Alley-ooop

blossom pictures - click to enlarge and download

Blossom surprise

truly amazing amount of cherry and apple blossom this spring

spring feelings

Spring Gallnas - Kizoa Video Editor - Movie Maker

Hot Sweden

via thelocal.se

visit to Dalsland Art Museum (Dalsland konstmuseum)

Saw there one of the most beautiful pieces of furniture, made in Dalsland, that I have ever seen in Sweden

time to go green

stereophonic squirrels

RIP Volvo V70

full story

spring is so exciting….001

 

 

Sweden in top 3–this stuff just keeps happening :-)

In the annual Global Innovation Index and a related report, which were published this morning by Cornell University, INSEAD, a business school, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation it is somewhat surprising (in the sense that I never knew this) to find SWEDEN and Great Britian in the top 3 worldide.

young ones are out for food

Calling Sweden via NYT

 

 

Calling Sweden via NYT

Life expectancy

Banks are realists. They deal in hard facts. No wishy washy dreamy ideas.

So, want to know what your life expectancy potential is if you are young and live in Sweden.Well, check this out:

former Prime Minister of Sweden,Fredrik Reinfeldt,on the refugee crisis/non-crisis!

"True vulnerability is to put your family on a boat which you don't know if it's going to make it across the sea. True vulnerability is to flee even if you don't know where you're going, if you will get there, if you will even survive. But this is what it is when the alternative is impossible to live with. Therefore, you have to escape. That is vulnerability," he said.

Reinfeldt gave the speech last Monday, before EU leaders struck a deal with Turkey designed to limit the inflow of refugees to the continent, but it did not grab headlines until over the weekend after it was shared by a civil rights lawyer on Facebook alongside the words, "the speech a prime minister should have given".

Sweden took in around 163,000 refugees in 2015 and has been struggling to provide schools and housing for all, with current centre-left prime minister Stefan Löfven battling declining support in the polls.

But Reinfeldt urged Swedes not to exaggerate the crisis.

"In our country we have now started using words to describe what Sweden is exposed to and I have understood that we're living in a collapse[d society]. Everything has stopped working. With those kinds of words we're there again – what do words mean in our time?"

"I have spent a few weeks meeting people and asking, in this country of collapse, how their Christmas holidays were. What was it like celebrating Christmas in a collapse? If Sweden is collapsing and nothing is working, what words do we have left to describe what is happening in Syria right now?"

(The above quotes courtesy of thelocal)

I am an englishman and have lived in a beautiful area of Sweden for 18 years (owned a home here for 27 years). Our local community literally has no accommodation currently available. But, in my local community (about 10,000 people total in quite a large area ,12 persons per sq.kilometre) there are more than 40 languages spoken! 40! Apart from a very very small minority (who always complain about everything anyway) I hear no complaints about offering help and aid to refugees. There is much in the media highlighting very isolated incidents in Sweden that cause dismay amongst most ordinary Swedes that I know.A very few racists does not a nation make but we seem to live in a time when one or two screaming voices are given disproportionate air time!

The economy has a very very bright outlook (http://www.government.se/articles/2015/09/forecast-for-the-swedish-economy/  …http://www.oecd.org/eco/outlook/sweden-economic-forecast-summary.htm  ) and I see no signs in my community of hardship. Even the Swedish currency is now higher than the Norwegian, which is the first time I can remember it being so in 25 years!

Crisis? What crisis?  The only crisis is that which is generated by xenophobic few…very few!

Hi there :-)

I just love it when the sun does this

Just spread the happiness

This pensioner is waiting on his own for a train in Stockholm. Now in Stockholm their is a group of folks who play harmless pranks on folks, spreading some happiness.

In this ‘prank’ a group of kids come and sing a happy chuildrens song to this pensioner, who seems totally delighted with it all.

 

snow’s back

sun’s up