Life in Motala

The extra dog is Ingrid’s new job, she is taking care of a dog with a broken leg for 9 days while the owner is in Spain. The broken leg seems to have mysteriously gotten a lot better since he came to us because he is running around all day. We are now counting down the days.

Ingrid has spent her earnings - here she is on her new kick scooter!

Ingrid showed me tricks on her scooter down at the marina where we also had a nice picnic supper. Here is the beautiful view we had.

From the 15th of September dogs are allowed to run around on Varamon beach. We spent an hour there this morning. It is really beautiful this time of year, but it also looks a little abandoned. Summer is over….

… which feels litte sad. Here are my favourite photos from July, swimming at sunset, around 10 pm down by the marina

School starts in August here in Sweden so now Ingrid has been back at school for a whole month. She loves school, she bounces out of bed every morning, all excited about going there. When other kids go on about how they think school is boring she goes "School is  best!" She doesn’t like the math homework though. She feels she get too much and not enough time. She started grade 7 this year. She is supposed to be in grade 6, but she got moved up so she could be with kids that were more mature. Anyway yesterday I walked to the school and talked to her math teacher. We’ll have to talk a few more times, before I can start asking for change. Here is a picture Ingrid took.

I spent part of the day listening to a lecture on the computer and studying, while Ingrid went over to a neighbour and played with their two new kittens.

Later I tried a Nigella Lawson recipe: Rinse some pears and chop them lengthwise, don’t bother about the stems or seeds (this is so Nigella!), chuck them in a frying pan with some olive oil and fry them lightly brown on each side. Mix some sherry and honey in a bowl, pour over the pears and let it cook awhile. Put the pairs on a plate, throw some walnuts in the pan to soak up the last of the sticky syrup and then it’s done. I added a few dates because I had some at home. It tasted great, but a little heavy because of the sherry. Next time I am going to try mixing concentrated fruit juice and honey.

Then we curled up in the tv-bed and watched National Treasure 2. Ingrid took this great picture with the self-timer. The cat and dog have eyeshine - the light is being reflected twice inside their eyes - and of the two you can really see that Onion Cat has the superior nightvision. Some primates have eyeshine, humans don’t. One of my eyeglasses is shining from three reflections, that is the prism patch that breaks the light at several angles.

The last few years my vision has gotten worse. I kept changing glasses but nothing helped. I found a tool so you can make a picture to show other people what you see, here is what it haqs been like for me to read signs. The eyes see perfectly but the left and right image don’t emerge into one, so everything is blurry:

A month ago I saw an eye specialist and since then I have been wearing a clear patch with prisms over one of my eyes (stuck onto my glasses) which makes my vision more clear. WOW the world looks so different! Mostly it looks a lot more stable and reliable. And a lot wider! I am scheduled to have my eye operated on later on.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the allotment. I have a lot to do there!!! Ingrid loves taking photos and spent the time documenting flowers and playing with Lucky.

It gets dark much earlier now. Here we are on our balcony at around 8 o’clock. I’m reading the Narnia Chronicles now, we just started the other day so we are on the first book My Uncle the Magician.