Hemmablind I

The first in a series of posts.

I first heard this word hemmablind when I was in Sweden last year. It translates literally to "home blind". When you don't notice the things that surround you because you're in your familiar space. Reading a bit about it online and it feels like a lot of people take it to mean that you don't see the things that are wrong - mess, dirt, broken things - with a place, and offering suggestions on how to do home-audits to fix your home blindness.

But that wasn't at all the context I first heard it in. I was speaking to a friend about how wonderful the little coastal town I was visiting was, and she said that she was clearly hemmablind because she doesn't notice it anymore.

This sat with me for a while.

I thought about how I look at my surroundings. What I see, and what I don't see. How I look at things, and what I ignore.

Then I made a decision: put some effort into rekindling my love for where I live. Look at it and photograph it like I'm travelling. Look for the little details. Take in the beautiful buildings. Find beauty or reason in the ugly ones.

So over the next few posts, I'm going to try to look at Adelaide from a Travelling-Karloskar perspective, and share my findings with you. It'll be old photos and new. It'll be mobile-phone snaps, film photos, and digital 'good camera' photos.

We can fall (or re-fall) in love with Adelaide and its surroundings together. Starting with places to swim, because that's something that's very dear to my heart

The header photo is from one of our many west-facing beaches, which gives us the most gorgeous over-the-ocean sunsets. Our coast really is something spectacular.

Then we have lesser-known swimming spots - there aren't that many rivers around here, but the spots that exist are gorgeous. This is Punchbowl, just south of Adelaide on the Onkaparinga River.

And same river, a long way upstream in Mylor.

And the Torrens, before it becomes a polluted city-river.

The quarry.

Pier sunset.

Like I said: there's no shortage of gorgeous spots to cool off in and around Adelaide.

What a place!

Stand by for Hemmablind II.