My Summer Heaven.

All my life, every single summer, I have traveled to our summer-place in Småland in Sweden and then stayed there for as long as possible. My children are the fourth generation to spend their holiday there. I am so grateful for this, we are extremely fortunate to have this beautiful summer-place in the family! It's placed in the middle of no-where, no traffic or neighbours, totally peaceful and quiet. Nad the Baltic sea a few meters from our little cottage. The summer place consists of four houses in total and som fields and surrounding forests (we even have our own little island!). Me and my two daughters and our two black cats live a very old cottage that was originally a very simple fishers hut, painted in the traditional Falu-red colour. It is so basic it is almost like camping for the whole summer. My mother lives in a large white and for Sweden, extremely non-typical house surrounded by a huge garden. My two uncles with their family also have a house each.

Somehow there is much more nature here than anywhere else; we live amongst eagles and herons, swans, cows, toads, lizards, dragon flies, hornets, cuckoos, doves, adders, grass-snakes. In the evening we see bats hunting and in the forest close by we see signs that there's a lot of wild boars around! We hear the deers make their funny bark and the cranes with their honking sound. We row out to a little island every day for a swim in the sea, we pick blue berries in the forest, we go visiting my friend that is a farmer.

There is no electricity or running water in any of the houses but this only adds to the charm! It is actually a relief from our ordinary city life with screens constantly turned on. In the evenings instead of the harsh electric light we have the soft glow from lighted candles! The whole experience is like something from another magical dimension.

I always feel very refreshed and inspired when I return home to our life in Gothenburg in Sweden. After returning home to Gothenburg it's usually about time for me to start drawing the collection for following autumn/winter so you can understand were I get a lot of my inspiration from!