I hate it when I dream that I've woken up from a bad dream, but then the alarm goes off sometime later and I have to do the whole wake up thing again, only for real. That's happened the last two mornings, so tonight I'm going to have to program my brain not to do that. Anyone know how to program a brain? It can't be much harder than purl can it?

I should have known better last night than to take out my snowman socks to wear today. We awoke to snow- a lot of it. I admit I had begun to hope for spring after those sunny, above freezing days last week. *sigh*

What bothers me most at this time of the year is the constant snow, followed by warmer temperatures. This is just enough to melt the snow and make lots of slush, which then freezes hard and gets polished over. The result is that I have to walk gingerly (much like a woman that's about to give birth) on my way to the shop and back. Not one of nature's more enchantingly graceful sights I can tell you.

My friend's cat is sitting in a bag you only see once a year here. The buses, trains and underground have been filled this week with people carrying similar shopping bags from the various bookshops in town: a sure sign that it is time for Sweden's annual book sale. This practice began in the 1920s when publishers wanted to get rid of remaindered books.

These days they even print extra and special editions, and on opening night (February 24th), many bookshops opened their doors at midnight for a few hours for book lovers.

The first year I was in Sweden we journeyed into to Stockholm in -16C temperatures and braved the snow for the midnight opening. At that time, I'd only been in Sweden for two months, so I knew no Swedish and didn't buy anything, though I enjoyed the spectacle of queues of people braving the late hour in Arctic conditions all in the name of literature!

In a land where about 40 percent of the population reads a book for an average of 55 minutes on any given day (according to statistics from the Swedish Writers' Union), this sale is a big thing. But we're not talking huge numbers - in a market of some 9 million Swedish speakers, a book that sells 10,000 copies is a best-seller, more or less. But, you've got to love a country where a book sale is eagerly awaited by nearly half the population.

This year, we weren't quite crazy enough to be there at midnight, but we did trek through a blizzard to buy books. Well, I kind of tell a lie there, because we actually took the bus, but it WAS snowing like hell! And that didn't stop the Swedish public either, because the book stores were crammed, bless their literate little hearts!

This is the first year that I feel confident enough reading Swedish to tackle Swedish books. And for the first time since 2000, we had money to spend on booooooks! I bought Moberg's Utvandrarna (the Emigrants) series, two volumes containing the four novels, a book of boring postcards (it's hilarious!), John Bauers Sagovärld's Det var en gång... (I'm drooling over his illustrations) and a guide book of parks and gardens in Sweden.

I was tempted to buy lots of other books, but I resisted. Though maybe I'll go back to see if there is a copy left of Karin Boye's poetry. Boooooooooks! I'm a happy woman.