One day we went to a rather large house, an estate really, where my grandmother had spent time growing up. I can't remember doing exactly what. But it was a wonderful place. There was a band outside, just two guys, I think. Bortom Havet. The name has something to do with the sea. The bass player was really cool, he had a huge upright for a couple of songs.
The estate itself was magnificent. The band was under a huge tree with downward swept bows, not quite a weeping willow, but on that level of cool. The lawn was a deep, rich green and there were flowers everywhere. Some of the displays were quite amazing, as I recall.
But the weather was bizarre. It would alternate between threatening a downpour and intense sunlight within the same minute. Which is quite the shift.
Anyway, it was cool.

There are other houses on my grandmother's property. One is a boathouse. It is rustic looking. And it becomes either creepy and haunting or beautiful and nostalgic depending on the weather.
With afternoon sunlight the wood takes on a goldish color. Light streams through spiderwebs and the sun reflects on the water inside the boat house. With a bit of a breeze all the ropes and hanging nets sway and bounce off the wood. The reeds rustle, water laps at the dock. Music is in the air. The boats and waves dance with each other. Now this way, now that way.
On overcast days the wood turns grey. The warps in it seem exagerrated, like the boathouse is stooping over to stare at you. The cobwebs appear sinister. The boats grate against the dock and the waves slap the rocks and walls. The ropes and nets appear like nooses and restraints. Wind whips through and the reeds bend at odd angles. The water is spastic and shifting. Its frightening.
I'd never seen Manic Depressive real estate before.

There's another house that's just out and out creepy. But in a cool way. Its the house Ingmar was born/grew up in. There is a lot of memorabilia there. Old clothes and newspapers, tools and appliances, furniture and architecture. The downstairs is painted and nice, there are high ceilings and the layout is cool. The upstairs are the creepiest part. There are two windows, one on the east and one on the west. The walls are just the inside of the wood beams that you see outside. There are dozens of old boxes and other artifacts of a forgotten age. Clothes hang ominously on the wall and menacing metal tools glisten where the rust ain't.

Its a cool place.

My grandmother's house is about fifty feet from the sea. But because of all the islands its a very calm little area. Her boyfriend, Ingmar, took us all out on a boat around an island or two. I don't remember the name of the one we went around, but she lives on Andersö. The other one is named after Anders brother. I think it might be Per, but I don't remember. Anyway. The two islands are separated by a stone's throw. So there's a lovely and quaint wooden bridge with a beautiful arc that connects them.
The house is set in an apple orchard. The apple trees grow on two sides of the house. For part of the year there are pretty white flowers, for another part there are pretty red apples and green leaves. For another there are naked branches and snow.
My grandmother's house has a tube in the side. Its for the cat, Gröelle. Gröelle was adopted by my grandmother. Her name means "Grey One." Like Gandalf, except feline and fat. The tube is so she (the cat, not my grandmother) can slide into the house. It comes out in the basement. The insides of the tube are now getting polished as Gröelle grows out. Eventually she won't be able to fit, that will be a sad day. Time for a diet.

I bought some fingerless gloves from a craftshop on the top of a hill. The shop had formerly been a restaurant. My grandmother's first job was as a waitress in that restaurant that is now a craftshop. There is still a restaurant on top of this hill, hill is a bit of an understatement, but mountain is certainly far too big, and it (the restaurant) is still run by the same people. They have merely expanded. The new building is many times larger and has an ice cream cafe. Anyway, these fingerless gloves had no leather palms, as is traditional for them. So, they were whisked away one night by Ingmar, my grandmother's boyfriend. He works in a shoe shop and is rather adroit and rending leather. I woke up and the gloves had leather palms, to make holding the steering wheel of my vehicle less slippery.

On this beautiful near-spring day, I am reminded of Åland. The weather was almost always sunny with a trace of clouds. Very temperate, too, never too hot. I remember walking around in my grandmother's apple orchard, sunlight passing through trees not quite in bloom. Salt water reeds swaying to the beat of some secret song. Dusty pink granite quietly aging and observing, as rocks tend to do. Since native granite is mixed into the tar the roads are all pink. Like cheap tye-dye after too many washes, it is a beautiful washed out pink. Even the roads without tar are pink, as the granite is crushed for the unpaved roads. It is stunning and adds a mystical quality to the land. The land exudes a magic, one would not be surprised to see knights on horses galloping on distant hills or to see children in unbuttoned overalls running up to the neighbor's house to tell them they had a phone call waiting.
It turns out that many of the smaller islands only had one phone line when it was a new device. Each house may have a phone, but only one line for the whole island. Someone would answer it, ask who the call was for, and then make all the phones ring a certain number of times. Once for the first house, twice for the second, thrice for the third etc. Its a neat system.

One night around one O'clock I was flipping through channels and found a concert from the seventies of Chuck Berry in London. I remember watching the whole thing with my mother and grandmother.
It is a very fond memory and, for reasons I'm going to attempt to explain, very surreal.
Chuck Berry is an American Rock Legend. Viewing him on late night television on a cluster of islands in the middle of Scandinavia is an odd experience. It was also light out. Well, it wasn't dark. It was like dusk had settled in and night was realizing it had better advance in. Never got the chance though, the sun rises again quite early. The birds never stop chirping. The age of the concert also contributed to the strangeness of the evening, no where were wild adolescents jumping around. Everyone was gathered around sitting peacefully and listening to the music. Watching the man perform. Like we were at home. There were even some people in suits. Everything seemed strangely subdued, too. Like everything was happening on the other side of a lightly tinted glass.
Fond memories of a foreign land.

I went to Sweden. For the most part I was technically in Finland. The funny thing is the Finnish people call themselves "Suomi." Finland is the Swedish name for the country. So, I was in Finland, but everyone in this area, which happened to be one of the most beautiful locations on Earth, a little Archipelago named Åland, has Swedish ancestry and speaks Swedish. They are autonomous and demand that all official government documents be sent to them in Swedish, the language. You see, Swedish and Finnish are very different languages. Swedish is Germanic and very much like English. Finnish is tonal, I think, and more akin to Vietnamese than any of the surrounding countries. It is a very strange thing. Especially when one considers that Finland used to be a part of Sweden. Anyway, It was great