uk roadtrip day 14: leeds & brimham rocks



What are Rafi and Liam looking at?


Maybe this view?


Or maybe these rocks! As you are about to see, we were in a place with many rocks.


Brimham Rocks, more specifically!


And this is the lovely gentleman who brought us there on a daytrip, Raphael - or as he is more often called in the Ladström/ Craddock household, the babest of babes. I'm not even joking. Sometimes one of us thinks about Rafi and goes "Rafi really is the babest of babes" and the other person just agrees. He's just one of those disgustingly smart but still kind and humble people who's also a wonderful musician and dancer (both lead and follow obviously). Ridiculous.

Okay I'm gonna stop now as I'm actually not trying to marry Rafi off to someone, even though it may seem like it.




More rocks!


It was actually super cool to walk around the area and look at all these strange formations.


Lunch!



Liam made a new friend, of course.




And then we walked around some more


and looked at some more views. Though I could tell at this point that I'd been travelling for over two weeks and looking at beautiful nature and/ or interesting things every day, because I did get tired faster than at the start of the trip.


We went back to Rafi's for some rest, and then we went to Reliance for dinner with Hannah and Vincent, yay!




It was so great to spend an evening and reconnect with them. It's been so long!


Something I thought about during this dinner and actually all througout this roadtrip was how nice it is to hang out with non meat eaters. Back home very few of my close friends are veggie, but this time around in the UK, most people we stayed with are (which is interesting, as back when I lived in Manchester, I felt it was generally harder to be veggie in the UK than it is in Gothenburg). Not that my Swedish friends aren't accommodating - they really are, and they always make sure there is something tasty for me to eat, which I really appreciate (especially as I don't cook for them much, or at all, and they always go the extra mile for me) - but sometimes it's just really nice to be able to eat everything at a dinner table and not just some of the things. And going out to eat with people who also don't eat meat is just ... easier - knowing that someone else will share that responsibility when you choose a restaurant. And just that feeling of shared values, you know? It was really nice.


This chocolate pudding that I had for dessert was SO good. (So was my main course but I forgot to take a photo of it.)


Such a lovely Leeds evening! I'm so glad we got to hang out with these beautiful people.

tidig oktober i tyskland och göteborg



Tidig oktober säger jag i inläggets titel, fast just det här - en långfrukost hos Tove - var visst alldeles i slutet av september. (Lisa var också där men fastnade inte på bild.) Vi hade bland annat fem sorters äpplen och hade äppleprovning.


Det här var kanske inte Toves favorit!


Sedan var jag på så gott humör efter så härligt sällskap att jag promenerade hela vägen hem till Örgryte från Vidkärr (via mina föräldrar i Kålltorp bara för en kram. Har inte glömt att jag inte kramade dem på ett helt år under pandemin).


Så fint här hemma i mina kvarter!


Men sedan förflyttar vi oss raskt till ett annat land! Jag och resten av the Sky is Crying var bokade till Hülly Blues, ett bluesdansevent i norra Tyskland som vi åkte till i januari 2020 också, och nu ville de ha tillbaka oss.


Mitt ute på landet på en sorts kursgård är det. Mysigt!


Av själva spelandet blev det ju inga foton eftersom jag var upptagen med annat. Men det var SÅ KUL. Alltså så fruktansvärt kul. Nu har vi spelat ihop i den här konstellationen i åtta år, tänk det! Och det är så roligt, varje gång. Man blir ju helt hög. Och vi får så fin respons. <3


Vi spelade både fredag och lördag kväll, så på lördag dag kunde vi ta det lugnt och lära känna lite nya vänner, som Chewpaca här till exempel. :)



Jag kallar den "trevliga musiker tittar på alpackor".


Resten av dagen satt Gustav och jag med våra respektive datorer och jobbade medan Marcus läste både morgon och kväll, som synes. Och vilken bok var det som fångade honom så? Brott och straff!


Väl hemma i Sverige igen gick jag på bokrelease! Min vän Carolina har nyss släppt en bok - men det kommer mer foton i ett eget blogginlägg.



Här jobbar jag nu de flesta dagar, mitt i stan nära Kronhuset. Så fint i höstskrud!


En spelkväll hann vi också med i mitten av oktober.





Detta gäng ändå, de är för fina!

Och så klämmer vi till med lite mer höst i centrala Göteborg:




Jag försöker komma ut och ta luft så ofta jag kan nu mellan lektioner, även om det bara är bokstavligen ett varv runt kvarteret som gymnasiet ligger i. Oktober har varit så vackert. Jag tar hand om mig på de sätt jag kan.


Och sedan hade jag födelsedagskalas! Men det får det också bli ett eget inlägg om, för då tog jag fler bilder än vad som ryms i det här inlägget.

Dreamer's Circus | North of Trondheim

uk roadtrip day 13: hadrian's wall and the sycamore gap



Short version of this post: I like nature. I take many photos of it. I went to see Hadrian's Wall. It's cool.

Long version of this post:


Good morning!


The accent in Northumberland is TO DIE FOR and after hemming and hawing all morning, I finally asked the owner of the inn we stayed at if I could record his accent. He said yes! (You can get away with anything when you're a delighted tourist.) He just said to give him a topic to talk about, so I asked about the village, and he told me lots about the gret lek (great lake) and the cöus (cows) and all kinds of stuff. SO EXCITING.


These colours though! Goodbye Greenhaugh - it was such a pleasure.


As we drove south I started trying to figure out what to do with the day. I knew I wanted to see more of the national park now that I was in it, so I found a national park center - the Sill - to go to. But first we found wall! Hadrian's wall!


I know people don't find it especially exciting, but like - it's been there for 1900 years. I think it's pretty cool. But yes, it would be less fun for me, too, if the landscape around it wasn't beautiful.


Also I love step stiles.


Found more wall!


And more stiles!


And then we drove to the Sill, just on the south border of the national park, in the village called Once Brewed, also known as Twice Brewed (I'M NOT EVEN JOKING). Liam immediately found the most interactive thing in the whole exhibition ("A thing I can touch and poke?!?!") and it entertained us both for a long time! You make sand mountains and valleys, and the contour lines and colours are projected onto the piles you build, and you can even make it "rain" in the projection to see where there would be lakes and rivers if your landscape was real. Mesmerising!


Then I left Liam in the café to go for a walk (and no, he doesn't mind - in fact, he'd much rather stay behind and rest and read or watch youtube while I'm walking). I hadn't really decided where to go, so I figured I'd just walk up to Hadrian's Wall and walk along it for a while.




The wall turned out to climb up on this ridge, the Great Whin Sill ...


... so so did I!


A squeeze stile! (It's actually called that.) And squeeze I did.


And then I walked along the wall.



The view was not shit.


Down to the milecastle ...


... more pretty, then up again on the other side ...


... then down again to the Sycamore Gap (yes, this is where that scene from Prince of Thieves was filmed (haven't seen it, but people recognised it when I posted about it on instagram)) ...


... and up again. :)



After a while I was getting tired, so I decided to find my way back. I had already seen that a much flatter and easier path ran across the fields below of the ridge to my right ...


... so I just walked down the hill and followed the easier path back to the Sill, which didn't take any time at all compared to all the climbing up and down that I did along the wall. :)


And then, when I walked past the Sycamore Gap again, I took this photo - had to do my part in keeping this "one of the most photographed trees in the UK" - though how they know that, I don't know. It is lovely, though.


When I got back to the Sill, the café had closed and Liam had had to find electricity elsewhere. :)


And then we drove south and arrived in Leeds a few hours later, at the home of this gorgeous man who had a delicious vegan dinner waiting in the oven. <3 But more on that in the next roadtrip post!