We're back!

It was a whirlwind trip. We took the Friday morning taxi boat and had Aspö pretty much to ourselves on the day.

In addition to the quiet on the island, the sea was unusually calm so we went boating around our neighborhood. We went to Namdö and climbed up to the observation tower at Nämdöbote. It was quiet and beautiful!

On Saturday, we worked with Olle and Annika to get all of our boats up out of the water at Bo and Gun's house. It was hard work but it was a lot of fun. Annika and Olle made dinner that night, and we had a great time.

Sunday, we closed up the stuga and went back to Stockholm in the afternoon. That's the saddest part of the year!

I have lots of photos up in a new album, and more posts will be up in the coming weeks, I promise.

Leaving soon!

Off for a 3-day weekend to close up the house and get the boat out of the water.

We'll see Annika and Olle, too, and I think Tony and Ann-Catrin will be on the island as well, so that will be lots of fun. (And of course, we get to stay at the luxurious B&B of Marcia & Rutger, too!)

Photos and comments will follow soonest.

Fireplaces once again

I've posted many times in the past about fireplaces. I usually end up saying it'd be great to have one, but they're expensive, raise my insurance, and we really don't have any need. But still I look. There are so many cool ones out there!

Olle recently told me about a big showroom in Bromma that specialises in fireplaces of all types. Their website is amazing. I've seen a whole bunch of new styles and manufacturers I'd not heard of before.

The one pictured here is by a Danish company, Scanspis. I like the look, and it comes in many varieties- and in white as well.

I still think that we'll need a fireplace when we start using our stuga for our retirement. There are still chilly nights in May and September!

The 6-hour work week, revisited

I wrote recently about an experiment in Gothenburg in which employees of a nursing home worked only 6 hours a day, while still receiving full time pay. This was intended to reduce sick time and raise overall efficiency and happiness.

The test was deemed to be a success and made the news all over the world.

Sadly, this success is not being replicated elsewhere. A recent trial in Umeå didn't have any of the benefits found in Gothenburg. In fact, use of sick leave went up!

It's still too early to say if the whole idea is a failure, though. I like the fact that different things are being tried, at least!

August's weather

One of the tasks I completed during our last stay was to sign up for a full-time internet account.

It wasn't easy to enter a contract, as I don't have a personnummer, but Rutger came to the rescue and signed on my behalf.

Now I can keep my Netatmo weather station running year around and keep track of the temperature (both indoor and outdoor), rainfall, and windspeed.

When I visit in a few weeks, I will add one more thermometer to the 'water house' that holds all of the plumbing to ensure it is the right temperature as well. (Olle told me he checked it once and it was way too hot. No need to over-heat anything!)

It's fun to be able to see all sorts of information about the weather conditions in real time. I can also access summaries as well.

Attached for your interest are the statistics from August just past. The month ended on a cooler and wetter note, but I can't complain as July was glorious when we were there.

Stay tuned for more weather-related observations over the year!