Monthly Archive: June 2026

30
Jun
2026

GOING GOING GROW!

Our garden is going gangbusters this time of year, and some things are doing better than we’ve ever had it. The potatoes (3 rows of 3 different kinds) are nearly as tall as I am, and they are all blooming right now, which means potatoes soon. They weren’t ready for midsummer since we were so late planting them. The new snap pea seeds that Anders planted after about half of the first planting didn’t show, are all sprouting out of the ground now. The feathery tops of the carrots are a foot high, and the onions (white and red) have...

27
Jun
2026

I’M MELTING, I’M MELTING!

Being this hot this long turns me into a wicked witch. I almost wish someone would douse me with a cold bucket of water. It’s been in the 90s for 2 days (34C today) and I don’t know how anyone stands it in countries where this is the norm or worse. How do people stand it?? I have minimal clothing, ceiling fans, and a regimen of opening and closing windows and blinds as the sun moves, to block the worst of it, and I’m still cranky and sweaty. I’ve managed to do a few things today, but if I had...

19
Jun
2026

GLAD MIDSOMMAR!

It’s midsummer eve and a public holiday here in Sweden. Midsummer is celebrated across Northern Europe and the Baltic countries, but I think Sweden is the only one that celebrates the eve of it, per typical Swedish custom of celebrating holidays the day before. The actual solstice isn’t until Sunday. After weeks of pretty cold temperatures and lots of rain last week, today arrived HOT and sunny, nearly 30C, which is too hot for me, given that there isn’t much of a breeze either. I slept in, while Anders went early to a fish store in Landskrona where he got...

18
Jun
2026

AND BACK AGAIN

We left The Netherlands behind and drove on the autobahn most of the day through Northern Germany to Lübeck. The autobahn is both scary and thrilling. For most of it there is no speed limit (it slows down to 120 kph near the cities and sometimes slower in construction zones, of which there are many). Anders set the cruise control and was clipping along at 130 kph most of the time, and there were still cars constantly whipping past us in the left lane. They must have been going well over 200. CRAZY. At one point, as we were nearing...

17
Jun
2026

CRUISING TO THE NETHERLANDS

We left Arromanches in the morning of June 6 (the 82nd anniversary of the D-Day landings) and headed north. Our plan was to swing over to Étretat on the coast. I had read about a place with lovely gardens on the cliffside above the town. However, due to the tiny country roads that led up the coast, it was nearly a 2.5 hour side trip that we couldn’t really afford as we needed to be in Bladel, The Netherlands latest by 9 pm. When we got to Étretat, it was sunny and beautiful, and while parking the car near the...

16
Jun
2026

GOLD BEACH, MULBERRY HARBORS, AND LESSONS IN HISTORY

I was a military brat, and as such, most of what I learned about WW2 in high school was from an American perspective. I knew the name of Omaha Beach, but very little else about the D-Day landings or the military operations of the war. I read a lot of books about the resistance, the holocaust, and the lives of ordinary people living through the war, and as an adult have educated myself much further with movies, books, documentaries, and other sources of historical information. I’ve been to Berlin when it was still behind the wall, and I’ve been to...

15
Jun
2026

NORTH TO NORMANDY

The day we left Saint-Malo and headed north to Mont-Saint-Michel was quite cloudy, but no rain was forecast. We arrived at the parking lot on the mainland just before noon, which was later than I would have liked, but we weren’t in any hurry. We knew there would be a lot of people on the island, but were hoping that because it was off-season that it wouldn’t be TOO crowded. You can either walk across the bridge that leads from the tourist center and the parking lots or take the free shuttle that runs every 12 minutes. It takes about...

14
Jun
2026

ROADTRIPPING TO BRITTANY

Brittany and Normandy, or more specifically, Saint-Malo and Mont-Saint-Michel, have been on my travel wishlist for a very long time. I first heard and fell in love with wartime Saint-Malo in the book All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing out, it’s amazing. Mont-Saint-Michel has been on my list even longer. Having had not so great experiences traveling in France when I was young, however, meant that the Normandy coast was always pushed aside in favor of other destinations. I also wasn’t super interested in visiting the D-Day beaches and all...

11
Jun
2026

SPRINGING INTO SUMMER

Spring has whirled into summer without my permission. We’ve been so busy that I have scarcely had time to catch my breath! And here it is, the 11 of June, and this is my first post this month. To be fair, Anders and I left on May 30 for our roadtrip to Normandy, the day after John and family went the other direction, north a couple of hours in Sweden. We were gone for 9 days, down and up again, and I’ll write some posts about the trip later this weekend (or tomorrow, if I get really motivated). So weird...

June 2026
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