These two photos are from today taken from my kitchen window, the rest is a bit old and I hope I haven´t shown them before :-) It´s much the same weather today like it has been these last days. Cold, cloudy and windy. Not to nice to be outdoors to be honest.

I still feel some stiffness in my neck and shoulders, but much better than I did yesterday. When I got up this morning I started to think about the chinese art of Tai chi. You know when they stand still and moves slowly in special patterns. They are usually called something like flying crane and batteling dragon :-) It´s said that it helps them getting rid of joint akes and still being quite flexible at old age. I remember having a book about it but can´t find it at the moment.

So I started to do something like it a moment ago. I have no idea how to make the right moves and have no idea how to do them, so I have created some of my own. Like the bowler, fencer, the one legged bowman and the afraid goal keeper. I did them real slow and it actully helped removing the shoulder pain quite much. So after writing todays blog I´ll make some more moves. What about The skier, the skater and perhaps the cyclist :-) I´m not sure how to do the last one, but I´ll figure it out somehow :-)

Otherwise it´ll be a calm day with lots of resting. I´m feeling so good now that I´ll be off to work tomorrow. I´m thinking of baking a bread since I already have a fire in the stove. There´s nothing like home baked bread, especially when it is made in a fire heated stove like mine. There´s no ventilation in those stoves so the bread becomes so moist that it is unbeliveble :-)

have a great day now, I will!

Now there´s a fire in the stove and my little cottage is warm and cosy.

When going to the crane lake I have to pass the big farm that belongs to the castle. It´s empty at the moment but I´ve heard that there soon will be cows again.

The pictures I show today was taken in September, but I never got around to show them to You.

Besides coughing some and having a bad pain in my neck and shoulders I´m feeling fine today. A friend of mine got that exact pain in her neck and shoulder when she got the flu shot, she couldn´t keep her head up for more than ten minutes for two days. A bit annoying for her since she was starting being a guide on Volvo the next day :-) :-) :-)

The church of Bjurum.

It´s hard to see the lake because it grows all kinds of things in it. It isn´t more than two meters deep because they have drained it many times. But it has never been more than three meters deep anyway.

Many years ago I used to buy Christmas cards that had a picture that I had taken. I just gave the negative to a store near by I lived. Usually they refused to make a christmas card from that negative, because they thought I´d given the wrong negative. You see I always choosed the worst or strangest picture I had taken that year :-) :-) It could be anything from the inside of a tram to a blurry picture from a hotel room in Paris :-) Strangly enough these christmas cards became incredible popular!

In spring there are more than 15 000 cranes here, resting and eating before flying north to their nesting places.

They became so popular that people were mad at me for stopping making them when I got tired of it one year. I haven´t made any more since then. To be honest, I haven´t sent any christmas cards at all for over ten years now. But now I´m on it again. One good thing with these digital cameras and the internet is that it is so much easier to get the pictures to those making these cards. Just download the picture and wait a couple of days, the cards will then be in the mailbox when comming home from work. I could ofcourse get a printer and make them myself, but I never make any cards or paper copies from my pictures, exept for Christmas, so I don´t think it´s worth the money buying such a printer. This year however it´ll be a good picture. Next year will be another thing, then I´ll be back to normal :-) :-)

The big farm from the other side when going home.

I´ll show the Christmas card to You on Christmas eve. Now it´s time to put some more firelogs in the stove. It´s cold and windy outside, the kind of chilkl that eats through everything and freezes ones bones. There will be lots of tea to and a nap I think :-)

Have a great day now!

The sky looked a bit unhealthy this morning. Unfortunally my camera didn´t catch the yellowish tone on the clouds.

I´m now pretty sure that it is the swine flu I have gotten. There isn´t a symptome I haven´t goitten :-) It started with the pain in my neck and back, then the fever came. On my way home from work on friday I started to feel nausea and I got really bad in my stomac. The only thing that I´m not certain about is the breething problems. I have no problems breath, but if I take a deep breath my lungs feels a bit tight and I do start to cough. I do get tired when walking with my dogs even short distances. One positive thing however is that my fever is gone now, so I think I passed the worst of it.

But I have to phone my boss today. I don´t think that it is a good idea to start to work tomorrow. I know I should be there because we are so few since they fired half the departement. But they won´t gain anything if I go there and becomes ill again. Even if I have mouth and nose protection while working, I still get some powderpaint down my lungs and that´s no good thing when the lungs are the weak part in the defens against this flu. Those who has died from this usually has done so by lung failure. But don´t worry about me, this isn´t worse than any other flu I´ve gotten in life, it´s almost the contrary to be honest. We over 30 years old has had a similar flu before, so we do have a little protection against it. But if one belongs to a risk group, like people with heart disease or has a lower immune defense, go and get Your swine flu shot as soon as possible!!

So it´ll be a calm and easy day here at Magpie cottage :-) Yesterday I watched the latest Star Treck film. If You like SciFi and haven´t seen this one, see it! It was really, really good! Today it´ll be a Harry Potter marathon I think :-)

Have a great day now!

It´s a real nice morning now. There´s no wind, no rain or snow and it´s fairly warm. We took a very short walk this morning since I´m not feeling to well. But even if I walk slowly and a short distance it doesn´t mean that my dogs do :-) They are running around visiting every single spot that has been visited by any animal during the last night. They probably walk ten times more than I do even if we walk the same distance :-)

We walked in the cow pasture that starts by my cottage. My dogs had a lot of places to visit there, since many deers of all sorts walks there during the night. Bertil was ofcourse with us and he was practicing tree climbing most of the time. Suddenly I heard this really sad sort of cat howling and started to look after him. But when I found him I realised that the howling came from the opposite direction. The only cat I know that howles like that, beside Bertil, is Teodor, so I started to call his name. For some reason he had started to follow us long after we had left home and now he tried to find us by howling :-) :-)

When he finally had found us he only wanted to sit on my shoulder most of the way home. I think he still has that fox meeting in his head and this was close to where that meeting took place. He got more relaxed when we headed home again and walked beside us the last part.

Since I´m very, very sick today :-) I won´t do a thing besides vacuming the floors. It´ll be mostly watching dvd:s I think. I bought the latest Star Treck movie and I´m thinking of having a Harry Potter marathon too. I have all but the last film (it hasn´t been released over here yet) so that´ll take a day or two :-) But before doiung that I have to put more fire logs in the stove and make some more tea :-)

Have a great day now!

There are some things I´ve always wondered about when it comes to movies. For instance in movies that the earth will go under in. Hours before the big catastrofy people starts to looting stores and shops. Why? It´s not like they are going to have a chance to use all things they steal :-) :-) Another thing is in Science fiction movies, every time aliens comes to us they speak english. I know that english is the world language, but also the universal language? :-) :-) But it does make everything so much easier if they ever decides to invade this little planet of ours :-)

In horror movies thay always go down in to basements or other dark places alone. Doesn´t every one know that it´s there the bad things always happens :-) :-) There´s usually a cat inwolved in those movies and they always pops up scaring the pants of me :-) The first really scary movie I saw was Alien. I wish I never had done that because I still have nightmares about that movie :-) I can still remember how the cat in that film scared me so I almost wet my pants :-) :-)

I´m sick today. It started already this morning when I woke up. It felt like death would be something better than this cold :-) But I got up and went away to work as usual. During the day I´ve had warm periods and periods when I´ve been freezing like mad. But I´m not the only one at work feeling like this so perhaps it is the swine flu, or maybe not. There are all kinds of colds going around here at the moment. Well what ever it is I´m going to take it easy this weekend, stay inside and drink loads of tea :-)

If this cold had not come I was going to drive to Gothenburg tomorrow. I was thinking about driving through the little village close to the place we had our summer cottage when I was young and before going home go down to the ocean and show where we spent our days down by the beach. The new plans are that I´m going down next weekend instead, so there will possibly be pictures then (if I remember to do what I plan to do :-) :-) )

Have a great day now!

This is a deep hole in the bog just beside the edge of an islnd in the bog. Hector "found" it the other day :-)

Yesterday the weather forcast said snow and lots of it during the night until today noon. It did start to snow when I went home yesterday. Fortunally my friends doughter didn´t have any french home work so I got home early. So I was a bit surprised when I looked out the windows this moening and didn´t find any snow at all :-)




Today they told us on the weather forcast that it would be rainy all after noon and night, so I was a bit surprised when the snow started to fall :-) :-) Now I´m only hoping it will stop soon. As You know I´m not a big fan of snow :-) Well it´s winter so this is what we have to expect now.

Teodor has just stolen my favourite chair and the look in his eyes tells me that he woun´t give it up lightly :-) He sits there and looks up on the ceiling. I think he hears a mouse running around there and tries to figure out a way to get it. Orvar on the other hand refuses to leave my side. He has his head in my lap and I´ve tried to make him go away because his head is a bit in the way when I try to write here :-)

It isn´t haze in the background, it´s snow.

Well it´s time to make a sandwich and to flee this room. It semes Teodor won the fight of the chair before it started. A cat with gases doesn´t need to fight :-) :-)

Have a great day now!

The pictures today is a mix of what I´ve been taking this weekend, but the bottom ones is from today.

What to tell You about this day? Perhaps that it rained most of the day before noon and that it is freezy cold even if it isn´t that cold outside? Don´t know how that last works, but it is really cold outside even if the thermometer says otherwise :-)

Perhaps that I finally got tired of fighting with my dogs when trying to wash of all durt they collected during a rainy day. Orvar, this big gentle giant, is flexible like a cat when trying to get him under the shower. He sort of grows in size too :-) He´s strong so escape during washing isn´t that unusual and then he bumps in to every wall he can. My walls will never be clean again :-)

So today I just washed them of with the garden hoose before taking our walk. For some reason it seemes much easier and better to be washed outside. Ok they looked as if they thought I would kill them :-) But I could at least wash them of all that durt without getting my home muddy too :-)

Perhaps I can tell You that Sweden will get its first Starbucks! It´s a bit strange that we haven´t got any until now, we are the people drinking next to most coffee in the world (the finns beats us in that). But we do have a lot of cafes so perhaps it´s hard to make it here?

Well, now it´s time for some tea and then reading all Your blogs! There will be more about our folklore later.

Have a great day now!