It's a glorious sunny day again. This year has been the warmest and sunniest spring I've ever had in Sweden. Today was the 3rd day in a row that I heard birds singing outside my balcony in the bushes. It's also been warm enough to go out without gloves, scarf and/or hat and even (gasp!) to leave my jacket open in the afternoon! How liberating!



L-G's hands, however, are still really sore, so I've forbidden him from doing any more work until they improve dramatically. As I said to him yesterday, if they don't improve, we can't sail this summer. That was a bit of a wake-up call to him.

Yesterday we went off to Södertälje to help out a friend who has just purchased a boat that needs a little work on it. It is a 90 minute bus trip from here, stopping at every farmer's gate along the way. However, as the bus wends its way along the countryside, it was lovely to look out and see the emerging spring sights - birds in the woods, horses and cows sunning themselves in the fields, new green growth everywhere. And of course the inevitable Canada Geese!



They might look cute and harmless, but they are pretty much universally disliked here in Sweden. They were introduced here a few years ago in one of those misguided programs and now they have bred in plague proportions threatening the local grey goose and generally making a mess. That seems to be their biggest sin - they leave a lot of bird poop. Huge mounds of it all over the grass, making most picnic areas impossible to enjoy. Some councils have the bright idea of moving them. I'm not sure of which bright spark thought of that one - as someone seems to forget they have wings! Doh! What a big surprise when the same birds you drove away yesterday reappear in the park today. *grin*



Like to stay at this hotel? It was the first thing I saw when I got out at the station. I always laugh when I see signs like that. I said to L-G that it was refreshing to see that they were honest about it being a "bad hotel". He just rolled his eyes, as he knows that I know that bad means bath in Swedish. But still it looks odd to an English speaker.

It was warm and sunny in Södertälje. But look at that tree! And you thought I was kidding when I said Swedish Easter decorations were tacky. Can you imagine how long it would take some council worker to put all those feathers on that birch tree? And it is not an isolated case. Lots of trees are decorated like this. The mind truly boggles at the thought.

Anyway we spent some time with our young friend who is very excited about his new boat. Randall is an American musician living in Stockholm and he is going to equip his boat to sail to the Mediterranean this summer. The boat is really cute - a 6 metre called a Hurley 20. This boat is in need of some TLC, but L-G thinks it's a sound boat and was a brilliant price. We took away some bits and pieces of rigging in order to arrange for a rigging expert here to make up some missing parts and we've advised Randall about things that need to be done. The boat goes in the water on April 22nd (the same day that Sandy arrives here!) and I guess we'll go and help put on the mast, rigging and sails and help him get the boat the 34 NM to Stockholm where he can work on her more easily.

It's my stepdaughter's 20th birthday tomorrow and we are having a family party for her on the weekend (tomorrow I have to go into town and buy her something!). I was thinking about the sheer number of words that the Swedes have to describe family relationships. Here in Sweden you can tell exactly who you are talking about. In that way, English is a bit poor, really. We talk about niece, nephew, grandparents etc but in Swedish those words depend on exactly how that person is related to you. So your brother's son is brorson, that of your sister systerson — and then there is brorsdotter and systerdotter for your nieces.

With grandparents, it is even more specific. The word for father is far and mother is mor. So you get farfar, mormor, farmor and morfar depending on whether it is your mum or dad's parents.

Great-grandparents are much the same farfars far, farfars mor, farmors far, farmors mor, morfars far, morfars mor, mormors far, mormors mor. Confused? That last one sounds like a Kylie Minogue song.

But Swedes also have words that we don't have in English and this was what I was getting at. In English, I'd be the step-mother of L-G's kids. That has evil sort of Cindarella connotations. While they do have that formal word styvmor, there is also plastmamma (literally, plastic mother) and finally, my favourite, bonusmamma, which means exactly what you think it does.