Winter Cottage

This is the 300 year old Hagstugan at Skogs Ekeby in Tungelsta. Also known as Kroken. Back in the day it was a Rättarbostad. That's where the foreman of the farm usually lived. It belonged to the Skogs Ekeby estate. Today it is used as a summer house. I try to take a photo every time I walk by the place. The door is new I think.

Winter Gray

Two newish houses at Skogs-Ekeby in Tungelsta. Looks good in the Winter landscape I think. One of their closest neighbours is a little estate that dates back four hundred years.

Winter Horse

Took a couple of Winter promenades over the weekend. Met this horse at the corner of Kvarnvägen and Södertäljevägen in Tungelsta. It looked quite content.

Winter Cycling

The joy of Winter cycling.

A bit of local history

Many years ago there was a mill here at Kvarnvägen in Tungelsta. It closed back in the 1940s. When my mother was very young her family got their ice from here. The owner, a man called Löfqvist opened a scrapyard here after the mill closed. My dad was still a part-time fireman back in the 1970s when they burned down what was left of the old mill. This is the only old building left from that time. Back in the day it was a stable. Today it is an apartment. The guy who lives here is a friend of my brother. When I snapped this photo yesterday they were playing metal on full volume in there. Rock on.

The long arm of the law

Police car driving through Tungelsta earlier in the week. Glad we have them. Both murder and a kidnapping here in recent time. I am yet to try Pizzeria Caprese, one reason for that could be that crappy ad on the wall. A few eons ago when I was a teenager one half of the building wasa popular cafe where you could play a few pinball machines. The other half saw the local post office, sadly we don't have post offices any more. Anywhere.

Like a bird on the wire

Sunset

This was the sunset a few minutes ago. Quite colorful.

Stolen, dumped and torched

This stolen, dumped and torched car has been parked at the commuter station in Tungelsta for a couple of weeks now. I have reported it to both the municipality and to the Swedish Transport Administration.

Åke

Someone needs to talk to that tagger. Looks like it reads Åke. As seen at the glass house at the Tungelsta commuter station.

Havspaviljongen

Swedish word of the day. Havspaviljongen. The pavilion by the sea. The popular spa at Nynäs Havsbad on the Trehörningen island in Nynäshamn. Built at the turn of the last Century. Back then the newly constructed railway line Nynäsbanan had a station called Nynäs Hafsbad very close to Trehörningen. The King at the time, Oscar II arrived by train for a big opening of another planned hotel in May of 1903, but in the end that project was abandoned. Later the municipality asked the local architect Karl Güettler to come up with another idea for a few hotels and a casino. The casino is long gone as are a few of the hotels. But you can still book a weekend at the spa. I took this photo on a recent promenade along the picturesque Strandvägen .

Good Advice

Some good advice about your photography from one of the masters. My coffee mug. A gift from my brother, he got it at the photography museum Fotografiska in Stockholm a few years ago now.

2018 Winter Count

For the last 9 years I have ended the year with a Winter Count. It is one photo from every month of the year. Last year was a year with many ups and downs, both personally, and weather-wise, which this collage clearly shows. The year started with a lot of snow, but the in May Summer arrived one month early, and stayed around much longer than usual. The first photo shows a skier at the very popular Rudan nature reserve in Handen. The second photo shows a man trying to clear the snow outside the restaurant across the road from where I live in Tungelsta. He had a tough day. I took the March photo on my first visit to the beach, there was ice everywhere at the Hårsfjärden Bay. April started with cold weather and the tree trunk stuck in the ice at the Lower Lake at Rudan shows just that. I met a very photo shy girl in May, Ronja. She did not want to have her photo taken. Two days later we met for a photo shoot/promenade around a lake in Handen and I think I cured her from that fear. You can see those photos here. June and July were hot! Seriously so. Which these two sunbathing females clearly shows. Photographed at Eskilsparken in Handen and at Nickstabadet in Nynäshamn. My favorite car event of the year for the last decade or so came to an abrupt end of sorts. The Vegabaren meet moved to Huddinge and Lissma park and it wasn't the same thing at all, although there were a lot of people and cool cars at the event. You can see those photos here. September was a fine Summer month last year as proven by the woman at my favorite beach. I took quite a few fine Autumn snaps in October. November arrived with cold days and a lot of mist. My photo of the old tree was a big hit over at flickr. Snow in December, back to normal I guess. Found the snowman across the road from the grocery store in Tungelsta.

Winter Tree

A Winter visit to the old tree. Decided to show you the opposite view, compared to how I normally photograph the Swedish Whitebeam. So this is how the tree looks if you walk past it and continue down the path towards Klemms Hill, and then turn around.

A misty day at Lövhagen

No one in sight at Lövhagen. In the Summertime you would have seen yachts, motorboats, kayaks, sunbathers, joggers, cyclists, people water skiing, scuba diving, crowds would also be filling up every seat at the popular cafe, but on this day non of that was happening.

Mostly Snow

It started to snow earlier this afternoon. So I figured I should take a few Winter snaps, but I didn't have the energy for that. But here is the one photo I actually took. Sure looks like a wintery background and it is. And all that white is freshly fallen snow. But it is a bit of an illusion as that background is a greenhouse where the temperature is very low as nothing is growing in there this time of the year so the snow don't melt when it hits the glass.

The Lighthouse

I think it was four or five years ago that someone placed a number of miniature lighthouses along the picturesque Strandvägen walk in Nynäshamn. It is a copy of the old lighthouse at Landsort on the island of Öja. If you look closely you can see that the door is open. One of the better street art projects I have seen in a long while.

New Year's Eve Tragedy

I took this photo on New Year's Eve. It was a cold, but beautiful Winter day. Sadly just a few hours into the new year a young man was murdered by another equally young man in the building in the background. I woke up in the middle of the night by the sound of the ambulance helicopter and learned about the tragedy a few hours later.

Christmas is over

As seen in central Nynäshamn a few days ago now. I had been out on a 8 km walk with a friend and we passed this thing before walking into the Espresso House for a coffee. Turned out to be a horrible place so after complaining about the crappy coffee we continued to Ösmo where we enjoyed great coffee at Ösmo Plantshop, a place that's been around since my then best friend Peter's dad opened it for business back in the mid 1970s.

Var redo! - alltid redo!

That is the motto of the Swedish scouts. Translated: Be Prepared! - Always prepared. This is the scout hall building at Hamnviksvägen in Nynäshamn. It dates back nearly 300 years and is today a listed building. The last farmer that lived here moved out in 1902. As seen on my winter walk with one of the usual suspects last week.

Lusthus

Swedish word of the day. Lusthus. Gazebo. As seen from Strandvägen in Nynäshamn, looking over the water towards the islet Trehörningen a couple of days ago.

More than just a bun...

...the first semla of the year. Not bad at all for a Supermarket semla. Normally you wouldn't eat one before Fettisdagen, or Shrove Tuesday, but that tradition is long gone now, because who cares about that sort of thing these days.

Anyone up for a swim?

Hamnviksbadet in Nynäshamn on a foggy January day. In the background Villa Hamnvik.

Tuk-tuk

What if someone decided to drive back to Sweden from Thailand in one of these, and after doing so successfully, that person then decided to open a Thai Food place here in Nynäshamn called Sushi Bar & Thai Take Away. No idea if that actually happened, but it's a good story and I'm sticking to it. As seen over the weekend at Hamnviksvägen while out on a 7 kilometre walk along the picturesque Strandvägen walk.

After the Summer of scandals

The author Klas Östergren was one of the members of the Swedish Academy that decided to leave the academy after the scandals last year. This is one of his first novels, published back in the late 1970s. The car I found it in is a Toyota that somehow managed to speed park along the picturesque Strandvägen road in Nynäshamn. I'm guessing the car was stolen before it was crashed into the trees.

Library Window

A window at the library in Gnesta.

Gnesta Stationhouse

This is the stationhouse in Gnesta. It dates back to 1907. Designed by the architect Folke Zettervall. Today a listed building. The first railway line here opened for traffic in the 1860s. I was in Gnesta with three of the usual suspects, three of us arrived via car but the fourth, Jujja, took the commuter train to Södertälje from where he took the commuter to Gnesta in no time at all.

Frustuna Kyrka

The 900 year old Frustuna church seen through a waiting area at the Gnesta railway station.

Humbles Bageri & Konditori

Together with the usual suspects I enjoyed coffee&cake at Humbles Bageri & Konditori in Gnesta, (65km drive) yesterday. The cafe opened for business back the 1940s. A decade ago parts of the movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was filmed here. In the movie the town was called Hedestad. Before joining my friends at the cafe I went for a cold photo walk freezing my hands off while trying to document some of the century old buildings that you can see in the movie, but it wasn't until I came back home a few hours later that I realised that quite a few of the photos were out of focus and that the panoramic images i had taken were impossible to stitch together, so note to self: bring warmer gloves next time!

The Red Stable

A photo from my walk around Tungelsta two days ago. Much of the recent snow had melted but a sudden change in the weather had turned the landscape white again, this time with the help of the frost that covered everything. This is the little red stable at Nödesta Västergård that I tend to photograph every now and then. To see all the all photos of the stable feel free to press here.

The new year is here

Happy New Year. I really hope it will be a better year than 2018 which was a not so good year in all sorts of different ways.