I haven't blogged much in ages, but thought why not upload a couple of pics now that I was trying to get a few photos of my new hellebore.

I love hellebores, but it's more about admiring them in photos and flower shops than actually buying any as they're a bit pricey and I'm a bit broke. But this friday I went shopping and spotted some hellebores. The gorgeous purple and double ones were too expensive for me, but then my sis spotted a shelf with smaller hellebores that were on offer. Half price off, I think. So of cause I had to get one.




This is the one I really wanted but thought was beyond my price range at 200 SEK (approx. 17 GBP/22 EUR/24 USD). It was one of the big ones, perhaps three or four times the height of the one I bought. And a gorgeous, gorgeous colour.


So far the one I did get is indoors, but I'll have to figure out a good place to plant it outdoors. Not sure where to put it. Don't think they'll end up near our other hellebores, which look like this. Don't want those colours together. Maybe there's place somewhere near some of the snowdrops – which, like the crocus, is really spreading out on the lawns nowadays – so they'll create some sort of spring flower corner. Maybe. We'll have to see.

Anyway, as you can see below I got an assistant when taking the photos. It's one of the kittens we accidentally got last summer. A little cutie, don't you think? I find it hard to get good pics of hellebores, but a little cat improves any photo.





For these photos – taken in poor light as heavy rain clouds started to cover the sky – I covered the plastic flower pot it came in with pieces of bark clad in moss that I took from some old logs lying behind the barn. Fastened them with a matching piece of embroidery floss.


One of the reasons for taking the photo was to test putting something on my relatively new Instragram account. Have thought about trying it out ever since getting a modern phone. Something easier than blogging, just putting a pic up every now and then, I thought, something to act as as an alternative to my blog for those who like it when I'm not in the mood to do proper blog posts. But so far it hasn't been able to really pull me in. A small phone that's slightly too old to be really useful for the purpose and my being a newbie with little time to learn has hampered me. (Also, I suck at taking photos with the phone. The camera in it is good, the photographer isn't.) I'm trying to keep it bilingual, with swedish as the "first language".

It's not very interesting right now, but if you're curious or want to see more pics for me, why not check it out?

Ännu en bild på min #julros (nu utan katt). Ser lite mer av den klädda krukan. Mossan och barken den sitter på tog jag från en bunke med gammalt bränne som vi har liggande. Bröt loss några lagom stora bitar och knöt fast med grönt brodergarn runt plastkrukan. Ett enkelt #pyssel för finare foto. Moss clad pot with #hellebore. #helleborus #garden #trädgård

Ett foto publicerat av maneki (@manekibeader) Mar 27, 2016 kl. 11:15 PDT

I'm so note comfortable with hashtags. Too many? Too few? Too generic? Too useless? Too unnecessary? I've got much to learn...


Oh, now that I'm doing a blog post I must of cause not forget to end this post by wishing you a

Happy Easter! .
Glad påsk!
Hope you're lucky enough to relax and enjoy some sunshine, budding flowers, a gentle spring breeze, birdsong and everything else one wish this season to bring.

The other day the weather turned colder again after weeks of temperatures above zero, turning rain and heavy grey skies into white clouds, sunshine and blue sky. It's cold, but the sun is bright: the cats relly enjoyed sunbathing on the porch around noon. But, yes, still cold. There was frost here and there on the ground still in the afternoon, and not just in the northside shadows. And today was the day I got the urge to check the snowdrops. Was meaning to do it yesterday as I felt they'd probably budded, but never got around to it before dark. With the sun setting around 5 PM, there aren't yet many hours of sunlight when you oversleep... But today I remembered to have a look and I was right: the first snowdrops are beginning to bloom.

As I'm done it for several  years, of cause I had to keep up with the snowdrop blog tradition even if I'm still not back blogging really. The post from previous years can be found here.

Enjoy!

I've ended up not blogging very much these last two years, but I haven't give up on my two "traditions" of documenting the last day of the year and waiting for the first snowdrops and so at least two times of the year I'll remember this blog.

This year, it's been a very warm December (one day, earlier in the month they claimed on the radio that many parts of Sweden had had the same temperature as on midsummer's eve). Snow on a couple of days, frost on others, but most of the days have been warm for the season. And rainy. This last week or so it's gotten a bit colder, with frost staying on north side of hills and in the shadows through the day. To top it all off, when I looked out the windows the sky was blue with just a few light clouds and the sun was shining, but I didn't see the wall of clouds moving in from the west so the sunlight disappeared far too early compared to my calculations. All in all, not the greatest weather to photograph (not even moody fog like last year), but I do have a few more photos to show that back in 2012. You can't change the weather, just your own attitude towards it.

But first, a little DIY I made for christmas. We don't have an outdoor christmas tree this year either so instead I bought some string lights and made a tree shaped decoration on the still boarded up window (with the cat hole). As a reference, I think it's 60-something cm tall and the lights used are these. It's been a tad stormy since I put it up so it's not in the same pristine condition as it was, but it still looks decent enough, especially seen from the road.






















I don't have a long new year's wish for you this year. I simply wish that 2016 will bring you much joy and happiness, may it be a year when dreams come true and new dreams are born. May 2016 be everything you hope for and much more!

I haven't blogged much this year, but of cause I have to return with the traditional new year's eve post. I'll be the sixth year now that I do this photo post, the posts from the previous years can be found here.

Unfortunately, unlike during the first years of this tradition, the weather hasn't been on our side. We got frost on boxing day and then some light snow after that, but then it started thawing again and today it's just been grey, wet and foggy. Hopefully the pics won't be too dark and dull. Was aiming for for the serene and melancholic, though you might have to be a fellow november child to really enjoy these silent, fog veiled winter landscapes. (Even I prefer the fog and rain to end with november, though, so the winter months can be white. Frost white or snow white, either is fine, it just has to be white. You need something that lights up the short, dark days.)

One a positive note, though, the warm winter means you can get som fairytale/troll forest pics even after autumn. And it makes those pretty little snowberries more visible.













Last year, I ended the new year's post with a long wish, coloured by what happened in my life. Though aiming for a positive wish, in a way the darkness in the heart that wished it shone through. It reflected perhaps more the lack of direction in my life and the negativity in my mind than anything else. It was a wish for others in my situation and not perhaps for everyone. This year, I'll just cut out the most positive bit for you, in a slightly new version:

So my new year's wish for you is thus: May 2015 be a year filled with dreams that come true, happiness, adventures, courage and many new opportunities. May you wander along your path in life, your north star to follow, be it one you're already on or a new one that is just found. May you create and thrive and grow. 

Happy New Year!

I thought I had to just write something short to explain why not much new is popping up on this blog this autumn. Have mentioned it in a comment here or on another blog, but might as well tell you all.

First I didn't blog because I was under the weather with all that's happened these last 12 months -- and now I don't blog because I'm spending the mornings working on one of those unemployment activities one sometimes end up in. It's not easy getting up early in the mornings when you're a night owl -- and then I have a relatively long walk to the bus so I end up being a tad tired when I get home. And, also, there's less time for me to be on the computer blogging now that I don't get home until 14 o'clock every day. E-mails, catching up on blogs etc I follow and writing for my other blog takes precedence, unfortunately.

So, to conclude, I haven't abandoned this blog for ever, nor am I not writing here because I'm still feeling down or am stuck in dark and dreary mood. It's mostly a matter of time now. Hopefully I'll soon get used to my new schedule and find room for blogging too. (But then again, I keep saying stuff like that all the time and then things get in the way and I end up not blogging much anyway...)





Because I haven't shared anything silly our cats have done in ages, here's a pic for you to play "where's the cats?" with. That's Julle next by the door, but what do you think of Ubbi's new best spot for an afternoon nap? (Pic's from september: it's been a bit too cold and rainy lately so he prefers the bed now. And, yes, it's easy for him to get to his napping place, but it's been difficult for him to get back in the same way -- not that that stopped him from jumping up there again the next day.)

There was of cause no miracle to be had. On monday morning, Knatti was even worse. It was painful to see him suffer and painful to feel like we abandoned him when he needed us near him the most. While I grieve that he had to die, what breaks my heart is feeling that he spent his last days detached from his safety, from his family and home. Someone pointed out that we always die alone, even if we're surrounded by loved ones, but Knatti also suffered his last time alone and that pains me to think of. We were of cause there when he got that final, lethal injection that stopped his heart, but those were just his last minutes. When he was so ill I don't even know if he fully understood that we were there or if he was too ill to be comforted by our presence.

Logically, I know we did the only thing that could be done to try and save his life, but it doesn't change the fact that with the outcome being what it was, this left him very alone in a strange place, subjected to needles and pains without us, those who should protect him from everything bad and soothe him when in pains, for what in a cat's mind must have been a very long time. I can't undo that, I can't turn back time. I can't even persuade myself that it was the right thing to do, the only chance he had, as I can't ignore how that decision determined how his last days became.  And I don't want anyone else to try and persuade me.

And regardless of how he died, there's also another thing: he derserved more years. He wasn't old. He was the kindest of cats, who never harmed anyone who got into fights. Life is unfair, that's just the way it is. And Knatti's short life is just one more example of that. Had life been fair, he'd still have most of his years in front of him. He died too young. That's the long and the short of it: he deserved more years. Many more years.



I posted photos of him in the last post, but missed this one, which shows how sweet he was. It's Knatti with his new baby brother sleeping by his side. He always was the kindest, the one most likely to accept new kittens -- even when they became older, more mischievous, and wanted to play (which includes things like ear biting, which often render them a slap by the adult cats, but not from Knatti). He placidly accepted them, even when more wild than the other big cats, including their moms, found tolerable. Maybe it was only fitting that he got a grave beside some of the youngest kittens in our cat cemetary.

To end this post, I've picked out a few of the pics we took last week when Julle and Knatti came with my sis and I up in the hill. Of all cats, those two are the ones that appreciated our forest walks the most. They loved tagging along (Julle, of cause, still does), not least as they got us to themselves. Two peaceful cats that otherwise are pushed aside by the tougher ones. So in a way it's fitting that the last images of him is in a place and a situation he enjoyed so much. Never in a million years did I on that day think it would be the last time I sat with him in my lap, watching the sunset and stroking his fur on a beautiful, quiet summer evening.






Oh, sweetheart...