Folk och rövare i Kamomilla stad

Today it was time for a yearly summer tradition of ours, to go and see the local amateur theater group 'Charlies Teater' in town. Every summer they put up a new play, this year it was "Folk och rövare i Kamomilla stad". It's only on for three weekends and is always a really popular activity in the otherwise rather sleepy town during the holiday period; so this year we booked our tickets in advance to be sure we would get seats!

We were lucky with the weather, it was dry and sunny. But we were grateful they had organized blankets to lend the audience, as the wind made it a bit chilly as the show went on! Swedish summer for you.

And there was fika!

This story is originally a 1955 Norwegian childrens book by T. Egner, which in English is called 'When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town'. It tells the story of Cardamom Town, with the main characters being three robbers. It is considered as one of the most important Norwegian children's books. 

This theater group 'Charlies Teater' started these summer performances in 2008, and have since put on one childrens play and one adult play each summer. We didn't go in 2008, but we've been every year after that - making this the sixth summer in a row for us! Such a lovely tradition!

Lawn croquet

#Cowfie

I love the walks around here; the green, the birches, the gravel roads, the roadside flowers - the cows..!

350 m.a.s.l

We took a little trip to Falköping and the mini zoo and playground at Mösseberg today. Beautiful sunshine, and simple pleasures, like being able to play on a swing.

We have been up on Mösseberg many times, but today was the first time we decided to climb the viewing tower.

It's one of the only towers in Sweden, with the sole purpose of being a viewing spot. It was built in stone in 1902, and completely restored in 1994. There are 206 steps to climb to the top:

The stunning views were more than worth all the effort!

Fire in the hole!

My mum puts a lot of time and effort into her garden all throughout the year, and all those hours in the garden sure pays off - during the summer it transforms into a beautiful green and lush oasis, filled with colourful flowers.

Although not all work in the garden is related to pruning, cutting and caring for the plants and the greenery; some is also prevention and protection, against different creatures not as welcome in the garden. Like the heron, that has been fishing his lunch out of the pond with goldfish; the bunny rabbit eating the salad and the deer feeding on the flowers.

Since last year there has also been a vole living below one of her flower beds, eating the roots of her beautiful flowers. She has tried to get rid of him in many different ways, but nothing has worked, so this year she has stepped it up. The other day the kids got to help set off a "bomb" down the vole hole, made out of carbide and water.

It was quite exciting, and sure made a loud 'boom'! Fire in the hole!!

Not quite sure it took care of the vole, but we do hope so. We "bombed" down both ends of the hole, just to be sure!

Meanwhile back home

The heat seem to have got to our outdoor furniture... Oups...

In another part of the world...

In another part of the world, Nathan caught up with some friends on a stop-over in Hong Kong.
Kurt, to the right, lives in Hong Kong, so that was a given. Lucky he was off this particular night. Nathaniel, to the left, lives in Dubai (!), but always cool to catch up down route..!

Silverfallen

Another beautiful spot on the Billingen mountain, is 'Silverfallen' - the silver falls. They fall about 60m down Billingen.  

Even though it's a lush area to visit in summer too, most people come here in the spring when the falls rush down full of water, and the ground is completely covered by wood anemones.

Such a lovely afternoon in the woods, I love to be in the green!

Jättadalen

We woke up to beautiful weather today, so we packed a picnic basket and drove a few miles away to Valle, an area that has six different nature reserves, where you can both go fishing and hiking. 

We were going up Jättadalen valley, a deep creek ravine framed by diabase cliffs. It's quite a steep path all the way to the top, but the view from the top is worth all the effort!

It felt almost like hashing! Made me think of my many climbs up and down hills in my Borneo jungle!

From the top you can see really far in the distance; you can spot some of the 365 lakes and get the Kinnekulle mountain as a backdrop. We had our picnic there before we continued down again.

There are an abundance of trails and info signs around this area. There are about 60 km of signed trails to choose from in Valle. This kame country landscape is quite unusual, it was created when the ice melted and ravaged the area some 10 000 years ago.

It was in this area the "flower king" Carl von Linné chartered all existing flora in 1746.

Ostindiefararen Götheborg

This summer the Swedish sailing ship Götheborg is on a four month long tour in Europe, which will take it through Sweden, to Amsterdam and to a number of stops in the UK. At the moment it is sailing around Lake Vänern and today we went to see it as it is on a three day stop-over in Lidköping, not far from us, where it arrived yesterday. 

It was crazy busy in the harbour, it's been a long time since I've seen that many people out and about in Lidköping. The ship was open for the public to board, but the queues were really, really long, so we skipped that part.

Instead we enjoyed the exhibitions on the quay, about the East India trade, the history of the original ship and the movie and story about the current ship and it's expeditions worldwide.

This ship is a replica of the original 18th century Swedish East Indiaman, in full 1:1 scale. It's even built with the same kind of tools, building materials and traditional techniques as back in the 18th century. The only small change they had to do was to increase the headroom of the deck, as today's seamen are taller than their ancestors! 

While the exterior remains true to original, the interior is highly modern. Most of the new technology was necessary to pass national and international safety regulations.

The ship Götheborg is the largest sailing wooden ship in the world, totally unique.

The original Götheborg was built in 1738 and made three trips to China, but rather embarrassingly ran aground on their last return, just outside Gothenburg harbour in 1745. The ship remained stranded, while much of the cargo consisting of tea, porcelain, spices and silk was salvaged; and everybody on board survived.

The wreckage of the original vessel was found in 1984 and that's when the idea to make a replica of the ship emerged. It was launched in June 2003.

It sure was an impressive sight! Such a beautiful ship!

My UFOs and me

The kids and I have just come back from a little road trip for the last few days, to the other side of lake Vättern and a lovely place called Vistinge Skola.

For the first time in many years this summer, I was super excited to be able to join one of the big UFO meets that occasionally take place in Sweden during the summer holidays. No, it has nothing to do with mysterious flying objects - it's the FB group I have mentioned quite a few times before, UtlandsFöräldrar.

Some mums came alone, some brought families, or parts of them. We were 8 mums, 12 kids and 4 husbands that gathered together, in this amazing old school building where one of the families lived.

Hamburgers were grilled for dinner, yum yum.

And later on we cracked open the bubbles, and celebrated with UFO cake, of course!

We all stayed overnight, in different rooms of this old school building. This morning we got treated to some lovely breakfast bread brought by one of the mums who lives next door to the "Bakery of The Year", in Stockholm:

The sun finally came back today, so it became time for outdoor activities. Adults and kids were playing kubb and boule, some were swimming, having watergun fights etc. Gotta love the summer sun, aaaahhh!

More bubbles!

And before most of us head off on new summer adventures around different parts of Sweden, we had herring lunch and sweet, sweet strawberries and ice cream. Certainly didn't leave hungry from this stay!

The mini UFOs treated us to a bit of a concert.

What an absolutely fabulous mini-trip! That us mums would have a fantastic time was no surprise, even though some of us met for the first time in real life (for me it was one new mum; three of them I met nine years ago on another gathering in Amsterdam, one in Malaga about 8 years ago, one in Stockholm ten years ago and one last summer) - we do talk every day on FB and we do know each other extremely well!

But the kids, and the husbands for that matter, also all hit it off and have had a great time these past days. All have played and been happy. :)

I hope it wont be another 9-10 years until my next big UFO meet! My UFO friends rock! ❤️