CSI # 30 "The Wild Stampede" and photos from a blessed day

I scheduled this post to go live Tuesday, 31 July. Hopefully everything has worked as it should.

Summer is still in full bloom over here, although one can feel the first inklings of coolness in the air. Thought I'd start off with some photos from a wonderful day that hubbs and I spent last week at Rosendal - translates into Rose Valley - on the Djurgården island here in Stockholm.

Rosendal is both the name of the Royal pink summer pleasure palace built in the 1820's, and also of the gardens/restaurant/café. Some of you might remember that I studied art history at the university and worked as guide in the Royal Palaces before I took up the profession I have now. Each summer for many years, I worked as guide both here at Rosendal and in the other Royal Palaces of Stockholm.
 
 And this is the Royal Palace itself, located on the Old Town island. Its foundations are from the 13th century and it actually has one room more than Buckingham Palace in London - a huge building filled with the most wonderful pieces of art imaginable.

Water, water, everywhere you look you see water in Stockholm. The white steamboats going out into the archipelago are anchored just across the Royal Palace, below Grand Hôtel.

And now over to Rosendal;
 

 
Nooks and crannies in the most unexpected places, benches and hide-outs, flower beds, sculptures ...
 
Everything that grows in the green houses, is for sale and they use everything from the vegetable garden in the dishes that are served in the restaurant/café. Healthy and organic of course.
 
Beautiful picnic spots in the lush fruit orchard. It is a sight for sore eyes in May when all the trees are abloom.
 

 
Oh, no - MORE photos?!

Finally! time for the CSI case file #30 that was released some days ago. First the prompts;

And Michele's lovely printable coordinates;

It is the last week of Echo Park's sponsorship month, so I've created a page using their pretty collection called "Sweet Day". Here it is - "The Wild Stampede";



The evidence that I have used are childlike things, different patterns and fabric.

My testimony goes back to my childhood summers that I spent in rural northern Finland, at my auntie and uncle's farm. Of course they had cows and they had to be walked to their paddock every morning and back for milking every evening. This task befell on my cousin Auli and I, well on Auli to be honest. I was a city girl, totally petrified by the big creatures. My cousin could of course not help staging something involving the cows only to see me run and it always ended with me stepping in cow dung with my city-bought white summer sandals. She giggled hysterically and I cried.

The title of course refers to these daily walks with the peaceful herd of cows who knew the drill. They must have thought I was really weird as they always eyed me up before giving off a couple of languid mooh's before they continued to do what cows do - graze.

Today all I can remember is how all those summers seem to be filled with eternal summer, dips in their pond, hot dogs grilled over the open fire in their yard, taking sauna baths and drinking ice cold orange fizz afterwards, eating as many cinnamon rolls I could muster on auntie's baking day and having tummy aches afterwards. I couldn't have had better childhood summers!

 

 

 

 
The itty bitty doilies are from Leeann Pearce's Etsy shop. 
 
The white felties with button centres come from Precocious Paper's Etsy shop.
 

 

And here we are, at the end of this post. Thanks for popping by!

I'll be back on Friday with 2 pages for TCR, adding on more layers and details to my pages again :))

Take care, have a really great rest of the week!

Cheers! xoxo Eila