Birthday

It's my fathers birthday today. He was born in 1918 and would have been 103 years old today but he died in cancer 1982, only 64 years old. I am now four years older than he got to be, a peculiar thought. He lived through one of his generations pandemic, "The Spanish illness", as it was called in those days. Like the Covid, it was also an influensa, still with an unknown origin. After the pandemic began an era of new inventions and hope of a better life for mankind. In 1921 women finally got the right to vote, after years of fighting for it. Industrialisation started for real and Swedish inventions made the country prosper. Today we see a similar development, now aimed towards the environment and a new hope for mankind.

I celebrated the occasion by following a walking trail around a lake, in the company of eleven other people who are joined in a "wandering group" on Facebook. Someone proposes a walk somewhere and those who wants to and have the time joins. Simple and very pleasant. You get to know new people and have a reason to discover new places in the pleasant company of other. If you're single, like me, it gets you out of your own yard, which is never wrong and sometimes is a life-saver.

Todays walk was only 7,5km long and very easy along prepared paths with swedishly organised rest-places with tables, a fireplace and chopped up firewood. That made the whole trip a totally social event and we had a lovely time in the very cold wind but in blazing sunlight. The main is a view over the lake "Örsjön". 'Sjö', meaning lake and 'Ör' being an old word for gravel. We passed through pine forests and old villages, one of them had this row of estates for the birds, with fences marking the territory, made out of an old wooden ladder hanging on a shed. Maybe I should do a series of birdhouses, I had another unusual one a couple of days ago.

Tomorrow is a "normal" day again after this long Easter holiday. Life goes on for me, in memory of my father.