This was our reaction when we watched Antikrundan last week. It's a program not unlike the one Clive Hale used to present on the ABC (For Love or Money) where viewers bring along items they think might be worth a bob or two and some antique experts look them over and tell you the good or bad news. It's always a bit amusing to look at the participants, especially the totally transparent ones who are trying to pretend that they don't really care how much something is worth, who then are obviously pissed off when it turns out that their family heirloom is worthless crap. Yeah, so I have a mean streak....

Anyway, a woman turns up with the most pig ugly vases I've seen in a very long time. The word woggy immediately (and politically incorrectly) leaps into my mind as I try and fathom who in their right mind would ever own something like this:



I imagine Con the Fruiterer has something very similar in his living room and I was rather hoping that the presenter would feel as queasy as I did. But to our horror, she loves them and gets really excited and tells the shocked owner that it is worth a cool one million Swedish crowns. At today's rates, that is $AU173,409.88. And here I was thinking Cunningham's Warehouse or Cheap As Chips. Just goes to show what a huge gap there can be between a lot of money and good taste.

I also had a "You've got to be kidding!" reaction last night when one of our friends here rang us in tears with the news that their newly acquired boat had sunk overnight in Stockholm.

You may remember that we were excited back in November when Anders and Beth bought the lovely Matilda and when we visited her back then, she looked like this:



Well, yesterday morning, while passing along Strandvägen on the way to work, she looked like this:



As you can imagine, they are distraught and trying to work out a way that she can be salvaged, placed in dry dock and restored to her former glory. Even Lars-Göran is in mourning for the boat as well feeling Anders and Beth's pain. I can imagine how upset we'd be if this was Fiona. No-one is too sure quite how it happened - perhaps a burst water pipe, perhaps some damage from moving ice or perhaps some other as yet unknown reason. Poor Matilda!

Meanwhile, back in Nynäshamn, the warm, sunny days continue, even though the area is still decked out in its white apparel. Today there has been no snow but the temperature has certainly got the feel of winter about it and the wild birds were queuing up for their breakfast this morning. Puddles and the shallow areas of water are all frozen hard and the ground creaks as it stretches towards the light. But it is beautiful.



Let's hope that there is also light at the end of the tunnel for Matilda.

While wandering down near the harbour and enjoying the warming sunshine and the clear blue skies, I glanced over at the mooring poles along the pier and immediately thought of the Danse des cygnes from Act II of the ballet Swan Lake:



They looked so much like a chorus line of ballerinas that I laughed as much as I did when I spotted the rabid rocks a couple of years ago. Who ever thought that ice could form it's own sculptures. The ice around here is very thin, mostly because this is the sea and does not freeze as well as the fresh water in the lakes. You can see that the warmer temperatures this week have weakened the surface and the buoys are starting to float free.



The main channel beyond the piers is already ice free and the boat is starting to break free as well, so I'm feeling a sense of spring in the air, despite Lars-Göran muttering about "We haven't had February yet!". I would never venture out on this ice, but people who love long distance skating have been flocking to Lake Mälaren to enjoy their sport. Yesterday that ended in tragedy for two skaters who were among a group that fell through weak ice and died. I believe one other of the dozen or so who had to be rescued is in a critical condition. One can never underestimate how dangerous the cold can be over here and how fragile that solid looking ice can be.



This picture was taken four years ago in Stockholm when a group of friends went out on what they thought was fairly solid ice. While out on the lake, far away from shore, they heard the unmistakable sound of the ice cracking and within a short time they were marooned in a sea of ice cubes and had to be rescued. That same weekend, a group of 30 were rescued in similar circumstances near Trosa. I tell you, these Swedes are crazy. It's open fire, tea and crumpets and a good book weather, not the weather to be tempting mother nature.

But on days like today, it is great to be out while the sun shines. Certainly the days are increasingly longer, it is lighter during the days and yesterday I saw this harbinger of spring appear in town.



If you peer very closely, you can see that there is a grey heron over by the reeds. I haven't ever seen a heron here before March, so I'm hoping it knows something promising about the weather. The air is also full of birdsong - grey sparrows, blue tits (blåmes) and even a couple of early arriving skylarks (sånglärka).

I can just feel that spring is on the way.

That was part of the headline of a story I read in today's Advertiser - Is it a new Commodore? No, it's a bloody Volvo. Apparently, the new Volvo S80 is being heat and dust tested in Adelaide. Hmmm... I wonder why?



Anyway, so as not to reveal the actual car itself and to blend in unobtrusively, the Swedes disguised it with plastic moulded panels to resemble an older style version of the popular Australian car, the Holden Commodore. However, it seems to have backfired a bit as the petrol-heads of Adelaide, spotting the car cruising along the beachside suburbs assumed it was the new prototype of a Commodore, with a retro look and have been bombarding Holden with questions about it. So much for the idea of blending in.

I have also seen that tonight marks the big Chinese new year celebrations. It will herald 2006 as the year of the dog. Lambi of course is overjoyed, though she doesn't realise yet that we will be ignoring it and it will be the year of the humans in this house once again.

Earlier this week, I watched the third episode in a series on SVT2 about Swedish dialects. I've always had an interest in language and I have enjoyed previous series and books by the presenter, Fredrik Lindström. This week he dealt with the dialect of southern Sweden - Skånska. I personally loathe that particular dialect and cringe whenever I hear it spoken. The first time I heard it was when we dropped in to Ystad on our way home from Göteborg with our new boat in 2001. An older woman approached us, drawn by Lambi being cute and fluffy and she rabbited on to us for a few minutes. When she left, I said to Lars-Göran that I thought 9.30 a.m. was a bit early to be pissed as a newt. He looked puzzled, so I imitated the woman's slow, whiny, slurred Swedish and he roared with laughter and said "Welcome to Skåne!"

And absolutely nothing I've heard since from that area has changed my opinion. It's kind of like speaking Swedish with a peg on your nose, mouth full of porridge and a whining, gnällig tone added in for good measure. It's no wonder that Skånska is consistently voted as Sweden's ugliest dialect year after year. The root for that may lie in the fact that it is actually a Danish dialect that has been forced to conform to Swedish by force after the area was reclaimed by Sweden in the late 17th century. I don't care what the historical reason is - it's incredibly hard to listen to without wanting to claw your ears off.

I'm often really surprised at the diversity of speech in this country. Earlier in the week, I came across this link with sound clips of people talking in their own dialects from various parts of Sweden. It was quite amusing to hear how different Swedes can sound. In area, Sweden is about half the size of New South Wales and just under twice the size of Victoria. So we are talking a small country of around nine million people. But what diversity of speech.

I realise when I say this, that it is not so unusual in many countries, even where English is spoken. When I travelled in Britain, I found the English they spoke to be less and less intelligible the further north I went. By the time I was in Scotland, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. And in America, a country similar in area to Australia, you encounter wildly different accents from places like Boston, New Orleans, New York, Dallas, Memphis, and Los Angeles.

It is only in Australia that we speak an English that is remarkably uniform, with pronunciation that is very similar. While I can hear some slight regional differences in the way people say key words like school and film and you can often hear if someone is from the country rather than the city - we all sound pretty much the same.

Are we legends, or what?

Glitter Graphics

Australians have been celebrating Australia Day for 10 hours longer than I have and I don't even get a public holiday for it (See, that's what happens when you desert those sunny shores and move to Sweden). Even the Australian version of Google got in the act.



When I was in Australia, the day was not really celebrated in a huge way - more a day for a barbeque lunch, dinner at that Hindley Street icon, Jerusalem and perhaps popping down to the Torrens to sit on the riverbank and watch the annual Skyshow. The big thing was that it was a day off, but other images that come to mind are of searing heat and bushfires, tennis and cricket, and the end of the summer school holidays.



For those of us overseas, the day is a time to gather with our fellow countrymen and revel in a deep sense of shared values and national identity. We enjoy just being Australian. The big events in Stockholm are tonight's beach party at The Dancin' Dingo where copious amounts of beer will be consumed and We are Australian will ring out into the chilly, snowy night. Then there's the footy club bash on Saturday night at Foggy Dew and of course the annual bbq in the snow on Sunday.

To all Australians, wherever you are in the world, I hope you have a wonderful day.

And special wishes to all those fighting bushfires across the country today. May all of you return safely to your loved ones when your work is done.

It's another dark, grey snowy day. It's getting to be a bit of a theme around here lately. Where is the usual January weather featuring glorious winter days of blinding sunshine, clear cobalt blue skies, glistening white snow, with the trees looking as though they have all been having a huge skumparty? I'll tell you where - Helen has stolen it and spirited it away across to Trollhätten. Yes, I'm being petty and envious, I know. That pretty weather belongs here on the east coast with ME, dammit!

You Are Snow

Magical yet potentially destructive You are well known as fun to play with People anticipate your arrival but then are quickly sick of you You are best known for: your serenity Your dominant state: reflecting

It still amazes me how different the snow feels depending on the conditions. I was one of those suckers who believed that that Eskimos had many precise words for snow because they were so steeped in it — literally. But it seems we English speakers have even MORE words for it. And I'm still anxious to try snow angels...

Speaking of both snow and lots of words for a concept, while I was flipping through some Swedish sites I came across a link for an article in one of the afternoon papers about the huge numbers of words that Swedes have for the act of shoving snow into a person's face. Sorry, it's only in Swedish, but basically it says that the national radio station's program Språket conducted a survey asking people all over the country to answer the question “What word did you use as a child to mean “rub snow in somebody’s face”?

There were over 6,000 responses, with 95 different words being identified for this well loved childhood sport. Ninety five! That seems rather a lot for such a tiny country, especially as this is not a word that is written down - it's strictly spoken (colloquial) language. It shows how inventive the kids can be - and how widespread this northern version of our noogie or wedgie can be. Lars-Göran said he would use mular - but thinks the whole idea of it is very mean. Not much of the viking spirit in him, then. I wonder if getting a snow facial hurts?

Here in Nynäshamn today, there are plenty of mular opportunities. The water in the civic fountain is still running - just.... though the little bronze frogs surrounding the spout are just snow covered blobs.



And that poor drowned boat from the other day is slowly being consumed by the creeping ice in the harbour. We had stormy weather, with winds and waves sweeping right in here and causing the boat to sink overnight.



Even the ducks have gathered around for the wake. See, Gloria, we have duckies down here as well!



The ice is also packing in around Fiona and it looks very wintery out there. It is still not very thick ice as the snow on top insulates it and stops it hardening. I guess if we could be bothered, we could sail through it still - but honestly the couch is far more inviting than this:



Even though the ice layer is thin, people are still risking going out on it by foot or snow scooter. Last weekend, this ended in tragedy for 5 people, including a whole family who went through the ice in the northern Stockholm arcipelago and died. Their bodies were recovered yesterday - how incredibly sad.

It makes me very glad that I have no spirit of adventure and am more closely related to a sloth with an advanced need for pure comfort and self preservation.

I'd be able to leap out of bed on a Sunday morning, even in the coldest weather in order to take care of all of the animals and take advantage of that bracing Nordic chill, crunchy snow crystals and glorious mid morning sunrise with a clear and rosy sky and the moon still visible.



Instead, as a confirmed non-Viking, I spent my morning snuggled firmly under the doona, peeping out of the window at the snow, but mostly engrossed in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus while trying to use telepathy to convince Lars-Göran to serve me breakfast in bed. Which he didn't. The animals had to also fend for themselves.

Do you ever wonder what your name would be if you were a Viking? Well, even if this question hasn’t been keeping you up at night, here is your chance to find the answer at the Viking Name Generator.

My Viking name would have been Móeiðr Treehugger. Actually, my name would have been more like "Móeiðr Björnsdottir"; but the generator thinks that since this is the 21st century, I should have a name in my own right, rather than be simply known as someone’s daughter [thumbs up!].

Well, through this exercise, I discovered that even though I apparently don’t have what it takes to be a Viking, I am “strong and tireless, frequently shouldering burdens that would tire lesser women”. And I would have been known as "tree-hugging hippie peacenik".

Oh well; I have been called worse. :-)

When I finally pulled myself out of bed, I sat with Lars-Göran, planning our summer sailing - fully decked out in our new ocean sailing hats from OCCA.



With a name like that, it was THE only brand to buy. How Swedish am I, spending my winter dreaming about that few days they call summer over here! I won't yet reveal where we are going, but it will be something we've never done before and we are both excited. With a bit of juggling of work and family committments, we hope to leave in mid-May and be away four whole months. I guess we'll need a house-sitter :)

However, that seems a long way off. Today's reality is bleak, wet, cold snow wherever you go. Walking down the street:



Driving by the harbour:



On the train:



On the bus:



And on the water it is really icy:



For some of the boats that have been a bit neglected, or simply left by the owner without proper winter precautions, things are not looking so rosy:



And for some poor boats, it is already too late:



This particular boat has a very new, very expensive and powerful engine. Well, maybe I should say "had"... I guess the insurance company will have to pick up the tab.

This morning, we were up having breakfast at the crack of dawn as the builders and their drills arrived at 7 a.m. to do the work on the kitchen. Dirt, dust, no running water for the next TWO weeks. Not to mention the plumbers (who bear an uncanny resemblance to ZZ Top) stomping around the apartment. But it WILL be worth it - I keep hanging on to that thought. And summer is just around the corner.

Oh God! The plumbers are singing. Remind me never to go to karaoke night at the pub with them.

No, it's okay, I haven't moved to Russia or anything. I was tempted to name this post after the famous Russian toast ("Your Health") when an American friend in Dalarna alerted me to a story about elephants being fed giant shots of vodka in Russia to ward off the chill. "Oh, great!" I thought. I have a very impressionable dog and two easily led cockatiels who saw this headline and now they are begging me to be shipped off to a Russian zoo. I try to tell them, "Hey, it’s not all vodka and wine in the zoo you know", but they won’t listen. Party animals! And it was not just vodka the animals are getting - the story goes on:



I always thought reindeer were used to the cold. But, I don't know. Maybe that's why Rudolph's always got that red nose. Let's hope they don't follow the trend of the human population there.

As an aside, I wonder what an elephant sees when it has had a few too many buckets of vodka? Flying pink people?

And to show you that people here in Sweden are not immune from the insanity of being out in the cold:



Yes, people these are Swedish surfers, photographed at Torö beach, just down the road from here. The wind is blowing at 15m/s (30 knots), it's -6C and snowing. Be totally honest here - is your first though when you hear that "Hey! Surf's up! Let's go catch a wave!"

Exactly.

What in God's name am I doing living here?

It's a popular misconception among people in Oz that polar bears roam through the suburban streets in Sweden. It's like those myths we endure from foreigners about kangaroos hopping down King William Street in Adelaide. Though at least ours could be a possibility as we do have kangaroos. According to all of the Swedes I speak to, there have been no polar bears in Sweden for over 12,000 years.

Or so they think.....

My friend Wilhelmina met a polar bear in Umeå this week. It's very appropriate in this case that the Swedish word for a polar bear is isbjörn - literally ice bear! It doesn't surpise me in the least that "ice bears" are appearing, as a quick glance at today's weather chart, shows that the Siberian express (a dramatic weather pattern when the jet stream from the pole dives to the south bringing arctic temperatures) has arrived in full force. This is pretty much as Lars-Göran predicted when I quipped about it being a mild winter. Me and my big mouth and my "snow making rituals".



I know we are living in different hemispheres, but my mind still boggles when I read on the same day that snow is covering a freezing Sweden, while in Adelaide the searing heat is taking a toll. In the northern Swedish town of Vajmat it was -40C (yes, that's minus folks) this morning and not much warmer elsewhere in the region. It has snowed continuously for the last two days - a heavy downpour of light, ethereal snow as soft as icing sugar. The howling winds are driving it horizontally across the landscape and outside of my window it looks like a sea of white fog, with big drifts of fluffy white angel dust covering every slope.

Mistress Lambi however was NOT impressed. She took a little coaxing to venture out of her warm bed. When we finally did go outside she immediately wished we were back inside, as her look told me that it seems God has forgotten to pay his heating bills. While my friend in Örebro tells me her little cairn terrier is busy bounding through chest deep snow drifts, Lambi refuses to dip even one of her manicured toenails into the snow. Typical poodle!

As you can imagine, the roads are treacherous, with major pile ups and chain collisions everywhere as people battle the zero visibility and the icy roads. The biggest one yesterday was very close to where we lived in Stockholm:



This accident eventually involved thirty two cars and four semi trailers and left at least ten people seriously injured. It was on the E4 (think Highway 1), just near the turn off for the airport. This road - the main north south route along the country was closed for six hours while rescue teams cleared the accident site. I looked at some of the cars and wondered how anyone came out alive.

Here in Nynäshamn, we are rugged up against the chill, but it's business as usual in centrum.

I tried it and it works! Great fluffy flakes are falling down outside of my window, returning my world into an amazing white winter landscape. The local birds, which have been around in increasing numbers recently, are now having an executive meeting to discuss what to do and who is to blame for thinking it was spring earlier in the week!



My attempts to induce snow were inspired after I saw a a story at CNN a couple of weeks ago about the crazy things kids in the northern hemisphere do to ensure a snowy day.

It seems that snow rituals are much more common and widespread than I ever imagined. The donning of special "snow-making" clothing inside out, flushing ice cubes down the loo and performing special weather incantations are just a few of the things that both the kids and adults do to conjure up snow. The main reason was that sufficent snow meant a day off school or work. This being the reverse of our fervent prayers in Adelaide for a scorcher February day, so we could all stay at home. I wonder if they still do that? I think that 38C used to be the cut off point, where school could be cancelled for the day.



One of my Canadian friends told me that in her family, her mum would use the old "Be very quiet and it will snow" technique if the weather threatened the white stuff. Oh, sure, Mary sees through it now, but she confessed it worked for a good few years (meaning that maybe sometimes they got snow, but that the children were nearly always quiet). Why didn't I think of this technique for my own kids? Not that I could have promised snow. Hmm...actually I think my kids were born in a less gullible age and would never have fallen for it.

I remember reading the Conrad Aiken short story "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" for my American Literature class at university. Of course, it really wasn't about snow, but because I am now living in Sweden where I DO associate snow with silence, it resonates strongly with me. That lovely heavy, muffled silence after a snowfall brings the Aiken story to mind immediately. And the pristine beauty is always breathtaking.



There is further snow forecast over the next few days, so hopefully this pretty picturesque landscape will remain for a while longer.

And I have a small request directed to the Australian great white shark - can you just knock it off already? Yesterday, Lars-Göran gleefully pointed me towards this filmclip from the SVT site about yet another shark attack - this time in Perth. It's all in English, so go ahead and listen to it. Fortunately, this time it was not a fatal attack, but really, it's getting out of hand now. And as an aside, check out "Simon" in the clip, standing there looking oh so cool in his Warnie pose. It was just so typical that I had to laugh.

It's a cold, grey midwinter's day. The sun made valiant efforts to shine over the weekend but the clouds and thick blanket of fog defeated it. Now, at only 10 a.m., it is so dark it could be evening and I have had to put all of the lights on. In addition, the temperature has really taken a nosedive and the icy chill outside seems to seep through the windows to my desk. These gloomy days really get me down, make me feel like simply crawling back into bed and staying there. Just a little ray of sunshine would lift my spirits. Otherwise this is how my week looks:



You can see that today is "Don't speak to me!" day.

I was leafing through the morning papers and came across a story about a Russian clothing company calling itself H&M and therefore about to be sued by the original H&M (Swedish fasion giant Hennes & Mauritz).

The Russian firm maintains that they were unaware of the Swedish company, but a peep at their website showed that not only were they probably aware of them (after all, they ARE in the same business) but that they appeared to have nicked their distinctive logo. The corporate logo is a very important marketing tool and fiercely defended by the owners. The logo to the left is the one we are all familiar with from H&M. The one to the right, comes from the website of the new Russian clothing company. More than a passing resemblance I'd say, even though the Russias tried to defend that co-incidence by simply saying they had no idea how it happened and expressing the wish that the two fashion chains can peacefully co-exist. Somehow, I don't think so!

I wonder what McDonalds would think if they came to Nynäshamn and saw our local greasy Joes's called "The Big M", complete with golden arches? I must ask Lars-Göran to snap a shot of that place.

This week I am also trying to embark on getting a new Aussie passport. It would all be so simple if it was just a renewal, but I also decided to finally get it in my married name. When I married, there was still a few years left on my old passport, so I left it as it was. It's not illegal or anything, I just have to remember to book a ticket in my other name and it's a pain to have my ID in two names. So, you are all thinking, take the new information and marriage certificate etc into the Australian Embassy here in Stockholm and get it changed.

However....

From last year some time that suddenly became "not good enough." You must register your name change in the state of Australia in which you were born! wtf??? So, I have to register my marrige in Sweden, a country where I now live permanently with the government of South Australia - a place I left years ago and where I never intend returning. Yep. That makes sense.

So I contacted the good old Birth, Deaths and Marriages registry in Adelaide (which oddly falls under the umbrella of Business and Consumer Affairs) to see how one goes about this from overseas. Well, all I can say that it is a quagmire of bureaucratic gobbledigook of epic proportions. In order to register my marriage, I have to prove who I am by supplying them also with other documents. Fair enough. But those documents issued by a foreign government are "not good enough" (you know how untrustworthy foreigners are, right?). I mean they don't actually conform exactly to the strict requirements of the South Australian Government (obviously the centre of the universe as far as they are concerned).

For example they'd like me to send my Swedish driver's licence with the application, because "it will have a picture of me, name, address, date of birth etc". Right??? Well, actually not right. A Swedish licence has no address I tell them. They refuse to believe me. And so it goes on. And they are also not happy that Swedish documents are (gasp!) written in Swedish! (*bigger gasp*). You were expecting maybe Swahili?

This is obviously a clash of two systems. On the one hand in Sweden we have person number identification, where all you need is your person number for ID. Everything about you is linked to that precious number. So ID cards don't need addresses etc as they can look all of it up or just order a personbevis from the tax department over the phone. And in Australia, a place where nobody wants the government to know a damn thing about them, you have to have 739 different types of proof of who you are (all conforming to THEIR idea of "proof") in order to ascertain the same thing.

It's going to be a LONG week!

What a gloomy day it has been today. Skies the colour of battleships but at least it remained dry and the wind had dropped. What adds to the gloom at the moment is that I'm having trouble sleeping. I often have an insomnia problem at this time of the year and other friends here also report similar problems. Part of it is simply that, by nature, I am a bit of a night owl. I prefer working late at night when the world is quiet and everyone else is asleep. Part of it is related to the lack of light in January playing havoc with my body clock. It seems that my body is convinced that it requires 14 hours of sleep a day, so I already feel tired early in the dark evenings, without waking up at 2 a.m. and tossing and turning until the alarm goes off. There’s nothing more annoying than waking up in the middle of the sleep cycle and not being able to get back to sleep. This has happened every night this week and by today, I feel like the living dead. When I get into insomnia mode, it can be very hard to kick, so I'm going to try cranking up the light bath again when I get home in the afternoons to see if it helps.

While I'm awake, I hear every noise and this includes the constant dripping from the melting snow and the big chunks of snow and ice that fall off the roof and crash to the ground right outside my bedroom window. The temperatures have hovered around zero or just above, so the snow on the roof is thawing and sliding free. This week there have been teams of men up on the buildings in town manually clearing the snow.



As you can see, it's dangerous work being perched up high on a steep, slippery surface in the freezing cold. I have nothing but admiration for the guys who go around doing this job. When I first came here, I wondered why they bothered. My thought was that you could wait for the snow to come down by itself. Of course, I was thinking that snow is always this soft, fluffy, powdery stuff that would float to the ground like a shower of fairy floss. How was I supposed to know that it hardened into ice chunks - there wasn't any snow where I came from! Indeed, a year or so after I came here a teenage boy was killed on the way home from school when a huge chunk of ice slid off a building and on to his head. So roof cleaning is taken very seriously.

The snow continues to disappear, leaving hardened patches of ice in its wake. What a pity the dirty, ugly ice doesn't disappear as fast as the snow. It makes walking around a bit of a challenge, though I never leave home without spikes on my shoes. I have no desire to find myself on the long list of people with broken bones in Sweden at the moment. I'm always a little surprised that they aren't more careful. Many of the victims are women around my own age or older. They have lived here all of their lives, so they must know what can happen. I slipped on ice ONCE and that was once too often. Never again.

I saw a story in the paper about a stolen pink poodle in Stockholm and read on, hoping that someone here actually owned a poodle that was dyed pink. Only to find that it was this poodle they were referring to:



It is a fibreglass rubbish bin found in the courtyard of Stockholms Stadsmuseum in Slussen. It turned up in the train's lost property section and as there is an underground station nearby, one presumes that it was taken as a prank and enjoyed a little joy ride on the Stockholm public transport system. I know it couldn't have been a real pink poodle, but I was still hoping it was so I could wave the article in front of Lars-Göran, who has been giving me heaps about the weird and wonderful things he finds in the news about Australians.

And speaking of Australians, I got this through my subscription to Crikey:



Talk about a VERY unfortunate case of ad placement on a website. It's not the first time I've seen something like this, but never at the Sydney Morning Herald site. I am often amused by the ads that appear say when you are looking up something about annoying SPAM mail - sometimes you get ads to recipe sites for that awful tinned meat with the same name. Do people really eat that stuff? I always thought it was just a Monty Python joke.

Yesterday it was officially the end of Christmas in Sweden - Tjugondedag Knut and the day of julgransplundring. Roughly translated into English, julgransplundring means “plundering of the Christmas tree”. These so-called plunderings are held all across Sweden on January 13th, or, if that falls on a weekday, on the third weekend after Christmas, which is today.



These days, a traditional Swedish plundering involves a lot of singing and dancing around the Christmas tree, stripping it of decorations, and lastly literally throwing it outside. Often, especially in the big organised ones like that have in town, there’s also all sorts of games for the children. For us today, it was time to take down all of the lights and the tree. My apartment look very bare without them.

Not that the birds down at the harbour give a damn. They just want my bread!

There was sad news today, when it was announced that Birgit Nilsson the Swedish farmer's daughter who became renowned in the world's great opera houses for her dazzling voice and among colleagues for her playful sense of humour, has died at age 87. She apparently died on Christmas day, but the family only released the news today so that she could be buried in a private ceremony.

She was a soprano (no, not a Soprano, but a singer) and the tributes and anecdotes are pouring in from all over the world. One that I liked and which illustrates her reputation for wicked repartee came after a disagreement with the Australian soprano Joan Sutherland. Ms. Nilsson was asked if she thought Ms. Sutherland’s famous bouffant hairdo was real. She answered: “I don’t know. I haven’t pulled it yet.”

I am a lover of opera and there was really nobody who could touch her. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to hear her sing live, but her sound on recordings is nothing short of extraordinary. Her versions of Isolde or Brünnhilde piercing through with a clear beauty no matter how powerful the orchestra.

For some great pictures, see the slide show from the New York Times tribute, where there are also some great audio clips.

What a voice!

Winter seems to have settled into northern Sweden only. Here in Nynäshamn it is an almost tropical 0°C with even temperatures in the plus degrees forecast for later in the week. I'm not too sure what happened to that prediction about it going to be the coldest winter for ten years, but I am sadly watching the snow disappear at a rapid rate, revealing mud and a lot of dog poo that people have been surreptiously hiding with snow hoping that nobody will notice. But there is still just enough beauty here to thrill me.




So, why aren't we out sailing, you ask? Well, after the predictions and given the snow that had already fallen, Lars-Göran decided that winter was here and so he has removed the toilet and septic tank on the boat in order to improve the system. I think the original plan was merely to replace the leaking tap in the bathroom, but he needed to remove the whole basin to do that, then he thought he'd move the outlet hose while the basin was off, then he thought about adding a different outlet system to the septic tank.... and before you know it, the whole bathroom was in pieces outside in the cockpit. I only hope that he knows how to put it all back together again, without it becoming another Frank Spencer disaster.

In other parts of Sweden it is still winter. The kids report great snow at Åre, my friends in Dalarna send pictures of snow up to the window sill and last night my friends in Umeå and Luleå reported that it was -25°C there and whilst their apartments were toasty warm, outside it was, well, a little chilly.



I have experienced cold weather like that before in Sweden and the Swedes have a very sage saying (that drives most expats mad), "There is no such thing as bad weather, simply bad clothing". They use this as justification for being out and about in any weather. Many of you may recall pictures on television of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer a few years ago and the image that flashed around the world of a number of Swedes, sitting together in the snow in front of a fire, drinking coffee and having a picnic whilst the temperature was -20°C. Yes, I really know people like that!

I have sat outside in -20°C temperatures in the sunshine with crazy Swedes (remember that Princess Cake in the snow, Kirsty?) And what really freaked me out the most was that my snot froze in my nose. Stop me, if this is all too much information, but it was a most unusual experience. I've had my breath freeze before and the hairs in my nose freeze (that happens around -12C) but never before have I had the snot in my nose freeze. It sort of makes the nose feel rather funny.

Of course, walking back from the supermarket that same day my shopping also froze in my shopping bags. So I wonder how on earth people survive this sort of weather on a regular basis.

We have also been discussing the sort of stories that make the foreign news about Sweden. This was sparked CNN picking up on the story of a Man injured in sex shop attack in the Swedish west coast town of Gothenburg. We wondered why this of all stories made world headlines, when all it really does is to perpetuate the myth of sex-crazed Scandinavians. I guess it is the same reasoning as the gruesome death-by-nasty-creatures-in-Australia stories that make the news here in Sweden. Yesterday, Lars-Göran pointed out yet another shark attack in Queensland and today, there was a story about Australia Warns About Jelly Fish, Sharks After Fatal Attacks in our local Metro. Are journalists really that lazy and bored?

Meanwhile, on the Stockholm Congestion Fee front, it all seems to be going swimmingly, with even fewer cars than on the start of the study.



The introduction of this fee aims to cut traffic on the most heavily congested roads by 10-15 percent. In London, which introduced charges in 2001, the toll has cut traffic volume by 18 percent.

The charge is also intended to bring about an overall improvement in the urban environment in Stockholm, particularly air quality. And that has to be good.

It has been somewhat of a bittersweet weekend for us as we have said farewell to Lars-Göran's oldest daughter, who is spending the next three months on the Indian subcontinent.

She left on Friday at 5.30am Swedish time, bound for the east coast Indian city of Chennai (which people as old as me will remember as Madras). The flight there took nearly nine hours and as she has a fear of flying, we were all concerned that she would feel stressed about it all and not be able to get there. Happily, our fears were unfounded and this morning we got her first virtual letter about the trip. She is using a Swedish site (Resdagboken) to write entries about her experiences there.

At this stage, she has planned to be away for thirteen weeks. She will begin in Chennai, then move across to Varkala on the southern most tip of India. After that, she will be doing fieldwork in Nuwara-Eliya (Sri Lanka) and Dhaka (Bangladesh). And finally, she has a little free time and hopes to travel to Calcutta, New Delhi and the holy city of Varanasi. All of this is part of her college course and she is there with a group from her university.

It's been hard to see her go and we worry about how a quiet, gentle girl brought up in a sheltered and affluent place like Sweden will cope with the mass of humanity and the appalling poverty that she will see over there. But at nearly 22 years old, perhaps it is time to go out and experience a little of the world, see a new culture and learn a little more about herself. She will be getting to know more about Health Care for the poor, a humanistic approach to development, Indian society and Indian non-government organisations.

I was in India for the first time in the late 1970's and I loved it. I just took everything as it came, soaking up the atmosphere and enjoying Reekshaw drives, train rides, sightseeing and weekend trips. My love affair with hot food began there - fabulous roti canai breakfasts and cheap Indian food everywhere (I have very fond memories of the delicious Hakka Noodles from Sai Krishna). She has already expressed surprise that people eat hot food for breakfast, so I wonder what she will make of all the strange tastes she will experience. Her other comment was that people drive like maniacs (especially the taxi drivers).

We are also wondering quite what she will make of the heat and humidity of India. It is nothing like the snowy climate that she left on Friday!



The other kids also left today to go ski-ing and snowboarding in the ski resort of Åre for a week. I hope they get some good weather for it as they have been looking forward to the trip for ages.

For us the last two days have been quiet and lazy with a little time out walking and a lot of time snuggled up reading.



I've managed to read two books in the last two days and thoroughly enjoyed them both. The first one, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller’s Wife was one I had started a couple of weeks ago then discarded after 20 or so pages as I just couldn't get into it. Instead I read other books and finally only picked it up again after a good friend (and fellow book-a-holic) told me that she thought it was excellent. As Liz and I share similar tastes in books, I decided to give it another go and was delighted that I did because it was a wonderful read. The other book I read today was Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, which I found a remarkable book about becoming immersed in literature despite the tyranny these students were living under. One quote in particular really struck me:



Words to remember always!

But I haven't been loafing on the couch all of the time. This morning when I walked outside with Lambi, I did a double-take. The morning light was eerily matte and sepia-toned, so that I seemed to have stepped from my little apartment into a set from a Sergio Leone western.



As I walked up the hill behind us, a spectacular rainbow nearly smacked me in the face. It was wide and clear and bright, its ROYGBIV array impossibly vivid. As I stared at this amazing rainbow, I realised that I could see its entire span. There it stood, a perfect arc of brilliant colour stretching over Nynäshamn. Continuing on my way, I noticed a second, more muted and pastel spectrum shining in the sky alongside the brighter bow.

The wind whipped my hair into a frenzy and a light but steady snow dappled my head and shoulders. I couldn’t help grinning at Mother Nature’s early-morning antics, which felt like a happy omen gracing the new year.

Back to the real world tomorrow....

And I'll finish with S Rozhdestvom!



Which means Merry Christmas to all of my friends celebrating it according to the Russian Orthodox calendar!

Today, it is the last of the Christmas public holidays in Sweden for Trettondedag jul (The Thirteenth Day of Christmas). As I've written before, nobody has been able to tell me quite why they need a public holiday for this. But as it is to their advantage, nobody questions the logic of having a day off for a Catholic feast day in a predominantly secular, Lutheran country. And neither do I. All I know is that next Monday it is back to work day after the silly season.

I will miss Christmas when it is over, though the lights will stay up until next Friday - the official day for taking down the tree. I love Christmas. Much to Lars-Göran's amusement, I absolutely relish in celebrating it-- I love the baking, the family traditions, the lights, the gift-giving, the caroling, the quiet worship... (As a matter of fact, it doesn't feel like Christmas to me until I sing Angels We Have Heard On High in church!)

So after today, all of the holidays are over and we can all go back to normal. No more fireworks - though I feel that two days of fireworks is more than enough. No more shopping frenzies and stocking up as though it's the siege of Leningrad (although I've managed to escape them this year by doing my grocery shopping long before the actual days). And best of all, no more Jingle Bells on the radio or tv. But, more importantly, it is the start of a new cycle with the days becoming longer and less dark. Even if it's only at the speed of a minute or two a day, it's the psychological effect that counts.

The next thing I look forward to is the arrival of the delicious, decadent cream and almond filled delight that is Semlor. This traditional bun used to be eaten on what we call Shrove Tuesday, but as with many things these days they have been sold earlier and earlier in the season.

What I wasn't prepared for was seeing them in a café in Haninge this week! I looked inside as we passed and I pointed and said excitedly to Lars-Göran "Look! Semlor!" (which translated into Marie-speak meant "Oh please, can we get one now!") However, Lars-Göran said with a horrified look on his face "Semlor? Men, va då? It's still Christmas...", which I knew meant that he would absolutely, never, under any circumstances even dream of allowing me to have one in January.

Which means I'll have to sneak one in secret next week. Don't tell him, it will only hurt his feelings. I guess I can see his point. I know that there has been a kerfuffle in Adelaide over the sale of hot cross buns this week. I had to smile when I saw the shops there defending the ultra-early start to flogging off of Easter crap as being "in keeping with previous years" and "a service to customers". How kind of Woolies to be so altruistic and only doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. [*inset a heavy dose of sarcasm*] I suppose I'm getting old and grumpy now, but I find it sad to see commercial interests hijack these special times. When I was young, we only had Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday - and they were special because we only had them that one time of the year. It just seems to erode away anything that was special if you can avail yourself of them twelve months of the year.

Even though most workplaces and schools resume next week, the highly controversial seven month trial of a congestion tax (trängselskatt) began in Stockholm this week. I guess the idea was to iron out any teething problems before the crush started again.



When you look at a map of Stockholm like the one above, you can see why there are so many traffic problems, even though we are talking about a place the size of Adelaide. Stockholm is made up of fourteen islands and these are connected with a series of bridges and tunnels and it is here at these points that traffic builds up. In addition, given the location and geography of the city, it is not possible to have a by-pass or ring route around the city, so all traffic has to pass through the city - and there is a huge amount of freight trucks that traverse Sweden. And many of the narrow, hilly and tightly built up streets were never intended for car traffic at all. I think that most of us who have sat in endless queues in Stockholm traffic know that something really has to be done about it.

But this remains a complicated issue and the political infighting and general bickering about who should pay and what do to has been raging for years. Now it has been decided to trial a congestion charge, not unlike the one introduced in London in 2003. Motorists coming into and leaving the city will pay a variable charge as they pass a a series of points across the city. This will continue until the 31st of July and then people in Stockholm will vote on whether it should stay.

As you can imagine, it is not a popular move at all. While people moan about the constant queues and daily delays and make noises about the deteriorating air quality and general impact on the environment, most people hope for a solution that involves someone else, not them. What has also angered people is that the vote has been confined to Stockholm city (think Adelaide City Council area only) rather than the whole county of Stockholm. The majority of people forced to pay the congestion charge are those who live in the suburbs and commute to the city for work. So the people most affected will not be allowed to vote on the issue.

After the first day of charges last Tuesday, there were far fewer cars reported on the main roads, though quite a few more on the feeder roads. Certainly the pictures published in Metro of Klarastrandsleden at 4.30pm on Monday and Tuesday were impressive. I've sat in many a queue on this particular bottleneck so the "after" shot was very gratifying. It looks like 4.30am!




It will be interesting to see what happens next week and indeed how Stockholmers react to the charge in the long term. At the moment the publicity is very much highlighting the negatives and while many locals are opposed, the experience of congestion charges in London suggests that the population will come around to the project once they experience its benefits.

“There was lots of apocalyptic talk before it was introduced,” said Richard Dodd, spokesman for the Transport for London congestion charging body. “People said things like public transport will not cope, London will become a ghost town, businesses will be driven out and nobody will come to central London to shop any more. None of that has turned out to be true,” said Dodd.

The government has a bit of ground to catch up on as a recent opinion poll showed nearly 60 percent of Stockholm's residents were opposed to the charge, while less than 30 percent were in favour. We'll just have to wait and see what the Swedes make of it all come September voting day.

These words were uttered by Swedish sailor Mikaela Ahlbäck when she was rescued yesterday along with the rest of the Scandinavian crew off the south east coast of Australia after their yacht capsized. And here I thought the Swedes were unafraid vikings. What is being circled by sharks in 6m seas and 80-knot winds between friends?

Of course, this story made the papers and early morning radio service over here. Anything to do with Swedes, crocodiles, sharks or bushfires in Australia ia guaranteed to be on the news. I sometimes wonder what twisted impression Swedes get of my homeland if that is all they read about it. I can say that it has even further dissuaded Lars-Göran from ever sailing in Australia. He used to be quite enthused by the idea, until we got an electronic chart of the coastline and he spotted names like Disaster Bay, Coffin Bay, Shark Bay, Cape Desolation, Cape Catastrophe, Dangerous Reef etc and he has become less and less enthralled. Add to that a steady diet of Discovery Channel shows about the world's most dangerous snakes, sea creatures, spiders, insects etc (always with a healthy Australian representation in the top 5) and he has turned from a Viking into the meek, mild, white-socks-with-slippers Swede that we know today.

I think he prefers the peace and tranquility of the Stockholm Archipelago, even if she is wearing her winter coat right now.

This morning when I awoke in the darkness, I felt that there was a change in the air and when I consulted my trusty thermometer, I could see that my feeling was spot on. It was still a warm 22C inside, but outside, the temperature had sunk to -15C! Yes that's a minus sign you can see there. And for those who do not do celsius, that is 5F. An ideal day to adopt a pet penguin, I thought. So I did and named him Icicle. So say hello to Icicle, please!



The inspiration for the name came from the group of icicles (one of our strongest symbols of winter) hanging from the balcony rail.



As you can see, the snow outside is packed down into ice and this makes it treacherous to try and walk down the street without the aid of ice spikes on your shoes. And to think that yesterday I had a long telephone conversation with a good friend in Adelaide and told her that it wasn't so cold (at -5C). I shouldn't have spoken so soon.

Lambi does not enjoy the snowy weather, being a lazy couch dog, but she can be enticed outside to run free down by the harbour.



She is wearing her new reflector coat, so that I can find her in the snow. She managed to find several people to coo over her, so she was very happy. She makes me laugh as she trots around town with this funny canine sense of entitlement, giving us mere human beings the opportunity to adore her.

Over at the pier, there was a mist slowly rising from the water and I watched two ospreys (fiskgjuse) lap a wide circle through the fog. It's so beautiful to live in a smaller town and have so much more than buildings to look at. The range of wildlife around here still takes my breath away and I enjoy seeing the squirrels, badgers, deer, foxes, moose and birds every day. There have been three wolves spotted in the area over the last few weeks, but I haven't seen any sign of them in town yet. Fiona is sitting peacefilly in the water, framed by the silvery trees over on Bedarön with the sea beginning to freeze around her hull.



The sun had risen to a crisp, clear and sunny winter day. When it's this cold, the snow crystals begin to glisten, and as a friend of mine said today "it's like the angels have sprinkled silver dust on the streets." From the aft deck of the boat, we have a clear view across the icy water to the shore and the town beyond. I never get sick of this sight.



Looking the other way, we can see the island of Bedarön. It is beautiful, glistening with sparkling snowflakes more glittery than a thousand diamonds. The frozen ice and snow is so gorgeous that I do not want to leave it. The sun is low on the other side of the island and it glimmers through the treees. With the sun shimmering through them, the frozen ice on the branches looks like dewdrops, or tears before they fall.



Yes, the snow and ice is beautiful and exotic, but the Narnia-like landscape can also be dangerous. The newspapers are full of stories of people with broken limbs from falls on the ice, there have been power blackouts, car accidents and public transport delays because of the chill.

Today, my trainline to town was shut down for an hour and a half because of technical problems with frozen switches. Not a day goes by without there being some problem with the southern bound trains and I wonder why it's always my line that is affected. When I did get a train, it drove at only 40kph for part of the trip because there was a fault with one of the wagons. At Västerhaninge, I got off and took a bus as I felt it might be safer and more reliable.

Hmm... not exactly.....



That poor bus is one of the local buses here that drove into the ditch on Torövägen. I'm so glad I wasn't on it at the time, but 20 unfortunate people were and several sustained injuries. It is so easy to make a mistake here, even if you are experienced in these conditions. It quite put me off my trip.

The reason I was venturing out was to pick up some bargain priced goods at the post Christmas sales which are on this week. Most people are still off work until next Monday and are out and about spending money. I'm hopeless at looking at catalogues, though Lars-Göran pours through the junk mail every week and is up to date with what is being sold.

While browsing through one shop in town, we stumbled on the most perfect bedside lamps for us. It's only taken us FIVE YEARS to get around to getting decent lighting, even though we are both avid readers. How have we managed with the pathetic light we shared, I wonder. We weren't even looking for it and there it was. And with a name like Sydney - well, I had to have it. I'm going to settle in bed shortly with my new book, The Mermaid Chair and try the light out.

And for those of you in warmer climates, romanticising about the pretty snow, spare a thought for the poor people who have to try and clear the streets - especially when motorists fail to shift their cars!



The paper reported today that 550 people have been fined already this winter for not shifting their cars when the streets are to be cleared. I can see that no-one is being gentle with the offending vehicles. And see how much snow there is in an already tight street. They don't salt the roads here as it is not considered environmentally friendly to do so. Instead they rely on teams of ploughs to clear the roadway, followed by graders to scoop up the snow and load it on to trucks to be taken away. Here snow removal is a science.

This wintry landscape feels very far removed from the beaches of South Australia...

Your Birthdate: January 1

You are a natural born leader, even if those leadership talents haven't been developed yet. You have the power and self confidence to succeed in life, and your power grows daily. Besides power, you also have a great deal of creativity that enables you to innovate instead of fail. You are a visionary, seeing the big picture instead of all of the trivial little details. Your strength: Your supreme genius Your weakness: Your inappropriate sensitivity Your power color: Gold Your power symbol: Star Your power month: January

It’s my birthday today and I’m not the kind of person who likes getting presents. In fact, I kind of hate it. There are several reasons for this. One, for quite some time I’ve had very little space at my home, to the point that receiving even a new teaspoon would require some serious rearranging of furniture. Two, there’s nothing I really need. Three, I’ve never understood how purchasing some mass-produced item for someone else qualifies as a token of friendship; “Here, you mean so much to me I’ve purchased you an item made on an assembly line in China!”

To avoid getting presents, I’ve had to become creative in recent years. I used to try and leave the country during the holidays. If I sensed someone was scheming to get me something, I'd try and cut them off by getting it for myself. I couldn’t be more serious when I say that I consider it a major accomplishment in my life that many of my friends have just given up the idea of trying to get me anything on any occasion.

(As an aside, I detest few things more than the idea of a wedding registry. Why anyone would use the occasion of forging a love-based partnership with another as an opportunity to have other people shop for them is beyond me. So for our wedding, I asked people not to give any presents at all. Some people privately expressed dismay at this idea, but most obeyed my wishes.)

Lars-Göran however is not to be discouraged and he bought me a CD - Led Zeppelin II and some much needed winter thermals. I was pleased as they are both things that I will get enjoyment from - but that doesn't mean that anyone else is allowed to get me anything. I suspect that next year I will have to go away as 50 is an important birthday in Sweden and people might decide to annoy me with gifts I neither want nor need.

But as well as my birthday, it is the first day of 2006 and as usual it was Australia who welcomed in 2006.



It feels odd to sit here at 6pm on New Year's Eve and read about it already being New Year's Day downunder and see the footage on the evening news reports. Here in town it was a much quieter New Year's Eve than in previous years and a walk around town showed very little of the aftermath of fireworks. We used to have fireworks going off sporadically throughout the week leading up to NYE, but this year it has been peaceful. The midnight explosion was full on, though and it was pretty to look outside and see the glorious colours reflected in the snow.

Today I have my birthday wishes - a quiet time with my family in my pretty snow globe world.



And I will get a chance to finish off Edward P Jones' The Known World - an extaordinary book about slavery in the American south and the "right" of humans to own other humans.

If I had to make a resolution for 2006, it would be to make every minute count because you never, ever know what's waiting for you just around the corner. May we all find peace, happiness, good luck, and a lot of chocolate in our lives in the coming year.

Above all, if you must celebrate heartily, don't drink and drive.