It's been "Do a good deed each day" kind of week and I am feeling particularly virtuous. I have reunited a young boy with his lost wallet and a young man with his lost phone. I feel like I ought to join the scouts.

The young boy lost his wallet at the boat club. What stuck me first about it was the brand name - the Aussie surfie company Billabong. Inside the very new wallet was a couple of 100kr notes, some coins and a library card. We guessed that it was probably a teenager's wallet because of the lack of any kind of ID or receipts or other paraphanelia that adults carry around and the "signature" on the back of the library card was simply his name printed neatly.

It was not a really common name, so Lars-Göran checked the local telephone directory and discovered two with that surname. The first one turned out to be granny and she assured us that her grandson would be delighted to be reunited with his wallet. When we later called the second number, granny had already told him his wallet had been found and when he dropped over to collect it, he was much younger than we had imagined. At our front door stood a tiny ten year old with a big grin on his face. He thought he'd never see the wallet again and to get it back with all the cash intact was a happy surprise for him. He thanked us very nicely and offered a reward that we refused, telling him that his saying thankyou was reward enough.

Afterwards we talked about it and hoped that he would feel better knowing that there were honest people in the world. I also hoped that he'd remember how good it felt when he got his property back, so he may be inclined to also hand in something that he found in the future. One can always hope.

The other young man had lost his brand new, very fancy mobile phone in the chemist. I had sat on a chair to wait for my queue number to come up when I felt something behind me and reached back and drew out the phone. It was one of those that had a camera and which could play games, display films, make coffee, balance your cheque account etc. It was fortunate that I had seen the young man get up to be served, so I was able to ask if he'd lost his phone. He said no and reached to his back pocket to show me, only to find it was empty. Another satisfied customer in the Marie's Lost and Found market.





As you can tell from the candles, we celebrated a special birthday this week. Yes, little Lambi became a teenager (in human years, anyway. In dog years she's an old bat). I wrote about her life last year and so I won't repeat it again. We celebrated it quietly with a special fika and slices of princess cake (what else for our little princess?). I'm sure she was puzzled as to why she was being freely offered goodies that she would normally have to beg for, but she ate heartily.

This gives me an opportunity to clear up once and for all the misconception among people (you may well blush, Justine) who persist in thinking that Lambi is named after toilet paper.




Yes, in Sweden we do have a brand of toilet and kitchen paper as well as tissues called Lambi. As an aside, it's funny how people ask if we named her after toilet paper and never if it was after the kitchen paper or the tissues. Anyway, at the time Lambi was acquired there was an advertising campaign on tv featuring the cute little lamb, who was called Lambi. As soon as the then 12 year old Madde saw our own little fluffball, that name sprung straight to mind (oh the powers of advertising!) and she has had it ever since. Believe me it is far preferable to her pedigree name which was something ridiculous. And most Swedes think that it is perfect for a tiny, wooly, fluffy white dog who looks so much like a lamb. It's only the expats who mention the toilet paper!

Okay, moving right along, I'd like to present the latest fashion head gear for autumn....




While I can well empathise with her and often feel like going through life with a paper bag over my head, hiding out from the world, I've never been brave enough to actually DO it. I can't think of a reason why she would choose to wear it. Maybe she was shy about being photographed at the ATM or perhaps she was thinking of robbing the bank. It gave me a giggle, anyway.




Down at the boat club, people are continuing to prepare their boats for winter and half of the boats are already on land. I was struck by the size difference between Ulf's yacht and the little Maxi that pulled up next to him at the wharf. It's funny to think that this Maxi 77 was considered a roomy, family sized boat when it was released in the 1970's. Today it is dwarfed by the family boats like Ulf's Wasa Atlantic. How times and expectations change.

This year we have decided to spend the winter in the club bay at Fagerviken rather than at our own pier, so we face a longer walk to check her but will have the advantage of others moored nearby who can also keep an eye on her. The walk down to the club bay takes us along the island of Trehörningen and I saw that they have started to build a new (and considerably uglier) bridge. I know that the narrow but quaint old arched stone bridge cannot cope so well with the volume of modern traffic, but did they have to let a blind man design it?




It is particularly jarring when you see the elegant homes that greet you as you cross over to the posh part of town. They are all beautiful, old homes dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and you would think that there was a way to marry the practical side of engineering with aesthetic considerations as well as a sensetivity to the history and location of the island. I can only hope that the finished product will look a lot better.

Just past the fugly bridge, autumn has come and the leaves here are turning golden and red, contrasting with the cream of this tudor style villa.




I am still surprised to see that the leaves are firmly attached to the trees as normally by now the night temperatures should have dropped below zero and the leaves ought to be piled on the ground in a wet, brown slippery mess. Today, while it is grey and drizzly the temperature is 10.7C which may not sound too warm, but it should be at least five to seven degrees cooler by rights. It certainly has been an unusual autumn. I would have loved these conditions last year when we were forced to live on the boat while our kitchen and bathroom were being renovated. I can't believe that was a whole year ago.

Along the esplanade, life is slowing down for the off season and we saw that even the small boats are covered up to hibernate and the birch trees are finally shedding their leaves like a shower of bronze confetti.




There is a storm forecast for tonight. We haven't had a real storm here since Gudrun swept through in early January 2005 carving a path of destruction throughout the country. While the authorities are not saying that this will have the hurricane force winds that we experienced back then, they will be very powerful none the less, so Lars-Göran has been down to ensure that the boat is well secured with extra ropes. I can't believe how dark it is becoming all of a sudden - this picture was taken at 4pm and it looks like the middle of the night. I guess that is what autumn is all about.