Spring in April in Spring

As I noted in my previous entry, I’ve still not got the hang of this blogging thing. I have actually thought several times of writing up a “What I did last weekend” entry, but it hasn’t got beyond the thinking stage. However, I do have a small collection of rather nice pictures that I’ve taken with the new camera, some of which I’d thought to use to illustrate my entries here, and it seems a pity to let them all go to waste. (Not that they are. If you want to see them, they are gracing my Flickr site)

So here we go: The month of April (and the tail of March) as observed in and around Gothenburg.

Lärjeån
The first really warm day of spring here was March 25th, a Sunday. Sundays I have to decamp to Falköping. My weekly commute. But it was such a fine day A. and I decided to enjoy it and take a walk along Lärjeån. This stream meanders down to join the Göta River just inland from the old city walls, but starts from Lake Mjörn, east beyond Lerum. It flows through a valley of its own, a little pearl of natural beauty winding between some of the toughest high-rise suburbs of north east Gothenburg. It’s a relatively small stream, but in the early spring, it can run very full. Now, on the 25th, it was fast flowing, but quite low.

However, all along the course of the stream was evidence of how high it had been and how much force the water had had. Tangled branches and broken trunks, twisted straw and rushes and all the other detritus you would expect in the way of torn plastic sheeting, aluminium food containers, polystyrene packaging, wire, glass and planking.
The warning signs the council had put up about the path being unsafe were still in evidence, but we decided to walk along the stream anyway. It was only difficult to pass in one place where a footbridge had been twisted off its foundations and half upended. Otherwise, the walk went well and the dry light umber colours of the plants waiting for the spring, and grand-in-miniature, rolling shape of the landscape made the whole trip very enjoyable. That and the sun. It was like a warm summer’s evening – at three in the afternoon. For the whole length of the valley, the vegetation was pregnant. A. quoted Karin Boye to me:

Ja visst gör det ont när knoppar brister.
Varför skulle annars våren tveka?
Varför skulle all vår heta längtan
bindas i det frusna bitterbleka?
Höljet var ju knoppen hela vintern.
Vad är det för nytt, som tär och spränger?
Ja visst gör det ont när knoppar brister,
ont för det som växer
och det som stänger.

Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?
Why would all our ardent longing
bind itself in frozen, bitter pallor?
After all, the bud was covered all the winter.
What new thing is it that bursts and wears?
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking,
hurts for that which grows
and that which bars.

(The translation is by David McDuff. This link will take you to the publisher’s page for his translation of Karin Boye’s collected works, and this link will take you to a selection on the Internet at the Karin Boye society.)

The only signs we saw of spring having broken out were the catkins on the alders and three small yellow flowers that had obviously escaped from someone’s garden.

April Frogs Day
I decided to name the 1st of April this year as April Frogs Day. Walking in Hisings Park, around Slätta Pond, we saw dozens if not hundreds. There were so many A. and I couldn’t understand how the ducks were not gobbling them up, but they weren’t. Perhaps they had other things on their minds, or perhaps they were just too happy to bask in the sun.

Sunday 1st April was another warm day, and the first day of my weeklong Easter holiday. Glorious!

After that, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I walked with A. into the city centre every morning, and while she went off to work I took my camera around some of my favourite city centre streets, and along by the river.

I snapped this picture of a ghost house where the Victorian hotel (most recently called Hotel Opera) had just been demolished.

(I wonder about ‘Victorian’: in Sweden shouldn’t that be Oscarian after the two Kings Oscar that ruled the country then?)

Easter
The weather, which had started out so fine, grew cold and colder towards the end of the week. Come Easter Saturday, the day Swedes really celebrate Easter, it was very changeable. In fact, it cycled through sunny-but-with-a-cold-wind, cloudy, rain, sleet, back to sun again for a dramatic looking but very calm sunset. We celebrated with A’s family out by the sea near Lilleby, and drank snaps and ate sill (pickled herring) and all the other traditional food, and sang snaps songs. (To the distress of Victor, my 4 year-old godson who doesn’t seem to enjoy the idea – or perhaps the fact – of his elders and betters singing happily out of tune with one another. I can’t imagine why.)

All good things come to an end, and Monday 9th saw me off to Falköping again for another week of toad-work. But I was home again on the 14th, just in time to document our housing condominium’s Spring Cleaning (and post-SC celebration).

Those who walk away ...
On the 24th I took the opportunity to walk through Keilers’s Park and up to the top of Ramberget, following the development of spring (and trying out the macro setting on the camera). I have decided I am unlikely ever to become a successful wildlife photographer. Unless, that it, I can persuade people to accept that pictures of animals and birds walking away or turning their backs on me are daring conceptual art, and not just the animals being camera shy or simply getting impatient. How about a new Flickr group: “The ones who walk away from Olympus”? (There is a literary reference there for someone to find!)


Only the ants didn’t seem to care.


It's all happening ...
And so we come up to date with our most recent weekend – a long one, thanks to the May Day holiday. (Which we actually celebrate on the 1st May and not on the first Monday after as in Britain, please note!) A. and I took a long weekend break and entrained down to Copenhagen. We wanted to visit the gallery of modern art at Louisiana. A fantastic day. A chilly wind off the sea, but in the lea and in the sun it was baking hot. Louisiana is a marvellous place, far larger than it looks from outside (because of all the subterranean galleries), but with space and grass and great views across the Belt (Öresund) towards Sweden: a perfect setting for a collection of monumental modern sculpture by the likes of Moore, Calder, Arp and Miró. And indoors, the Cindy Sherman retrospective (“30 Years of Staged Photography”) and a representative exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, “Made in China”. Despite all the people (and all the families with young children) it was spacious and didn’t feel crowded (except in the 20-25 minute long queues in the cafeteria). I asked, and was told I could photograph items in Louisiana’s permanent exhibition, but not in the special exhibitions. If you want to see Cindy Sherman’ work (and if you haven’t, you should) go to Louisiana before the 20th May (ha!) or here. And as for “Made in China”, that’ll be on till 5th August.

The day after, on Monday 30th, we left our bags at the station and visited the Zoo. I’m not a great zoo fan, but it was too good a photo op to waste. Besides, (and this is a good tip for anyone thinking of visiting Copenhagen), there’s really not a lot open on Mondays. I went through a brochure listing all the museums parks gardens and attractions in the Greater Copenhagen area, crossing off all that were shut on Monday 30th April, and believe me, the Zoo was one of the few that were left.

Home again on May Day, I was just too tired to go out and take political photos of the parades. There will be another May Day in another year.