Today it's great weather - for ducks! Or maybe not even for them, if this picture taken at lunchtime by the fishing pier is anything to go on:



After several days of lovely soft, powdery, fluffy snow and just when it was looking so pure and white, the temperature rose to 0C and it rained instead. The horrible sleet and ice that turned our lovely white billows into slushy quagmires.



Lars-Göran took the above picture a couple of days ago. This old farmhouse is on the road to the boat club and yes, in the middle of town. You would swear that you were deep in the country if you look at it. He says it reminds him a lot of his childhood visits to his grandfather's farm in Vasa, Finland. He often stops to look at the house and remember those times. There is a lot about this area that reminds him of Finland.

Today we went to an art exhibition opening here in Nynäshamn. What made this very special was that the artist is also Australian and living right here in town! Boy was he surprised to meet me. :)

I read about the exhibition in the paper and was really delighted that there was another Aussie in town. Somehow it felt less isolating, even though I'd never met him. I had however bought these two postcards pictured here from our local tourist shop. I recognised the aboriginal style dot painting technique immediately and was surprised to see it on Swedish animals. When I asked about the artist, I was told he was an Australian who lived right here.

Well, we went to the opening at Kroken down at the fishing harbour (and right past those ducks!). I introduced myself to the artist and we chatted away for a while. His name is John Dullaway and he comes from a little place called Wondabyne, on the banks of the Hawksbury River north of Sydney.

He has been in Sweden 16 years! And I can tell you that he has lost none of his Aussie accent. You would have sworn that he stepped off the plane yesterday. We talked about his artwork, the inspiration that he found in Australian aboriginal carvings he saw around the area he grew up and how he continues this theme in his work here in Sweden. Most of his work is Australian motifs, though we had a giggle together about the moose one. He doesn't like it and generally finds more connection with Australian fauna.

He was delightful, chatty, friendly and we swapped contact details and will get together again - and certainly for summer sailing. He may not have known me, but he knew our boat. With her name emblazoned on the side and so much long-distance sailing equipment, she's a bit hard to miss!

As you can see, the opening was well attended.



This was Lars-Göran's first look at this style of art and he was duly impressed. He was quite taken with a large peacock painting and absolutely speechless when he took a closer look and saw it was made up of millions of dots! He's never seen anything like it before. The ones I liked were one of a crocodile and one of some water birds. Lars-Göran liked the one of the lacy monitor lizard. But we both agreed that the piece that was stunning was a wonderful painting in black, red and white of a beautiful sea slug known as a Spanish Dancer. Words cannot convey how impressed I was by the three dimensional effect and the degree of life and movement he captured in that work. From eavesdropping on the conversations around us, I learned that many others shared this admiration as well.

There was food and drink - our own locally brewed Bedarö Bitter and Landsort Lager from Nynäshamns ångbryggeri. And we were entertained as well by some didgeridoo playing by Jan Sak. It brought a tear to my eye to hear the piece "Sunrise" with those evocative calls of the currawong, magpie and kookaburra. What I found amazing too was looking at him playing this instrument with the snow and sleet pelting down in the window behind him. It somehow seemed quite bizarre.

I also chatted to a couple of teachers from our local adult education centre. They were also surprised that another Australian would choose to leave those sunny shores to live in the land of the long grey cloud. I had trouble keeping a straight face when one of them told me his name was Odd. I got a mental picture of him introducing himself in Australia with "Hello, I'm Odd" and nearly burst out laughing.

He was intrigued by the Aussie spectacle of the Todd River Henley-On-Todd regatta and asked how we manage to dream up things like that. Here in Sweden, if there was no water, the even would be held somewhere else where there WAS water. It would never occur to them to modify the boats and do without the water. As I told him, I think we are genetically wired for silliness at birth.

We stayed a couple of hours and then headed for home. After all, you can see who was anxiously waiting for us! Lambi cracks me up at times. We live half a flight up from street level and so it is a perfect height for her to sit on her basket at the kitchen table and check out what is going on around town. After all, she's as nosy as I am!

I love the expression on her face. That "And what time do you call this?" look that we are so familiar with from teenage days when we tried to push that midnight curfew, only to find mum waiting up in her embarrassing pink chenile dressing gown and curlers in her hair! Lambi at least spares us the sartorial humiliation.

And in my quest for the quirky, have any of you read The Sneeze yet? I hadn't, until today, and I didn't know what I was missing until I did. Of particular note, mostly because I laughed until I got stomach cramps, were the Steve, Don't Eat It columns: here and here. And I would like to state now that if I am ever served these that I will puke pre-emptively.

And so I don't end on that note (are you back from the bathroom, yet, Sue?) I'll also tell you about a great panorama blog I found. It is by an Aussie, Peter Murphy. He takes really interesting 360 degree shots of some wonderful places around Australia. I just never get sick of looking at pictures of Australia. So if you want to look at something different, check out Panoramic VR Weblog. There is so much energy in these shots - I loved the pelicans being fed at the Sydney Fish Markets and also the day at the races. Really impressive panoramas.

Till next time!