Now, I could have watched it here on the computer, had I wanted to but I really didn’t care that much. Had checked out Sweden’s contribution (Euphoria, with Loreen), but I didn’t care for it at all. Followed it a little half-heartedly on Twitter, and to my big surprise Sweden won!  I’m usually better than that, picking them, but it has happened before, that I’ve been really wrong. In any event … next year it will take place in Sweden, probably in Stockholm.

Today was a beautiful day and we went to Lake Utopia. When you drive south, towards the American border, there’s a big intersection where you get to Blacks Harbour if you turn left, and Lake Utopia when you go right. We had never been there before, the name sort of tickles your imagination, so we went there. It was nice … it was a lake. Period.

That didn’t take long, so we went on to Blacks Harbour. That’s where the ferry to Grand Manan leaves from, but we’ll do that another day. Going to Grand Manan is at least a full day event, and we’d have to start out earlier.

Next to Blacks Harbour was a cute, little place called Beaver Harbour. They had a lighthouse, I’m a sucker for lighthouses … and I’m not the only one!

During those twenty four hours, I thought I’d go on with my life as usual, so we were out in the glorious weather, took some pictures.

Have you ever kept on taking the same subject, but still didn’t feel that you got it just right?! That’s how I’ve felt about the bridge over the Reversing Falls. Don’t know how many photos I have of the same bridge, but as of yesterday I can say that I’m rather happy with it.

It wasn’t planned — it was just that I decided ‘playing tourist’ in my own town, and climbed up on the observation deck above the Falls. Immediately saw that this was the way I wanted the bridge to be shot!

Took a walk across the bridge — something I’ve only done once before! They’ve put up a monument in memorial of an accident that happened a number of years ago … a gas station blew up on this spot, where this now sits. I don’t know what the thought behind this art work is — in my touristy escapades, I forgot to read the plaque.

Yesterday morning, when we drove up to the hospital, we drove by the copper dome from the old General Hospital. It’s located in a very busy intersection, I’ve shot it once before but wasn’t happy with my shot at all. Now, as we were driving up, I saw that I could get a shot where the Stone Church appeared right in between the pillars of the dome … or so I thought!

So … this morning, as we drove up there to return the Holter, I decided to give it a go. Carefully crossed the streets, and walked down, in the wet, newly mowed, grass to compose my shot. Now … I don’t know how I saw it from the car, but the only part of the Stone Church I got in the frame was the uppermost tips.

The General Hospital was a landmark, opened 1931 and imploded 1995, so I never saw it. There are time capsules underneath the dome.

Now we have the Regional Hospital a bit outside of the city and St. Joseph’s, which was the one I went to today.

Many streets were closed off, downtown, for this visit. I was reminded of another, royal visit, while we lived in Quebec City. The King and Queen of Sweden came there, which actually meant something to me on a personal level. I’d been away from my homeland for a number of years by then. Just to see the Swedish flag flying on the parliament building gave me goose bumps.

In Quebec City we were very few Swedish people … a  group of perhaps fifteen at the most. They’d formed a group, had get-togethers every now and then. I took part in that for a while, until I realized I had nothing in common with them. All of them had small children — I have, by choice, no kids — and these meetings were all about kids, and attempting to maintain their Swedish language.

Here, in Saint John, I’ve met one more Swede … that’s all.

In any event, for this visit, we all gathered outside Château Frontenac, when the royal couple arrived. Waving Swedish flags and all

Now, this particular visit, we didn’t care too much about. The weather was brilliant and we drove south a bit … out of the city. Took the same route as we’ve done so many times before … visited little fishing villages … looked for birds. Strangely enough, no matter how many times I go to these places — there’s always something to enjoy or discover.

The day before, I had a bad day … photo-wise! Saw that there was a Great Egret out in the marsh, just outside town. I’d never managed to get a picture of one — they aren’t a common sight here — I had the long lens already on the camera, so I took off … out in the marsh, with bare legs and little sandals! I was still far away from the bird, but hoped that I could still get some half decent shots. On top of that, there was another, white bird out there … what I later found out was a Snowy Egret! That would have been something, but it was not to be!

I don’t know what went wrong there in this marsh?! All my settings were okay, but everything came out as a big blur with two, white blobs. The camera hadn’t focused on anything at all, which was odd.

Before we took off, we went back there. The birds were still there, but even farther out in the marsh, so … no dice.

This time, I had the tripod with me so I wanted to give a small waterfall a go. It’s in a place called Musquash. When I first came here, I found all those names so intriguing … some, even hard to pronounce, like Manawagonish Road. No problem there anymore.

So much fun to shoot running water with long exposure! That was my first reason for getting a DSLR camera! Even though it looks surreal … water certainly doesn’t look that way in real life, it never ceases to amuse me!

Didn’t see any eagles this time, but we did see an Osprey in its nest, up in a hydro tower.

In Dipper Harbour, there are always Barn Swallows, fluttering around .. underneath the wharf, but this time I was lucky enough to see one actually sitting down for a while. Normally they seem to be all stressed out!

We drove back, decided to have supper out, so I had fish & chips in our favourite, little restaurant; AJ’s.

All in all, a glorious day! We had four days of hot weather, now we’re back to rain, fog … and some relief.

That was my weekend …. so how was yours?

All photos are clickable, and will open in a new tab/window, as usual.

But…

Summer means colour!

It’s a good year for the Dandelion

We’ve had a more or less snow free winter … everything was greyish brown for the longest time! I could hear the camera crying for colour!

Summer means new life!

Last year’s edition

Summer means ocean!

…and we have plenty of it here in Saint John, NB. We’re right at the north Atlantic sea board, so the ocean is rarely more than a few minutes away. Desolate beaches, where you certainly not need to be elbow-to-elbow with anyone, are numerous!

Summer means cruise ships!

Cruise ship season starts on June 9, so this is from last year.

Just cannot do a summer post from Saint John, without at least one fog shot … we’re the Fog Capital of Canada!

Summer means Fog!

Here, just some nice, fluffy ground fog, that I chose becasue I liked the picture — the regular pea soup we get here, would just have turned out plain white.

I guess all this summer fun outweighs the sleepless nights, spent on the balcony, dreaming of … colder weather!

This happened to coincide with a blog post in WordPress Daily Post about swearing. I’ve had all the good reasons to think about that subject, as swearing is so different in different languages. Even if I translate our [Swedish] swear words to English, they don’t have the same power! I just said «Hell!» to Gerry, and he didn’t raise an eyebrow … not «Satan» either.

To once again connect to the hockey theme, there was a player in the Boston Bruins named Satan, and in the beginning I found that funny to see a guy with Satan on his back, sliding along on the ice! This is one of the more serious swear words in my native tongue. ‘Hell’, is really bad too [helvete in Sw.]. Imagine, you English-speakers, if you were to see the name B*st*rd!

When I came to Canada, eight years ago, I thought I had a reasonably, good command of the English language. That may have been true … up to a point, but I had a lot of stuff to penetrate, and still do. Swearing being one. I knew the words, but not the ‘seriousness’ of them. Another thing that was new to me was the habit on TV to use terms like «the F-word». At first I didn’t know what they meant with those ‘letter-words’. We don’t have that in Sweden — either they say the real word or they don’t. Not the beeping for censored words on TV either.

I now live in North America, so I’ll act accordingly: The F-word has made it big time into the Swedish language [and probably many other, European languages], but it’s being used very lightly and even by little children. It has less ‘power’, compared to our native swear words.

Quebec, where I lived for five years, has its own set of French swear words … a French person from France finds them funny or ancient sounding, I’ve been told (I don’t speak French at all).  They don’t have any power at all to the people in France…

The Devil is frequently used as a swear word in Swedish, and it’s a bad, serious one. Even though many hockey teams in Sweden have taken on English names [Timrå Red Eagles, for example], something corresponding to the New Jersey Devils would never fly … I do think that would be off limits. The actual word for it [djävulen] is often used in an altered form [jäklar], which is much ‘milder’. This is similar to when people here say ‘darn’ instead of damned.

This part, about altering the words, leads me to when I was reading a whole series of novels … a word kept coming back, I didn’t understand it, but it had no importance for the context so it took very long time before I even brought it up with Gerry. I just kept reading these books at night, and the characters kept saying ‘dadgummit’?! It was just a funny-sounding word to me, and I would never, ever have figured out what it was they really meant, had I not asked.

A blog post I read yesterday, really got me thinking about blogging. There’s a young girl, back in my home town in Sweden, who runs a small website about her jewellery- and other creations. She wrote about how she and a friend had been having coffee in our, very small, town. When I was younger, I used to know, more or less, everyone in town but it’s not like that any more.

While she was sitting there, in the coffee shop, she saw a woman … she didn’t know her at all, but she recognized her from a blog she reads. She was thinking to herself; «Here I am, looking at you … we don’t know each other from a hole in the wall, but I know everything about you! I know what you had for breakfast, I know what you’ll make for supper and where you’re going on vacation!»

Nothing bad, but still …. a little strange. Many people write these diary style blogs, even though I can’t think of anyone here in my little circle of blogging friends. When blogging first started, I did that too … I really poured my heart out, and it wasn’t just about breakfast and supper! Luckily, I used a screen name and I wrote in English … don’t think anyone in my town caught on to that one and I quickly took it down when it struck me I was being way too personal.

Had I still lived there –knowing how extremely judgemental people can be, and their mindset — I would really have thought more than  twice before hitting the publish button, if I’d blogged at all. If so … which I doubt … I would have asked myself many times; «What is it I want these people to know about ME?» In my mind, I can hear the women there, gossiping … «…haven’t you seen?! She has a blaawwgh [pronouncing the word as if it was a disease] … who does she think she IS?!»

No, I would have kept it in English and under a screen name… As things stand now, I don’t get any visitors from Sweden, according to the statistics here in WordPress. Wouldn’t matter if I did, as I don’t write very personal any more.

Mr. Mallard, here above, has nothing to do with blogging … he’s just a happy duck out in Rockwood Park, who wanted to make my acquaintance the other evening, when I went out there to shoot some pictures. He doesn’t mind at all, being blogged about … he’s just thinking it’s really fine weather …for ducks. Now I’m off to have breakfast … yoghurt with flax and OJ Haven’t planned supper yet, but I’ll keep you updated…

These are just three, simple tulips, but I remember vividly when I shot them … where I was and what it was like!

Gerry … my husband, was in France last year. Three weeks, he was away, and I had big plans how to spend those three weeks. I was going to take long walks, each and every day … that was one thing.  Walk to Rockwood Park with the camera, of course …

Well … it rained for more or less three weeks! One Sunday morning, it was looking half decent so I decided to take off right away. When I got to Somerset Street, the first raindrop fell on my nose!

So these tulips were shot outside the dry-cleaner’s  when I made a quick run to the grocery store, which is right below here.

Don’t think I’ve ever watched as much CNN like I did that period. First they killed that evil man in Pakistan … that was for starters! I never forget that night — I was just holding the remote to turn off the TV, when the screen went all red and they said that President Obama was about to make a statement.  Then, I followed the DSK case … Dominique Strauss-Kahn, whom you may or may not, remember, and there was also Arnold Schwarzenegger

Now, one year’s gone by … and what have I done?! It’s like John Lennon’s song «So this is Christmas»… I’m another year older, but have I accomplished anything … have I learnt anything new in my photography?! I honestly don’t know. I still like to take pictures of little flowers and ducks. Is that okay? I feel a constant pressure … that I need to move on … to evolve, and those are the times I must remind myself of that photography is my hobby … it’s a fun thing I do — not a competition or a job!

On a personal level, I’ve sure learnt a lot of things. One being to think really hard before I buy anything expensive … not on a whim! I’ll write about that in another, later post.  Let’s just say, that I was lucky  this time and it didn’t cost me a cent. I was really happy about that so I went out on the balcony and shot another little flower … this dahlia — I love its colours! This is the same flower I had manipulated in Photoshop in a previous post. While I was doing that … it took me quite some time to cut out the flower … I was thinking of Fibonacci numbers … that always tickles my mind to think about.

This was a blue night in my hometown Härnösand, Sweden last September. A few minutes after the sun had set, everything turned … almost indigo. This was the first picture that came to mind, when I read the, somewhat belated, weekly photo challenge.