Our roadtrip to the Dolomites and Lago di Garda has left us with great memories and a well stocked wine cellar. This was the third visit to Bolzano and the Trentino – Alto Adige province of Italy, and we’ve really taken to it. The odds are pretty high that we will do it again next year.

However, there is no place like home.

Ah, summer in Sweden – the clean air, the uncrowded spaces, and the unpredictable weather. Clear skies and sunshine one moment, torrential rain, fierce winds, and thunderstorms the next. Sometimes they pass in a few hours, sometimes they stay all summer, and sometimes a bit longer. Summer is short and we live for those few precious days when it’s perfect and there is no other place on earth you would rather be. The anxiety over the uncertainty, knowing how sweet it can be but never being sure that it will be, gives rise to the Swedish Melancholy.

Back in Göteborg, after our marathon continetal drive, we wash the road dust out of our clothes and head straight for the summer house the very next day. Peace and quiet. No more driving, sleep until we wake up, breakfast on the verandah, and swimming in the sea.

The weather so far this summer is OK. Some really windy days, a littler rain, but quite a few warm sunny days. A few even warmer days that culminate in thundery squalls, but they pass, they don’t linger, and the sun returns.

I’ve been taking photographing birds in the bush. It’s meditative. You need patience to sit and just observe. They’re quick, the little buggers. Hard to focus, but sometimes you get lucky. I will keep trying.