Our cherry tree is the second one we've had; only 4 years old. The first one died after a year and we were a bit worried about the current one last summer as it had a bad bug infestation which my mom and I treated with soap and water. Two of the branches are dead and need to be removed. Last year we had a total of FOUR cherries. But this year: BUMPER CROP! We had to put blue net up and everything and the crows and jackdaws and magpies made concerted efforts to tease out the dangling rubies through the holes to no avail. When we left for the Netherlands last week, we had glowing golden-pink earrings hanging clustered along each branch...this weekend they are a rich crimson red and sweeter than sweet.

In addition, Martin has 4 gigantic raspberries so far, Karin has 2 small clusters of blueberries coming along, and there are wild strawberries ripening as well. Our kohlrabi was nibbled right down to the roots by something, and the 3 artichoke plants, while leafing up quite prettily, probably won't amount to anything. But the snap peas! O! SNAP! I'll have at least a good salad bowl full in another week or so.













When I sound the fairy call, gather here in silent meeting,
Chin to knee on the orchard wall, cooled with dew and cherries eating.
Merry, merry, take a cherry, mine are sounder, mine are rounder,
Mine are sweeter for the eater, when the dews fall, and you'll be fairies all.
—Emily Dickinson

If you have ever reunited with your friends from your childhood or teenage years, you will know this about humans: we are essentially the same people we were when we were 14. My mom says she has read that our basic personalities are in place by the time we are SIX. I spent several days this past week with my oldest friend, Becky, whom I met when we were both 13 and newly moved to Europe (she to the Netherlands, me to Belgium) for the first time. She and I went to school together for 2.5 years and she moved back to the States in November of 1979. From then we didn't see each other for nearly 11 years. She spent a long weekend with me in Maryland sometime during my college years and we had a handful of visits over the next 11 years or so. She came to Chicago to help me in a crisis. I went to New Mexico to see her children when they were very small. Anders and I flew out and visited her the summer we met. She was my maid of honor at my wedding before we moved to Sweden.

In 2004 I flew out to Oregon to Becky's home again, and there we had a mini-reunion with several others of our gang of girlfriends from our time in junior high: Kelly, Robin, Denise, Julie, and Jill. Becky and I were the core of this group, touching both the beginning and the end of it. 2 of the girls from the very beginning who weren't at the reunion (Karin & Angelica) never even met the girls from the end of it. It was weird then, 5 years ago, seeing how everyone had changed, and yet how very much they had stayed the same. And it was even weirder this time (with fewer of us: Jill & Julie couldn't come). Even after 30+ years, I could recognize the essential personalities of those 7th and 8th grade girls that were my friends then and who are my friends still, to one degree or another.

I miss the Netherlands fiercely, even though the area we stayed at during this visit doesn't match what I think of in my head when I think of Holland. The school that we went to doesn't even exist in its original format anymore (it was torn down years ago and a new school built) and most of the landmarks and places of interest have changed. We did go to the school but it was a rather pointless exercise touring a building that we had no memories of. The track and bleachers were the same and the dorm building where I lived in my 9th grade year during school weeks is still there, though it's an elderly care facility now. But we had fun together, looking at old yearbooks and reminiscing, and eating Dutch frikadelles (which my husband can't understand my love for).

One day we spent zooming around South Limburg visiting castles, which are in common supply all over the countryside. Schaesburg, Hoensbroek, Schaloen, Wittem and Valkenburg. We toured the Velvet Cave under Valkenburg castle and went to the 4th of July festivities off-base near the school. That was fun, though the fireworks show was relentlessly over-done. On Tuesday, Becky and Kelly and I took the car and drove around and found their old houses and took photos. (I didn't make it to my old house in Belgium this visit, which was over an hour away). On Wednesday, Becky went with our family to Efteling amusement park, which I wasn't sure would be age-appropriate for the kids and which turned out to be EXCELLENT (thanks to bezigebij for the original recommendation), while her husband, Pete, whose mother is English, went to Luxembourg City to find the cemetery his grandfather, who died in the the Battle of the Bulge, is buried in.

It's weird. I'm at the end of my vacation, the middle of summer and the beginning of working again. I can't tell if I'm coming or going or what. It's not a comfortable feeling, I must say, even if that sounds stupid. I have a lot in my head right now: all jumbled and mumbled together. Things I want to remember, things I need to write down. Things that I need to think about. I have 2 more days to call vacation, but I can already feel myself yearning for regular routines, for work, for social interaction and my usual life. It's all been a dream, somehow, one in which I discovered that I'm much closer to the 14-year-old I once was than I had any idea of.

I know just how blessed I am. It's not the time away, or the weeks off work, or the downtime reading relaxation. It's not the wind or the water or the rocks or the little fishing villages with their red houses all in a row. It's not the things we've seen or the things we've done. It's not even the sunshine. Okay. It IS the sunshine, at least part of it is. But mostly it's these:











Photos of Karin, Anders & Simone by John Slaughter; Photos of Martin and John by Anders Ek

Cracking Me Up: Where the wild things aren't

A Sparkly Firecrackly Roundup of Birthday Wishes to totte, jax_in_sweden, shazzerlive, idahoswede, kejn, ms_hackman, and Mia!

Since I was in college, I've always liked canoeing. We went on several canoe trips with all our floormates from Akers Hall, and even after graduation, dispersal and my move to Chicago, we continued to organize weekend-long canoeing trips in Michigan for several years. We've only gone a few times since moving to Sweden...the local river is a fairly easy one and we've only rediscovered the canoeing bug now that the kids are old enough to paddle as well, and we also have access to the canoes that belong to the local Scout troop, which we're members of. On Friday, we drove north, nearly to the Norwegian border and rented canoes at the top of Noth Bullare Lake (at least I think that's which one it was). The day was windy and there were whitecaps on the water, but paddling south with the wind was fine and we rather imprudently didn't think about the slog it would be to come north again, against it. The sun was sparkling on the water and the mica in the cliffsides.

Lake canoeing is very different from river canoeing, and I have to say I think it's much less exciting. The view changes so slowly that it's as if it doesn't change at all; on a river there's always something new around each bend. One thing which struck us was the absence of people. There were very few homes at all on the water, and for hours we saw no one at all. Once in a while, we'd find a little cove with a motorboat pulled up, but mostly it was just the gurgle of water under the canoe tip, our own voices, the wind, and birds. We pulled up at one rocky cove that just looked pretty, and which we thought was an island (it turned out not to be) and had a drink and a snack and the kids and Simone went swimming. Then we paddled further and finally found a small sandy beach to have lunch on. The sand was swarming with ants, but they didn't bother us, and after eating, we all lazed around for awhile in the sunshine until the kids, who were wading in the shallows, discovered the satisfying splashes and shrieks a strategically plopped rock behind someone could create. Commence rock-splashing and stone-skipping competitions!

Beating back up the lake later, against the wind in very rough waves. wasn't so fun, but we all just put our backs into it and pushed on. Back at the campground where we'd hired the canoes, we rested on the grass under the birch trees while Simone jumped off cliffs and Karin swam out to meet her. A lovely day on a lovely lake with the voices of wind & water singing in the breeze.


Shores of Norra Bullaresjön (photo: Anders Ek)


Pulled up for a break (photo: Anders Ek)


Simone & kids swimming (photo: John Slaughter)


Simone & Martin (photo: Anders Ek)


Simone jumping off the cliff (photo: John Slaughter)

Busy every day but in a leisurely way with time to sit in the sunshine and read books and walk along the piers of the little fishing towns. On Thursday, we drove north to Tanumshede to see the bronze age rock etchings that dot the area. Apparently there are more than 10,000 boat drawings alone, scattered around Sweden. They are colored red in order to be seen better by tourists, as in their natural state, they're scarcely noticeable and many have eroded badly due to pollution and weather. The world heritage site at Tanum included a replica bronze age settlement farm complete with a place of sacrifice (bog where offerings were made) and various hunting traps like the fox trap that John caught the kids in.


Bronze Age rock carvings at Tanum (photo: Anders Ek)


Thief warning! (photo: John Slaughter)


Caught in a bronze age fox trap! (photo: John Slaughter)

On the way home from Tanum, we stopped and ate in Fjällbacka, a pretty town on the water. We ate at Bryggan at Ingmar Bergman's Square where the food was delicious, and then had huge 2-scoop ice-cream cones before walking up by the cliffside to explore KungsKlyft, a gorge in the rock that has split it in two. The temperature in the gorge was at least 10 degrees cooler than outside, and the view from the top of the rock (Vetteberget) was spectacular.


Daring to walk under the boulders of Kungsklyft (photo: Anders Ek)


View from Vetteberget over Fjällbacka (photo: John Slaughter)

We crammed in a lot of activities during our week up north. Even though I could have easily turned into a slug, something about the early early sunshine got me going much faster than I would normally have liked managed. Simone was up in the early yawning every day, doing pilates on the cliffs and she and Anders took turns biking into town for fresh bread and breakfast rolls. We did most of the things on our list of things to do in the area, though we never did actually make it to Smögen.


Uri the Amur Tiger at Nordens Ark (photo: John Slaughter)


Lysekil Pier before going to Havets Hus Aquarium (photo: John Slaughter)

On Wednesday, Martin and I stayed home and read for an extra hour before packing up all the picnic and swimming stuff and driving over to Ramsvik Nature Preserve to meet the rest of the gang who had left by bike. They had a great time zooming all over the area...it's a very rocky flat area with gradually sloping stone down to the sea. There was at least one herd of cattle wandering freely nearby, and lots of waterfowl. Martin found a ton of dried and scattered crab carapaces and claws, which was all that was left of unlucky crustaceans dropped from flight to crack on the stones by hungry seagulls. We ate a picnic lunch sitting by Sotens Canal, waving at the boaters going by, and saw a meter-long black snok (Grass Snake). After lunch and some more maniac mountain-biking, we sat in the sun by the water, while Simone and the kids jumped in and swam around a bit. We have a bazillion photos of John, Simone, Anders and Karin biking around the rocks, though I only posted 2 here :)


Karin speeding through a puddle at Ramsvik (photo: Anders Ek)


Anders with Simone in the background (photo: John Slaughter)

After the swim, we decided to hike south to Nöt Island and then Trygg Island, which features a burial cairn for King Tryggve high up on a mountain. After climbing and riding up one mountain, where Simone crashed and banged up her knee, we reached the top only to discover that the cairn was actually on the NEXT mountain, but we still had to climb DOWN, cross a tidal mudflat and then go up again, whereupon we 3 girls bailed. The boys made the trek all the way up to the cairn, while we took a leisurely descent back down to level ground.


John & Martin paying their respects to King Tryggve (photo: Anders Ek)

In one little town we picked up a mini fishing rod with a clothespin clip on it for crabbing. Karin and Martin had a blast crabbing from the piers, using the ubiquitous mussel shells for bait. In the early evenings, the crabs were swarming the shallows: little green ones, medium-sized blue ones and big pinky-red ones. Each one that was fished up was deposited in a bucket and when we had 4 or 6 of them, we found a low rock with easy access to the water and turned the bucket over for crab races: first one to the water wins! The crabs were so fast that Anders could only get very blurry shots of them just as they zoomed into the sea with a splash!


Martin & Karin crabbing from the pier (photo: John Slaughter)


Arriba! Arriba! (photo: Anders Ek)

The light is incredible along the western coast of Sweden in the summer. It's one of the sunniest spots in the country, logging more sunlight hours by far than the rest of us. This past week, right after midsummer, the sun never actually set, just dipping down behind the horizon around 1 a.m. and apparently scooching quickly around to the east to rise a short hour or so later. Frankly, sunset photos never do the real thing justice. We drove up from Skåne in rain, which slowed and ceased as we arrived on Ödby Island. There were puddles in every rocky depression on the surrounding hills and cliffs and a washed-clean feeling in the air. All week the sky was a uniform robin's egg blue: a perfect blue bowl overhead with a fresh sea wind to keep us cool.


Rainbow over Sotens Fiskarby (photo: Anders Ek)


Heading home to Hunnebostrand (photo: Anders Ek)


Sunlower lighting: Martin, Karin, John & Simone (photo: Anders Ek)


Sunlower in progress (it never actually set!) (photo: Anders Ek)


Karin & Simone on the bridge to Hunnebostrand (photo: John Slaughter)

I am back, but I am not sure I want to be.

I am back, for now. I will be gone again. Soon.

I am still on vacation and enjoying every sun-packed lazy-ass moment of it.

It's weird being offline for a determined length of time. One gets out of the online habit so easily. It was difficult to open this window and start typing; difficult to think of what to say, difficult to know where to begin, or whether.

We couldn't have had better weather in Sotens Fiskarby: sunny and warm with a constant cool breeze. We went to Nordens Ark and Havets Hus and Ramsvik Nature Preserve where Anders, John, Simone and Karin mountain-biked all over the rocks like maniacs. We hiked and walked and sat in the sunshine. We fished for crabs and had crab races. We admired the sunlowers (it never actually set) and ate strawberries with whipped cream. We visited Lysekil and Fjällbacka and Grebbestad (and saw BERT KARLSSON* behind the counter of the tourist info office!!!). We saw the bronze age rock carvings in Tanum and bought and ate more strawberries. We went canoeing on a windy windy lake and swam and splashed each other with perfectly timed rock tosses and jumped off cliffs into the water (well, Simone did) and slathered on a lot of sunscreen. We read a lot of books (my count: 6) and played Farkle and Clue. We tried not to think about work but failed so we talked about it a little bit instead. We ate ice cream in waffle cones and fantastic meals, and took a LOT of photos. Simone and Anders made awesome dinners. John made awesome guacamole (twice!). I washed a lot of dishes. The only way it could have been better was if it had lasted longer.

This morning we drove into Malmö, and went to a really big grocery store so John & Simone could find Swedish goodies to take back to friends. Then I took John to the bookstore to browse for his birthday present. We were there for an hour. We bought 12 books between us (2 were for Martin). Then John & Simone left to drive home to southern Germany. *sigh*

Martin is playing on the computer. They've both been computer-deprived this week but they've handled it well. Earlier Karin was lying on the floor behind me alternately badgering for sushi and crying at the injustice and hardhearted MEANNESS of her parents. Just now when I went out to the laundry room to start the dryer again she was sitting in the big chair playing with her toes. When I came back she was lying like a chalk drawing body on the floor. I asked her if she had crashed and she said, "yeeeeeeeeeeesssss". Boredom is good for kids, I hear.

She just brought me some frozen blueberries. ICY CANDY GOODNESS! She informs me that she's going to write a post on her journal. It was hard to understand her through the blueberries.

Happa Happa HAPPY belated Birthday Wishes to thehula and verian!

Awesome: Silhouette Masterpiece Theater

*We have NO idea what he was doing there, but it was definitely him.

Family, friends, a midsummer pole dressed with 7 kinds of wildflowers, dancing like tail-less, ear-less frogs (kouack kouack!), toads under ferns, swan babies, 6 kinds of herring, strawberries, singstar silliness, a hotdog-begging kitty, reading on the trampoline or alternately, bouncing on it, downpours with hail, giant fluff-clouds, sunshine! a walk in the woods, hotdogs on the grill, 2 puppies to pat, schnaps songs, packing, games, laughter! Happy midsummer everyone!


The kids, with John & Simone's help, were justifiably proud of their midsummer pole! (photo: John Slaughter)


Sillybutts! (photo: John Slaughter)



Karin, Liz, Martin & Simone (photo: John Slaughter)



The Ek's with Uncle Johnnie (photo: Simone Slaughter)

What's your idea of the perfect vacation? I waffle between not wanting to do anything at all but sleep in, lay on the sofa and read, and read some more, to making travel plans and go-go-going every day, getting something out of every minute. This week, the first of a 4-week vacation, has been a nice mix of the two, which suits my waffling heart to a T. I had plans every day but not the whole day and some of them fell through or were changed and all of them involved nice things.

It's only 2 days until the Swedish midsommar celebrations and Anders is preparing 3 kinds of herring to take with us to the party at Mats & Annelott's. My brother & Simone arrive tomorrow, and the house is clean and I feel calm and prepared for next week's trip up north to the coast.

I've had lunch with friends and a massage and a dinner with Geena, during all of which I got things that I needed: closure, advice, confirmation, relaxation and laughter. My children have been well-behaved in public, helpful at home and Martin even told me that the computer discipline-time-division that we instituted a couple of weeks ago was a good idea and was working well.

Today while we were sitting in the balcony having fika with my in-laws in Malmö, we looked out over a sea of green trees and wheeling seagulls and were horrified to watch 3 teenage boys come traipsing across the park, strewing garbage about them. They chucked a coke can into a flower garden, flung the plastic lids from 2 pringle cans across the playground, emptied the crumbs onto the path and then dropped and stomped the cans themselves before turning and strolling away. HONESTLY. My kids raced downstairs a few minutes later, completely burning with righteous indignation, picked up the garbage and put it in the public garbage containers that were 6 feet away from where the boys had been standing.

The sun has been shining all day and it started warming up (finally! finally? please say finally) after lunch, and I acquiesced to Karin's request to please please please take them to the pool. I don't really like going to the pool because 1) I don't do bathing suits and 2) if I sit and read in the sun (even in the shade), my vision is blurry for the rest of the day, but I DO like going to the pool because hey! It's the POOL. It's blue and shiny and there is an ineffable sound of joy in the splashing and shrieking and carrying on. So we swung by home and picked up bathing stuff and a camping chair for me and went to the pool. I started Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (HAR!) and after awhile, gave up on reading and just sat in the sun with the heat pounding down on my shoulders. It was almost like getting a bonus massage.

So this has been a week at home, and next week is a week away, then we have another week at home and another week away. If that doesn't sound like a recipe for lizardek's perfect vacation, I don't know what does.

If anyone has tips for things to do around Smögen in Sweden (1.5 hours north of Gothenburg) or around Vaals in the Netherlands, I'd be glad to hear them. We have some things already planned, but more ideas would be very welcome!

Cool Stuff for Bibliophiles: Turning the Pages