Today, it's Trettondagen jul (the thirteenth day of Christmas) and a public holiday. No work. Who-hoo! For those of us brought up in religious households, we know this day as the Epiphany or sometimes Three Kings' Day, celebrating the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus. In Australia, it was the day that Christmas decorations were taken down, signifying the end of the Christmas season (and the beginning of Cadbury Creme Eggs being on sale). Here in Sweden, that day is next week, as an ancient king called Knut declared that the Christmas season should last twenty days and so the official julgransplundring is on the 13th of January.

There seem to be no rituals associated with the day today and some people do take down their decorations and pack them away. I prefer to wait as I love to see the tree glittering in the corner and enjoy the stars in the windows, even though it is getting lighter and lighter as the days go by. Amazingly, as fast as the darkness came, it's retreating just as quickly and there are real signs that spring is here.

We started off the day in lazy fashion, having breakfast while watching the highlights we taped of last year's Archipelago Raid. It was wonderful to see these boats navigating through the Stockholm and Åland archipelagoes, racing the clock and the conditions in a real test of skill and endurance. We are really familiar with the waters covered by the course and made a note to be somewhere around when they compete this August. They made an overnight stop here in Nynäshamn last year, but I think this year we may try and catch them further north or in Åland.

The weather has been something of a puzzle. We had a cold snap back in November with temperatures hovering around -10C and a lot of snow, but that was very shortlived and it has rarely been really cold at all since. In fact today, it is +7C with +10C predicted for tomorrow, which is unheard of in January. Compare these shots taken a year apart.

This is Fagerviken on January 5th 2004:



Looks normal Swedish winter conditions - snow, grey skies, sea frozen over, but still wonderfully beautiful. The year before was even colder at -15C. I clearly remember a friend from Sydney was over here (and she'll kill me for saying this) and wearing the most ridiculous thin gloves and coat and she turned into a block of ice before our eyes. Well, Kirsty, take a look at Fagerviken yesterday:



I'm sure she'll email me now and say something like That was so NOT the place I visited. It looks very spring like. Even the trees are starting to sprout new shoots in response to the mild conditions and I've seen big flocks of happy little sparrows forraging for seeds and food in the grass outside.

Lars-Göran tells me that sometimes they have these mild "English winters". That made me laugh out loud as I've spent time in England in the winter and there is so much more miserable rain than we get here. Edited to add: Kate sent me a marvellous quote about this from Le Carre's latest novel "The England that waits young Mundy is a rain-swept cemetary for the living dead powered by a forty-watt bulb." Yes, that's what I remember!

I challenged him about his earlier prediction that we were going to be in for a long, hard, cruel winter as there were so many of those rowanberries around in the autumn. He claims that I should wait a bit. He's sure that we are still in for it. I can't decide if he's serious or in a Ingmar Bergman mood. We have a saying in English that for every cloud there is a silver lining. I sometimes think that the Swedes take the opposite view: that for every silver lining there is a cloud. And a dark one at that. Still, time will tell who was right. I'm enjoying these balmy, calm days while I can.



The good news about the mild weather is that Lars-Göran has been down working on the hull every day and it is almost fully sanded (which is amazing!). He's also been working hard inside the boat with a lot of jobs that have been put off while she was in the water. Of course, he's also a bit annoyed that it's such perfect sailing weather and Fiona is up on land. I know he is itching to be out on the water again. There is a special feel to life on the boat - a whole different time frame and freedom from stress.

In more sobering news, confusion and sadness still envelops Sweden as the numbers still missing in the tsunami disaster unfold and Sweden brings home her dead. It still feels very unreal and I think it will take the country quite a while to recover from this.