Autumn and news

 Autumn has eventually arrived, a bit later and milder than usual. I do not mind it at all, also because I am late with all the "autumn" tasks related to the garden, especially.

One of the typical autumn tasks is to pick up apples. This year, though, it has been a terrible apple year (luckily in a way, because I do not know how on earth I managed the previous years to pick up all those apples?) and our loot has been a misery. Just 92 kilos. 

Our receipt from Sövde Musteri

I dragged myself out today to cut the peonies, looking at the dahlias that are impatiently waiting to be digged out. It got dark very fast and it even started to rain while I was out, but this time I decided to just finish the task. 

Preparing the garden for the winter

Struggling to get things done, I got contacted by a journalist of Sydsvenskan that wanted to make a reportage about me/us/the house. I could have talked for days about the house, cultural preservation and Åkarp's history and the journalist did manage to get something out of all my blabbing that did make sense and focused on Bellevue (although he could have probably been writing some very boring and long essay summarizing all I tried to say in the few hours he was here).

I was eager to see when the article would be published

In the newspaper

I am very proud of the article but a bit less of one of the pictures, which ended up on the front page of the newspaper! I have a horrible grimace and the picture is there even less clear than on the web, as Chloe is sneaking out from the stairs banister and gives better sense to the composition.

On the front page

Chloe. Still, couldn't they have picked up a better pic of me?

A turn of the century feeling

 We have ben very inspired when watching the old pictures from the Ingemansson. When looking at the dining room picture, I indulge in staring at the details and trying to understand how did the room look back then.

There are of course missing details, like the chest panel. But I see a drapery where there is the sliding door, there is some textile decoration over the left door and well, there is a nice wall pendulum.

A dinner at the Ingemanssons, 1909

Now, I have been looking for several year to find a wall pendulum that I would like. I think the one in the picture is slightly biger than the one I finally managed to purchase. 

View over the wall pendulum

It is not exactly in the same spot, but at least in the same room, and right now it is surrounded by a jungle of plants, since we want to save them from the kittens, which are still quite wild and interested in destroying my vases/plants!

The pendulum is from 1907

The watch maker was from Nyköping and was called Frans August Nilsson

Sadly, we haven't yet tested it. It would be nice if it would be working :-)

Something else that we bought, that is semi working (and ideally it should be connected with the few ringbells we have in the house) is an housekeeper bell display (in swedish betjäntklocka/pigklocka) which I think gives a very nice touch to the kitchen, the housekeeper's kingdom.

The housekeeper bell display

There, now we are ready for service ;)

It would be wonderful to find out how many bells we had, where was the display originally and so on. But I guess we will be content by having two of the bells still existing and working. Amusingly enough!