Friday 29 August 2014

Postcard from Sweden: Holiday home on a farm

You know you picked a good place to stay on holiday when the smallest member of the family gets up every morning to go and find eggs...


Maybe the prospect of cuddling a bunny after farm chores spurred him on...


Joking aside, we managed to pick a superb place to stay....the views were amazing...



We watched some super dramatic weather roll in and over us....



And when we got home from our daily adventures we were welcomed by new friends...

 

 

But really, only I could land on my feet and find a Swedish farm with a traditional Swedish bee hive hiding round the back of a barn...


It really is a rather odd (by modified British National hive standards) looking thing.... with two entrances... I've no idea why they are different styles....

 

A hinged roof....


Inside is a solid floor and a double wall of insulation,which in this one is filled with pieces of foam rubber...

   
I should point out that this is an abandoned hive, left with the farmer as a "template" to build one of his own ...should he ever decide to keep bees....

There are plenty of bees about!  Lots of bumbles visited the flowers (wild hollyhocks?) right outside our front door...

 

 

Thank fully there was plenty of pollen for Honey bees too!




What's even more exciting is our host thinks he knows where they came from.  Can you see the golden yellow farm? .....if you look out over the shed roof ...over the fields , slightly to the right ...the one with the flag pole....


Well .that's the local apiary...so we went over to see those two door hives in action....

 

as well as a Swedish version of some hives that looks more like something I'd understand...


If only I'd packed my bee suit......  :(


Thursday 28 August 2014

Postcard from Sweden: Gothenburg day two

The only way to really get to see a city is to get on your feet and walk it...so that's what we did today....

From sea level to hill top fort...




From the ultra modern to the classically old school...





Gothenburg has a serious nautical history so the historic dockyard is worthy of thorough exploration...


both on the surface....


and below....

 

You don't expect me to go down there? ....oh.....apparently you do....


Have to confess I was glad to get back to dry land...


Even if the walk back to the car made me think about how soon we'd have to be going home :(




Wednesday 27 August 2014

Postcard from Sweden: Boras Zoo

Time for a road trip today....


We picked the perfect day for it, rolling hills, tranquil lakes and blue blue skies...


Boras Zoo has some lovely open paddocks and doesn't really feel like a zoo and the "normal" zoo animals seem pretty happy, we scooted on past familes large and small.....


 


 

 

 
What we'd really really come to see was the unusual (for us).  Starting with the red panda ....an elusive little cutie...

 
 

and if you wait patiently (we did) or come back a couple of times to say hello (we did) eventually you are rewarded by someone coming down a few branches to say "Hi",

 


Time to investigate some proper Nordic animals...
Big ones....

 

Smaller ones (sadly without the adamantium claws)

 


Cuddlier looking ones....

 


Some tried to be elusive.....but eventually revealed a love of swimming...

 




 


We had to look really hard to see some other swimmers...


 

But the stars of the day were this family....


I could have stood and watched them doing bear stuff all day....







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