ON THE FRONT

Yesterday was one of those days; rain falling from morning to evening, sometimes mitigated down to drizzle, but never relenting and continuing well into the night. This of course invited a preponed sleep-in, with the sound of steady dripping drowning other evening sounds and creating a somnolent atmosphere. But, around 5.15 AM, I was suddenly awake, wondering where the steady dripping had gone to. The rain had stopped and a serene quiet reigned over Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö). Still half asleep, I sneaked out to the balcony for a check of weather prospects for the newly born day. Well, there was not much I could see. The warmth of the early sun rise had created, in the humidity after the rain, a lofty blanket of fog that enveloped the Sound with its airy cotton, allowing just glimpses of boats and quay in the near distance.

We are now experiencing the normal Swedish High Summer, with rainy days occasionally interspersed by sunny interludes. The continent is heating up, especially in its Eastern ranges far into Russia. Out there in the Northern Atlantic, the water is also getting warm, with corresponding influences on the air above. The front between these two masses of warming air is building Lows that typically migrate over Scandinavia, with Sweden being the final recipient. The result is cloudy days and rain, lasting until the clouds have fully disbursed their watery burden; whereupon there is a brief respite, with a few sunny days, until there are new clouds filled with moisture to disburse. This battle front of air masses striving for supremacy is governing the Swedish summer well into August. First when temperatures are starting to abate on the continent, is there hope for a new sunny period, albeit shorter and later in the season. 

THE ETERNAL LONGING FOR THE SEA

Two days ago, I rose late from a good night's sleep. The weather had cooled off the day before for the first time after a long lasting heat wave and this did me a lot of good during the night. The morning was clear and agreeable and I munshed my breakfast on the balcony. As I was sipping my coffee, I could not help noticing that a long string of boats was huffing and puffing seawards. So I rushed to get my camera to document this nice event for your benefit. 

The boats trafficking below my windows usually come in batches like this. Just 500 meters to the left of my apartment, Lake Mälar (Mälaren) empties itself into the Baltic. At this precise spot there is a pound lock located under the three Skanstull bridges, which opens only once an hour or so, forcing the boats into an orderly queue when sailing towards the sea. One has to admire these hardy sailors who have to spend many hours of drudging through the inner archipelago of Stockholm before seeing, at long last, some open bays and beautiful skerries further out in the Baltic. But this does not detain robust Swedes who entertain a life long love affair with the sea and spend their free time, either, on a boat among the skerries or, more sedately, in a summer house out there somewhere.

MIDSUMMER HEAT IS GLARING

This is a year of climate excesses, at least in Sweden. You may recall last winter, so harsh and snowy that Stockholm was shrouded in white from December to March ("Midwinter-night cold is harsh"). We now are approaching the opposite end of the scale, with summer heat reaching record values of 35 degrees and above, unheard of since at least 15 years back.

Yesterday I returned by train from Scania in Southern Sweden, where I visited some friends at their summer cottage. The trip normally takes about 6 hours (Sweden is a big country). But due to the heat, fires on the track and loss of power on the rails, the train was just standing at a station for four hours, awaiting the signal to proceed. Fortunately there was air conditioning on board. Eventually we got moving again and I arrived back home in Hammarby Sjöstad around midnight. The trip took as long as my trip home from Chicago a month ago!

After a couple hours of uneasy sleep the sun found its way through the curtains and touched my cheeks, reminding me that another long sunny day was in the making. When I went out to the balcony, at 4.30 in the morning, Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö) lay completely quiet in the golden glow of early sunshine. The water was subdued and acted as a mirror for the yellow gleam of heaven. The heat was still bearable, but already above 20 degrees and rising. Another glaring day in the making, a treat for the sun-loving Swedes!

WHITE STOCKHOLM NIGHTS

The picture you are looking at shows Sophia Church (Sofia Kyrka), just opposite, and due north of, my apartment in Stockholm. As you can see from the church clock, it is precisely midnight. I arrived back home, after 12 weeks of travel, on the evening of 22 June, just some twenty minutes before taking this photo. For you, dear readers, not familiar with Sweden and its peculiarities, you are witnessing the famous white night of the Nordic midsummer.

All was quiet on this blessed occasion. The sun had, of course, already set, but was ambling along, slowly but surely, just a wee bit below the horizon, keeping the northern sky full of light, against which the church tower stood as an enticing silhouette. Suddenly, birds started to twitter, as if being confused between dusk and dawn. And right they were in being confused, since dusk merged with dawn without an intermittent period of dark. Soon the zone of lightness would pass the church and amble towards the right, getting more brilliant along its way until, an hour later, the first golden colours of the sun would start colouring its lower fringe, announcing the newly borne day. But at midnight, Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö) to the right of the church was still spared the sun, being bathed instead by the vermillion of predawn.

MIDWINTER-NIGHT COLD IS HARSH

I usually sleep with my window open. Yesterday morning, my nose and ears felt a bit numb. No wonder, the temperature had fallen well below the minus twenties during a clear night, passing into a beautiful morning. As I was eating my breakfast, around 7.30, all was quiet as the first rays of the sun started to illuminate house roofs. Soon I heard the first ferryboat laboring, with a crunching sound, through the ice across Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö). Gradually tug boats started to join in, going towards Lake Mälar (Mälaren). A larger one, pushing a snowy barge ahead of it, parted in the opposite direction towards the sea. 

Rarely do we experience such a harsh winter in Stockholm nowadays. It started to snow when I returned from the Canaries on 19 December and it has snowed off and on ever since. We have to go back twenty years in time to recall similar hardships. So I put the marvelous scene on record, not sure whether I would experience it again in my lifetime. 

PS: The comments below are actually responses to an e-mail I sent to family and friends February last, with the picture and text I have replicated in the present post. DS

XMAS MUSINGS

This calm Xmas Eve morning, around 9.30, I was sitting at my breakfast table, sipping coffee and enjoying the view of Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö) outside my window. All was white, the sky covered, but still half open, only the boats and houses on the opposite side of the Channel showing some muted colors. As I was contemplating this scenery in "pastel", I felt the urge to communicate it to you. In this digital age and space, thought is flesh without undue delay, so enclosed please find my view from the kitchen table, as it looked then, on this splendid Xmas Eve morning. A nice way to convey my very best wishes for a calm and relaxing holiday season, don’t you think?

PS: The comments below are actually responses to an e-mail I sent to family and friends on Xmas 2009, with the picture and text I have replicated in the present post. DS

MORNING AFTER CRAYFISH PARTY

Here I am sitting in the balcony of my newly acquired apartment in Hammarby Sjöstad, with Sophia Church (Sofia Kyrka) towering in the background and the sea channel, leading to Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö), just below my feet. You can glimpse the odd boat being anchored on the quay opposite to mine. My apartment building has the street address Hammarby Kaj. As the name indicates, this, as well as the opposite, side of the channel used to house harbour facilities in the old days, when Stockholm still was a city full of industries. Nowadays, the former industrial sites have all been converted to residential areas, with the new harbour and heavy industry located far away from the city centre.

This picture was taken in the morning after the inauguration party of my new residence, or more precisely, a traditional Swedish crayfish party. This was the morning when I really felt at home in Stockholm for the first time since ten years back, when I had moved away from this beautiful city to assume a post in the capital of Europe. The move back had been prepared carefully, being spread out over most of two years. It also coincided with my transition from active professional life to the more relaxed living as pensioner.

Although I have never been an especially driven person, taking life and work more or less as it came to me, I still had to think about some other activities to fill my days, after having left Brussels. Fortunately, I have always had photography as a hobby, so I decided to make more of a profession out of this old hobby and carry out some creative projects along the way. So why not start this new professional venture at home, by documenting some nice scenery from the windows of my new apartment, as it emerged over the seasons? The background is enticing, with the sea channel merging into Hammarby Sound, and varying weather conditions will certainly provide me with ample variation in my pictures. Let’s see what this series is leading up to, and let ourselves be surprised by the ever changing picture motives occasioned by the seasons and by varying weather conditions.

RAINBOW OVER HAMMARBY SOUND

This day was very special to me, since I was arranging a traditional crayfish party in my apartment, to inaugurate it, so to speak. The guests were expected later, fortunately, for, just an hour earlier, there was a thunderstorm brewing over southern Stockholm. After a short rain the weather was calming down again and the sun started to come out from between clouds, shining like a giant spotlight on the buildings across the sound. Soon, as if destined to stimulate my party preparations, a most beautiful rainbow emerged, over the narrow outlet of Hammarby Sound (Hammarby Sjö) that lies hidden behind the apartment building to the left of the quay. 

I HAVE ARRIVED!

There is a certain charm in entering an empty, newly built apartment in Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm. At this special day I tiptoed into my still empty residence at 8.00 in the morning, waiting for the seller of my new bookshelf to deliver the goods and build the shelf. It was a beautiful spring morning and a pleasure to behold the living room, looking very large and inviting in all its splendour.

I had to wait a long time for this sunny morning pleasure. The contract for the apartment had to be signed already in Summer 2006, but the building was not finished until March 2009, when I visited the apartment for the first time (on a bleak winter morning) together with the building inspectors, and received the keys.

I am very glad that I brought my camera from Brussels on this short visit in April. Soon, the apartment would be filled with furniture and looking a lot smaller, albeit more cosy. So this picture will have to do as memorial until the next buyer will arrive, many years from now, I hope.

One day after this picture, the beds were already in place and I could start living in the apartment, still only sparsely furnished. On the morning of 25 April, I woke early and sneaked out to the balcony at 5.00. The clear morning sun greeted me with its warmth and seduced me to try a panorama picture of the view from my balcony. The picture below shows part of that panorama.

If you are interested in getting a full 180 Degree view, you are invited to admire this outlook by clicking on the video frame provided as follows.

I admit that I have started this blog sometime after the fact. The first postings will deal with pictures taken already some time ago. So, if you see comments with a date widely different from that of the post in question, like the comments below, this is because I transferred those comments from the answers to an e-mail with the pictures and text sent at the date in question. Soon, we will have run through the inventory of pictures already taken and continue the posting with fresh pictures, taken the same day or day before they are put on the blog.