Swallows

I got this week's only desk duty today. I'm going to my mother's place tomorrow evening to help out with the flea market at Furuboda. They get donations from people and sometimes that can include household items, furniture or entire estates, so they have to sell the things to get funds.

This past weekend I actually stayed at home. I can't even remember the last time I did that. But it was hot and humid and I didn't feel like going anywhere. I stayed inside and did the laundry. And I started sorting the piles of documents on the floor. It will take a while to get that in order. I spent some time on the balcony also, and that clearly disturbed the swallows that have built a nest under the roof. They have been very messy in general, and also rather loud.

July

There isn't that much to do at work in July, and that's rather nice. I got the desk duty today instead of Thursday, because someone else wanted to go on a birthday party. Right now there is just one visitor here. During the summer we often get visitors from other countries, yesterday there were people here from Australia and Dubai, for instance. We have already done several of the summer projects, so now there are only the boring things left.

The past ten weekends (except one) I have spent at my mother's place, but this up-coming weekend I will not. I've been thinking of what to do, and I might go to a city and be a tourist. What I really should be doing is clean the floor in my apartment, get all the photos into albums, mend three pairs of jeans, do laundry and clean the windows. But it's not as fun.

Historical Society celebration

The sharp object my mother wanted for her birthday was an axe! She has a stove in the house, so she needed the axe to cut firewood.

My mother is doing even better, she only uses one crutch now, and it seems to be going well.

Saturday I spent about four hours at the historical society in Norra Strö to arrange the exhibit. I got two tables and a few shelves for the part about Leroy Anderson. It was focused on the Swedish aspect, and I had his ancestor chart there, picture of the emigrant ship, story of the emigration and family, photo of Brewer's birthplace in Övarp and several other family photos, and the book where it says that Leroy's father was from Övarp, among other things. I also filled one shelf with clocks (to illustrate Syncopated Clock) and one with album covers. The old typewriter was placed in the center of a table, with CD-covers around it. In addition to this, there was one table with information and ancestor charts for other celebrities whose ancestors came from Norra Strö. These included Swedish author Gustaf Hellström, American ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his daughter actress Candice Bergen, and Swedish actress Marianne Lindberg Bernadotte, who married into the royal family.

Sunday was the big day at the historical society. When my mother, aunt and I got there a few minutes after opening, it was already crowded. When I finally made it in to the hall, people started asking an enormous amount of questions, and it was great to see such an interest! I found myself discussing everything from distant ancestors to Blue Tango's popularity in the 1950s. We could only get ten CD's to sell and it took three minutes to do that. Almost all the flyers I had made were gone when the day was over. The candy too.

In the afternoon a part of Kristianstad Stadsmusikkår played Leroy Anderson pieces, and they did it very well. Some of the pieces: Belle of the Ball, Rakes of Mallow, Blue Tango, Clarinet Candy and Syncopated Clock (twice). Tommy was there of course (since he plays in that orchestra) and Patrik was there with his family. Tommy told the story of how we ended up celebrating the Centennial, which was very good, since not everybody knew about it.

I talked to Mats, who now owns the house Brewer was born in, and he said several people had been there to see it. He thinks it's amazing that his little house attracts such an interest.

Several of my relatives were at the historical society that day, and it was so nice to see them (the last time I saw some of them was in 1995)! The Leroy Anderson Centennial has had very interesting side-effects, I have never met and talked to so many people on any subject before. It has been a wonderful experience.

Mall trips

The first three days of this week I visited one mall every day in different cities. Monday afternoon I drove to Löddeköpinge to get some small things and also a sharp, heavy present for my mother's birthday. Tuesday I took the local bus to a mall just outside Lund called Nova. Didn't get much there, just a long tunic which I had looked at before at 400 SEK, but didn't get. Now it was 79 SEK and I decided it was worth it. Big discount. Wednesday I took the train + bus to Väla outside Helsingborg. The sale at the specialty store for the full sized woman was not interesting this time. Instead I got a top at Kappahl, one of the best clothing stores here.

During the summer there is a card to use on the buses/trains that is valid in the entire province of Skåne. It's very affordable, it's much cheaper than our usual commuter cards. I can go anywhere and change between long distance buses, city buses and trains unlimited times. If I do all the changes within three hours it will count as one trip. Yesterday I managed to travel one hour, shop, have dinner and get back to the station and it was counted as just one trip (with four minutes' margin).

Tomorrow there will be more travelling - yet another trip to my mother's place. She might want her car back this time.

Midsummer

The drive to my mother's place Thursday evening was not particularly pleasant. It's kind of depressing when you have to go at 30 km/h on the freeway. The traffic was really, really bad. The Midsummer holiday is one of the biggest holidays here and the traffic situation becomes much worse than usual. When I reached my destination my sister and her family were there also. They had arrived the previous day. Friday, Midsummer Eve, we spent some time on the beach. The water was bitterly cold, but that didn't stop my nephew John who is crazy about water. His aunt had to rescue the toys when he threw them into the ocean, so I got a little wet too. We were pretty much alone on the beach, I guess people had more important things to do that day. In the afternoon we drove to Vinslöv to attend the Midsummer celebrations at my mother's friends house. Now, we didn't have the maypole or the singing or the dancing, but we did eat a lot of herring, potatoes and strawberries with ice-cream. It was delicious, and we all ate too much. To get some true Midsummer-spirit, we watched the broadcast from the celebrations on Gotland island on TV.

Saturday it was John's third birthday and it was celebrated with coffee and a cake. We had invited some relatives and friends, and it was a nice afternoon. John got a few presents: a tractor, a police car, some smaller cars and motorcycles, clothes, books and DVD's with cartoons. Of all these presents, he favored the tractor, which was orange and about half a meter long. The police car was also interesting, especially since it made all the appropriate sounds if you pushed a button on the roof...

Today we had lunch at Furuboda (we often do on Sundays), and then Anette and family returned to Borås again. They would stop at my father's place on the way back also. I returned to Kävlinge a little later, and this time the traffic was pretty normal.

Operetta

Tuesday evening I went to the local park in Kävlinge to see the annual outdoor theatre/musical performance by the amateur society. This year it was an operetta, Vita Hästen, with a story set in an Austrian inn, where the waiter Leopold has a crush on the innkeeper Josepha. They had altered some details in the plot and included references both to local politicians and villages. It was a very nice performance, they are talented.

Apart from that it has been mostly work lately. This week I have had two sessions in the manuscript reading room, because several people are on vacation. Most people get their vacation in July here. During the summer, when it's a little slower, we try to do all the projects we normally don't have time for. So yesterday I was at a remote storage to see if we can weed some of the books. I ended up hauling five carts to the main library. It's books from a closed-down branch that no one is asking for anymore.

Later this evening I'm going to my mother's place for the Midsummer holiday. Tomorrow it's Midsummer's Day and we celebrate that by eating a lot of herring!

Two concerts

Friday evening I drove directly from work to my mother's place (yes, again). We attended a concert at Furuboda that was very nice. It started with a group of young Russian girls who sang folksongs. The other act was a symphony orchestra from Lithuania. They were pretty good, and they got everybody clapping hands when they started with an ABBA-medley. Very enthusiastic conductor who occasionally turned around and directed the audience also! Music can really build bridges and cross over language barriers. They played Blue Tango by Leroy Anderson.

Saturday we picked up a friend of my mother's and drove to their friend in Kristianstad. Three talkative and chatty women in their 50's..... We got very tasty strawberry pie there. But I was happy to get orders from my mother to go grocery shopping after a while. When I returned, we left pretty soon, because I had bought some frozen fish.

Saturday evening my mother and I attended a wonderful concert in Åhus Church. It was the Zhukovsky Symphony Orchestra from outside Moscow who played many pieces by Leroy Anderson. Fifteen, to be exact. They were incredible! They managed to give an outstanding performance of these pieces with all the attributes. Though just one sandpaper for Sandpaper Ballet (should be three). At the end of Chicken Reel one guy stood up and sounded like a rooster. In Waltzing Cat, three guys jumped up and barked like dogs. The Fiddle Faddle was amazing with a girl playing the xylophone at an incredible speed, and she received the longest ovations also. For Syncopated Clock, they had a real clock ringing a few times. They also played Yesterday (The Beatles), a Russian piano piece and ended with a medley of Swedish(!) summer songs (Taube and others). The orchestra had the European Soccer Championships against them (Sweden played Spain at the same time - Sweden lost), but the church was almost full anyway. It is true that pieces by Leroy Anderson make the members of the audience leave the concert with a smile on their faces. It was a great concert, and I'm especially happy that my mother finally got to hear Leroy Anderson's music live!

Today was mostly garden work, laundry and cleaning - at my mother's place. No wonder my own apartment looks so messy.