and find out or see the link in the earlier blog entry.

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Sweden Tops the Tables....AGAIN!

Sweden tops child welfare ranking

Published: 12 Dec 08 07:46 CET

New feature Double click on a word to get a translation

When it comes to caring for children, Sweden ranks highest among the world’s wealthy countries, according to a new report from the United Nationschildren’s organization, Unicef.

full story HERE

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Aha! Winter's coming,huh?

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This is not Sweden-specific, but in the broad human interest I include it.

There can be no doubt of the role humour can and does play in

de-bunking and destabilising the power of politicians, institutions, repressive

or authoritarian regimes....and,of course,deviant religious sects.

If you have never seen this....be prepared....

GO HERE

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SWEDEN TOPS THE TABLES


“The Swedish foreign aid programme is the best in the world in terms of quantity, weighted for country size, as well as its quality,” said a report by the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington, DC-based think tank which compiles an annual ranking of rich countries’ commitment to development assistance.In the 2008 rankings, which were released on Friday, Sweden had the highest ranked foreign assistance programme of any of the 22 wealthy countries included in CGD’s annual Commitment to Development Index.

Sweden’s high score of 13.0 for its foreign aid was also the highest score received by any country in any category.

more on this here
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Snow is here again

The snow of 3 days ago soon melted,but last night we had quite a bit and more

is forecast for today. The temperature is just 1 C and it's going to get colder

in the next 72 hours.So this snow might stay longer.

Snowflakes as individuals

It probably won't stay for long as the temperature is above freezing,but snow started falling last night

 

"And thus it's unlikely that any two complex snow crystals, out of all those made over the entire history

of the planet, have ever looked completely alike". Kenneth G. Libbrecht, Caltech  who runs the

snowflakes.com website. You can read exactly about the individuality of snowflakes on

this page of the website

Journey from Orebro

 

 

Flickr Tags: Orebro,Sweden,Sverige,E18

Whilst reading about the 'universal healthcare debate' in the USA,I came across some

interesting statistics relating to the year 2005 which shows the extremely high

standard of healthcare in Sweden - a country with a population of around 10 million.

A couple of things stand out as illustrating the highly efficient and cost effective way in which Sweden

deals with the issue of the health of it's population:

1.the highest (or equal highest) ratio of nurses and doctors per 100 of population than any other country on the list

2.the lowest % pf government revenue spent on healthcare with almost the highest % of health costs paid by  government.

 

Sweden is a very good place to live!

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Technorati Tags: healthcare costs,nurses,doctors,'socialised healthcare'

Swedish Postal Chief refuses salary

 

So how's that as an example to Wall Street Bank Chiefs (and others getting a taxpayer bailout) ?

Full story HERE

Orebro relaxation

It would appear that I am not the only one seeking relaxation. Here is a picture of just a part of the geese that

flew in yesterday morning.Heading south for the winter I guess. I think there must have been 100-150 of them.

 

By 13-00 I understood why they were all flying in and then after an hour or so of rest flying out again.By 15-00 this was

the scene

 

Flickr Tags: Orebro,Gustavsvik,Geese,Sweden

Last Monday I drove for 250 kms. A beautiful early winter's sunny day. I drove along pleasant roads with just light traffic in a far more modern and luxurious car than my childhood memories evoked. The journey was far from uneventful as I travelled through the unending assault of magnificence that is the nature of this,my adopted country,Sweden.

On such a longish solitary journey one could be forgiven for finding it a little boring. Children today need a portable Dvd player,hand held game consol,or something similar in order to deal with these longer journeys. Adults console themselves with cd players, even MP3's.

This journey began whilst the frost-fingerprints still lay upon the ground, clothing everything in a mystical hue,hinting at the fine subtlety of nature's intelligence.Most surely nature knows what she is doing and there is a rationale of rest and rebirth that underscores all of her methodologies.

It was not long before I settled in to a kind of rhythm. It was like that half-dreamy awareness that assumes dominance as you listen to some great symphony or love song. A harmony enters into the consciousness. The music of these meandering moments was a visual melody as,almost at each swing in the road,new crescendoes of colour and form fraternised with my feelings.

Half-toned frost shaded tree groups surrendered to large expanses of sun-sparkled forests.Lush full autumnal green meadows capitulated to white crested sunshielded slopes. From one forested area to the next each forest seemed framed with it's own personality and within each forest individual trees pronounced themselves with a vocabulary of uniqueness that even as I traveled could not be ignored. Why was that tree at that angle? Was that one Silver Birch flirting amongst that group of Pine trees? The top two or so meters of that tree bent almost at right angles to it's trunk?

Above me a clear blue sky to the west held that golden brilliance that is the pivot around which all else functions.It's authority subdued by it's lessened presence at this time of the year was nevertheless still evident upon the small cotton-wool stranded clouds that dared to venture into the western sky. Their timidity underscored by the grey-blue density of the gathering storm in the eastern sky, creating a counterpoint, a descant to the melody of the land.

The further I journeyed the more the rhythm and melody of nature rose in volume within me. The feeling of not wanting this journey to end, of somehow being adrift on a cloud myself, grew and grew within me.

I reached my destination quite a while before I reached the place to which I was actually traveling. It was a recognition so powerful as to still remain palpably present some 24 hours later.

We are surrounded,all the time, everywhere, with blessings of beauty so enormous,so incalculable in their effect upon our inner self that it is only when we have released the reality of their presence from our grasp that we are overtaken by the sheer heavenliness of what we have experienced.

As our spirit sighs with the extravagance of all this individualised caress of creativity we are simply left in wonderment.

Journey to Orebro

A beautiful sunny day for a long journey,and here's some of the magnificent beauty of the Swedish countryside along the way:

 

as you can see a beautiful sunset over a sumptuous lake

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Flickr Tags: Orebro,Karlstad

Sometimes when I'm thinking.........

Swedish inventiveness

For those readers who,like me 25 years ago,don't know so much about Sweden

except Abba,Bjorn Borg, and maybe a couple of gentlemanly football players

(Henke Larsson for example) you may care to have a look at this

 

 

Just click on the picture to follow the link to my favourite Swedish (english) online

newspaper

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Technorati Tags: Abba,Bjorn Borg,Henke Larsson,pacemakers,matches

Wet,windy but still 'warm' 7c

Flickr Tags: gallnas,Bengtsfors,Dalsland,Sweden

Sweden welcomes Obama

That was the headline in my favourite online english/swedish newspaper

 

and for those who like to know a little more ,

                                                         Barack Obama: The 50 facts you might not know

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Flickr Tags: obama,sweden

We have fantastic fishing in Dalsland also

 

but as far as I know the sizes in the hundreds of freshwater lakes in our area (many of which are joined together to form the Dalsland Canal system)

have not quite reached the size of the fish detailed in the above by Foxnews website

Flickr Tags: Gallnas,salmon,fishing,Dalsland

President Elect Barack Obama

HuffingtonPost.com had a fantastic election page also with various 'election data widgets' from other sources,like MSNBC,DailyKos,

Google,CNN,etc. So I was 'stuck' at HuffingtonPost.com for all my data. Here's their headline,up at 04-05 am Swedish time

Health care in Sweden

 

                                                     The fuller article can be seen  HERE

Sweden is such a civilised country with a real heart and compassion for the less fortunate in the world

Technorati Tags: sweden,healthcare,Bengtsfors,Gallnas

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Lewis Hamilton wins the 2008 F1 title and becomes youngest world champion

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learning curve with Windows LiveWriter

so no I finally manage to get some idea of the settings within the prog and can manage to post larger pictures.

early winter beautiful day II

Another beautiful early winter day

nice windy weather today

Blogging with Windows Live Writer - offline

This is a trial run using the above programme for offline creation of blogs

 

Quite a nice prog, it even allows me to position the pictures

Someone celebrates their 60th birthday today and starts off with a champagne and sushi breakfast (courtesy of Anna Maija and Unnolv)

Full moon at midnight,Vestre Silen,Gallnas Dalsland

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Oh, incidentally, if you like pictures of this area you can find quite a

 few at the sister website on the galleries link page:

http://www.sweden-experience.se/sweden-experience_004.htm

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Full moon rising over Vestre Silen Lake,Gallnas,Dalsland,Sweden

ps.Blogger and Picasa are so fantastic now that if you click on these images you get them full size  :)

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                                  Sometimes it's just nice to go for a walk in the surroundings

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As you can see, we are heading into yet more rainy weather. Wow. It sure has rained a lot this month.
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MS WORD 2007

Isn't it amazing when you make discoveries that everyone else already seems to know about?

I have just found out that I can write and post blogs from my MS Word. Never having had MS Word

prior to my new machine it's not surprising I'm a bit of a dummy about it. So this is my first trial post.

Summer spendour speaks to us in all sorts of ways. This first picture is almost 3D but has not been 'Photoshopped' other than for size reduction.

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There is now a Gallery of pictures from Nikolay's visit - click HERE

Midsummer Moon

The above photo was taken at around 01-10 am on Midsummer day. A full moon is rising in an almost clear sky.

You can see something of the importance of Midsummer celebrations (generally ranked as the most important of the year here in Sweden) by going here

http://www.thelocal.se/7665/20080619/

Red Face

It can still cause problems. Well, I spent the greater part of my life on the left not on the right. I met my wife essentially because I stood on the wrong side of the road for the bus.

So I go into Bog Cottage and end up with Sharp Nude, whereas I really needed to have gone T17 through the King's Garden into T19 via Big Bog to get to Clog Mountain. Of course, the King's Garden has everything so I could have gone to Raspberry Mountain, or raised my voice at Shout Stone. If I was that interested in cars (about from continually giving first aid to the Espace - worst car I've ever bought) I could turn my attention to Wheeltown or enjoy the highly pleasurable company of Mary Market or Lily Island.
But there I embarrassingly was with Sharp Nude and all because my brain was hotwired for the left not the right.

And for those who haven't a clue what I am talking about.....check this out
http://www.thelocal.se/subway/map.html
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For those who haven't got it yet, the above entry is about a new map of Stockholm' s subway system which has been quite literally translated over to english

A new gallery of Gallnas flower pictures

with downloadable zip file if you want copies

Yesterday was FLAG DAY (National Day) here in Sweden and it's probably been one of the hotest in recent years. Phew!!! It's hot :):)