Monday 30th July: I turn 49. 
The horror, the horror, followed by the stoic acceptance of the passage of time. I am still recovering from my cold which has mostly focused on my vocal chords. Mornings, I start out with a wheeze and a whisper. Three mugs of hot tea and honey later and I move on to phase two: the old man cough. This seems to start somewhere in my toes build its way up to a panic of unbreath in my chest, grip my whole body in a paroxism of shaking and pretty disgusting retching sounds and result in a really pitful quantity of 
phlegm to spit into a handkerchief. Phase three has me responding to questions in a graveled whiskey voice which gradually subsides into more normal tones as the morning goes on. A birthday feast prepared by my good wife receives due attention. I over-eat. Again. (Lot of that this summer.)
Oh yes, and Ingemar Bergman died and suddenly all the TV schedules are rearranged for an impromptu Bergman season. Do I really want to see The Seventh Seal again? Not really, no.
Tuesday 31st July
In what seems like the first sunshine for months, we take the bus north to the island of Tjörn (pronounced something like sh-earn). On Tjörn, at Skärhamn (share hamn), we
visit Nordiska akvarellemuseet (we'll not even
try to pronounce that - besides it has a name in English: the Nordic Watercolour Gallery) to see the visiting collection of British Watercolourists. The likes of Cotman, Turner, Blake, Palmer, Rowlandson and good deal more I'd never heard of. The logo of the museum is a paintbrush, a massive sculpture of which stands outside the gallery and which also appears on the sticker/entrance tickets which we wear during our visit. Leaving, we conform to the custom of adding our stickers to the statue.
In the evening, back in Gothenburg, we wait to meet Lena C. at Järntorget, where I try to capture sunlight through the falling water of the fountain.
Wednesday 1st August.
I spend an exceptional length of time playing with/learning to use my drawing tablet. I'm getting quite proficient.
Thursday 2nd August.
The post brings a copy of Arto Paasilinna's The Year of the Hare (recommended by Annjin). I start reading and can't stop - I'm about half way through by the end of the day. Very laconic humour. I want to see this book filmed by Aki Kaurismäki. The Internet Movie Database says it has already been filmed (though by Risto Jarva) in 1977 (as Jäniksen vuosi). I must try to see a copy.
Friday 3rd August.
My morning cough has shrunk to a shadow of its former self, thank goodness. Breakfast at Café Dream on Linnégatan while I'm waiting for my 10 o'clock meeting to show. Rice-pudding and jam, bacon and meatball butties, orange juice and coffee, peanut-butter and orange marmalade sandwiches. My philosophy is: when
out, eat what you'd never make for yourself at home. Pretty good for SEK 69. (Near the Linné Youth Hostel if you're interested.) Later, a haircut and a shower and then I try some self-portrait poses which result in the stoic/horror at the head of this.
I also try photographing myself through the magnifying glass we bought at the Watercolour Museum to see the details in the pictures.
Saturday 4th August.
A guided walk around Kungsladugård, a district of Gothenburg which saw a planned suburb develop between 1910 and 1940. Bit unsure what I wanted to photograph when we started out, but after a while I realised that most of the houses were distinguished from one another by their windows, so windows were my theme.
Sunday 5th August.
A day of anguish - sorting out books to give away. Eventually most of our detectives stories and some of my science fiction selected. We've been talking about making room for four years - ever since moving from 90 square metres to our present 80 square metres. There was even a rule which said that every new book bought in meant an old book had to go. Pain! I can still remember books I had to sell when I was a student, and others which I lent in good faith to evil book hoarding types who never returned them. But, I have to admit, rinsing the shelves of things one has read once and not looked at again makes sense ... now there's room for new books.
Monday 6th August.
And so here we are, one week nearer to the end of the holidays. well, the sun's shining and there's a dry martini cocktail (shaken, not stirred) waiting to be drunk on the balcony in the sun.
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Or at least it seems to be doing so at present. I just uploaded a series of photos taken over the last few days which are all a bit damp. And Lea has kindly responded to my last blog so now I can put pictures in here without the captions.
Sunday morning and it's still raining out, but I'm sitting here in the dry, listening to world music on the radio (Klingan P1 - for anyone in Sweden) and Iperniting. ... And a bit later, Klingan is over and I've uploaded six rather large pictures and made up a new album: The Abandoned Sewing Machine.
Well, the novelty wore off, and I had no trouble seeing out of the lenses. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the bloody things kept slipping off my nose. I went back and back to the optician. At one point the assistant who was fitting them remarked that I had a very odd shaped head, Oh right, so there's nothing wrong with the frames, it's my head that's the problem. Well, that's good to know.
