If I ever needed a reminder that I am married to the world’s most wonderful man, Sunday was one of those days that really brought it home to me – yet again.

You may have received the very slight, subtle, barely visible impression (okay, it was more like the a-la-sledgehammer sort of subtle) that I’m not really a happy camper at the moment. What with the combination of my least favourite month, the hassles with the renovations going on in our apartment building and the shortcomings of living aboard a sailing boat as winter approaches, my mood has been somewhat subdued lately. I do try and keep positive, keep in mind that it will soon be over and try and look at ways I can help myself, but it can be a pain at times. I was feeling a bit like I was living in limbo.

I guess I’m the sort of person who has a strong nesting instinct, someone who likes to have a secure base around them. If I feel that security, I can then feel confident to venture out and enjoy what Sweden has to offer – to grow and to learn and to see something of value in every new experience and challenge I come across.

But that’s not how I’ve felt lately.

And poor Lars-Göran has had to bear the brunt of my changing moods. No, I’m not yelling, screaming, throwing things or sulking. It’s more that I was sad and a little lethargic. I didn’t want to go back to the chaos of the flat, even just to see the progress. Can you blame me, when I opened the front door to be confronted by the hallway looking like this?



I was getting tired of the trek to the shower, even though I should be grateful that I have clean, hot water to bathe in. Taking a shower at the moment involves rugging up well in coat, boots, hat, scarf and gloves and tramping along 200m of slippery pier, then a 15 minute walk to our clubhouse to use their facilities. Repeat on the return journey, but not with wet hair as I discovered the other day, when I had frozen rasta-style dreads after a few minutes outside. It’s not really an inviting prospect when it is dark and snowing.

And with the sheer amount of extra stuff you need to have in order to survive an industrial strength Swedish winter, it is getting a little cramped on the boat. And yes, I know I should be grateful that we have somewhere warm and cosy to live.

I worry about keeping everything warm and dry enough for the dog and the birds, who must live on the boat with us.

I also miss having my broadband connection and daily interaction with my friends online. In fact, some people are writing to see if I'm still alive as I've been so quiet.

In fact, I’m not as “at home” on the boat as I am in the summer and I don’t have the comfort of a land-based home either. Yep, I’m feeling a tad sad and isolated. I keep looking longingly at tickets back to Australia for Christmas. But with just the plane tickets at over 11,000SEK each, it is not a viable option. And anyway, what would be do with the pets? Besides, no-one can solve a problem by simply running away from it, can they? So I grit my teeth and soldier on.

Lars-Göran has been popping home to the flat several evenings this week for a couple of hours at a time. I never asked why, though I understood he wanted to ring his mother, to check the progress of the builders etc. And he brought back pictures to show that now the plasterers have finished:



And that the new cistern system for the toilet is in place, ready for the tiling work to be done:



On Sunday, it was skyltsöndag – the first day of Advent – where the local shops light up their Christmas window displays for the first time and people set up their window decorations. I love this time as the extra lights really brighten up the town, which glitters in the darkness like a little fairy village. Lars-Göran told me that I should accompany him back to the flat that day and on the way we could look at the town lights. I was lukewarm to the idea of going home (it just doesn’t feel like home at the moment) but happy enough to enjoy the skyltsöndag displays around centrum.

Imagine my surprise to find that my darling man, knowing how down I’ve been feeling and knowing how childishly enamoured I am about Christmas, had cleared out a lot of the crap clogging our living room, has cleaned the room and (best of all), he has set up the beautiful brass stars and advent lights in the windows.

It feels like home again, at least in that room. I was so happy, I cried.

I have the very best husband! He’s strong, helpful, considerate and so hard-working. Mind you, I could do with a little less bluntness and honesty sometimes, but it's a small price to pay. I feel truly blessed.

Our first big snowfall arrived yesterday morning and looking out of the boat window, I saw my town looking so pretty dressed in white.



I feel so cheered now and looking forward to moving home in a few short weeks. Meanwhile, it’s Christmas market time on the weekend, I’ve started with the evening glögg ritual again and I’m looking forward to meeting up with some of my friends for a shopping, lunch and gossip session later in the week.

Life is looking so much brighter again, thanks to my man. So keep in mind that it's always darkest before dawn (which means that if you're going to steal your neighbour's newspaper, that's the time to do it).

The King and Queen of Sweden (Carl XVI Gustaf and Sylvia) have recently been on an official visit to Australia. Aren’t they smart to have found a way to escape from Swedish November? I know what you are thinking – Marie’s just jealous. And you’d be absolutely right!

As part of the tour, they came to my home town of Adelaide to visit the offices of SAAB. Some friends who were there sent me some photos they took on the day, including this charming one of the queen with some of the children she met.



As usual, Queen Silvia looks cool, elegant and stunning. And aren’t those kids gorgeous waving their Swedish and Australian flags while sipping on their fruit juice? So cute and so casual, even though they are meeting royalty.

I’m actually wondering if I should volunteer to accompany the royal couple next time as a sort of cultural adviser and taste tester. I mean we don’t want them to make the old Waltzing Matilda faux pas, do we? There’d be a riot. I can also do a quality check on the Farmers’ Union Iced Coffee, the Balfour’s Frog Cakes, the Perryman’s Pies, the Arnott’s Tim Tams, the Golden North honey-flavoured icecream, all of the McLaren Vale, Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley and South-East region wines, the Kangaroo Island cheeses and each and every stall at the Central Market. Just to make sure that the products top quality, you understand. Purely in the interests of maintaining a continuing good relationship between Australia and Sweden. I’d be so perfect for the job! Especially if they go in November.

Meanwhile in the northern hemisphere......

The grey, damp weather continues to sap my will. I’m so pleased that Advent starts tomorrow and people will begin cracking out the chrissie lights to cheer up the scene. Poor Lars-Göran had to haul out the crane this week to raise three boats – several weeks after everything had been packed away for the season. First there was a motor boat that was transported here from Stockholm:



Then the following day, a sailing boat that came up from Malmö. And yesterday, another large yacht that had to wait for a heavy-duty crane to be available as it is so wide and heavy – well over the ten ton limit we have on the club’s crane.

He’s packed the crane away for winter again, so I hope that will be the last lift until next spring as it is getting too cold and dark to be hanging around working on the wharf.



This is definitely couch weather.

That's it. There's nothing more witty or more descriptive about this post than the title - I hate November.

Please make it stop. November has been far too extended for my liking and I just don't think I like the way it's heading.

Darkness.
Rain.
Grey.
No apartment.
Fog.
Chronically late trains.
Living in limbo.
Empty purse with Christmas approaching.
Sunrise at 8am.
Sunset at 3.30pm.
Seven months to Midsummer.

Ummm... yes... November.
November is evil and a blight on our existence.
Is it over, yet?
Of course not.

I know what you are thinking. What has she got to complain about. And yes, I do know that there are people in the world who don't have a place to live in nor even enough money to take a train. There are people without clean water to drink; there are even people - God forbid - who have to scramble and fight and sweat for every meagre scrap of food so that they can feed themselves and their children, because of drought, or flood, or civil war.

But this blog isn't about those people. It's about me. And I am grumpy, because of bloody November. So let me whinge in peace.

There. That’s better.



On a more positive note, I’ve become addicted to a new delicious tea called Vinter te (Winter Tea). It is a blend of fine Sri Lankan tea, spiced with cinnamon, pepper, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. Lars-Göran’s daughter brought me some when she last came to visit and it is wonderful to smell that tempting aroma as it brews. The tea came in a beautiful box made of plaited palm leaves and was the perfect gift for me. It has been a bright point in the long, dark month.

Come on December with your lights, candles, Lucia buns, glögg, markets and season of good cheer.

We have had our first snow for the season, and while it hasn’t really been THAT cold, I couldn’t resist the exaggeration of comparing it to Siberia. We were sitting in the living room of some good friends and when I glanced out of the window in the late afternoon darkness and I saw the flakes floating gently down. It looked so beautiful and I gasped with joy and did a small mental happy dance. I dared not look too smug because Lars-Göran looked at the white vista outside and held his head in his hands, crying out “Noooooooo!” He informs me that he was already sick of winter last week. Oh dear.

We had a lovely day out in Stockholm with some good friends. The day itself was cold, clear and crisp and we all enjoyed being out in the fresh air (well rugged up, naturally!). We began the day in central Stockholm at the National Museum of Fine Arts at Södra Blasieholmshamnen. I was interested in seeing the exhibition The Dutch Golden Age, with paintings by Rembrandt, Frans Hals and their contemporaries. I have just finished reading Tracy Chevalier’s excellent book Girl With A Pearl Earring, which is set in Vermeer van Delft’s time, so I felt well and truly in the mood for more Dutch art.

It was a huge exhibition, with paintings gathered from galleries all over Europe. Some of the paintings I’d seen before at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and at the Louvre in Paris, but many were new to me and we spent a couple of hours admiring and discussing the paintings while wandering around the spacious rooms of the museum. I always enjoy coming here and admiring this beautiful nineteenth century building, with views from the big picture windows across the water to the Royal Palace.



We then drove around to Skeppsholmen and from there, walked across the bridge to the tiny islet of Kastellholmen, with it’s citadel built to protect the entrance to Stockholm, offering a fine view of Djurgården across the waters of Saltsjön.



Stockholm is a striking city in all seasons and well deserves its title of “the Venice of the north”. Water is such a dominant feature of life here and you are always aware of being in an island in this pretty water world. I also enjoy wandering around the city with Lars-Göran and Lennart because they both love Stockholm, know it intimately and can point out interesting places, facts about buildings and talk about the historical areas with such enthusiasm that it brings alive any excursion we take.

From Kastellholmen we looked back to Skeppsholmen (The Ship’s Island), another of the very historic areas of the city that used to house the naval fleet. Today, the island has a rich cultural life, housing several parks, museums, art galleries as well as being the venue for the huge jazz festival held here every summer. The buildings are well preserved and offer water views from every angle.



Turning slightly to our right, we can glimpse Strandvägen – considered the poshest address in Stockholm. And is it any wonder, with these glorious old buildings, situated right on the waterfront; and not on a dead piece of water, but one of the busiest and most lively trafficked stretches in the city. If you look at the shoreline, you can see that boats line the wharf and we were particularly interested in popping over to take a look at one of them, recently purchased by some friends.



The boat we came to see is moored in a prime spot just before Djurgårdsbron. It is an old fishing boat, built in 1931 and recently bought by a lovely young Swedish-Australian couple. The boat’s name is Matilda (how appropriate!) and she is bweautiful!



I just love her shape – there is a cosy, friendly and safe feel to her and she exudes charm and real old fashioned character. She is even more lovely in real life than in the photo and I can’t wait to go aboard when Anders and Beth take her over. We have been invited to tie up alongside any time we are in town and I know that this means we’ll visit Stockholm much more often with the boat as we have a guaranteed mooring spot right in the heart of the city. One of the reasons we avoid coming here in summer is that it is so crowded in the guest harbours, with no guarantee of even finding a place to moor. Of course, the other benefit is having the company of friends alongside to help you enjoy the summer. While I was looking at the information about her on the pier, I realised that we also know one of her previous owners – someone who now keeps a large sailing boat at our boat club. Talk about a small world.

After admiring Matilda, we drove around to another tiny island off the south of Djurgården, called Becksholmen. This is a real working wharf, with enormous dry docks, workshops, old wooden boats being restored and the intoxicating smell of tar, salt, rope, varnish and timber. And the world’s cutest gantry cranes in the shape of giraffes.



I really smiled when I saw them painted with the distinctive giraffe pattern, complete with head. Lars-Göran tells me that they are considered a heritage item and are not allowed to be altered. They do provide a gentle touch to what is seen as a quite industrial looking place. There have been moves by developers to have the whole place torn down and the waterfront island property turned into exclusive housing, but so far that has been avoided and a very vocal group has been formed to protect this historic working wharf. I always think it’s a pity when these areas are sanitised and turned into showcases for the wealthy. Some essential bit of the character and feel of a place dies out when that happens and you can never re-create it again.

By now, it was getting dark, so we headed to Lennart and Anna’s warm and welcoming home for dinner and relaxation before taking the train through the gently falling snow to Nynäshamn.

I actually uttered this phrase (how can I remember so many awful songs?) on Friday night, eliciting a long, disgusted, communal groan from my companions. We had just pulled up at the sailing school on Långholmen, where we were going to hear a talk from a man who has just returned from sailing in the West Indies in his yacht called – Amarillo.

Okay, okay. But it seemed funny at the time.

We have had our first autumn storm over the last few days, with winds whipping up to 50 knots and sheets of cold, needle sharp rain. After the hard winds of the last couple of days, this morning dawned sunny and really calm. Looking at Fiona gently rocking in the sun, you have to ask “What storm?”



It may be calm, but it is bitterly cold, with the temperature dipping to minus 10 Celsius overnight for the first time this season as the dreaded north winds sweep down bringing King Bore (pronounced bore-aye) – the king of winter to Nynäshamn. There can be no more talk of autumn now that he has arrived and already there are signs that the water is getting really cold. This morning, the piers were covered with a layer of frost and the surface of the calm water was beginning to ice over.



In the pond at the local park, the birds are gathering around waiting for winter food handouts as the pond slowly freezes. I have seen several people who come to the park and harbour area to regularly feed these birds over winter and I’m sure that without their help, the birds would find it very hard to survive. Quite why they choose to stay and winter here rather than fly with their smarter relatives to Africa I don’t know. Man, I feel cold just looking at them! And check out the frost lying on the grass – still around at lunchtime, though the lovely blue skies and the low lying sun go some way towards cheering up the scene.



Some animals, however have it far better. No, I’m not thinking of Princess Lambi for once, though she certainly leads a charmed existence on the sofa in front of the fire at this time of the year. I was actually thinking of a huge dog I saw on the morning train this week. God knows that train trips are dull at the best of times, so I was utterly charmed when I saw this fine puppy sitting up, looking at all of his fellow commuters.



He’s taking advantage of the warmth of the winter sun streaming through the windows (just as well because the damn train driver kept the doors open, despite the frigid temperature). And who would be heartless enough to tell him to get off the seat?

In the evening, we met up with our friends Bosse and Ann after work and enjoyed a fabulous Italian dinner together at La Casa Trattoria. The restaurant was lovely, with soft, gentle lighting, very comfortable table settings and a simple but cosy ambience. The food was first class and the company outstanding. As usual when we four get together, there was a lot of laughter and not a quiet moment. And no, contrary to what you may think, it isn’t just ME taking up the airspace – everyone is equally involved. It is always a joy to spend a relaxed evening with people who are so easy to talk to and so much fun to be with.

I did have one strange moment, though, where I stared at the three Swedes seated around me and wondered why I was bothering living in this country. I was telling them all about a beautiful old Swedish wooden fishing boat that friends of ours (he is Swedish, she Australian) have very recently purchased. This is one of those boats that lies moored along historic Strandvägen and I thought Ann might see it on her way to work at SVT each day. I commented that the name of the boat (Matilda) was so perfect, as Beth is an Australian.

Blank looks from Lars-Göran, Bosse and Ann.

“You know” I said, “like the song Waltzing Matilda”.

Blank looks from Lars-Göran, Bosse and Ann.

“Oops.” I said “Don’t you know that song here in Sweden?”

Blank looks from Lars-Göran, Bosse and Ann.

Ann tentatively says that yes, they DO know the song, but is it an Australian tune? Lars-Göran pipes in with an ill-considered “I thought it was some shit from America” and Bosse seeing murder in my eyes, wisely decides to study his cup of coffee very intently.



Whoa. Deep breaths there, Marie. Calm yourself. Count to ten. Smile......

Nope. No good, I’m still mad as a cut snake.

“America! AMERICA!!” I splutter. ”Just look at some of the words of the song – words like swagman, billabong, coolabah, tucker bag, jumbuck. Run those past any American and I bet you’d get a blank look because they are uniquely Australian words. My God! It’s practically our unofficial national anthem!” I cry with passion and a patriotic tear forming in my eye.

Lars-Göran (unwisely laughing): A national anthem about stealing sheep? Well, that figures, coming from you guys!”

Can’t you just tell that he’s never going to get a visa to Australia with an attitude like that? I decide to ignore that pathetic attempt to smear my countrymen and just shake my head in disgust.

Lars-Göran (digging a deeper hole): I always wondered why you had Waltzing Matilda as your ring signal on your mobile phone..

And after FIVE years, you’ve never asked why?

So you see, they deserved that crack about Amarillo - a song you could truly describe as "some shit from America”!

You just have to love the pose, even if it is making the writing of this entry just that much harder. Lambi has the ability to make herself comfortable just about anywhere and I’ve been surprised before when I’ve seen the tiny spaces and crazy angles she manages to squeeze herself into.

She is also an excellent nurse when you feel unwell and this week I was able to discover first hand the benefits of the Nurse Lambi Miracle Cure. It is actually very rare that I feel sick. I am disgustingly healthy for some reason – something that used to make me angry when I was a teenager and wanted a day off school, especially if we had a Physics test. I almost never missed a day from school or work because of illness. But this week, I woke up feeling ill and after struggling to make breakfast for the crew, I knew I had to crawl back to bed for the day.

Enter Nurse Lambi. She won’t let anyone lay in bed alone, so she insisted on joining me and seeing if she could help. This consisted of standing with her full weight on my right nipple until it brought tears to my eyes. She then stepped back, insisted that I roll into a very uncomfortable position and proceeded to velcro herself to me. If I slid closer to the wall, she did as well. Lars-Göran peeped in and wondered why I was jammed up against the cold wall of the boat when the other 95% of the bed was free. Lambi answered with a grunt, so he backed away and left us to it. She then fell asleep, snoring loudly in my ear, then rolled over sticking her feet into my back. Boy that dog has sharp toenails! After a short time she woke up and made ME get out of bed and get HER some water, at which point I figured that it would be easier to stay up. So I was up and about after only two hours, when normally I’d be there for the day. She’s a real miracle worker.

There is a little more progress at home – we now have a floor in the bathroom!



Gee, it doesn’t take much to get me excited these days, does it?

But I have to keep positive – each step is an improvement on what was there and in a few short weeks, all this will be like a bad dream. I’ll be able to sit back and laugh.

Perhaps.
Perhaps.
Perhaps.

Oh no, not that song stuck in my head again.......

Yes, my blog is two years old today! I can hardly believe it. When I first tentatively dipped my toe into the world of blogging on November 14th, 2003, I never thought I would be able to keep it going for a month, let alone two years. To be honest, I did the first couple of entries with a LOT of difficulty. HTML and I are not really the best of friends at any time and after many revisions, wrong tags and accidental deletions, tears and tantrums, the air in my apartment was literally blue when I finally pressed the publish button on that first entry.

I then immediately wrote to our ever helpful and patient webmistress Kate, telling her that it was simply all too hard, I was too old and too stupid to learn about computers and maybe I should give it up. That is when she came forward with words of encouragement that helped me to keep going.

After I had, with a lot of her help, mastered the art of adding pictures and editing entries, I knew exactly how I wanted my blog to be and have tried my best to accomplish it. I wanted it to be bright, friendly, welcoming and full of miscellaneous bits and pieces on all kinds of things. I wanted it to be like a favourite magazine, something people could pick up, sit back and enjoy. Of course, just like a magazine, you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Some like one thing, others like another, but on the whole I have tried to vary it from week to week.

I hope that in the past two years I have made you smile, laugh, or choke back a tear. That I have pricked your own memories, given you ideas and a small glimpse into my world.

I can't believe we live in a world where kids don't know that chips are made from potatoes. Honestly! Flour, eggs or apples? What the? And sadly, these very children are going to be the ones running the country in about 20 years time.

Now when I was a girl......

*yawn* *stretch*

I woke up this morning to the sound of pouring rain on the deck - such a comforting noise when you are snuggled up warm and dry in your bed.

I came home to the flat briefly and saw two enormous plumbers drilling into the bathroom floor to fit a new cistern. The old cracked fittings were just hefted outside.



The two men doing the hefting and the drilling look simply too large to fit into our tiny bathroom. We have had good news and bad news on the flat front. The good news is that they are back on schedule and there has been a little progress – we now have pipes!



It doesn’t seem much, but it is a step closer to a new bathroom, so I was feeling pretty pleased. Until THE phonecall that started "Hej! This is Jonas from NCC”. (NCC being the firm who are subcontracting the work on the apartment). If Jonas (the head honcho) rings, it’s never good news. My first thought was “Oh God, what now!” and in fact, that was a very appropriate reaction, because they asked if they could have access to our shed.

I should explain that we have a large storage area in the attic of the building (up three flights of stairs – no lift!), but we are also lucky enough to have a small “shed” or förrådet on the same level as our apartment. It is really handy, as we can get to it by going out, crossing the hallway and opening the doorway behind the apartment opposite us. There you will find a large room, divided into eight fully enclosed sheds (one for each of the apartments in our stairwell). We have shelving around the walls and in it we keep power tools, the high pressure cleaner, the sewing machine, assorted office equipment, the tool box, sporting equipment, general hardware items, Christmas decorations, wrapping paper, spare bits for the boat, potting mix, fertiliser etc.

When we unlocked it for Jonas, he just stared at the full shed and groaned. Then in turn we groaned as he said we had to clear everything out of it as the pipes for the apartment opposite us go through the wall of OUR shed. Again, we are the only one of the apartments affected by this. I’m starting to suspect a conspiracy. We sweetly asked him where the hell he thought we could put all of this stuff as we had already been forced to store everything from the storage room on our bed, we could not use our hallway, kitchen or bathroom. In addition, the painters hadn’t sealed the windows, so the furniture in the living room had to be stowed a metre away from the windows and door to the balcony. And a way kept clear for them to have access.

This produced another burst of slightly good news. He rang the painters and told them to stop what they were doing and go to our apartment and finish the sealing. He then procured special moving boxes and said that if we returned after 7pm, we could pack up the shed into the boxes and stack them in the living room. Which now looks like this:



Steptoe and Son would be proud. Of course, you have to be a mountain goat to get in here and god only knows what is actually IN all of those boxes, but the apartment is now sealed, so no winter draughts can get in. My poor plants will be very happy as they have not fared well while it has been so chilly in here. The trees down at the harbour though, still stubbornly cling to their last vestiges of autumn glory.



And while he is a perfectly nice young man, I really hope that is the last call I get from Jonas.

In honour of Led Zeppelin being presented with a Polar Prize by the Royal Swedish academy of Music, I offer you a partial effort to explain the meaning behind Led Zep songs.

Before that, I’d like to pick a bone with the sloppy Swedish journalism displayed over the Led Zep polar prize. All of the Swedish papers I read spoke about “the tragic death of their guitarist, John Bonham in 1980”. Now, I’m sure Mr Bonham, being a consummate musician could probably play a guitar, but for pete’s sake, he was Led Zeppelin’s legendary DRUMMER. And considered one of the greatest drummers of all time. Now was it asking too much to go and check the facts?

If you are not a Zep fan, move along, there's nothing to see here.......



When I was in my late teens, I considered Led Zeppelin to be gods. I think most teens in the ‘70s went through that phase. We would quote lyrics left, right and centre and endlessly debate the meaning behind each of their songs. As far as we were concerned, Plant and Page were geniuses, deep thinkers, modern day philosophers and complete legends.

My father on the other hand thought they were long-haired, layabout gits. But then what do parents know?

I wonder now whether it was in fact deep thinking or was I simply mesmerised by the heavy guitars and the pounding rhythms. And of course stunned by Robert Plant's amazing hair. As an awkward, shy sixteen year old with dead straight, baby fine hair, I was in awe of his glorious, thick, curly locks. It was my dream to have hair like that and I still weep with the injustice of it all (much to my husband’s amusement). It’s so unfair.

But on to the songs! I’ll start with one very appropriate to me -Immigrant Song. And you should not miss the - Viking Kitten version of this one, which is priceless. Today I want to look with my forty-plus eyes at the lyrics that sent me into spasms of ecstasy at sixteen:

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the hoard, singing and crying: Valhalla, I am coming!

I can’t believe that I sang these lyrics out loud. Valhalla, I am coming? How did I not break into fits of laughter when I said those words?

On we sweep with threshing oar

What was I thinking? What did a quiet teen living in sunny Australia in the 1970s know about the icy forces of Norse mythology? Maybe I already knew back then that I’d end my days in the frozen north. I must be psychic.

Sure, they had plenty of songs that were about love and sex and subjects other than faeries and Norse gods. But those weren't the lyrics that we discussed. Those were not the lyrics we quoted as if they were the mantra of our life.

I sang The Battle of Evermore as if I was a storyteller. I felt the pain, the despair, the anguish. Oh, I was so deep and so in tune with my lyrical heroes.

Queen of Light took her bow,
And then she turned to go,
The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom,
And walked the night alone

You know, I had no idea what they were going on about. It just sounded good. It sounded like poetry. It sounded deep. In turn, I thought it made me sound scholarly and deep when I sat around ruminating about the Prince of Peace and his Queen.

My favourite song at one point was No Quarter:

The winds of Thor are blowing cold.
They're wearing steel that's bright and true

Maybe my Tolkien-drenched mind kept me from finding the lyrics to be amusing and a tad pretentious, like I do now. I was living in this outer realm, where hobbits existed and wars were fought between inhuman creatures. Plant knew that, he knew the mindset of the kids those days. And he played on it. Either that or he did a lot of acid.

Now, forgive me for this next part. I know that some of you consider Stairway to Heaven the Greatest Song Ever. I sure did back then. But please, look at these lyrics.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow,
don't be alarmed now,
It's just a spring clean for the May queen.

One summer night, five of us sat on the open tailgate of a someone's mum's station wagon, parked in the last row of the old Hectorville Starline drive-in. For two hours, we discussed the meaning behind the lyrics to that song, spending an awful lot of time on the "bustle in your hedgerow" line. We each had a different interpretation of the song. We each took our own meaning from it. And that was deep, man. I mean, wow...they spoke to each one of us in a different way. How incredibly cool!

It was only years later that I realised the words probably meant nothing more than that Robert Plant read a lot of books. He strung some thoughts and words from his favourite novels together, mixed them in a blender and called it Stairway to Heaven. The mysticism was further eroded when Andrew Denton had each of his special guests do their own version of the song on one of his ABC shows – I think the pirate-shanty version and the Rolf Harris one finally did me in.

I still do listen to Led Zep regularly, and there are far, far better songs than Stairway to get my old school groove on to. After careful consideration, I'd have to say my favourite Zeppelin song is either Communication Breakdown or Kashmir, both for very different reasons. Though you can still find me playing air guitar to Black Dog every once in a while.

So, what's your favourite Zeppelin song?

And if someone can explain to me the line I saw a lion, he was standing alone with a tadpole in a jar, from Dancing Days, I'd much appreciate it.

I was reminded this week of the classic BBC series noted in the title. I had often wondered what happened to dear Frank Spencer who was best known for being fully competent at being incompetent. Whether it was mending a boiler, interviewing for a job or transporting a child's playhouse back home, if he could get it wrong, he would get it wrong. Remember him trying to find a gas leak? *shudder*

Well, it seems that Frank has cleverly disguised himself as a fifty something Swede and is now living in Nynäshamn - at least in spirit. Like Frank's long suffering wife, Betty, I dread it when Lars-Göran announces that he is going to fix something that requires any kind of home handyman skill. He is a dear, sweet man and I love him madly, but he is no Mr Fix-It. To be fair, his father was a successful and highly regarded mechanical engineer and inventor who could master anything with ease and this can be somewhat intimidating to any offspring. His dad could not only fix everything, but he saw improvements that could be made and so whatever the item was, it would function even better than when it was new.

Lars-Göran would love to be able to emulate his father, but something is missing from his genetic make-up and despite trying so hard, he belongs to the Dog's Breakfast School of Repairs. And I was not surprised at his efforts to install a rope clutcher on the mast this week. Not surprised, but very sorry for him...

He so very much wanted to do a good job and he began sensibly with a visit to our friend Björn who owns the local rigging place:



Björn is very thorough and he advised Lars-Göran of exactly how to go about the installation, he supplied us with the screws we needed, a special tool to drill threads into the mast and a lot of advice. A trip back to the flat to collect the drill and he felt he was in business.

This was when Frank Spencer took over. After a lot of fumbling, swearing and dropping his favourite screwdriver into the sea, the piece was attached. Which was when he discovered that the main sail rope was too thick for the clutch.

And he had installed it upside down.

And at an angle.

Then it started to rain.......

Today is Gustav Adolfsdagen – the anniversary of the death of Gustav II Adolf on November 6th, 1632 in a battle at Lützen.

So how does one commemorate the death of a monarch? Well, strangely enough, by eating a special type of cake decorated with a chocolate or marzipan image of the king on top. This tradition began in the late 1800s, probably in Göteborg, which was a city founded by Gustav II Adolf in 1621 and where he is still revered. I haven’t been able to discover the somewhat bizarre connection between the eating of cake and the death of the king in battle and nowadays it seems to be a dying tradition, overtaken by other events at this time of the year. However, here in Nynäshamn it was possible to buy these special Gustav Adolf cakes at the local bakeries.



The grey, misty and damp weather continues. This is one of the reasons that November is not one of my favourite months. The darkness and rain seem to arrive so suddenly – before I have a chance to brace myself for them and it is always disappointing to see the golden blaze of October leaves reduced to a brown, muddy, wet mess on the footpaths.



I read a description once of these months, where a birch tree was compared to a human hand. The image was of the hand gradually becoming a skeleton as the leaves fell, with the fingers unfolding and reaching skywards. The clouds become lower and lower as November advances, with the skeleton fingers reaching higher and higher now that the weight of the leaves had gone, until finally in December, they poke a hole in the clouds and the soft snowflakes stream down. It is very much like that and one of the things that sustains me through November is the thought of all the snow to come in December.

I saw some swans swimming in the freezing water earlier in the week. No wonder they get bird flu! The water temperature is down to 8C. Silly birds. Though I did see one of them swimming along with one tootsie out of the water, so perhaps there is hope yet.



The bathroom renovations continue and are now at their most depressing stage, where the entire apartment is coated in a layer of builder’s dust, despite extensive plastic sheeting taped everywhere and all you can see are bare bricks and holes in the walls.

Just before they started, it looked like a typical 1950's style Swedish bathroom:



After this week's efforts, it looks like this:



And our klädkammaren (box room) that used to house all of our clothing and linen (which is now piled up on our bed and covered with sheets of plastic) has several interesting holes in the wall, nowhere near ceiling height. This is slightly worrying as I wonder wtf they are doing!



I know it will slowly get better, but on this wet, cold grey day, December 9th is looking a long, long way away...

Today is Alla Helgons Dag, which I wrote about last year. This year, the day was grey, foggy and very wet, so we didn’t venture to the cemetery. One year, I'd really like to go to the beautiful Skogskyrkogården in Stockholm on this day, but it will have to wait until the trains and tunnelbana are less chaotic than they are this year. I had planned to pop by the local library in the morning to return the obscene number of books I have out on loan, completely forgetting that of course it was closed on a public holiday. Doh!

However, I had an experience at the local supermarket that put a smile on my face. I was waiting at the checkout behind two small girls who were there to get their Saturday lollies. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but there is a tradition in Sweden that kids tend not to eat lollies every day. Instead Saturday seems to have evolved as the day to buy their treats, with the idea being that they are only exposed to them once a week. I believe that it is thought this once a week pig-out is better for their dental health than daily exposure to even small amounts of lollies.

Anyway, every Saturday you see the local kids gathered around the loose lolly bins, filling their KaramellKungen bags with assorted goodies – and today was no exception.



The young girls I was behind (aged around 7 or 8) had selected a biggish bag of loot, as the lollies were on special this week. At the checkout, the bag was weighed and the price was 56.50kr (about $A10). On being told this, they stood there looking uncomfortable, keeping their eyes down and looking surreptitiously at each other, then one of them opened her hand, revealing a 50kr note and a 5kr coin. The poor kids were 1.50kr (about 25c) short and it was heart melting to see them. I was immediately transported back in time to the St Joseph's Tranmere tuck shop in 1967, when I stood there with my 5c to buy a chocolate Paddle Pop (yes, they really were that cheap back then), only to find that they had gone up in price to 6c and I had to get a lemonade icy pole instead. A very sad day....

I immediately reached into my purse and dropped the 1.50 into her open hand. I was rewarded with a look of surprise, followed by the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, a genuine thankyou and even an offer of a lolly from their bag. What a couple of little cuties. It really lifted my mood and made my day.

I think I must really be losing my touch. As some of you know, I’m somewhat of a grammar and spelling nazi. Don’t believe me? It’s true:

Spelling Nazi You scored 101 Spelling smarts!

Okay so you've either cheated, or you know all the vocabulary rules by now. "I before E, except after c." bla bla bla. Great job. You know how to spell, and you might be a bit anal retentive about it too. Not a bad thing mind you, but I get picked on for it. An answer key is what you're after? http://quizanswerkey.blogspot.com/

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 97% on Spelling smarts

Link: The Everyday Spelling Test written by charlifeathers on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Well, one of the most popular pages on the Aussies in Sweden site I edit is the one about You know you’ve been in Sweden too long when.... This was something that started a few years ago as an email of about 20 points that was doing the rounds. As a newcomer to Sweden I did find it funny at the time and added a few things and passed it on. Anyway, it grew to around 50 points, so I added it on Aussies in Sweden as a bit of a laugh and since then it has grown as people email in other things that caught their eye. I received an email from a British reader this week who enjoyed the page, but pointed out a grammar error:



been??? What was I thinking letting a glaring mistake like that slip by unnoticed? I think a slight correction may be in order. And for penance, I’ll recite five decades of the rosary.

There's nothing quite like Catholic guilt.

I just had to tease Lars-Göran by singing a verse of The Lumberjack Song after he came back from taking Lambi out for a walk down by the local harbour bar and complaining about all of the junk in his jacket pocket. One of the problems with living aboard a sailing boat in winter is where to store all of the extra layers of clothes and shoes one needs. We have had to find places for bulky, thick winter jackets, warm jumpers and cardigans, gloves, hats, scarves and big winter boots, in addition to everything else on board. It can be quite a challenge to close the bulging wardrobe door, or indeed to extract a tightly packed item from said cupboard.

He had extricated the warm, Canada-style black jacket with the fur-lined hood and gone out with Lambi into the cold, blustery conditions. Upon coming inside again, he proceeded to empty out the pockets, accompanied by a non-stop commentary about just how much crap was in his pockets – notes, pencils, plastic doggie-do bags, lip balm and even….. MY keys. Oops… it seems he went out in my jacket, thus the appropriateness of the refrain

He puts on women’s clothing,
And hangs around in bars.

I think I’ll be keeping my lingerie under lock and key.

We did manage to go out sailing on the weekend after all. Once back at the boat after the market, we packed away our purchases and cast off, hoping to head across to another new bay on Rånö. It was cloudy, with sunny patches and quite windy, blowing from the south east at 10 to 12m/s. We kept in mind the promising forecast for the rest of the weekend while we cruised downwind past the ferry terminal and out into open water.



It was here that we found that the waves were running at around two to three metres high and we debated about the homeward journey in the same conditions should the strong winds persist. It is fine for both of us as we would simply attach our safety harness securely and ride out the pounding through the waves. Fiona is a stable, heavy boat and seems to handle the seas really well, especially with the storm jib hoisted to give her forward stability. However, the pets are a bit spooked by the sudden leanings, so for their sake we decided to forego a longer trip across the waves and instead sail the shorter and more protected route to our club island of Lacka. We haven’t been here since September last year, so it was a good chance to revisit a favourite island.

In late afternoon, we tied up on the calm, lee side of the island – all alone and at peace.



The first thing we did was to put on the kettle and to unroll the rag-rug we bought at the market. These rugs are very traditional here in Sweden and are woven from old clothing or linen, torn into strips. Lars-Göran remembers both his grandmother and mother weaving these rugs. As you can see, the colour is ideal and the size is almost perfect.



We went for a long walk around the island on both Saturday and Sunday. The really strong autumn colours have now faded and many of the deciduous trees have shed their leaves, which lie along the tracks like a pathway of golden coins. On the south western corner of the island, Lambi and I sat by the sauna – well rugged up as you can see. And I am wearing my new walking boots as well.



The view from the sauna is always beautiful no matter the season. There is a little protected natural rock pool, surrounded by low, rocky shores with the islands in the distance framing the area.



Lars-Göran took a walk across the rocks out to the edge of the shore. I’m not as confident on these slippery rocks as he is, so it was a lone journey. He is wearing his new fleece jacket, but being more used to the climate he doesn’t need the hat and gloves like I do. The light on Sunday was really unusual, being bright and strong, but filtered through a soft haze. However, it was NOT the warm, sunny weather they had been promising all week.



We also walked to the windy side of the island, where the waves were crashing against the cliffs furiously. It was so cold and the wind was so strong that one could not stand there for very long. Instead, Lambi led the way quickly back to the protected harbour. She turned to look at us and urge us to hurry, in the hope that we’d fika back on board and give her some biscuits to eat.



It is amazing just how dark it has become, especially when out in the archipelago and away from electrical street lights. In the evenings it is coal black outside, with the sky full of tiny pin pricks of stars. The clocks were turned back to winter time early on Sunday morning, so the evening seems to start much earlier. I think the summer and the period of light is well and truly over for the year.

Despite the further promise of sunshine on Monday, it was a very grey, overcast day – one of those days when it is hard to believe that there really IS a blue sky somewhere beyond those clouds. The following picture was taken at 10am, just as we were about to leave for the return trip. That is not the moon you can see, but rather the sun shrouded in an eerie mist and the predominant colour of the surrounding waters and islands is grey, grey, grey.



The Monday morning trip back was uneventful – we took the internal route back so the pets would not be too upset by the waves in the more exposed waters. And in the afternoon, it was work as usual on the wharf – the last evening of taking up sailing boats for the season.



You can see that even as early as 4pm, the dusk is falling already. There were ten boats last night and it was the longest night so far this year – Lars-Göran finished at 11.30pm and we sat down for dinner at 11.45pm! We were both so tired that we had no idea of what we were eating. Thank goodness that it was the last day for boat lifts, so we can relax now and not be obliged to be around on Mondays.

Yesterday was also Halloween, but not here. I touched on the mix-up over Halloween last year and the confusion continues with most people ignoring it totally and a few pubs hosting parties next weekend. This of course will clash again with Alla helgons dag again, which makes people here even more anti-Halloween. It just goes to show what happens when you try and import an event without an understanding of the history of both the event and the country you are trying to foist it upon.

But to those who celebrate: