Today is one of those days when I need to cover myself in green fur and move into a rubbish bin. Then everyone would know I'm grouchy and just leave me alone. Why? Well, on the weekend we installed Windows XP on my computer. And I lost my favourite website links. I did get some words of wisdom from Kate after the event:

Next time remember this - you need to EXPORT your favorites to a file and IMPORT them after the upgrade. See under the File menu on Explorer. Don't trust that they will just come across.

Next time? There is not going to be a next time!

But I don't want to talk about that. This morning, the sky was a perfect robin's-egg blue. Sunshine so sharp you could get paper cuts on your eyes if you were not careful. And cold, man was it COLD. It has clouded over somewhat, but that still does not detract from the beauty of the place.

You can see from the photograph that there is a sense of peace and calmness about this little town. The view from here, across the water to the nearby island to the east, the woods behind us to the west, the archipelago to the north and to the south of this point is open water.

The little house you see pictured is called a lusthus. No, not what you are thinking. Lust in Swedish means more contentment from pleasure. These little places to sit and contemplate are very popular here in Sweden and are to be found dotted along many quiet spots.



This is a view looking across Svandammen (the Swan Lake) across to the church. The blanket of snow you see on the ground is the lake. It had completely frozen over and last night's snowfall is sitting there. I guess the council will be done later on to polish up the surface as it is a popular place for the kids to skate around and play ice-hockey. It still amazes me to see the kids on the ice. Even quite small children have no trouble shating along. How can they do it? One of life's little mysteries.

I was coming home from the railway station last week and I passed a poster advertising the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. This museum is probably the number one attraction in Stockholm and contains the remains of the warship Vasa, which was lost on her maiden voyage in 1628.

What made me do a double take and return for a photograph was the writing on the poster! I mean what a stereotypical Aussie name! And the comment really cracked me up! I wonder what impression the Swedes will have of us now? But it was quite funny to see it there - a little reminder of home.

There is a lot of stuff on here this week for Australia Day. On Saturday there was the function at the International School in Stockholm. This event is jointly run by the school, the Australian-New Zealand Friendship Society, The Southern Cross Club and The Stockholm Australian Football Club. It is very well attended with around 200 or so coming along to help us fly the flag. There is a lot of free food and drink, a few speeches and a lot of information about Australia and Australian products. Also there was the amazing performer Gavin Alexa.

Last night there was a Beach Party at The Dancin' Dingo pub. Thursady we have an opening of an exhibition of work of the Australian artistSimon Andrews in Stockholm. And then on the weekend it is tiny little Nynäshamn's turn. Yes, we have our own Australian artist living here in Nynäshamn!

Imagine my surprise when I looked at our little local newspaper and saw on the front page "Australiskt på Kroken". Of course, I immediately turned to page 10 and saw that John Dullaway, an artist born and raised in Sydney was now living here in Nynäshamn! Not only that, he is having an exhibition of his paintings in one of the local restaurants, Kroken, by the fishing harbour.

His paintings are inspired by his childhood memories of holidays spent in the bush north of Sydney and incorporate the dot painting techniques we see in aboriginal art as well as the x-ray look at animals. There was a big article about it in the paper. The opening is on Saturday, so I'll go and say hello and take a squizz at the paintings. How freaky to find someone from Australia living here in this tiny town. I have seen his work before, a couple of years ago at an exhibition here, but I hadn't realised that he was living locally. At that stage I could not read very much Swedish, so I didn't look at the artist blurb at all.

So that is the excitement for this week. Life continues much as normal. Lars-Göran is busy working on the boat so it will be ready for summer sailing. I see him looking at books about the Faroe Islands, so I hope he doesn't have any ambitions to sail there. As Bruce and Sheila as well as Lambi have to go with us, there may be quarantine issues. Are we mad taking the birds on a boat trip?

Last week, I almost bought yet another bird. We went to the pet shop to buy Lambi a harness. I don't like her collar, so we changed it for a harness that we can attach the leash to. Well, while we were there, we saw a green parrot with ATTITUDE! You could just tell that it was stubborn, grouchy and determined to have his own way. He strutted around the cage, casually leafing through the food with his feet, picking out the best bits and scooping the rest onto the floor distainfully. What a scream. I'd LOVE to own a moody pet like that.

I leave you with a picture taken from school, looking towards the harbour area. You can see the church, and the funnel of the Gotland Ferry that is coming in to dock at the terminal. A very typical winter view of Nynäshamn.

Till next time.