How a great artist worked

I find that the Labour Exchange has a computer terminal in one corner - are there that many unemployed people travelling by plane?! - and I think I'll see how they approach these things: they think they've fixed it so you can only look for jobs there, but some of the services are only available via the local authorities, so they allow you to click on links to those. Once I arrive at our local site for Kramfors, I can go to the 'what's on' area and from there to the page for the mediaeval church which is on 'my' server, and from there I can go to any one my own sites and see what they look like to a casual visitor - highly instructive - and on to the wonderful Hirschsprung collection of Peter Krøyer's paintings, which I've enjoyed many times and wanted to delve into more deeply, but never given the time to before.

There I discover that the famous one of himself and Marie walking with the dog on the beach at Skagen is actually done from a photo ... Fascinating to see what aspects he changed - like the perspective vis à vis the horizon, the light, the folds of Marie's dress - not to mention his completely inventing both the moonlight and the dog ... In fact both the dress and Marie's mouth are horribly tight on the snap (she was by then living with Peter's melancolia and hallucinations),

but Peter eternalised something soft and lovely out of them both... [more]

I leave the Labour Exchange's kiosk in the middle of Stockholm's international airport with a lovely picture of our mediaeval church to enhance the quality of people's lives ... I wonder how long it will stay there.

Then it's time for something to eat - the worst situation to be in, a long journey so you need proper food some time, but nowhere where they do anything worth having at a price you can afford... I go up the stairs to explore a special offer from MacDonalds - and there right alongside is a place I'd never discovered before offering today's special meal, today's pizza, today's pasta, today's kebab, today's salad - any one you like with bread and butter, a drink, a side-salad and coffee, all for 60 SKr / 6 USD...

The result of that is that I slightly lose track of time, and when I finally get down onto the station platform the train is just pulling in.

Well, of course that's a whole lot better than if it were just pulling out ...