Ruby Tuesday: A Bicycle for Two

I have seen the occasional tandem bicycle before,
but never one quite like this.

For Ruby Tuesday

Mosaic Monday: Butterfly Invasion

The collage above may seem exaggerated, but actually it represents ‘the truth’ better than any of the individual pictures:

 

In my ‘Butterfly Park’ yesterday, there must have been at least around 70-80 Small Tortoiseshell butterflies fluttering around. (Perhaps even more. Not an easy task to count them!)

Their most popular landing places were these blue flowers, which also provide excellent camouflage for these beautiful creatures.

I’ve never seen so many butterflies at the same time. ‘Someone’ must have been busy laying eggs in the neighbourhood of park earlier in the spring/ summer…!

The caterpillars feed on stinging nettles. I suppose there may be a good supply of those along the railway close by. From Wikipedia I also learn that how many survive to be butterflies may often depend on the status of the common wasp in a particular season, since the wasp is known to feed on the Tortoiseshell's pupae.

Come to think of it, I’ve hardly seen any wasps at all around this August! - Good! - I much prefer the butterflies! :)

See more Monday Mosaics at Mary’s Little Red House.

Shadow Shot Sunday – Tree Shadows

For Shadow Shot Sunday

For A Moment

For a moment today in my ‘butterfly park’, not one but two butterflies decided (at the same time) to rest for a while on my shoulder (upper arm): One Red Admiral and one Small Tortoiseshell. In fact, I think at least the Admiral was the very same specimen as in the photo above. (The Tortoiseshells were so many today I could not keep count of them.)

I’m pretty sure they cannot have take me for a flower, since I was wearing a plain grey jacket! I guess I’ll never know what they were thinking… But it was a rather awesome experience and it reminded me of this ‘Irish blessing’ that I read recently:

May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun
And find your shoulder to light on
To bring you luck, happiness and riches
Today, Tomorrow and Beyond.

Two butterflies at the same time must mean double luck, mustn’t it??

Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae)

Red Admiral (Vanessa Atalanta)

Friday My Town – Human Labor

The FMTSO theme this week is Human Labor: “Show us the laborers of your town that make it what it is today and keep it going on a daily basis.”

Well. My town this week went a little bit beyond “on a daily basis”. But it did involve a lot of Human Labor…

…

Some fresh flowers had to be planted around town. (Sorry, I did not get a picture of that, but you know how that’s done, don’t you.)

…

A very special meal had to be prepared by students at the restaurant school. I was not invited, so could not take pictures of that either.
But here is a dessert prepared by the same (or other) students at that school back in May (and which I did have the pleasure of eating).

 

…

A special toilet had to be renovated. Here’s the queue:

Just kidding… But it’s inside that building!

…

And then the town sculptures all had to be tied into knots…

… Kidding again, but some of them were cleaned and polished extra …

…

A lot of blue ropes also had to be put up and tied into knots:

… or held up manually, if there was nothing else to tie them to:

   

And policemen made sure the public stayed on the right side of them.

…

The Press did their job…

…

And people who had nothing better to do (like me) just hung around:

… waiting to watch these people do their job …

 

King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia

Their job today was to visit our town’s refuse recycling plant
(I wonder if that gave them good appetite for lunch?)
and then to go for a 1 hour walk in our town center
and park, looking at some of all our sculptures.
(I do hope those shoes the queen was wearing
are more comfortable than they look.)

 

Smiling and waving is included in the job description.

~ Bye! ~

… … …

The sculpture of the gun tied into a knot is
Non-Violence by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd.

The sculpture stands in a little park
named after a Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Anna Lindh, who was assassinated in a shopping center
in Stockholm on 10 September 2003.

… … …

Whatever opinion one may have of the King’s and Queen’s “jobs”… and monarchy vs republic etc… I have to say that today’s event made quite an impression on me. Not because I’m all that devoted a royalist; but seeing the king and queen in the Anna Lindh park with that non-violence memorial, and then be able to “follow them around” through the town center, was quite a powerful reminder that it is far from self-evident to be able to have a public event like this at all.

From the local newspaper: The King’s and Queen’s sculpture walk.
The Non-Violence sculpture is No 3 on the map.