Easter Sunday Adventure

The Easter holiday has been wonderful. The weather was smashing (still is) and the mum-in-law, who is poorly again, got home from hospital on the Ash Wednesday and stayed home until Tuesday, when she had to be rushed back. She has had two visits from grand-children with their families, and we have taken her on an outing, a visit to her nephew who lives in the house where she once grew up. If it tired her, we didn´t notice, as she was talking, talking, talking from the minute she got into the car (it is a two-hour drive, one direction) to the minute we were back home again.

Sunday we decided to go to a local nature reserve, Bälingeberget (= Bälinge mountain). It is a favourite place of ours, but we haven´t been for years, sadly. I don´t have any photos from there since June 2009 (and I always bring the camera), and it´s just horrid how fast time has gone since then. We have been talking a lot about this, how we all too seldom go out into the woodlands, and how much we really need it. Ridiculous, really, as we live next door to some of the most beautiful forests in the world!

A view to the north, over Luleå River.

This mountain was once a small island rising from the sea as the inland ice was melting away, and you can see the pebbly beaches on the top, how the sea storms have shaped the shoreline. It was even more evident now, since the snow hasn´t entirely melted away, particularly on the northern side where you go up, making the terrain a bit hard to go through. The path had turned into a spring brook, and the snow patches were often thigh-deep. The driest way was across the pebble field, which I usually avoid on account of it being rather hot out there in summer. Walking across it gave the ankles quite a workout!

Some of the lichen and moss that grow on the pebble field.

 
There are several picnic areas, with firewood and toilets. They have taken the trash bins away, as they attracted the animals, and I have to say, guests seem very good at cleaning up after themselves. Though of course, it´s early spring and I suppose the real invasion hasn´t started yet. We got out late in the day, as usual; when we got there, sometime between one and two, there were about eight or so cars on the parking lot, and when we came down at about seven, we were alone.

I brought my first ever Moleskine notebook, as I am intending to draw more. I have a different approach to drawing now, I think, than I used to have. I am more after the impression of the place, than what it actually looks like - I have the camera for that, I suppose. I am very much trying different things, and looking at what others are doing. Today I came across David Hockney´s Ipad drawings of Yorkshire in spring, and how that inspires me! Not that I would even attempt to draw like that, but it is his attitude towards his subject that I´m after. Amazing. We are planning a trip to Yorkshire this summer, and now I long for it even more!