Cina opened her yarn store today - congratulations! It looks really good & I'm sure I will pass lots of time in there trying to avoid spending too much on yarn.

I've started on a pair of mittens - they're knit in thick, wool yarn and the needles are 8 and 9 mm's in bamboo. I love the sound they make when they click together, it's very relaxing.


Anna, Sus, Ida and Jess came by for a fika at my place in the afternoon. We all concluded that the best thing with being back in Sundsvall is each other's company.

I've been cooking today! Here's the recipes - in Swedish - one is with salmon and pasta and one is with chicken and rice. If you can't see the whole recipe it's probably just that you need to be a member, which luckily doesn't cost anything.

This afternoon I've had a fika with Sus and Ida at Wayne's - they've re-decorated and I like it much better now. Then we had some kind of introduction at Kåren before the welcoming of the new students - which I couldn't wait to leave in order to stop by at the knitting café. During my half hour there I had a nice chat, knit a few rows and had an amazing cappucino.

Now I'm off to make an apple cake!

Everything is starting all over again. My friends are returning to Sundsvall & today I met Sus in the staircase of our building. On Thursday I have a date with Anna & we have a lot of catching up to do - despite our hour-long conversation on the phone this afternoon.

Late summer & early autumn is my favorite time of the year. It gives me a sense of freshness and the feeling that I have the chance to do it all right this time.

It also gives me inspiration to re-decorate my apartment, get a new hairstyle and buy new clothes - or, as of lately, buy the yarn to knit new clothes - all at once. Maybe getting nicer (as in, too expensive) food will get me started on cooking again?

At the grocery store, someone had taken a bite from probably half of the plums in the box and then put them back with the bite mark facing down, so that noone would notice. That's an idea on how to get free food.

I've started on a new sweater. Most of my knitting readers have already seen it, but I can at least proudly announce that I got past the hard part and as of tonight I've done 17 cms on the second sleeve.

I had lots of fun & lots of work during my last weeks in Gävle. There's one million things to tell and I'll write down some of them eventually.

For now - some of my articles are here and here for a while more. And here's me & Hedda at Wasteland (O'Learys hard rock club):

As some may have figured I'm back in Sundsvall. Anyone else here?

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.

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.

I've arrived safely in Gävle where I now work for the local newspaper Arbetarbladet. I will be editing the family pages for the next seven weeks. The first day went well, despite being a bit nervous to begin with - now I feel fine although I'm quite tired. I do need to make a checklist of all the little things I will have to remember each day - there are a lot of smaller tasks in this job that are still important to keep track of.

For this time I am staying with a co-worker, Sivan, and her husband Hasse. They will be on vacation for some of the weeks I'm working - therefore they need someone to take care of this sweet little creature named Trisse.


In the evening I went for a bikeride and ended up taking some photos by Tolvfors bruk. Some of my ancestors were smiths back in the 1600's, even if not at this particular place. Still I'm fascinated by the environment in which these people spent most of their lives.




Yesterday I had a goodbye fika together with Nadine, since we're both not going to be in Sundsvall for quite some time. It was nice to see everyone for what was hopefully not the last time. These months have passed by so fast and I hope that also goes for the time until we meet again.

Holland didn't manage to get revenge on Russia for us last night. The dessert was good, though. It was some kind of pudding with blueberries - yum!

Midsommarafton was spent at Norra Berget in daytime. We've watched the Maypole rise, danced around it and picked flowers for binding a ring - as in a typical, Swedish midsummer. I wanted to show these traditions to the exchange students who stayed in Sundsvall for the holidays.

Since I've never made a ring of flowers for my hair before - other than a few improvisations as a child - me and Whitney went to get some help from Medelpads Hemslöjd, who offered to teach visitors to bind rings. At times there were even 30 people sitting around the tables, filled with different kinds of flowers, birch and binding thread. I'm satisfied with the result of my first attempt and I know how to make an even nicer one for next year.

While searching for flowers, I managed to catch a butterfly.


Dinner started at 6 pm, with the traditional sill & potatis (pickled herring and potatoes) - or meatballs, for those who don't like fish. Unsurprisingly, the typical Matjessill is often too much of an acquired taste at the first bite. Knäckebröd seems appreciated, though.

The strawberry cream cakes for dessert was gone rather instantly - even though I had made three of them. I noticed that some people were taking pictures of the cakes, though, so they will live on for a while longer.

About 30 people came to the party, most of them are exchange students but there was also some Swedish people. I definitely enjoyed sitting in the garden for hours, just talking to people and have a snack every now and then.

During all evening there was at least someone playing kubb - some people seemed to be in every game. The daylight faded around midnight but it was never dark. People stayed until around 2 am and I'm very happy that so many people came. I hope everyone enjoyed what was for many of them, their first Midsummer party.

I've been walking barefoot in the sun today. Actually I've walked quite far - with shoes on - as me and Tom went to City Gross to buy groceries for the midsummer party. 28 people are coming to eat, some are also joining in later - the more the merrier, I'll say.

The evening was spent in the kitchen of Tornvillan with Tom and Andres. I made three strawberry cakes and we all helped out with peeling 7 kilos of färskpotatis (the tiny ones that appear in June).

Another part of preparing for tomorrow was to introduce Tom to the Gotlandic game of kubb. A while after midnight when the sun was rising again, we played a national championship where Holland had a bit of beginner's luck.

The Italian coffee place Delicerano got two visits from me today. In the afternoon I met up with Andres, who is helping me plan the Midsummer party for the exchange students who are still in town.

Later on I joined the girls of Mittmaskan for an evening of knitting. I've happily realized there is so much more left for me to learn about knitting than I had imagined. One of the girls even told me about a course that will take place in autumn (?), where you get to color yarn with the help of mushrooms. Somehow I think you can never know everything about handicraft. What I do know now, is that it's indeed much nicer to knit in the company of other knitters.


Now I'm going to watch the Sweden-Russia soccer game and keep knitting on my sleeve. Since I'm already on my 7th skein of yarn I'm beginning to believe my 3oo sek budget will break. On the other hand, if you knit a cardigan yourself, you will still keep the yarn even if you don't like the knit item any longer. (Sorry about the blurry image, but that's what you get when going to a coffee place twice in a row.)

We met up for another goodbye at Biteline last night. Most of us had the tacobuffé while I tried a Cobbsallad, which was actually quite good. I did steal some guacamole from Tom which was delicious so I'm going for that the next time.

The rest of the evening was spent in Nacksta, watching the soccer games. We actually had two TV:s standing next to each other, one with France-Italy and one with Holland-Romania.

Since France lost I felt a bit sorry for JB, so I let him be the first to try the Swedish nyponsoppa. I brought it with me from ICA since it's the last chance for some of the exchange students to try it. Most people liked their sample of what is now also referred to as "nipple soup".

I'm also preparing for midsummer and therefore I bought some pickled herring that was cheap at ICA. We tried making Stefan eat it, since it's his last night in Sweden, but it didn't work. Even if he likes tomatoes... It will be interesting to see how much of it is actually eaten on Friday.

There's a certain feeling to walking by a graveyard at the break of dawn, when the birds are singing loudly.

Tonight was filled with saying goodbye, mixed with "see you at the reunion" and "see you in Amsterdam". Danique had her last fika with 10+ people at Tant Anci och Fröken Sara where we stayed for two and a half hour. Pictures can be found at Kitty's.

The rest of the evening was spent at Tornvillan, where I packed up some things that would otherwise have been thrown away by people who are leaving.

I've also bought my last unhealthy snack - a TipTop icecream cone, which btw costs 8 crowns more now than when it was my favorite - before saving up for my driver's license. There, I said it and now I will have to follow through. Coffee doesn't count.