Every year we have a road association meeting in our village, to decide how to keep the road in good kondition and if there has to be any speciffic repairs or changes on the road. We do get some grants from the state to keep it in good shape. In many villages this is an open war :-) that can continue all year long. Some people just can´t take a majority decision that gone against their wish. I know how bad it is where my oldest brother lives, they have gone so far sometimes that they have sued each others :-) :-) :-) In Sweden we can´t even remotly come any close to the sums You can get in a law sued in the US. Over here the best You can get is pocket money.

The old lady is still going strong :-)

Orvar has found a water vole hole. Very interesting :-)

Hector looking out into the bog.

In our village however the hate from some of the villagers are so big that they don´t even turn up and that makes our meetings so easy and quick :-) The owner of Bjurum castle also owns some properties in our village so they turn up every year too. Since we do want as many people to come as possible we´ve chosen a neutral place to have our meetings, the old village school in Bjurum, but that didn´t help much to be honest. So we were going to have our meeting there last Friday but when we came inside the old building it shows they had turned of the heating system for the season. It was actually colder inside than outside :-) :-) So the castleowner invited us to the castle instead. As he said, at least it´s a bit warmer there :-)

Bertil was like always with us on our walk.

Firns are finally starting to grow.

If I had known this I would have brought my camera or mobile phone, so unfortunally I have no photo´s. The castle is in need of hughe repairs and they are going to start with renovations as soon as possible. The roof has tiles made of slate and only that will cost a fortune I belive. The facade had fallen of in big chunks too, something one can´t see from a distance. The entrence hall is much smaller than I had expected and also these walls were slowly falling appart. You can´t own a castle and at the same time be poor.

The Japanese wood poppy is slowly unfolding its lea to show the flower bud.

Christmas rose.

We held the meeting on the second floor in the big Knight´s hall. Even if the castle isn´t that big I think I could fit in my cottage inside that room :-) :-) :-) I don´t know how high up the ceiling actually is, but It´s higher than my cottage. An enormous chandelier was hanging from the ceiling and it was so heavy that they couldn´t move it :-) :-) The second floor was in o´pretty good condition and we took a small tour there. Beside the Knight´s hall the other rooms were pretty small and in every room there was at least one tiled stove (in the Knight´s hall there were two) and they really needed those since there were no central heating what so ever in the castle. Except for a couple of paintings on former owners, that I didn´t take any clooser look at since I´ve never had any higher thoughts of the nobility, the latest owner only left a set of old sofa´s. They were really old and in a rokoko style. They are white with lots of gold on them. The owners called them The Saddam furnitures since they looked like some furnitures on an official photo of him and his family. I have to say that these sofa´s were amongst the uggliest I´ve ever seen :-) :-) :-) comfy though. My first thought when seeing them was that they must have been in an old western movie when they showed a brothel :-) :-) :-)

Checkered daffodil, white and the normal colored.

Soon the Wood anemone will be pale blue.

My favourite room was a tiny, tiny room by the south wall. It is perhaps 3 meters (3 yards) long but only 1,5 meters (1,5 yards) wide. They had a sofa in there and a small table, that´s all. The windows is high and lets all sun in. They sits there every evening looking at the sun go down.

The bumble bee is looking for food in a Uvularia grandiflora, Largeflower bellwort. We call it "Sorrow clock" and this is my abnsolute favourite in my garden.

Well now it´s time for a cup of tea and then a nap I feel. It´s grey outside today but rather warm. The morning walk was much like yesterday and I enjoyed every second of it :-)

Have a great day now!

 
 

My Soldanella.