I’ve just returned from an amazing first visit to the Baltic where I finally got to meet dear Swedish relatives! How wonderful to share greetings and family spirit with about a dozen or so DNA-like individuals! We gathered at Hossna Church cemetery not far from Ulricehamn to visit great grandfather and other family member’s gravesites on a sparkling Swedish summer day, surrounded by forests of deep green spruce, purple lupines, white and yellow wildflowers.

On the return flight, new Scandinavian characters revealed themselves out of the blue and I’m adding them to my current work in progress. Here’s a secret, Brun’s name (Brun is Rhose Guerin’s husband in Yellow Pansies) is derived from the 300-year-old-plus family farm, Brunsered. Other Scandinavian named characters are sure to follow.

And of course once more I was surprised by the appearance of yellow pansies, appearing along the way in Tallinn, Estonia, and Ulricehamn, Sweden … yet more acknowledgement for Yellow Pansies in a Blue Cobalt Jar.