Details, details

I frequently find that keeping an eye out for the small details makes me see a whole lot of things I've never seen before. This lionhead can be found on a small fountain on a small square at the beginning of the shopping street in the center of the city. I don't visit that part of the city very often but still, after 10 years you would've thought I had seen it before. But no, I haven't. Apparently I need to walk slower and look at every fountain, lamp post and house more carefully while out walking with my camera.
(I know it's not pink but I grew tired of flowers and birds and pink.)

Purple it is

More purple flowers. This is lavender, you can smell them a mile away. But the purple color is nice.

Pink or purple

I never was a big fan of pink or purple but I find as a I get older that I seem to gravitate to exactly these two colors in various shades. Thankfully I haven't started buying clothes in pink and purple but who knows, I just might in the future. When it comes to flowers though, I love pink and purple. Pink tulips are my favorite flowers, bright pink tulips, not pale pink. The flower on the piccie is not a tulip, I don't know what it is. All I know is that every summer I can find them at the same place, in a thin strip of dirt by a house wall where they get a lot of sun. When the sun is shining that is...

Empty nest

Two weeks after I discovered the nest, it was empty. They were there in the morning when I came in and after an hour they were gone. Didn't even say goodbye. A few days later I found out they had taken up residence at ground level under another pine tree. They needed more space, I guess. After a couple of weeks they were gone from their new nest as well and had flown off to God knows where. That was two amazing weeks in the office, I didn't get much work done, haha!

War relics

This World War II bunker can be found in one of the parks here in Helsingborg. It's totally surrounded by spruces but you can still see it between the branches. Swedish soldiers sat here watching the coast line so the Germans wouldn't invade us from Denmark. The Germans never did invade Sweden, neither from Denmark, Norway or any other country. I don't think the above bunker stopped them from invading though, I'm sure there were other reasons.

End is near

The bigger one of the young ones were flapping his wings while in the nest and ended up falling out of it. Trying to get back in, he fell further down and ended up two branch levels below the nest. He looked at me, quite unhappy with his new digs which was windy and cold. I was thinking of trying to help him back to the nest but didn't want to scare him or his sibling. So there he was, out of the nest, helplessly flapping his wings every time his mother called for him but not being able to fly just yet. I didn't like leaving the office that evening, not knowing if he would still be there when I came back the next morning.

The golden season

Leaves are turning different shades of red, yellow, orange, brown and gold. Sometimes on the same tree. I particularly love the chestnut trees with their big leaves split in several "fingers". One leaf is bigger than the next and when you think you've found the biggest leaf of them all, an even bigger one falls down right in front of your feet. Which is much better than having chestnuts falling on your head which has happened once or twice. When I was a kid, we used to pick chestnuts to feed the deer in the childrens zoo in my hometown. Does kids still do that I wonder?

It's all about perspective

Five rings to rule them all... Well, not exactly. These are handles used for lifting the big blocks of stone from the grave. There's a similar set on the other side but not shown in the picture. I had to bend down very low in the knee to take this picture. And still I couldn't get a picture where I was level with the handles. Not without throwing myself flat to the ground, haha! I should try that next time and get another perspective of the handles.

A new angle

This was interesting, I'm standing in the rose garden looking for late flowers to take pictures of and when I look up, I see this view of the old castle tower. I've lived in Helsingborg for 10 years and never seen this view of it before. Perhaps I should add a new theme to my list (besides taking piccies of towers on old houses and birds); different views of the castle tower. Anyway, here's my first post from that possible new theme. The only thing missing is a couple of birds in the sky.

Trying to take a nap

 

Yes, I was very rude taking pictures of the bird when he tried to take a nap. But I found such a good spot and I managed to get the focus just right and I had to take a few pictures. I guess he forgave me because he fell asleep soon after these piccies were taken. Considering I took them behind a window, the quality is quite nice, don't you think? You have no idea how many pictures I took just to get a few good ones. The camera kept wanting to focus on the twigs and branches or the sun would show reflexes in the glass or the birds were too far back in the nest to get any good light on them... and so on...

A bumblebee flew by

Morning forecast said rain and for once they were correct, it's raining. To spite the weather gods I'm choosing a summery image for todays post. A bumblebee butt, flowers, and sunshine. It works for me... at least as long as I don't look out the office window.

Having fun is the main thing

This kid sure had fun playing with the waves. I watched the boy for 10 minutes one of the few warm summer days we had in August. He was hopping and bopping, jumping and laughing playing around with the incoming waves. He was in heaven and didn't notice other people watching him. I enjoyed myself immensely and took several pictures.

There's two of us

Here's the proof, there was two little dove kids in the nest and they've grown so fast. This is the second week from my discovery and they should be ready for moving out very soon. As you can see, they've outgrown the nest.

Cookies

This is what a pile of cookies looks like. The green ones had blueberry goo in between, I think the yellow ones had lemon goo in them, the pink ones I don't remember. And there were chocolate ones as well. Now where would you find such a treasure trove of goodies? My sister-in-law made these for my youngest nephews name giving ceremony. She made hundreds of the ones in the picture. Needless to say I ate a lot of cookies that day, haha!

I don't care if it rains

My nephew loves playing outside and he doesn't care one bit if it's raining. Playing is ok no matter how wet it gets. Water puddles are one of the most fun things in the world and so what if his Wellington boots fills up with water because he likes to stand in the puddles regardless of how deep they are. I bet he's standing there feeling the boots fill up and the socks getting wet enjoying the sensation.

And oh, the cap needs a bath of course. The cap needs to know how fun it is to play in water puddles.
I took these pictures trying to hold an umbrella with my left hand and balancing the camera with my right hand trying to keep it under the umbrella so it wouldn't get wet. The first piccie came out good, the next one; well, let's just say not so good focus wise. But who cares really? Rain and water puddles are fun so what's a blurry little picture in the great scheme of things?

Flower flashback

Fall has arrived to my part of Sweden so I thought a nice flower picture would be a good post today. Red poppies are one of my favorite flowers and fortunately these were late bloomers. I had the opportunity to enjoy them at a moment when I had the camera with me, lucky me. And lucky you, now you will have the opportunity to enjoy them as well.

Still eyeballing me

Gotten used to me staring at him, he still eyeballed me. This was taken three days after finding out the nest was there. The other baby kept mostly to the back of the nest and I didn't see it much. This was the first week of September by the way.

Painting a lion

Somebody painted this lion black. It used to be grey but apparently its original color back in the days was black. The new owners obviously decided to restore the black look. Personally I liked the lion better when it was grey, it blended better with the color of the building.

Made in stone

Look at this beautiful ship, the creators handiwork amazes me. Obviously the ship has been mounted on the tombstone afterwards but the waves? How was the waves done? I would really like to know.

Kids and cameras

This is what happens when your nephew borrows your camera. I give him an A for creativity and imagination. If you want to take pictures, you have to start somewhere.

Eyeballing me

One day in the beginning of September. I was looking out the office window and suddenly I noticed something staring back at me. A small head with a tall neck eyeballing me. To my surprise, I found that a dove had built her nest in the tree outside my window. And one of the birdlings were looking at me. The next day I armed myself with my camera and took these pictures of two baby doves, approx. 2 weeks old. Not the cutest animal babies I've seen though.