Trollhättan Fall and Locks area, west Sweden

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Trollhättan valley of Gamle Dal, spring 2021.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

The Trollhättan Fall and Locks area is about an hour’s drive from the city of Gothenburg. We had warm spring/summer weather over the weekend, so we decided to take a drive to visit the city and take in some of the dramatic landscape. I have never visited the city of Trollhättan before, so this was pretty exciting for me. I was looking forward to exploring the city as well as the surrounding nature in the valley of Gamle Dal (Old valley).

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Spring garden play in Aztec print

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In an Aztec print and harem pants, Swedish west coast, spring 2021.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

It has been some very nice weather along the Swedish west coast in the past week. The morning temperatures begin at about 6°C but quickly rise to about 15°C. In terms of dressing for the weather, I remember spring as a somewhat confusing season in the early 2000s. As a tropical individual newly arrived in Sweden, spring was the couple of weeks when you left your home in winter temperatures, with warm hat and gloves on, but have lunch in just about summer temperatures. So the jacket and gloves come on and off throughout the day, depending on whether you are in the shade or in the sun.

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From the week of the Spring equinox 2021

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In celebration of the spring equinox week 2021, with some cake and Lent lilies on the table.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

There´s been a flurry of small activities in the week following this year´s spring equinox. From making a chocolate banana fudge cake to a sausage and bacon frittata for breakfast, I´ve been celebrating the start of spring in a variety of ways.

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Laxbutiken Ljungskile, Sweden

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Getting that squeeze of lemon juice over a plate of warm smoked salmon at Laxbutiken Ljungskile, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

Laxbutiken Ljungskile, Sweden.

The Swedish west coast makes for beautiful and scenic long drives. Along route E6, headed towards Oslo from Gothenburg, you´ll come to the neighbourhood of Ljungskile. Lungskile has about 3300 inhabitants, and it is located in the municipality of Uddevalla. As you turn off at exit 93 of E6, you’ll find a gem of a place called Laxbutiken, or “the salmon boutique”. Laxbutiken is a combined restaurant and shop where besides dining, you can buy and take home fresh salmon and a wide selection of salmon products.

As soon as I stepped into Laxbutiken, I became excited about dining at the restaurant, because of their appetizing display of a wide variety of delicious looking salmon bakes and dishes.

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Early spring, Tromsø, Northern Norway

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A neighbourhood that is close to the city centre of Tromsø, in Northern Norway.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

There was intermittent snow whilst I was on my walk, with little speckles of light reflecting from the falling snowflakes.

The spring equinox on 20 March 2021 marked the beginning of some very long summer days in the city of Tromsø, in Northern Norway. I´ve spent slightly more than two and a half years here in this cozy and compact city, moving here in the summer of 2018 to work and live. When I first arrived, my first impressions of this Arctic city was that it was quaint, and a little magic. Those first impressions of Tromsø hasn´t as yet faded with me.

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Neighbourhood weekend walk, Tromsø, Norway

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Daylength today on 24 Jan. is about 3:38 hrs. Here, the sun casts a warm glow over the coastline of Tromsø, in Northern Norway.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

Short compilation of video and photos of the day´s walk.

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Zen ensō 2021

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New Year´s 2021 along the Swedish west coast, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2021

In Zen, ensō is a circle that is hand-drawn in minimal uninhibited brushstrokes. The circle can be drawn complete, or incomplete. More important, is that it expresses a moment when the mind is free to let the body create. The transition from the last hours of 2020 to the first hours of 2021 in my view, is much like ensō in Time. All things in transition, endings into beginnings.

A medley of moments towards Zen ensō, the tail end of a circle, to begin a new. Moments of New Year´s Eve, weaving into the early hours of New Year´s Day, 2021.

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New Year´s Eve 2021 and dragonfly vision

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New Year´s Eve, along the Swedish west coast, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2020

While humans have a trichromatic vision, seeing colours in combination of red, blue and green because of light-sensitive proteins in our eyes called opsins, the remarkable dragonfly has no fewer than eleven different visual opsins. Some species of dragonflies have 30 visual opsins [1]. Dragonflies and damselflies are colourful, diurnal insects that depend strongly on their keen sense of vision for an array of activities, from catching small prey in the air to forming territories. The compound eyes of dragonflies contain three to five classes of photoreceptors, with distinct spectral sensitivities covering the UV to red spectral range. These photoreceptors combine to produce a mosaic of images for the dragonfly, although how this visual mosaic is integrated in the insect brain remains uncertain.

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Saffranssemla

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A saffranssemla. Like a semla, only with saffron added, along the Swedish west coast, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2020

I did a post-Christmas grocery store run yesterday in Sweden. To my horror, I saw trays of semlor being brought out from the bakery department. I took a double take on the trays, to see they were not actually large cream puffs, because, why not? But, there were no cream puffs. The trays were filled with luscious marzipan and cream filled semlor, headed to the bakery shelves. A lovely sight, but a little early, I thought.

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