Nice walk

Nice walk, on a Sunday afternoon, watching the city in it´s artistic lighting in trees on bridges on houses on chimneys on trams and in shop-windows, everything professionally arranged during the darkest time of the year and in such an appropriate time before Christmas. We spot small shiny snowmen on the pavement, and spruces placed all along the Mainstreet in almost every streetcorner, from down where it starts by the railwaystation to where it ends by the Museum of Art.

This particular Sunday is the one in the year that starts up our four weeks long wait for Christmas, the first Sunday in Advent. Elevenyearold daughter tries to turn her walk into a long last memory with a little help from her friend, the blue/green digital camera she had as a gift from her father, there are thus a number of stops during our walk, she just can´t help herself. We both think this city is a very nice city to live in, it has lots of interesting places, and the city gardener, who during summertime keeps almost every growable space in town with flowers for us to enjoy, has done a great job decorating the parks with light this dark period of the year.

We are heading for the number one Advent attraction, that is going to be lit this afternoon, the big candlestick ... well, I wouldn´t call it a candlestick without some slight hesitation, but there is no other word for it, is it. It doesn´t look like a candlestick but it has four chimneys .. yeah, right, representing the four candles we put in our candlestick that we put on our coffeetable that we put on ... that we keep there these four weeks and lit one candle every Sunday until Christmas arrives. (notice some trouble I had describing this in English, :-) sorry ) The chimneys are located on top of an old heating central that was used for heating up several factorybuildings included in the "Industrial Landscape", as they call it nowadays when it´s funtioning as a touristattraction, not the prosperous forestindustry it once was, of course situated in the middle of the city. This heating central is a beautiful building with high arch windows like in a churchbuilding, therefore it´s called the "Heating church" only it has not one tower but four ;-). It was actually a weird guy from Norway, who had a position in our municipality for a few years, he came up with this idea of using the building as a huge, and sensationally unusual candlestick.


The first candle was lit while eleven-year-old was busy immortalizing the big chandelier of lights that hangs under the "Old bridge", she rushed up the stairs, joyfully, just in time to get the picture of the fireworks that came along with the first candlelight. With one big sigh she burst out "It´s ok if we go home now ... ". She looked pleased and our walk had been more than an our so I understand she´d become bored.

(this post was about last week, the number two stick has already been lit. As I´ve tried to get hold of some pictures from our walk but failed, due to a sulky eleven-year-old who wants her pictures for herself, you´ll have to be content with the ones I actually got, and the picture of the "Heating Church" is not one by my daughters)

photo: Fini Bussy Broman