Elephant snacks

I'm currently visiting my brother and his family, they live 300 km north of Helsingborg. Yesterday we went to a zoo and I took more than 500 pictures! The camera was smoking!
The zoo has six elephants including a baby elephant born this year. I love elephants so I was clicking away. This darling elephant wanted some grass to snack on so up came a looong trunk that sniffed the grass and ripped off small chunks to put in the mouth. And I had a good spot so I could take this great picture to blog about.

Locked in

This is something you can see in several places in Helsingborg, locks locked in bridge railings or similar. These beauties are locked in the iron railings to the duckpond beneath the hospital. They mean 'forever love' and couples put them up on Valentines Day, the anniversary of the day they met, New Years Eve and so on to show that they have made a commitment to each other.

I haven't blogged in a few days because I'm visiting my brother and his family. Today we got my new laptop set up and therefore I can blog again.

Flower day

It's a flower day today. Here's a pink rose bud for you.

Unity

There's only one picture I can post today and this is it. The flags of the five Nordic countries flies every day in the Helsingborg harbour.

From left, you see the following flags; Norway - Finland - Sweden - Denmark and Iceland. We are all Nordic citizens no matter which country we were born in or live in.

Tree time

These trees are just too cool. They are almost square because of how the branches grow and the tree to the right has an antenna sticking up on top. I took this picture in (guess what?) backlight late one evening when I passed the cemetary. Yes, they grow on the cemetary. And yes, these trees are usually full of crows. And now I can almost feel a cold supernatural draft on my neck.....

Chilly, please

It's hot in the sun today so I'm chilling with this picture. I'm glad I went out in the cold and took pictures this past winter or I would never have remembered there was this much ice. Or that it was so cold the water froze like it has done on this picture. Old pictures trigger all kinds of memories.

When I lay me down to sleep.....

I'm soooo tired of all the kids peeking at me while I'm trying to take a nap. I live at the kiddie zoo in Engelholm and all day kids stare at me and hang their old pacifiers on my cage. But my fur is nice and warm and I have friends here. I could use a carrot or two though...

To get this picture I stuck the lens in one of the holes in the net surrounding the cage. It worked out pretty good if I may say so myself.

Another bird in high places

 

Every summer I sit on a bench by the lighthouse and watch the ferries to Denmark go by. It's my favorite place in the whole city, I can sit there for hours. And just this year I noticed the wooden bird perched on the top. Has it always been there or is it a new addition? I have no idea. But now I have a picture of it.

The castle tower

Hey, I totally forgot to post a piccie of the castle tower! Here it is in all its glory. You can see pieces of the inner courtyard wall as well. To the right and out of the picture, there's a small hut where you can buy the best icecream in town.

Scarecrow owl-thingie

I've never seen one of these things before. It's a scarecrow (scareowl?) used for keeping crows from building nests in the chimney. I hope it works, it looks really cool.

Cooling off

It's been hot all weekend here so I thought a couple of pictures of this fountain would be a nice cool effect. Do you see the little children holding up the plate? The fountain is bigger and higher but the children is such a nice detail and the curtains of water looks so nice and cool, you don't need to see the rest of it.

Outlandish look

This tiny part of courtyard looks like something from the Mediterranean countries. At least me thinks so. Behind the wall there's a well hidden small garden. One of those hidden places I've talked about in an earlier post. I would never have found that garden if an old man hadn't told me a couple of years ago. You need to get intel from locals to find these places. Since I'm a local citizen of 9 years, I'm now telling you about the secret garden behind the yellow wall.

Weather vanes

If you're from Sweden, this weathervane makes sense. It shows characters from a book about a Scanian boy called Nils Holgersson. He was turned into a little pixie and travelled around Sweden on the back of a goose called Akka. The book was written in 1906 by Selma Lagerlof and was meant to be a geography book but it has been translated to several languages as a childrens book.

Wisteria House

The front wall of this house is covered by a huge wisteria. Imagine looking out your window and all you see is lilac wisteria flowers. Must be dark inside with all the greenery shading the light. It looks beautiful from the outside though....

A view of the city

This is part of a bronze installment of the old city, it shows how it might have looked in the 15th century. You can see the the castle on the hill and the walls surrounding it. The castle was built by the Danes in the 12th century and rebuilt around 1313. In 1680, the Swedish king ordered the castle to be torn down so if the Danes were to take Scania and Helsingborg back, they would not be able to use it for defence anymore. However, the castle tower was left standing and today it's a tourist attraction. I've been in the tower, it's a lot of stairs to climb but when you stand upon the roof of the tower, the view is well worth the effort.

Fun fact is on June 5th, the Danish Independence Day, the tower flies the Danish flag. On June 6th, the Swedish National Flag Day, it flies the Swedish flag.