This is the last Wednesday of the month and I am posting what I was up to that month for the past five years. I hope you enjoy the trip down the memory lane with me.
2004, Stockholm
2005, Dublin/Helsinki
2006, Dublin
The Kampfrau gown's debut and my first Raglan Faire
2007, Stockholm
2008, Stockholm
In my excitement over the kitten I forgot to tell the story.
When we took Mao to C's brother, they mentioned that the neighbours' cat had recently had kittens and one had not been spoken for. I asked if I could see the kitten, and the neighbours gladly showed the kittens to us.
They were only three weeks old at that point and would not be available till they were 12 weeks old. The remaining kitten was grey with white markings and adorable as only a kitten can be. The owners referred to it as 'she', but when I checked it was clearly a 'he'.
I may have been hasty, but I decided to get him anyway. One couldn't see much of his personality, but I felt it was right to get him. So we booked him and were told that he'd be ready around 21st of September.
Then, last week we got a call saying that the kittens had weaned and were ready to be adopted. We fetched him on Thursday and I spend the whole Friday keeping an eye on him to see how he adjusted to the move and the other cats. By Sunday night he had the free reign of the flat and there was occasional hissing when he got too close to the only female.
When it comes to personality, he is perfect. Happy, inquisitive, friendly, playful and cuddly. I could not have made a better choice! He may or may not be a lap cat, only time will tell that, but if he keeps his cheerful disposition, all will be well.
I'd decided not to think up a name for the kitten before I'd brought him home in case it wouldn't fit. So he was nameless until I found 'happy' in a language we could all pronounce that wasn't English or Swedish. When I was asked what happy was in Estonian and I answered: "would you be able to say õnnelik?", the answer was "no".
I checked several languages, but 'happy' seems to be a word that can't be turned into a name that easily. I'd almost given up when I thought of Irish Gaelic and it had the perfect words: sonasach and sona. Both mean 'happy' and thus provide the short and long form of the name. Thanks to the wonders on the Internet, one can even listen to the pronunciations of these words on-line. That's an excellent thing because I wasn't entirely sure how they were pronounced and one can't be too careful with a language that writes 'eoin' but says 'owen'.
Little Sona is the most adorable kitten in the world and I'm completely in love. May he live a long and healthy life without being passed from owner to owner. I really hope I do not have to give him up too.
Yesterday we fetched the kitten that we booked when we gave Mao away.
He has no name yet, but that will come in time.
Last Wednesday was our company's yearly kick-off. This time it was held in Vaxholm Kastell, a fort in archipelago. It was raining during the first part of the day, but cleared up during evening. That was fortunate, because the morning activities took place inside and we could explore during our free time without being soaked.
The kick-off contained the usual selection of activities: talks, team building exercise and fancy supper. The team building exercises were actually fun this time and the team I was in came second, it counts as winning in my book because our prises were chocolate-dipped truffles. The first prise was a bottle of champagne. I much prefer chocolate to alcohol, so our team got the best prises.
I'm still experimenting with my new camera and this event was perfect to get a feeling for the range of photos. There are a bazillion automatic settings to choose from, which is good because I'd totally get lost id I had to adjust the aperture, shutter speed, etc. myself.
Enough babbling, on with the pictures.
We'd just finished the team activities and I used the break to go to the top of the tower to see if I saw anything interesting. It was raining a bit, so I snapped a few photos of the various views until the rain became heavier and made me retreat.
While I was waiting for the rain to abate, I noticed the interesting effect raindrops had as the were bouncing off the first step. This is how the rain looked with fast shutter speed. Not quite the effect I was after.
So I changed back to slower shutter speed. Ah! Much better. Pretty, isn't it?
A colleague and I took a walk in the afternoon around the island shooting various sights. This is Badholmen.
I also experimented some more with the camera. This pebble is shot with the "Food" plus super macro mode. Look at that detail!
It was just too beautiful and quirky, not to take a picture.
There was lighting all around the fort. This picture was taken with the "Day landscape" mode during our second walk after the supper.
This is shot towards mainland from the shore with "Night landscape" mode.
All in all, I had an excellent (if tiring) day, completely fell in love with my camera and decided to buy a tripod for those long night time shots. Thank you for recommending this model, A!