A little lunchbreak skiing

On my way to the lakes yesterday I met Åsa. She works at Osram in Jordbro, and that companies office building is only a few minutes walk from the ski tracks at Rudan, which means that on a good winters day like the one we had yesterday, Åsa will go cross-country skiing on her lunchbreak. She has taken part in the annual Vasaloppet race a number of times. If you don't know it, it is a long distance (90 km) cross-country ski race that takes place in Dalarna on the first Sunday in March every year. Åsa has also tried her luck in the Engelbrektsloppet in Nora. That race is also part of the Swedish Classic Circuit. So I guess it is safe to say that she is a fit woman. And when there's no snow, chances are that you will find Åsa either at the gym or out jogging.

January VS. November

Sometimes when I go for a photo promenade around Tungelsta I will take the first photo at the commuter station. One reason is just to get going. I will often photograph the same places and buildings over and over as you all know. This is the traffic mirror at the station. I shot the winter half yesterday and the autumn photo in November last year. I wear the same outfit on both photos but have added the beanie because of the recent cold spell.

The old school

This can sometimes happen when you are speedwalking...

The building in the background is the old school in Tungelsta. I was a student there for one year as a first grader back in the early 1970s. My mother Lillemor Jansson was a student there for six years, between 1945 and 1951, as was my paternal grandfather Harald Fredrik Jansson, who started third grade here when the school was brand new back in 1913 and it is his class photo you can see here.

Miniature Trains

The commuter train is always fun to photograph. This one is a bit different. Shot earlier this week from the newish bridge crossing the Tungelsta commuter station. To spice the photo up a bit I added a fake tiltshift effect.

Winter VS. Spring

Two views of the Mulsta Länsmansboställe and the two magnificent trees that makes the entrance a bit special. Mulsta is an old village in Tungelsta. Länsmansboställe is a very old word that translated to English means something like the place where the Vassal lived. And for centuries this was where the local police lived. The old building was destroyed in a fire, and the one you see to the right here was built in 1893. I shot the winter photo two days ago and the spring view is from May of last year.

Skywatch Friday.

A Truck with a Difference

Back in the 1940s it was obviously difficult to get parts to your farm vehicle and that's when the EPA-tractor was invented. Here is what Wikipedia has to say:

An EPA tractor was simply an automobile, truck or lorry, with the passenger space cut off behind the front seats, equipped with two gearboxes in a row. When done to an older car with a ladder frame, the result was not dissimilar to a tractor and could be used as one.

After the war many teenagers in Sweden used a loophole in the law which made it legal for a sixteen year old kid to drive an EPA-tractor on the roads without a license. Normally you would have to be eighteen to get a driver's license. Then in 1975 the A Tractor was introduced with a number of new rules regarding the engine. The most important one being the top speed of 30 km/h! The name EPA comes from a chain of stores that sold cheap products of poor quality. The name stuck, and even today the EPA-tractor is a popular vehicle among sixteen year olds. This red Volvo with a missing headlight lives at the Mulsta farm in Tungelsta. To see a few more EPA-tractors read this informative article in English.

Yin & Yang

It took three weeks, but I finally shot my first street portrait of the year yesterday. This is Rontti. I spotted her in Handen. She had a bit of a yin &yang thing going I think. And clearly a unique style and that is often one of the things I am looking for in a portrait. Rontti is studying Aesthetics at the Fredrika Bremer secondary school, and enjoys painting. I figured her for someone that would listen to rock, but she said she was more in to techno music. It is always fun when you can connect people, and it turns out that one of her best friend is The Pink Pop Punk Girl that I met last summer.

Iron Age Gravefield

Just north of the church in Tungelsta you will find a grave field from the Late Iron Age. It consists of 25 stone graves. The people living in the village, close to the burial site, were farmers and hunters. The dead were cremated on funeral pyres. In one grave here archeologist have found remains from a bear. The conclusion is that the person who was cremated here was resting on a bearskin. After the cremation, the bones were put in a a clay urn and a tomb were built over the cremation layer. The modern brick church was built in 1974.

Taphophile Tragics.

Ramshackle of the Day

A soon to collapse old wooden building at Fornminnesvägen in Tungelsta. When I was a kid there was also an old farm house on this property. It was a fun place to break into. I remember how we threw out broken windows from a room on the second floor. One of my friends took a hit and that's when we ended that game. Today most of this property has been fixed up, and it has a new owner. There are also a few horses in the pasture.

Winter has arrived

It snowed off and on all day today. So I guess it is official now, winter is here! I took a walk around Tungelsta,just like yesterday. For most of the walk everything was white. This is "färglådorna" where there was a terrible fire a little over a year.

Nothing much happened

Facts from a promenade. It was -5C and very ice. The garage door at the abandoned gas station had been repaired, good to know that my email to the municipality worked. Met a young mother out walking with a stroller. She had the biggest smile I have seen for a long time. Four horses were standing next to the fence at their pasture along Vädersjövägen. Near the brick church on Kvarnvägen three people were reading the sign that informed about the historical remains that can be found in the forest there. The most surprising thing I saw (but didn't photograph), was a bearded man with wild hair wearing only shoes, a t-shirt and sports shorts. He was heading for the grocery store, possibly in search of warmer clothes. Over at the kindergarten where I previously have shown you the winter hammock, I found these left behind gloves on a table next to the playground. Other than that nothing much happened.

Parked For the Season

I have met surprisingly few cyclists on the roads this winter, at least when you consider the lack of snow that we are having. But for the moment my bike is parked in the cellar. Not because of the snow, but because of the ice. It is a few degrees below zero and the little snow we did get earlier in the week have now frozen. And as I don't have any winter tires on the bike, I will wait for the staddies (thanks Peter), to fix that. This unusually parked bike can be seen at the Tungelsta commuter station.

No Snow Plowing This Season

If and when it snows the snow plowing will be handled by the Stadsbyggnadsförvaltningens teknikavdelning. It would be fun to hear the non-Swedish readers of this blog pronouncing that! The snow plowers need between three and five centimeters of the white stuff before they can go to work. The de-icing of the roads will also involve salting and sanding, something I both like and dislike, as I usually will get a few flat tires on my bike every winter from the sand, which in reality is crushed stone. This winter the snow plowers haven't been very busy, although they have done some sanding. I shot this photo earlier in the week when it actually snowed for a few minutes.

That Old Tree

I heard on the news last night that we can expect some snow in the next 24 hours or so. This was the scene over at the old tree earlier today. Someone from the Mulsta horse farm have been here with a saw. But they have only cut off a part of the broken tree branch. I tried lifting it myself, but it is stuck and also very heavy.

Murder by Mistake

This is one of many graves belonging to the Upmark family, that you will find at the cemetery in Västerhaninge. There used to be a hedge surrounding this part of the cemetery, but for some reson it has been cut down. I was looking for the headstone of Herman Upmark, but couldn't find it. He was murdered by mistake. Back in 1871 two men, Konrad Petterson Lundqvist Tector and Gustav Adolf Eriksson Hjert murdered Herman Upmark and his chauffeur, Johan August Larsson near Malmköping. They had planned to rob a horse-drawn, two-wheeled mail wagon, but it was dark and they made a mistakee and Upmark, who was a rail road engineer, and on his way home, was shot to death together with his chauffeur. The two murderers were executed on May 18 in 1876. They were the last persons to be executed in Sweden. This grave belongs to Elisabeth Björkman from the same family, she lived between 1790 and 1851. The Upmark family comes from Tungelsta, and I have shown you many photos from their estate Hammar on this blog over the years.

Taphophile Tragics.

Did you know...

Two buildings in Tungelsta with some interesting facts. To the right the old Tungelsta Station House. It's been there since 1901 when the railroad to Stockholm opened for traffic. The architect was possibly the famous Ferdinand Boberg, but no one knows for sure. What we do know is that the retired station master still lives in an apartment on the second floor. To the left a building that might have been moved to it's current position back in 1901. Before the move it is said that the house was located in a rural village known as Fors, a few kilometers from here, where it served as a convenience store. No one knows for sure how it really was. But it was a convenience store on it's current location for many years. And there's more. There's a locked room on the top floor according to Birdman who lived in the building as a child. And it is also said that the King of Sweden spent the night in a room on the second floor when the railway opened for traffic. Since then that room has been called the Royal room, but there are no evidence that the King really stayed there. It snowed a bit today so I took my old Canon 300D with me and took these photos with that camera.

Window Of Opportunity?

One week ago I showed you some photos from a newly trashed gas station in Tungelsta. I emailed a few links about the incident to the municipality. I wanted to know if there was a responsible owner somewhere, and if the municipality could to something about the current situation with the abandoned building. I have received four answers containing absolutely no information at all. Last night the thrashers were back. They smashed a few windows. They managed to drive into the garage doors. After that they walked in and continued what they started last weekend. I guess I will have to send another link to the municipality as I walked over to the gas station this morning for a few more photos of the vandalized building. To see all the photos follow the link.

A Frosty Face

A few years ago I noticed an over-snowed chair in a private garden in Tungelsta. During that long and cold winter, I went back four or five times to document the changes of the season, using that chair. I'm thinking about using this sculpture of the author Ivar-Lo Johansson as a marker this winter. The last time you saw Ivar, who spends his time near the Tungelsta commuter station, a caring person had given him some winter clothing. He looked very chic, and rather pleased with that. Now, someone has stolen his colorful scarf, and I sensed that he was a little upset about that on this frosty day.

It snowed yesterday...

...for several minutes.

Skywatch Friday.

The Tin Man

A few years ago a street art phenomenon knows as The Roundabout Dogs appeared all over Sweden. I have showed you quite a few cool dogs. One of them was at this roundabout in Västerhaninge. Last year I photographed a Jack O'Lantern in this roundabout, but that was just a Halloween thing. Since then all have been quiet, but earlier this week The Tin Man appeared from nowhere. I wonder if this is the start of a new street art movement...

That Old Tree

This winter has been a weird one. After a long time with mild temperatures we suddenly got a couple of days with colder weather. Biking in -8 C isn't all that fun, but someone has to do it. This was the scene at the old tree the other day. No one around, and it did look a bit like winter. As I'm typing this, it probably looks a little different, as the warm weather has returned again and it is now +4 C.

Headstone Relief

On a recent walk around the cemetery at the Medieval church in Västerhaninge I noticed this relief on a head stone. The faces looked so young, so I first thought that the couple might have died young in some accident. But that wasn't the case. John who was borne in 1887 died in 1968. His wife Ida lived between 1896 and 1980. All I know about them is that they came from Nedersta, a rural area between Västerhaninge and Tungelsta.

Taphophile Tragics.

The Guard Dog

Out on a winter promenade around Skogs Ekeby in Tungelsta yesterday, I came upon this badass guard dog in front of Rolf Andersson's place. Luckily I made it home unharmed.

Table Tennis Anyone?

This ping-pong table can be found at the Tungelsta school which opens again tomorrow after the Christmas holiday. I shot this photo one hour ago. Not much snow as you can see. Quite a difference from how the same table looked back in December of 2009 which was when I shot the second photo.

The Abandoned Gas Station

It opened as a Koppartrans filling station in the early 1960s. Shell took over in the 1970s. Per Erik Mickos and his wife ran the business for a couple of decades until they retired. For a while it became a DIN-X station. Next up was a soccer coach from Södertälje, but he went into personal bankruptcy soon after taking over the station. And that's when the gas station, which also served as a garage, kiosk and grocery store was abandoned. On Thursday night someone drove a car through the garage doors for no apparent reason. This afternoon I walked over do document the abandoned station in Tungelsta. The oldest photos in the slideshow dates back to when the station was still in operation.

A Swedish Sky

Skywatch Friday.


Heading home one afternoon a while back I stopped at a roundabout because of the traffic, (I was on my bike), so while I was waiting I decided to aim my camera towards the sky.

The Youth Centre

The last time I showed you a photo of the former fire station in Tungelsta it was because I saw a Winter Halo in the sky. My dad was a volunteer fire fighter here for a quarter of a century. Today the building is used as a youth centre and the nearest fire station is in Handen ten kilometres away. These two photos shows the miniature golf course that I never saw anyone use, and I think it is gone now. The winter half of the diptych is from two winters ago, when we actually had snow. The summer version dates back to May of 2008.

The Philosopher

This bronze sculpture is called The Philosopher. He sits in the middle of a lawn near a few benches, at the bus stop at the mall in Handen, so he is often surrounded by a lot of people. Whenever I see him I think of Gollum, from The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. The artist is a sculptor called Sture Collin, who has done quite a few works of art in this style. I posted another photo of this artwork on another blog a few years ago, and the artists son, Max found it and left a comment.

Black and White weekend.

Two Little Angels

I don't visit cemeteries all that often. But as Julie has a weekly theme called Taphophile Tragics I might have to change that. These two angels on a headstone can be found at the cemetery next to the Medieval Church (it dates back to 1320), in Österhaninge. I have shown you photos of the church before. Here is a link to one post about the church with the leaning tower. Both photos are from my flickr archives. The pig in the background on the second photo was part of a art promenade and should be long gone now.

Explosions in the sky

Vendors around Sweden sold fireworks worth something like 250 million SEK this last week. And the fireworks were all used during the New Years Eve celebrations. That's around 26 SEK per person in the country (there's 9 600 000 of us, give or take). The population in Tungelsta is around 5000, which means that I watched 130 000 SEK exploding in the night sky during the ten minutes that I stood on the stairs at home taking photos of the spectacle. It looked like much more. Happy New Year everyone!

I'm too sexy for my shirt...

photo of the tower