As I said we paid extra to do this, a series of light installations by different artists at Skansen accompanied by music and it was beautiful; worth every added Swedish crown. I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked because it had got so cold by the time we did it that I was getting reluctant to take off my gloves and work the camera on my phone. But here are most of the ones I did take.
Magical stuff.
In fact Skansen is a folk museum and Nordic zoo combined all year round, and in December it has Christmas Markets at the weekend. It's a very long time since we ventured there in good weather and we must get around to doing that sometime soon. Meanwhile like every day we were in Stockholm the day we went to Skansen was very snowy. It's also quite hilly which isn't a great combination. I took lots and lots of photos because honestly the place looked like Narnia and it was so beautiful but I'm only going to post a few. Some of the market and some of the animals in the zoo. I was sorry to see that the wolves have gone; no idea where. Maybe they staged a mass breakout? Whatever, their extremely large compound has been taken over by the lynx(es) and I think the place where the lynx was has now been given over to the arctic fox. The wolverine, true to form, did not show itself. I think it only comes out in the summer and on days that don't have a y in them.
We paid extra to go on their Winter Lights Walk - well worth it and a few pictures of that coming up in a day or two.
There were two main things we went to Stockholm for - apart from just the fact that we haven't been since before Covid and before Covid we went there quite a lot. We don't normally go for a week, but we did this time because it flitted nicely between the two Scottish Opera Emerging Artist Recitals. And the two main things we went for were a performance of Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House and a visit to the Christmas market at Skansen.
We did a few other bits and pieces as well. We did a Winter Lights walk at Skansen, we had a traditional Julbord or Christmas Buffet at the hotel one evening, we visited the national gallery - at long last re-opened after several years of renovation and refurbishment, we went to the Marzipan Boat, we visited the shop and cafe at the Vasa Museum ( seen the ship twice, don't need to see it again) and also went to a part of the city we've never been to before to meet up with a longstanding penfriend and her partner. Oh and on our last day at great risk to life and limb we went to Gamla Stan, the old - and nowadays most touristy - part of the city.
So this is what it looked like outside our hotel when we arrived
So last Christmas I got sent a kit to make and decorate shortbread and although the attempts of Son No 2 and I were not particularly successful in the decorating stakes we had fun. So back in November when I saw a 'decorate your own gingerbread men kit' in Shearer's Christmas Shop I bought it so that we could repeat the experience; but with icing that wasn't out of date and horribly runny , and without having to bake our own biscuits.
Kit
Naked biscuits
Clothed (iced) biscuits,
Sorry about the shadow on the picture. It's so gloomy here just now we can't operate without the lights on at any time of day.
I'd like to say that mine were the most accomplished of the six, but that would be a lie. Son No. 2 did a much better job. I suspect it's all the D and D model painting that he does.
I can't comment on what they taste like as we haven't eaten any of them yet! A pleasure to come I'm sure.
Christmas was quiet and I somehow managed to buy the OH a very expensive book which he had already bought for himself (he must have smuggled that into the house sometime). I would take it back were it not for the fact that I blithely refused a receipt as one does so often these days, after wafting a contactless card somewhere in the vague vicinity of the till. A gift to the library I think. Or a raffle prize the next time someone asks.
Meanwhile today is the OH's birthday. I somehow managed not to buy him something he already had. Which was a plus.
Courtesy of the Bonne Maman Advent our little Scandi forest has a new addition. It's really cute - and also seems like the right sort of image with which to sign off for now. I will see you on The Other Side; meanwhile a very happy and peaceful Christmas to all of you kind souls who take sufficient interest in my ramblings - and occasional rants - to read the blog.
Postie brought me some non-Christmas mail today, to wit:-
I wasn't expecting it before Christmas so it was a nice surprise. The top skein is my 'payment' for doing the sample sock - you get paid in your choice of yarn which is great for me. It's a DK skein of the colour Eowyn from the Lord of the Rings collection and its going to become a pair of mittens for me. The pattern is all picked out - although not yet bought.
The rest is a sock set in December's Colour of the Month for which the inspiration was a robin. This will become, unsurprisingly, a pair of socks, I'm just not quite sure which pattern I'll be using, although I have a short list.
I'm feeling a bit odd, Everything got finished by Wednesday and now I'm sort of at a loose end although I have Christmas socks to finish for son no 2 and I'm starting to worry they might not get finished. But I'll do my best.
Son No 2 arrived for his Christmas holiday on Monday and today, everything being complete and even my ironing up to date bar one duvet cover (slated for tomorrow), not to mention the fact that my nose is not now running 100% of the time, we decided to go out for bit of a celebratory treat.
The weather was not very nice, and got worse while we were out, and in any case being reluctant to go as far as Kirkwall, that meant either Celina Rupp or Polly Kettle, both nice places to eat and very local. Celina Rupp won.
Son No 2 and I shared the apple strudel cheesecake which is lovely but far too much for one person - although I'm not sure he agreed. The OH indulged in some Nutella swiss roll and we all had a hot chocolate because it s hot chocolate sort of weather. All very nice.
We'd passed the postman doing his rounds when we went out and were all agog to see what he might have delivered, three parcels and several cards still being on the expected list. Imagine our excitement as we opened the front door - and the anti-climax when all we found on the mat was an Income Tax code change from HMRC.
Ah well better luck tomorrow, eh?
I think I normally post a photo of our tree and this is it this year - not very different although there may be one or two more bits and pieces on it than last year - I know there's at least one because I bought one in Paris.
I mentioned our little Scandinavian forest the other day; it's a bit compromised this year as we have had to leave space on the windowsill for Remaining Cat to sit. It's one of his favourite places and he's still a bit disoriented by being Only Cat now so we don't feel we can deprive him of it by spreading out wooden trees and adding reindeer.
I should be chronicling our adventures in Stockholm, but I'm poorly. This is a common thing in December for me so I'm trying very hard not to blame it on the OH. This does not change the fact that deep down that's EXACTLY who I blame because my symptoms are very like those he developed when we got back from Stockholm. It's not Covid, or at least his wasn't as he tested. I haven't tested because we don't have any test kits, but his wasn't so I'm assuming mine isn't either. Also I am not seeing anyone except him - and Son no 2 who arrived in Orkney yesterday for Christmas - also we got booster jabs because we're old and live in Scotland, so basically I'm just trying to ride it out.
However as I don't like doing posts without photos here's one of our Stockholm Breakfast table.
One of the things we did in Stockholm was to go the the Christmas market at Skansen If you've read the blog for a few years you'll know we did that once before. That time the place wasn't covered in snow and it wasn't -12, but hey!we coped.
I'll do a proper round up of our visit with photos later on, but here's what we bought.
Quite restrained. The two little 'people' are additions to the Scandinavian Forest we have on the hall window sill at Christmas time and the two boxes contain bars of marzipan. One flavoured with Calvados and one with Irish coffee. Yum! Eagle eyes readers will also spot a skein of yarn. What can I say? It was a lovely colour ( as were the others in the basket), we walked past the stall twice which was one more time than my willpower could stand and it's a beautiful blend of silk, alpaca and merino hand dyed by the woman running the stall. And it was on offer. I'm only amazed I didn't buy more than one.
or at least a half one, which started today.
I really shouldn't be allowed near e-mail updates/newsletters from yarn dyers at 1.00 in the morning because my resistance is very low at that time of day. Which is how I came to order a half advent from a dyer new to me - Madrigal Yarns. I mean I must have heard of them to have subscribed to their e-mails but I'd never seen them at a show or ordered from them before. However the blurb made the advent sound amazing and you could buy a whole one, or one of two halves and they all came with a pattern specific to the one you bought, so I succumbed and ordered the Tokyo Past half advent. The other half one was Tokyo Future and it sounded like it might have a lot of bright and possibly neon colours in it, so I went for the Tokyo Past which sounded as though it was going to be more about kimonos, fans and cherry trees.
Today was the first day, so out it came. here's the box
and this is what met my eyes when I opened it
Isn't that wrapping beautiful? The design bits aren't fabric but that Japanese paper that feels a bit like it and the colours are lovely; I'm going to keep the bits for when I'm making cards. There was a ring row counter, which apparently we need for the pattern, a stitch marker and the thing in blue at the back is the pattern which we were warned not to open unless we wanted spoilers for the yarn. Which I didn't so that's still wrapped.
This was the first yarn; a 50g skein in shades of grey and green.
I doubt that my phone and/or monitor screens do the subtlety of it justice.
I have two other yarn advents which will make their appearances here in due course.
The Yankee Candle Advent.
This is a 'repeat' from last year and likely to remain an annual purchase, since I burn tealights in the evenings throughout the winter so I might as well have some special ones in advent. Or some of advent as yet again this 'advent' has 18 candles rather than 24. No idea why. Anyway I burned the first of them yesterday and it smelled great; the problem is that they're not labelled with their specific scents, there's just a list on the bottom of the box of the scents included. Details people details ... although I suppose if they sell them regardless why should they care?
Talking of details I see when I described my Bonne Maman advent I forgot to say that the days you don't get a jam you get a little bag of grey dust which is supposedly some sort of tea. I'm not sure either of us is willing to try it.
Christmas preparations here are slower than usual this year, partly because we went away for the first week in December ( not sure I'd do that again, but who knows?) and partly because the OH came back lergified. I relate that to his determination to walk around Stockholm in minus temperatures inadequately dressed, but he won't have it; apparently the fact that all he wore was a glorified cardigan with a strange thin fleece lining is offset by the fact that it zipped up to his chin... Anyway we did get the tree up yesterday, although not decorated and the cards we've had so far are also up so progress is being made. I have one parcel and three local presents still to wrap, and about a dozen cards still to do, but that's not much in the overall scheme of things and we're definitely getting there.
well, not literally for you, but for you to look at.
When I saw someone opening one of these on their Vlogmas posts on YouTube last year I laughed like a drain. Really? You can get one of those? And you have?
which just goes to show that you should be careful what you laugh at, as this year I have one of my own.
If you don't recognise it, it's a jam advent from Bonne Maman. They are much more common than I ever knew. You get 19 little jars of jam like this in unusual favours - we had quince yesterday which I've neve had before, and in all honesty wouldn't rush out to buy quinces on the strength of it, but you know, it's something new.
Also if you buy it direct from the company as I did you get an extra parcel like this
with a small knife and three full sized jars of spread; caramelised apple, chocolate and orange, and chocolate and hazelnut.
I don't intend this to be an annual thing at all, I just thought for one year it would be a fun thing to do. So I did it.
Not only clean but new. For the last few years I have beaten myself up for forgetting, until everywhere is sold out of them, that I would really like a Nutcracker themed set of bedlinen for Christmas. I'm a bit of a sucker for Nutcracker themed things. No idea why.
But this year I remembered in September and in October I actually ordered a duvet set with a Nutcracker theme, It's even reversible so what you're seeing in the photographs is both sides; one on the duvet and one on the pillowcases.
Very festive!
Oh yes trip away. And Advents. More to come over the next few days...
Yes. oddly enough, it is the other Murakami. I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to read them one after the other (in poster terms) but it seems I reserved this one at the library at the same time as Norwegian Wood but it took them a lot longer to track down.
(I should say as well as single books I am ploughing my way through a multi book series from the poster so doing a little better than it might seem.)
I really don't know where to start with this one as it is so very odd. It's much more entertaining than Norwegian Wood though, so that's a good start. It's a surreal story which sends the narrator ( middling successful, younger end of middle aged, recently divorced, Tokyo business man ) on a strange journey to Hokkaido to look for a missing friend and a sheep with a star mark on its fleece. It's all to do with a sheep that wants to take over the world and features an appearance from a man who dresses as a sheep to avoid being sent to war. There's a suicide, and a murder, and a woman with the most beautiful ears in the world.
It's highly symbolic and even I, who know less than nothing really about Japan, caught some of the subtext and it was nice to have a subtext because goodness knows Norwegian Wood didn't have one, unless it was that life is bewildering or damaging or both and possibly not worth it.
I didn't expect to say this, but I actually enjoyed this book, and I would recommend it, if only because it is probably unlike anything you have ever read before.
The blog is now going silent for a wee while. Tonight we sleep on a boat, tomorrow we go to Glasgow for a very very packed two days before getting up at daft o'clock on Friday morning to fly to Stockholm where we will be for a week. Back in Orkney on 9th, back blogging, possibly on the 10th.
I was lucky enough to be chosen to do another sample sock for Helen at Giddy Knits recently. It was a quick turnaround so she just asked for plain socks with a contrast heel and toe. Here's the yarn she sent
and here's the sock
we did not discuss A Surfeit of Advents, because we had in quick succession, a long drawn out period of anxiety over a Missing Cat, rejoicing over a Returned Cat, concern over a Suddenly Very Poorly Cat and finally sorrow over a Cat who had Left Us.
Lorenzo was very special and we will miss him. For those not familiar with the story of how we came to be adopted by Lorenzo you can read it here
And here is one of the last pictures I took of him
R I P
I may have left Saturday Slaughters but I'm still reading/listening to crime fiction. here's a round up of some recent ones.
In Her Blood by Caro Ramsay. I saw this in the library as I was passing the recently returned shelf and thought - 'oh we read one of hers in Saturday Slaughters and I enjoyed it'. Which was as good a reason as any to pick it up and take it home. Turned out it was No 2 in a series of which I had not, naturally enough, encountered No 1 (sigh)and there was a lot going on that reading No 1 first would have helped with, I got the feeling that this one had been written in a bit of a hurry, as there were some places where I felt things didn't quite add up, or that some information which was fairly vital had somehow got lost in an edit, but that said, it was an enjoyable read. Well plotted, with a good twist at the end (which I felt I should have seen but hadn't - always the best sort - and some interesting characters. If the library have it I'll get hold of the first one at some stage and do a 'catch up'.
The Twyford Code by Laura Hallett. I have seen Laura Hallett lauded up hill and down dale recently and described as a great story teller, master of the unexpected twist, etc etc so I downloaded this from my libraries Borrowbox service. I finished it but I didn't enjoy it. I certainly saw the twist at the end of this one, and basically it's one long (over) extended gimmick, that gets very old very quickly. If you're looking for something a bit different give it a go, but don't come whining back to me if you don't like it, because I warned you.
So both the forgoing are a reasonable length which cannot be said of Robert Galbraith's (aka J K Rowling) latest Strike novel, The Running Grave. I used wasted an Audible credit on this. You sort of can't say you're not getting value for money if you judge a book by length, since it is over 30 hours of listening. JKR has obviously now reached that level of popularity where her publishers either don't bother to edit, or she doesn't let them, because this is far too long and would have benefitted from a massive cut - say 30%? The plot, which involves Strikes partner Robin going undercover to investigate a cult is good; and the sections dealing with her struggle to maintain her identity while bombarded with all of a cult's pressures to conform are so convincingly written they are difficult to listen to. I found them almost unbearable. I also think JKR may have fashioned something of a rod for her own back here as the psychological fall out from this experience would be huge and long lasting and that's a lot of baggage to saddle a recurring character with, if you're going to keep on writing about them and, moreover, writing them into dangerous situations. However that's JKR's problem, not the readers. So not a bad book, and I found myself mentally cheering at the loss of one recurring character, just far too long. Also I do not like Robert Glenister's way of narrating these books, and not just because one of his characters has an accent that wavers uncertainly between Glasgow and Belfast; it's too aggressive and shouty. I'd probably have enjoyed the book more if had read it rather than listened to it. That would also have meant I could have ignored the irritating quotations from the I Ching which head up every one of the book's 136 chapters, with bonus ones thrown in at the beginning of each of the book's parts. I would feel bad about saying all these harsh things if I hadn't read a shedload of Audible reviews (after I had done my own) that agreed with me.
Since I can't grab a photo of the covers of any of these books off the web here is a photo of The Cat Lorenzo, now well on his way to recovery, although he is currently showing a weird preference for being out of the house in the wind and the rain rather than in it in the dry and the warm. Possibly he is attempting to avoid being 'dosed'.
Tomorrow we may discuss A Surfeit of Advents.
So I regularly get a cross stitch magazine and it always comes with a little kit to stitch; sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, sometimes I start and then get bored and give up. These ones, which are from October I think, I actually stitched and made up.
Definitely somewhere on the cuteness scale.
If you're wondering why the snowman one is separate and has a picture all to itself it's because it was finished, attached to a present and then sent away before the others had been assembled.
There are a couple of other small Christmass-y things from the same issue that I'd like to stitch but I doubt I'll have time to get them done for this year. But who knows?
some knitting I can post about since it's for me.
A friend in America recently sent me some some super chunky wool and rather than let it languish in my stash I knitted it up immediately making myself a two colour cowl for our forthcoming trip to Stockholm.
It will fold in half to keep my neck warm, and then as the day wears on I can unfold it to cover the bottom half of my face - I've experienced the seeping cold of a Stockholm December before!
A couple of weeks back I was celebrating using up almost all my February wool purchases, except for one lot of the wool I bought in Madeira, as I didn't know whether to use it for socks or mitts.
The answer was mitts, and I am stupidly pleased with them. They're a slightly modified version of the Medley Mitts from Helen Stewart's Advent Collection from last year. My second pair and probably not my last.
I have hit a 'bijou snagette' with the OH's Finnish jumper as in the neckline per the pattern is too low and too wide for his liking, so it's currently resting in a project bag by the side of the sofa while I work up the enthusiasm to take a lot of the yoke out and then do some maths.
