late summer

I'm not going to lie, this is my least favourite time of year - the last weeks of August. My birthday is over, so there's not that to look forward to. Even if the days are warm, the mornings are so cold and you can feel autumn in every breeze. The swifts have left for the south and every time it rains you feel certain that this will be the last summer rainstorm, the one that blows out the season.

I do like fall - the leaves, the cozy sweaters, the feeling of newness and back-to-schoolness. It's these in-between weeks I can't stand.  Nevermind that I've finished primary school, high school, uni and grad school, every year at this time, as sure as the days get shorter, I can't escape that particular end-of-summer melancholy, that bitter-sweet, deliciously familiar feeling of the season of freedom ending.

Rather than wallow in my nostalgia and regrets for yet another summer gone (I didn't even go swimming once this year!) let us relive the highlights of my season:


In July we went to Carl Larsson-gård (the home of a famous Swedish painter) in Dalarna.

In August I spent a week camping in a meadow in Skåne, at the World Scout Jamboree. I've been in charge of planning one of the activities, about sustainable development, since this time last year. It was so great to actually see the results of all our planning in real life, and spending a week camping in the sun with great people wasn't too shabby, either. Definitely the highlight of my summer.

Welcome to Rinkabyfältet!

it's almost enough to make me want to become a morning person

a scout dog!

in boss uniform, complete with reflective vest and walkie-talkie

view from a tent

The day after I got back we went rambling in an area of Uppsala called Hågadalen. It was lovely but rainy and definitely felt like fall.

I shouldn't fail to mention that in June I finished a quilt top - not quilted yet, though, I'm still looking for a double-wide backing.

my second summer sampler

Somewhere in there I did some kitty-sitting and we went to a wedding at Skokloster - and got to come home via ship the next day, a beautiful trip up Eköln and Fyrisån on a perfect cloudless July day.

<3 you, Uppland

And I did quite a lot of sewing, too. More on that next time.

peter pan collar of my dreams

I was at camp during my birthday so we celebrated a week later with lots and lots of smoked shrimp, västerbotten pie, kräftor, skagenröra - the essentials of a late-summer feast, in other words.

I guess this hasn't been such a bad summer after all!