Stylish Stugas

Dwell magazine has had a couple of articles on small and stylish Scandinavian homes recently.

This first is about the cube from Kodasema, an Estonian company who have a range of small houses—including one that floats!

The second home is a bit more inviting. With its interior curves, this little house from the Netherlands is beautiful, functional and filled with lots of nice touches.

A recycled shopping mall

I read recently about the "world's first recycled mall" operating in the city of Eskilstuna.

The idea of re-using and recycling is a big part of island life. Given the cost in bringing things both on and off the island, it always makes sense to use what you have.

I've repurposed left over IKEA fittings on a new project, and building a shoe rack from wood offcuts. Sooz has assembled many tasty meals from random leftovers.

Sweden is a leader in reducing waste in general. Swedes recycle nearly 100% of their household waste. We are trying to do our part on Aspö!

60 years ago today

RIP Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, J. P. Richardson and Roger Peterson. The Independent has an excellent article today about the "Day the Music Died."

This is Buddy and the Crickets on the Ed Sullivan show in 1957, performing "Peggy Sue".

January's weather

Most of the month was pretty close to freezing. My rain gauge doesn't measure snow very well, so it's under-reporting precipitation. The wind gauge ran out of battery unexpectedly mid-month so we'll be without those measurements until we get there in the spring.

It's nice and toasty inside though!!

Report from Aspö

I'm back in London after a quick trip to our house. It's always odd to go to Aspö in the off season. Everything is so quiet and dark. Only five people (plus two dogs and a cat) were on our huge icebreaking boat out to the island.

There were a number of big trees down all over the path. Every tree fell over with a big plug of turf. Because of the topography of the island, trees grew on soil only a foot or two deep on top of solid rock. When the winds came, there were no deep roots to hold onto.

Claes told me that the storm winds were northerly, which was uncommon. This may explain why so many trees were lost, as they were pushed from an unusual direction. Sooz also has the theory of the summer's drought weakening the trees, which makes sense to me.

The island community is banding together tomorrow to clear the path. There will need to be a lot of hands to move the biggest trees.

I will certainly need help to take care of my two trees, they are larger than my saws and skills can handle. It will be Olle to the rescue in the spring! at least I have a project to keep me busy in May.

Most importantly, though, (besides the fact that nobody was hurt), our house and everything on the property are all just fine. That's a big relief.

I have made a photo gallery of my visit with lots of photos of the biggest tree damage.

More to come!

LOTS going on!

I was going to start the new year with a post about my retirement, and our plans to move from London and become full summer residents on Aspö.

However that post will have to wait, because a giant storm roared through the archipelago on New Year's Eve, causing serious damage and power outages lasting nearly a week.

We found out from our neighbours Raymond and Eva (who are resident year-round) that two trees had fallen near our house, and they sent along these two photos:

The good news is that our house isn't damaged; both trees fell away from the house, which is a blessing. The bad news is these were the two lovely pines close to our deck, which provided a great deal of beauty and shade. It's a real loss.

Here's the before and after. The house is looking quite exposed right now.

Annika and Olle came by today and surveyed the damage. Thankfully their house was spared as well. There are a number of smaller trees down around us, and plenty of them down all around the island. We have a big clean up ahead of us!

November's weather

Sorry for the lack of October information. There was a fault with the weather station that Olle fixed for me very late in the month. However, I have a full reading of November:

It's clear that things changed around November 19: the wind kicked up, the temperature dropped and we had a bit of rain. It's still pretty dry by my measurements, though. That is concerning.

I expect we will see the winter start to take hold next month! 

Pre-fab homes in the UK

The Guardian recently published an article about a new push for affordable prefabricated housing in the UK.

As the article states, though, "The term prefab has been shunned by the new housebuilders. The new phrase has instead been described as “modular construction”.

Developers have been promising homes built to higher standards than those using traditional methods. They also claim energy bills would be half that of a conventional home due to better insulation."

The record for constructing a house onsite is apparently 36 hours, although it typically takes a few days. Any help towards the housing shortage in the UK would be welcomed!

Apologies for the lack of posts

Things are quiet for now, we are preparing in the background for our big 'move' next summer.

I'm usually good for a weather post every month, but I've had a problem with the weather station, which I hope Olle can fix this weekend.

The blog will roar back to live in a few months, promise!

September's weather

It was a pretty nice month, becoming colder and wetter only in the last week.

Lucky for Sooz's girlfriends, they avoided the worst of the cool weather. When they left, she holed up in the stuga and caught up on her jigsaw puzzles.

Now we enter a quiet period; the house is closed up and we don't plan to be back until April.

When we do return, though, it will be with a bang. We'll be moving a bunch of our belongings over to Sweden to begin actually living there over the summer.

I would expect the blog will get a lot more activity after then. Stay tuned!!!

August's weather

It was a warm August, to put it mildly. The first few days were well over 85°F (30°C). Even the end of the month was well into the 70's.

The drought broke a bit earlier in the month, with just under 2 inches (50mm) measured. This is about on par with the past two Augusts. However, year to date we've seen less than half the usual amount of rain. We're hoping for wet weather this fall!

Dalston Works

I read recently about the completion of the world's largest cross-laminated timber (CLT) building in Hackney, east London. Since I've posted many times in this blog about wooden skyscrapers, I had to go have a look.

From the outside, the Dalston Works don't look any different than other new buildings in the area; they have a brick facade and steel balconies.

But underneath, they're solid wood, which brought a number of advantages. Because the site is above two major tunnel projects, the weight savings of a wooden building (opposed to  concrete) made the foundation work much simpler and allowed the building to be taller.

The environmental impact of building with wood is also significant. The time it took to work on site was shortened, and the wood itself stores carbon, as opposed to the carbon impact of concrete. It also helps that Hackney council has a "timber-first" policy for new buildings in the era.

Further information is on the architect's website and also the builder's. Their pictures are a lot better than mine too!

Pluspuu Finnish homes

Sooz found a Finnish company that makes a range of prefabricated homes.

Pluspuu's website has a whole bunch of different designs. I've had a lot of fun clicking through all of their photos.

Weekend visit

We managed to squeeze in a 4-day weekend to catch a bit more of the summer. It was still plenty warm and dry—nice for a holiday but not good for our island. We had some significant thundershowers blow through twice, which brought quite a lot of rain, although those sharp storms don't really help the drought in the long-term.

I installed a mast amplifier on our TV antenna, which greatly improved our signal, much to my delight. We also found a nice little 'beach' on the western side of the island that made for a nice spot to watch the sailboats go by.

As usual, I put up a few pictures. We'll be back in September for a last visit and closing up the house for the winter. The next time we're back after that, we'll be there for a much longer visit!

July's weather

It was hot.

July was the warmest since records began 260 years ago. The average temperature in Stockholm was 22.4°C (72.3°F).

The archipelago is usually a bit cooler, especially earlier in the summer, owing to the chilling effect of the Baltic. My weather station's July average was 21°C.

It also continued to be worryingly dry. We had a couple of thundershowers, but those brief heavy rains don't help much. We need a nice wet fall and winter to help replenish the plants and animals on our little island.

3-D printed homes

I've posted a lot over the years about new types of building techniques. The most recent one is the idea of using a giant 3-D printer to build a house out of concrete.

A US company, ICON, is pitching their first design as a way to provide safe housing in the third world. The video above shows their first house being 'printed'. I can see this technique being developed over the years into much more sophisticated designs.

Wildfires

This nice warm and sunny weather is great for those of us on holiday, but the drought is terrible for most everyone else. Farmers are warning of a very poor harvest. I read an article that said blueberry production might be only 20% of normal.

Even worse are the unprecedented wildfires around the country. The Local and the Guardian have good recaps of the scale of the problem.

I'm used to wildfires in the western USA, but Scandinavia (and England) are not prepared for this. Scientists fear that global warming will make fires like these more common in the coming years.

It's been a great two weeks

We're back in London now after a fantastic time spent in our second home. The weather has remained sunny (and worryingly, dry) the whole two weeks.  Some of the highlights:

• Marcia, Rutger and Camille came for the first weekend.
• The boat is out of storage and after a washup, it was in great shape. 
• We went to the old Guns Livs on Nämdö. The restaurant isn't open yet, and the store is operating at half capacity, but the new owners are talking a great story for the future.
• The Nämdö library was open the day we visited and we spoke to Gunilla about the fibre installation. Lots of work was evident on the island; power cables are being laid on the ground along with the fiber cables. Eventually all of the power poles will be taken away, which will improve the views. She told us the same work will start in a few months on Aspö. I'm becoming increasingly confident that we will have fiber installed next year.
• We attended the yearly island meeting, and Sooz followed along with the proceedings pretty well!
• Sooz also did a bit of morning yoga, and she attended the jewelry-making class on Ladholmen.
• We had a nice dinner with Peter and Jeanette at our place, and a lovely meal at Annika and Olle's.
• The World Cup kept us all entertained, and we gathered in Sofia and Johan's barn to watch the Sweden-England quarterfinal.
• Sooz arranged two successful Mat Hem deliveries. We have plenty of food now!!!
• Ove, the painter, came by to paint our little house with the linseed oil paint and it looks a lot better.
• I didn't have too many building tasks this time around but I managed to keep myself entertained with lots of little jobs.

There is a photo album available of all these activities on my Flickr page.

We'll be back for a long weekend in a few weeks, so stay tuned for more to come!

June's weather

A calm month out on Aspö. One thing that's interesting is the rain as measured by my station. I know it did rain a bit that month, although I'm not convinced it totaled a half-inch. The official weather report for Stockholm showed no precipitation at all on June (or May for that matter).

Whether or not it rained a bit on Aspö this past month, there is a significant drought underway. It's apparent when walking around our island, and there is no rain in the forecast for the next few weeks.

It's a double-edged sword, as we love the sunshine and warmth, but the health of our island is starting to be impacted too....

More changes

Today's my birthday, which is always important to me as an Aspö resident. A key reason it that it falls around midsummer; sometimes it coincides exactly with the holiday. I like to think all of Sweden is celebrating my birthday with me! The other reason is that our house had its coming-out party on my 50th birthday, and that remains one of the most special days I've ever enjoyed.

Today I have another announcement to make regarding our life on Aspö. Over the decade I've been writing this blog, I've moved from London to Texas, left my job of 31 years, had a period of semi-retirement, and moved back to London with a new employer.

Recently, Sooz and I have decided to actually retire for good and move into the next phase of our lives. I will stop working at the beginning of next year, and Sooz and I will spend next summer at our stuga. Our plan from now on will be to spend summer months on Aspö, and the remaining months someplace warm.

For the rest of this year, there wan't be much change for us or this blog. But starting in 2019, there will be an increase in activity. Visiting our house for a few weeks is a lot different to essentially living there for a few months.

We have been thinking about some of the things we will need to do, but I am sure there will be lots of things we haven't thought about. We'll share the journey as the blog moves into its next decade!

Glad Midsommar!

Wishing a happy holiday to everyone from London this year. We've decided to wait a bit and spend our summer vacation later in July this year.

It looks like we made the right call, too. As every Swede has feared, the seven consecutive weeks of nice weather ended just in time for the big weekend. Typical rainy and chilly weather has prevailed for the dance around the maypole.

Let's hope it warms up for our visit!

May's weather

There's been a nice warming trend all month. The bigger story, though, is how dry and sunny it has been. Since the rain of May 4th (ironically when we were visiting), Sweden has enjoyed blue skies. It has been glorious, true, but this dry period is starting to be worrying. 

Especially for us island residents, the dry weather can become a problem. There are fire hazards and stress on flora and fauna. More personally, we all rely on our wells, and a long dry snap will stress our water supplies.

Let's see what June brings us. Odds are historically high that it will rain over Midsummer!!

A fabulous weekend!

We went back to Aspö this past weekend, bringing along Sooz's childhood friend, Lauris, on her first visit to the island.

The weather was spectacular. In fact, we're starting to worry that it's been too sunny and nice. But we all enjoyed the fine weather nevertheless. Flowers were in bloom everywhere, and the girls got to work on their tans.

Annik sand Olle took us out for a ride on their boat, and we visited Guns Livs on Nämdö to see what the new owners were up to. We had a nice chat with the new manager, who filled us in with their plans for the future. This summer will be pretty much the same with the grocery and cafe, but there will be a lot of work to upgrade the facilities over this winter to prepare for a new start in 2019.

I have a small photo page up of our visit. We will be back for the first two weeks of July, and we can't wait!

Unintended consequences

I posted over two years ago about Sweden's progress in becoming a cashless society. I can report that project is still on track. It's no longer a surprise to find small shops that take cards these days; I find more and more places that refuse to take cash last all. Some in the government are wondering if things are changing too fast.

The scarcity of cash is causing Sweden's criminals to change their behavior. A recent article in The Atlantic points out that besides fraud and cybercrime being on the rise, so is old-fashioned theft of valuable objects.

Going cashless can certainly help the tax authorities, and it is much more convenient for the seller and buyer alike. But sometimes fixing one problem just causes another...

Report from the island

We're back from a surprisingly eventful week. The weather the first few days wasn't great, but it became glorious the past few days. Although we hadn't planned it, we were able to have dinner with Annika and Olle, Peter and Jeanette (with Niklas and Noelle), and drinks with Tony and Ann-Catrin. So a much more social time than we had planned, which was great!

The house was in great shape, save one little issue I'll blog about in an upcoming post. We did our usual tree-trimming and brush clearing. I helped Bo's boat get into the water; we're going to wait a bit to float ours, though.

One bit of excitement (for me at least) was that the fibre-optic cable has made landfall on Aspö! The plan is for it to be installed around the island in the second part of next year. Vattenfall are going to be replacing the old poles and overhead wires with underground cables, which I think is a great idea. Those old poles are unsightly and require a lot of maintenance. The fibre will be laid along the power cables, so I may soon, at long last, have broadband at our little home. There's a picture of the cable (with lots else) on my photo page.

On our last day, we went into town early and finally I got to visit the ABBA Museum. To say I enjoyed it is an understatement! We had dinner that evening with Janne and Margaret, who were in good form. They are planning to visit us on Aspö when we're back in July.

Before that July trip, we are making another visit late in May for the bank holiday. One of Sooz's girlfriends from the US will be joining us. We always love to introduce new friends to the island.