Tungelsta Christmas Market

I visited the annual Christmas market in the park in Tungelsta today. The greenhouse was filled with people. A few members of the local historical association, Folk och Trädgård were selling their homemade handicraft, and you can see two of them here. Liza Sergler on the top photo was selling socks and mittens. Marita Jacobsson specialises in kurbits painting. The felted wool figures are also locally made by Kirsten Rasmussen. If you have a very good memory you might remember a photo I took of the posing Mr. Rasmussen earlier this year.

Sixties Santa

Vintage Santa in the display window at my barber's place at Åby in Västerhaninge.

The promised snow storm missed by many kilometres, and turned into windy weather with a lot of rain.

Winter Rose

The red rose across the road from my favorite cafe in Handen is still there, despite the recent cold weather. But there's a snow storm coming this evening. The forecast said something like 20 cm of snow and very hard winds. I think it is time to order winter tyres to the bike now.

The Laundry Worker

Every now and then I stumble upon a sculpture made by the late chainsaw artist Lennart Jansson. This figure depicts a laundry worker. When I met Lennart a few years ago he told me that this sculpture was part of a group that he had hoped that the municipality would buy, as they were interested in art that showed local history. A century ago Haninge had a big laundry industry, with many family owned businesses. Today all that is left from that period are two or three barns. Sadly the municipality decided to buy another artwork, and after his death some of Lennart's sculptures have been more or less abandoned.

The old Dodge

Spotted this 1966 Dodge Polara parked at the grill in Tungelsta. Seems to be in very good condition. The owner, (a young guy with some serious tattoos), was enjoying lunch and I asked him if I could take some snaps of his "raggarbil", and he was obviously fine with that. There's another photo of the Polara in black and white at flickr.

Winter Vs. Autumn

To the left is how the tree lined avenue at the 200-year old Hammar estate looks like today. The unused driveway is being fixed. It is supposed to be winter now, but it sure doesn't look like it. To the right how it looked on a misty November day back in 2009. I shot the 2009 photo with the Canon 300d, and the winter photo with the Canon 550d.

Reamde

I haven't used the camera at all this weekend. Instead I have spent a few hours reading this novel. It weighs 1.2 kilo. Number of pages is 1042. And as you can see it completely hides my face in this self-portrait. Reamde by Neal Stephenson. What are you reading?

Symmetry

Back in March I shoved you a photo of the old Stationhouse at the Tungelsta commuter station. Here is a more recent snap, closing in on a window on the second floor. The former station master still lives in apartment there. Funny story here. My brother, who lives in Cyprus was standing on the platform one morning not too long ago when the station master walked up to him and said, well Tomas, if you are waiting for the train, I'm afraid it will be a long wait as the trains will not start running here for a few weeks yet. So he had to take the bus.

Runestone Update

As you might remember I visited Småhamra a few months ago. That's where a previously unknown rune-stone from the Viking Era was discovered by the farmer Rolf Norlin. The plan was to have a ceremonial raising of the stone on the spot where it was found. The archaeologist Roger Wikell who translated the runic inscription was planning to invite a few people, including the farmer, the local historical association and one or two journalists. Sadly it didn't happen that way as someone from the Swedish National Heritage Board decided to do it on her own more or less. Roger was very upset about this. He also said that the stone had been poorly positioned and that it might fall over any day. I had a look for myself a while back. It looked OK to me, but then again, I'm no expert, and the last I heard about it from Roger was that he is hoping to move the stone come the spring. Anyway, this is how it looks now.

Ambulance Helicopter

Theme Day. Action. This is an ambulance helicopter circling over central Handen earlier this year. I was talking to a few people when we suddenly heard the helicopter. I grabbed my camera and took a few quick photos before it disappeared over the roof tops. They were trying to find a place to land, and a minute later they touched down on a grassy area in a nearby park. The reason for all this was that a man was running after a bus, he slipped and was run over by the bus, his life could not be saved.
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A visit to the cafe

I visited my favorite cafe yesterday. There's always something interesting going on there. On this visit I chatted with Tompa "Eken" whom you have met here before a few times. He told me about the little acting job he did last Friday, for a kids show on SVT. He got the gig as the director Erik Haag spotted him at the cafe earlier in the year. The tasty looking gingerbread cookies in today's post were baked and designed by the award winning pastry chef Diana.

Jazz Legend

I met a jazz legend yesterday. Ronnie Gardiner. He is an American musician who has lived in Sweden for nearly 50 years. He is a drummer, and has played with some of the most famous jazz musicians, like Dizzy Gillespie and Gerry Mulligan. He told me that he recently moved to Vendelsö in Haninge and that's where we met. When Ronnie isn't touring the world playing music he works a lot with something called the RGRM Method, and if you would like to find out more about that have a look at his web site. I also believe that Ronnie is the only American that has received the St Erik Medal from the city of Stockholm.

Pinktastic

If you mix red and white the result is called pink. I can't say that it is one of my favorite colors, but once in a while I will see something pink that stands out a bit, and when that happens I usually stop for a photo and you can see the result in the slideshow.

Brown Rat

Spotted a brown rat yesterday.

Twas just another November Day

This might be Blitzen. No sign of Santa.

Cutting & Splitting

All done by the guy in the background, who works for the municipality. The firewood will now be stacked in a building here at Lake Rudan in Handen. Today this is a recreational area, but a century ago there was a farm and laundry business here, and some of the old buildings are still standing, like the red cottage in the background. Shot with the nifty fifty at f 1.8.

Through the Mist

This autumn has been very warm, and misty. This was the scene at Nedersta a few days ago. Through the mist you could just see the collapsed barn at the 700 year old Nödesta farm. The tree to the left is not the old tree that I show you every now and then, but the magnificent tree, where up until a couple of years ago you would often see Karin's sheep rest in the shade.

Color Vs. Black and White

Time for another different seasons post, but with a difference. No diptych this time. But Color Vs. Black and White, and Autumn Vs. Summer. The color photo is from June. The Autumn shot from a few days ago. This is the very narrow birch allée near the old Söderby estate in Vega in Handen. Still no facts about who planted the trees like this and why. If this looks familiar to you it is because I showed you two photos from here on the theme day in September.

The WoW Girl

I don't shoot that many street portraits this time of the year, but here is one from yesterday. I noticed the well-dressed Ellinor in Västerhaninge when she was crossing the street. She was listening to music, but I did get her attention after a while. Ellinor comes from Skogås, (which is only a few stops away on the commuter that I showed you yesterday). She was on her way to the Berga Agricultural College, where she is a third-year student. I usually visit Berga on their open-house weekend in the summer, so if you want see photos from there press here. After she graduates next summer Ellinor will start all over again as she has changed her mind about the future. Three years ago she figured that she wanted to work with something horse related, but now she has her eyes set on a future as a journalist. One of her hobbies include online role-playing, and then especially World of Warcraft, hence the title that one of my flickr contacts gave me the idea to.

Krigslida Commuter Station

Here is the answer to yesterdays question. This is the Krigslida Commuter Station along the Nynäsbanan railway line. Traffic got under way this morning. Seven weeks ago this was just a messy construction site. The old platform had been removed as had all the rail. The new platform has been moved a little to the south. The reason for all this is that a second rail-track is planned between Västerhaninge and Tungelsta. Work on that has been going on for a few years now mostly during the summer when traffic has been stopped. I have previously showed you a few new bridges and roads in the area. At the moment there's only one rail-track here, but all the preparations for the second track are done and it will be built come the spring, some time in April.