Carnival

Thursday evening I attended a concert in Lund. The Academic choir had invited the Missouri University choir. They sang some pieces together. It was a marvellous experience with a very powerful sound and varied program. Two colleagues are in the Academic choir and they said afterwards that they too were very impressed by their guests' performance.

The weather is nice but it means that it is now about 28 degrees in our offices. It didn't take long before we started complaining. It's the same thing every year.

This past week I invested in a sun deck chair to have on my balcony. It's not a large balcony so I had to remove the other furniture. In order to get it home I borrowed the storage round car Friday. The library was closed over the weekend so the janitor told me he didn't need the car back until Monday morning. I made very good use of this offer. Saturday I drove to the Archive center to do research in the morning. At 1 PM I continued in to town and parked in the regular spot at the library. Then I walked 200 meters and joined many thousands of other people to watch the carnival parade. Once every four years there is a large carnival in Lund. It certainly is a spectacle. The floats were on trucks and displayed variants of current events. There were references to local politics, the traffic situation, the new university in Malmö, the Me Too-movement and much else. The participants had dressed up (or down) in crazy outfits in all sorts of colors. In between the floats there were also marching bands and dancing groups. The event is estimated to attract about 400 000 visitors to Lund over the weekend.

Sunday I did a nice road trip in the area north of where I live. I visited a small village where there are several second hand stores. I hadn't been there in years and there are even more shops now. I only bought a few egg cups for my collection. After driving further east I had lunch in a town and then went for groceries. It was great weather so when I came home I tried out the new sun deck chair. It was approved of.

Chores

The week at work was interrupted by a holiday on the Thursday, Ascension Day. The first three days of the week we had to cram in three education sessions; one for my closest colleagues and two for general staff members. We have done this a few times now and we are more confident than in the beginning. I even forgot my manuscript on one occasion but I don't think anyone noticed. Friday there were not many people working, as it wasn't a proper working day. The library was however open and it means that a few of us have to be ordered to work. This is usually not a problem, there were five people who agreed to be "ordered" this time. The extra overtime hours you get are a good deal. I had to be there a little longer than the others because I had desk duty until 4 pm. There was quite a lot to do, especially since one patron had asked for several different journals and they turned out to be both large and heavy.

The traffic service here had once again a very bad day Tuesday. I didn't know about the total breakdown until I got to the train station. I turned around, walked back to work and borrowed the storage round car. I had to get to a meeting with the condo association and just barely made it. Of course there had been accidents on the road so getting home took almost one hour. Normally it's a 15 minute drive.

The top I missed out on the previous week I was able to find in a store in Lund instead. It was very nice with purple flowers on a black background. I haven't done that much over the weekend, really. The weather is lovely with sun and not too hot temperatures, 20-22 degrees. I have done some chores like getting plastic and glass to the recycling place, grocery shopping, replanting a dying houseplant, clearing out outdated food, reorganizing part of my book collection and handwashing a few blouses. I have also enjoyed sitting on my balcony.

Trip to Copenhagen

May 1st is a holiday here and I went on an excursion to Copenhagen that day. The weather was rather bad so I spent the day in two different indoor shopping malls. I had a great lunch at a buffet restaurant. Especially the dessert was noteworthy: chocolate pudding and waffles with maple syrup. The shopping was limited; a floral blouse, a peach colored t-shirt and some socks. Still, it was a nice trip.

Thursday I gave a lecture on the new database system to the colleagues in my department. There will be a few changes that will effect our work. Most of the changes will be for the better, believe it or not.

Saturday there was a market fair in the town where I live. I went there for an unusual reason. I collected printed material from all the political parties represented. This year is an election year and the ephemera department at my library has the ambition to collect this type of material. It is not always sent in to us.

Today I made a short visit to a mall in Malmö because I wanted to buy a certain top in a store. I missed out, unfortunately. They didn't have my size. Instead I went grocery shopping.