There has been a Sunday evening television program on the state channel for the last few weeks all about the Sixties. It's been interesting and fun to listen to the blasts from the past and to both relive and cringe at some of the music and fashions of that time. During one of the programs, the Elvis hit Blue Suede Shoes was mentioned and Lars-Göran confessed to me that because he had heard that the french word for Sweden was Suède, he always thought that the song was about blue Swedish shoes and had puzzled over what they could possibly be, having never seen anything remotely like them over here. I laughed heartily and asked him when he finally realised that in fact the song referred to "suede" which is a type of fabric (called mocka in Swedish). He was quiet for a few seconds and then sheepishly said "Well, it was last year when you pointed out some suede boots in the window of a shoe shop in town". Hmmm.... forty years is rather a long time to be labouring under that misapprehension!

I saw my first sign of summer over the weekend. That's right - summer. No, it wasn't anything like seeing the return of the grey geese or chaffinch (how embarrasing - I couldn't remember what they were called in English and just had to look up bofink in my dictionary!). It wasn't even spotting the first coltsfoot (tussilago) in the woods. It was in fact the sight of a rather well-endowed teenage girl dressed in a strappy, tight fitting singlet top. I know the sky was blue and the sun was shining, but it was still barely 10C! Now all I need to see is someone in tight white leggings with a black g-string on underneath it and I'll know it's time for the annual wall of shame that is Swedish summer fashions. *shudder*