Today we had vårstädning or spring cleaning in the garden of our apartment block. When Lars-Göran came back from the board meeting earlier in the week, he told me that they had decided to have the spring cleaning day NEXT weekend. But he had told them to change it to this weekend as we would not be able to go next weekend because it was the ANZAC Day picnic. I looked at him and said "Are you crazy?" and after a few moments silence, he looked a bit sheepish and admitted that maybe that wasn't his smartest moment! How can you not love a man that has no guile or dishonesty about him.



Mind you, he was sorely regretting it when I roused him out of dreamland at 8am this morning. This is really early for us on a Saturday morning. We usually like to start our Saturday slowly, with a leisurely waking up and a read in bed for a while. I know that it takes at least two hours and three cups of coffee before Lars-Göran is even vaguely ready to face the day, so the early start was essential for him to be ready by 10am, the official starting time.

The usual band of apartment owners turned up for the work - ten people, representing only 6 of the 35 apartments here. I am always surprised by the consistently poor turn-out, especially as we have a lot of apartments owned by people in their early thirties who are quite capable of spending two hours on a mild, sunny spring day helping out.

We spent the morning raking, sweeping and generally tidying up. I was raking up small sticks, twigs and leaves when I spotted a pair of magpies busy building a nest in one of the trees here. I watched while the male flew down near where I was, sorted through the undergrowth and selected a stick. He then flew up and showed it to the female who carefully scrutinised it and then placed it where she wanted it. I felt bad cleaning up all this potential nest building material, so I left quite a bit in that area and moved to another spot to clean.



Afterwards, there was a barbeque and general social get together in the garden. This is something I always enjoy as it gives us all a chance to chat about all kinds of things and get to know each other better. The group that lives here is really nice and despite the age range from late 20s to late 70s, they all get on really well.



You can see that despite it being spring, there is very little growth on the trees yet and the lawn is still in the process of reviving itself after the winter snows. In a few weeks it will all be green and lush again. Lambi had a ball running all over the garden with a few of her animal friends. At one stage there were four dogs and two cats racing around like crazy idiots. The cats get on really well with the dogs and you can see Lambi and her feline friend Skrållan checking out the bbq area hopefully.



Later in the day when we were resting back in our apartment, some children came to the door selling may flowers or Majblomman. This is the first children I've seen selling them this year, though I did see a story about Queen Silvia buying them last week. Children sell these flower pins in the early spring each year. The organisation behind this was started in 1907, with the aim of helping needy children in Sweden who suffer from illness, physical handicap or social problems. Today, the little girl only had one pin left, which we bought. I'm sure I'll buy a few more of the pretty yellow pins over the next few weeks. I like the idea of children selling them with the aim of helping other children who are not as fortunate as they are. And at only 10kr each, it is a very small price to pay.

Now bedtime, I think. I'm tired after working in the garden today and we have a family birthday party tomorrow.