One important adjustment I had to make when I came to Sweden was the way people cross the road. In Australia, we tend to cross the road wherever we like. There are a few zebra crossings in busy areas and of course there are special school crossings, but in general you wait for a break in the traffic and then cross over. The onus is on the pedestrian to look out for the cars.

In Sweden, however, people cross over at designated crossings which are found even on quiet suburban streets. I discovered this by accident (almost literally) on the day after I arrived. My husband believes in throwing one in the deep end, so despite my jetlag, he announced that I was to drive from now on and he happily planted himself in the passenger side with his laptop! Gee, thanks... It was quite difficult for me to drive on the wrong side of the road, sitting on the wrong side of the car and in the snow. To add a touch of excitement to the already tense mix, pedestrians kept stepping out in front of the car, glaring at me and expecting me to stop. This was completely foreign to what I was used to and after I nearly ran a couple of them over Lars-Göran seriously began to wonder whether drivers licences in Australia were handed out on the back of Corn Flakes packets.

I protested that I was an experienced driver, but that Swedish pedestrians had some kind of strange suicide wish as they just stepped out onto the road into the path of oncoming cars. It was at this point that Lars-Göran showed me the signs at the side of the road, which mark pedestrian crossings.

Ahhhhhh.......

After a while, one gets used to the sight of the little man crossing the road and you learn to keep an eye out for potential victims, err...I mean people intending to cross over.




Something else that has a high priority in Sweden is equal rights for women. While there is still a way to go, efforts to achieve gender equality have progressed further in many sectors of Swedish society than in perhaps any other country. There are efforts geared towards equality in the labour force, equal pay as well as shared responsibilities with child-rearing and household work. There is also a recognition of gender issues in advertising and only recently, Jysk (a bedding and manchester chain store) was rapped over the knuckles for this campaign, where they advertised "Blue for boys and pink for girls" pjs.

As in Australia, there have been some efforts to choose neutral, non-gender specific names for words like "spokesman" but the traffic crossing signs still retain the male figure. Well, perhaps not everywhere anymore. While walking down Kungsgatan, a major street in central Stockholm, I saw that some of the signs have been "remodelled" to look female.

Somebody obviously has a lot of time on their hands




I admit that when I first saw the signs, I thought of Lars-Göran's 21 year old daughter, Annelie, who I would classify as a feminist "with attitude". I could well imagine her and a few of her friends taking it upon themselves to "correct" the signs.

I remember one night when the kids were all over for dinner, I had shooed everyone out into the living room while I fixed coffee and did the dishes. Annelie turned around and faced her father, asking him why he wasn't going to do the dishes, since I had cooked and served the meal.

"Do you think that because you have a penis that you are excused from household work?" she continued.

It was interesting to see everyone's response to this. Poor Lars-Göran wore a startled look, similar to a deer caught in the car's headlights. Micke, her 30 year old brother just rolled his eyes and sighed muttering "Here we go again". John, who is 25 started to snigger and 22 year old Madde looked embarrassed and hissed "Annelie! Do you have to talk like that all of the time?"

Before it all got out of hand, I intervened and told her that her father was great at sharing household work and the reason he wasn't helping tonight was that as it was not so often that we had all four kids here together, I thought he should enjoy their company while he had the chance.

So you can see why I might think that she and her more arty, creative feminist friends might be involved. I'll have to ask her if she knows anything about it.




It continues to be warm (well... for November in Sweden) but quite drizzly. It is the sort of rain which is just a step beyond fog. It's so light that it seems to hover in the air for a moment. But it's rain nonetheless. While I tend to dislike November weather, there are some good things to savour. The days can be crisp and fresh, the leaves are beautiful and at night everything is cold and you can smell firewood. When the mist descends, it's both melancholic and mercurial.

For those of you who don't live here, yes, it rains a lot in autumn. Not huge downpours and rarely do we get thunder and lightening, but often we have a fairly steady mist or light rain.









Walking through the woods at this time of the year when the mist encloses you and the leaves rustle beneath your feet is a time of contemplation and listening for me. It is also a time to revel in the layers of the earth which reveal themselves as I brush my feet through the fallen leaves and I am always thrilled by the textures and colours I see.

The autumn always encourages me to look below the surface of my life and discover the layers built up over the year. It is a time to consider what needs to be let go and what will help me survive the coming darker, dormant days through the winter.




Often there are surprises when I brush my foot through fallen leaves. I discover signs of life in shape of a scurrying beetle, some fallen fruit or fungi finding shade and sustenance in the most inhospitable places. I always stop and spend a moment getting to know what I am looking at.

I try and take this practice into my daily life as well, especially when looking beneath the layers of my own life and I am often surprised that not only is there life in the most unpromising environment but often beauty brought about by the transformation of letting go that which has run its natural course.