A friend posted this today and it perfectly describes the mood of this month in northern Europe:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

by Thomas Hood

Many Swedes try and escape to warmer climates for November. Several of our friends have already left for places like the Canary Islands and Thailand to escape the gloom. I, on the other hand, would love to travel further north, to see the späckhuggare. And who or what are they? Well, you've all seen the movie Free Willy, now I'd like to travel to Björkliden to see these killer whales in the wild. I've seen posters advertising these safaris while I was wandering through Stockholm's central railway station. I think it would be a wonderful experience to see these magnificent animals up really close. But I doubt I'll ever get to do it. Apart from the cost, I'm sure Lars-Göran would thoroughly disapprove of it as something "touristy" and trite. And he HATES the cold. I've been trying to convince him to take me far enough north to see the aurora, but he says it's far more comfortable to look at pictures of them on the internet. Somehow, I think the whales will have to do without me.

Today was something of a poet's day, where you can slink off work early as tomorrow is a holiday. This often happens here in Sweden, where they not only take off the actual holiday, but also shut up shop early the day before as well. As it was also a reasonable day, Lars-Göran decided to leave off the sanding and instead we went to Södertälje for a post-lunch stroll. This town is easily reached from Stockholm by suburban train and as luck would have it, by bus from Nynäshamn.

As it was Friday, the market was in full swing in the town square. The most popular stalls seemed to be those selling pine wreaths, as tomorrow is the day that Swedes traditionally visit the graves of loved ones.



Most of the stalls were pretty uninteresting - cheap, nasty clothing like the rubbish you buy at Asian markets back home and a few selling costume jewellery. We did find a bakery stall and I bought some blåbärsknyten to have with our afternoon coffee.

We then wandered down the main mall and my eyes caught sight of another shop with a strange name:



I mean where did that name come from? It's a clothing shop not a shop full of wacko stuff. Although the tasty guy out the front looks like a bit of a wacko. Some of his mates were nearby, sitting on benches drinking vodka from bottles while the cops, wearing their cute little thunderbird hats were writing them out tickets (it's illegal to drink in some designated public places here). So maybe the name just reflects the potential pool of local customers.

After that bit of entertainment, we made our way to the beautiful medieval church of St Ragnhild.



It sits in the central part of the old town, opposite the town hall. The oldest parts of the building pre-dare the Norman conquest of Britain. Now that's what I call history. The interior of the church is also quite impressive.



We were lucky in that they had an art exhibition on there today, consisting of twenty three Orthodox Byzantine Icons. You can read about exactly what icons are here. It was really interesting to see them close up and there were explanations about why certain colours and figures were used and what they represented. This exhibition will be on here until November 14th and features the work of Bishop Johannes Makarioupolis, Stefan Jaerpenberg and Gabriel Briones.

Later we wandered along the canal area that is looking quite forlorn and empty this time of the year.



The sky gradually darkened, so we made our way back to centrum and home to Nynäshamn. I see the forecast is for clouds, rain and wind tomorrow. A perfect excuse to veg out on the couch.