"En av din kompis har en krossa på du."

Best translation ever.

Tom sent me pics from midsummer, where I'm picking flowers...


...and proudly presenting my very first "midsommarkrans".

I had a good time at Björn's barbecue last night. The sun even came out right at the time we started. I've found a fellow genealogic researcher - Jonas (in the red t-shirt) shares my hobby.


I also celebrated my cardigan being finished! (Although I need to do some adjustments as I crocheted too many stitches around the right front piece - that's why it's slightly longer - but that won't take long.)


After dinner we went to Godislandet for ice-cream - I had one After Eight and one cappuccino flavored - yum!

While watching the movie "Kiss kiss bang bang" at Anna's place, I was knitting on my new project - a white, cotton top. I'm thinking it will be great for summer days that are slightly chilly.


Trisse says hello to everyone - although right now he's out enjoying the summer weather, which I'll do in a few minutes, too.

My cardigan is almost done, yay! I only need to tie in the loose ends & sew in buttons.

I'm quite happy for my first attempt at a full size cardigan. Some mistakes of course but that was to be expected when still learning. (The big white stain is only in the picture.)

This day led me to a historical building outside of Valbo. Yesterday I did an interview with a guy in Sandviken. In order to check for misunderstandings, today I read the article to him over the phone while he was just about to go off the ferry to Visby. This afternoon I curled up in the sofa to read a children's book about the Gävle fire in 1869. (I won't tell more about the articles I'm writing before they've been published. Just in case anyone was wondering.)

My big excitement right now is that I'm soon finished with my sweater - likely this week, if the cat will let me. Although tonight I decided to go for a bikeride since we had sunshine and reasonably warm temperatures. Right now I'm looking for a new pattern to start working on. I find a million different sock patterns which I can't start since I want a project that's portable & doesn't make sounds. I also find about a thousand sweater patterns for 8 mm needles - lovely but way too big to bring along. Where's the neverending 2.5 mm projects when you need them?

Other good news for further in the future is that Björn invited me for a barbecue on Saturday night. Next weekend my friend Hedvig from Östersund will visit me - yay!

For the first time in years, tonight I've played the piano. Mostly children's songs like "När lillan kom till jorden" and "Sov du lilla videung" and with only one hand - since I never actually learned to play before. My main source of experience is my grandmother's piano which she patiently let me practice on when I was around 15 years old. Since there's a piano in the house I might just get back to teaching myself - luckily, my only audience for tonight was a cockroach (? it's icky and big anyway) in the window.

This is what I spotted on my way from work:

Sara, Susanna, Saartje, Sebastian (yeah, lots of names starting with S) and Christian and me went for a fika at Coffee House today. After eating & drinking I was teaching Saartje how to knit & I must say she learned quickly.


Then we had the usual discussion about Swedish drinking habits and alcohol laws. The two guys from Germany, Christian and Sebastian were surprised that it's illegal here to drink in the street. Christian said that it explained the weird looks he got when drinking a beer openly. Sebastian concluded that the two discussion topics he always comes back to here in Sweden is alcohol and dubbed movies.

Now I'm off to Gävle for at least one more week, probably five. I'm not sure if I'm coming back to Sundsvall before I've finished working - I have all I need there now.

I'm back in Sundsvall for the weekend. I came here around 9 pm and went almost directly to bed after having dinner. On my way here I had to make a stop in Hudiksvall, for switching from the train to the bus - I wish I could've stayed there a while longer.

This second week at work has been a mix of writing portraits, making long interviews and planning ahead to see what I should fill the family pages with. On Monday I went to Tierp and I did get to take one picture that was actually published, yay!

I'm happy that people are OK with what I write about them. It's indeed a tricky task, to get a full picture of another person's life and personality in a one hour interview. Then again I'm not doing a psychological examination, of course - rather I let people tell me what they find to be important. One thing I've noticed is that so many people don't seem to think they have a story to tell.

Summer has been here for a short visit this week. We've had picnic lunches twice and some warm evenings. This little sunshine has also been visiting us for a few days, along with his mother Mia - Abbe is one year old and Sivan's grandson.

Here are some pictures of Gavleån.

Now it's cold and grey again so I'll have the time to stay indoors and clean... :S I think I need more coffee first.