Welcome to Tessa's blog

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Shopping and more genealogy

The weekend was pretty busy. Saturday I was in Malmö to go to my favorite second hand stores. There are two additional train stations in Malmö now, so I can get directly to one of the malls. Rather practical. There was a little shopping done, but new items. An orange colored top and a denim jacket. Sunday I totally missed the fact that the daylight savings time had started. I got to Lund one hour later than I had planned. It was the first visit I made to the library on a Sunday. There weren't that many visitors there, but I was told that normally it was a popular place on weekends. I spent most of the day devoted to the genealogy - both for myself and for others. Monday it was a little difficult to get out of bed because of the time change. Everybody at work seemed to be tired. Since I'm going on a trip later this week, I had desk duty today. It was rather busy. I tried to help a visitor to find a phone number for a person in the same town and that was surprisingly difficult. I actually had to call my boss, who has access to a fee database, to get help. It turned out that I had been given a slightly incorrect name, one letter made all the difference. Thursday afternoon I'm going to visit my mother and sister & family in Borås for a few days. The relatives in Stockholm are coming there to visit also.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Genealogical research

I have had a cold for more than a week now and it's really annoying. Of course it's better than last week, but not pleasant at all. I shouldn't have worked those two days of last week. I had desk duty Thursday and it's difficult to change it with such short notice, so I sat there and sniffled. My brain wasn't really connected, but I don't think I caused any disasters. My colleagues had had a tough time without me, and they made sure I understood that.

Friday I was asked to go to Malmö to look at a work jacket for me to have while driving the storage round. It has been very cold this winter and I said already last fall that I wanted a warm jacket. There simply isn't one to be found in my size. They are all made for men with really long arms. This was the second attempt to get one and by now the weather has changed, so I have given up. On the way back we stopped at Ikea because the janitor was going to purchase new cutlery for the lunch room. We had lunch at Ikea also, a nice chicken filet.

Saturday I spent at work to do some private research. We have a family tree online, and I have added information to it. There are some ancestors traced back to about 1550, but I haven't filled all of that in yet. There is more work to do also on my father's side. Not to mention the fact that I have very little knowledge of the current generations. This weekend, when I flipped through some estate inventories to see if I had a particular one, I was able to solve a mystery from many years back. Just now I noticed that my great great grandfather had one more child mentioned in his estate inventory (taken after his death) than his wife. My grandmother told me (a very long time ago) that he had had one son before he was married, but I was never able to find the son. It turns out that I have had this information for many years, without understanding it. I did some research now and found his deathdate, and also found out that his line ended with him - he had no children.

Apart from this, there is also more research going on, both for myself and others. It's rather time consuming, but since I now have access to the scanned church records (and some other databases) at work, it is a lot easier. It means of course that I spend way too much time at the library, but it's really interesting research. There will always be more answers to search for.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Trip to Stockholm and Uppsala

Wednesday last week I got on the train to Stockholm and arrived at about 6 PM. I bought a travel pass for local travel and took the subway two stations north. My relatives (Rolf & Inger) have an apartment pretty close to the subway, so it's very convenient. Thursday morning I travelled back to the central station and took a train to Uppsala, which is a 40 minute ride. I attended a meeting at the university library there. We were treated to two coffees and lunch. The meeting was the first one in this group and regarded what old books should be scanned and made available online. We also discussed the technicalities. It would have been good if we can cooperate on this, so that we all use the same system. It was a rather productive meeting. There will be more meetings, hopefully in Stockholm. It gives me an opportunity to go sightseeing......

After the meeting I walked about a mile to the hospital, where my grandfather (soon aged 97) was a patient. He had fallen on an icy spot and broken his shoulder. He was happy to see me, but was sad about his situation. It's the right shoulder and he can't do anything. He was rather bored. His mind is clear and he usually solves the most difficult crossword puzzles. We talked for a long while and then I returned to Stockholm in the late afternoon.

Friday and Saturday were spent mostly in town, shopping for second hand items and clothes. Sometimes Inger went with me, and she showed me some nice stores. I found two tops, a skirt, a sleeveless top, and a really cool handbag in 1950s style. There are some very interesting stores in Stockholm and I went on the subway in all possible directions to go to as many of them as I could. Saturday evening I went to a dinner show called Golden Hits Goes 70s. I got a three course meal and entertainment provided by the waiters/waitresses. In between food servings they changed clothes and performed on stage. They were singing the classic songs of the 1970s. Songs by Nazareth, Elvis, AC/DC, Abba, Alice Cooper, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and many others were featured. Very nice evening. Several flashbacks.

Sunday I used most of the day to travel back to Skåne. I got off the train in Hässleholm and travelled to the summer house. My sister, niece and mother were there. Monday we went to Kristianstad, because my mother wanted to look at stoves. The one in the summer house is about 35 years old and needs to be replaced rather soon. Yesterday my father came to visit. He had his chainsaw with him and used it to cut down some trees in the back yard. There has been a storm and there were many branches on the ground. We collected them and lit a fire. Hard work. My back is still sore. Since my niece was sick and generally unhappy, I went back home yesterday evening. As it turns out, to no avail. I'm now also sick. This was the last vacation day and I haven't done much. Just did some errands in the village. Got some more medication to prevent the cold from getting really bad, but don't know if it will help.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Closet clearing

It has been a fairly normal week at work, but there were a lot of meetings. Not really productive ones, unfortunately. There are many issues with people retiring this year. It's the large 1940's generation that we somehow will have to replace. We have lots of problem solving ahead of us at the library, definitely. I also brought one of the new employees with me on the storage round Thursday. She is the one I hope can replace my colleague doing this job, and she didn't seem totally uninterested. Not even when I showed her the darkest and dustiest storage of them all.

It has been a slow weekend. I have mostly tried to sort my documents and watched sports on TV. Today the Vasaloppet cross-country ski race took place and I woke up so early that I could see the start of it at 8. It was amazing to see 15 000 skiers begin the 90 km journey. Some of them still haven't made it to the finish line (around 11 hours later).

This weekend I have also cleared out more clothes. My friend Eva was here and picked out some of them. The rest will be given to charity.

This upcoming week will be a very busy one. I will work two and a half days and then after lunch on Wednesday I will take the train to Stockholm. I have a meeting to attend to at the university library in Uppsala on Thursday. I will stay with some relatives in Stockholm until Sunday, so I hope to do some touristing also. And shopping, of course. Sunday evening I will get off the train in Hässleholm and go to the summer house, where (if everything goes according to plan) my sister, niece and mother will be staying. After about three days I will return home, since I have to work at least Thursday and Friday of that week.