According to my local supermarket, today is Tulip Day in Sweden. I secretly suspect that this is a way to flog off more overpriced bunches of tulips as I could find no other reference to it anywhere else on the web or around town.

Would they lie to me?




Who knows. But just in case it's true, I came home with some tulips to brighten up my day. So do you think that Tulip Day in the middle of January in Sweden is a fake? Yeah, me too, but what a great excuse to treat myself to a splash of spring.




Gosh that sunshine makes a difference!

I love tulips, so I didn't mind being conned. And funnily enough they were 29.90 and not the 39.90 that they were advertised. They really brighten up a January day beautifully.

Lars-Göran said they had ads about it in another shop window in town, so maybe it's just a Nynäshamn thing. It would be more appropriate in May I would have thought. My ever cynical husband thinks that Konsum just ordered too many truckloads of tulips from Holland.

On blogs, I often see people post something special on Friday. This usually takes the form of something like a Friday Five - five questions that people answer and then tag others to do the same. It's not really my cup of tea, but while I was flipping through sites, I stumbled over something that gave me the idea for a Four on Friday.

The idea itself came from a December 2006 PM program on BBC Radio 4, which asked their listeners to take a photo at 5pm (the starting time of the program) as a window on their world. They specifically asked that nothing be staged, just a photo of wherever and whatever was before them at 5pm.

It was really fascinating to look at the thousands of photos taken and sent in to the program website. In some ways it was quite touching too, as so many of the pictures are of very ordinary mundane activities, but they are still powerful because of this, not in spite of this. You can go to the BBC Radio website to view the photos taken by thousands of people on that one day in December.

It made me think that iy might be something that I could do - take a photo of a particular time of my week, or month. I really loved looking at snapshots of other people's lives and in my own case, I wondered what patterns and constants would show up over the 52 weeks in my world. It would be fun to also have a Three on Thursday, Six on Saturday and Seven on Sunday too, but I would almost certainly forget. But maybe there will be others that take up a slot........

So, I will be posting them at the AA gallery called Four on Friday. Hopefully I'll remember to keep it updated throughout the year.

And my very first photo is of Bruce reading the local newspaper:

Those of you who are regular readers know that I am not one to mention politics etc. It's not that kind of blog. But today, I just couldn't let this story go by as I find the actions of the Australian government to be so morally wrong that I feel embarrassed to be an Aussie!

The story concerns a young man named Stefan Nystrom, who born in Sweden while his mum was on holiday here, but who left when he was 3 weeks old and has lived with his family in Australia for his entire life. He was not a happy child, drifted into a life of crime, involving drugs and violence, being convicted on many occasions and spending time in jail. Though for the last five years, he seems to have matured somewhat, cleaned up his act and gone on the straight and narrow. But his earlier life of crime had caught the attention of the immigration department, who saw that owing to an oversight, his parents had never registered his birth in Australia. Therefore, technically, he was a Swedish citizen and on that flimsy pretext, knowing he had never set foot in the country, could not speak a word of the language and had no connections or ties here, he was deported to Sweden on the weekend and told never to return to Australia.

I suspect that this is a big test case and that the real reason he was deported was money. If Mr Nystrom was allowed to stay, the government would face a payout totalling millions of dollars in damages to the hundreds of others who have been deported.

I share the disquiet expressed by their Honours concerning the circumstances in which a man who has spent all of his life in Australia, who has no knowledge of the Swedish language, will be removed to Sweden and banished from Australia because of what must be characterised as an accident of history and an oversight on the part of his parents.

Can you imagine the outcry from Vanstone and her henchmen if the reverse were true - if someone in the same circumstances was forcibly returned to Australia? I can hear them already complaining about being a dumping ground for other's problems. What a bunch of heartless hypocrites.

I can't imagine how awful it must have been to arrive in a strange land - scared, friendless and alone. This is not the way we Australians are brought up to treat people - we have always prided ourselves on giving a person a fair go and we laud the image abroad of a relaxed, friendly, welcoming and above all forgiving country. Mr Nystrom has served his time for his crimes - there is no need to punish him all over again in such a callous manner.

I saw in today's ABC that his lawyer is lodging an appeal to the Human Rights commission with the UN. I hope something good comes out of that, but how sad that we have to shame the government into accepting their responsibilities. When you remember that modern Australia began as a dumping ground for Britain's "inconvenient problems", it is unbelievable that we have not learned a thing in over 200 years.

I know this man is no angel, but he is Australian! No amount of mincing words and splitting hairs over semantics will make him a Swede. I agree with his sister's statement "Why should Sweden have to put up with a problem that Australian society so clearly has caused and refuses to accept?"

New Years Resolutions, do I hear you ask? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

That's about it. One good thing about New Year though, is that it is also my birthday which has some advantages.

1. I can usually work out how old I am in exact years, months and days.

2. I always seem to have a public holiday on my birthday.

3. I always get fireworks.

4. People remember your birthday more easily than other "standard" days such as May 13th.

5. In my younger days I got one kiss for the New Year and one for my birthday!

Things that suck about having a birthday around this time of year:

1. Sometimes I feel a little seedy on the day as do others.

2. When I was a kid, Christmas and birthday presents were "combined" by my skinflint relatives. A person who has his birthday at Christmas also has the same dilemma.

3. A lot of things are closed, so going out can be a hassle.

Today, though, I reach an important milestone, especially in Sweden, where this birthay is one of THE BIG ONES. Can it be true.......





Fifty years is such a long time. I've had all this time to develop a skill, to find my niche, to strike it rich or even to assassinate a world leader. How long do I have left to accomplish these things? What is midlife these days, anyway? 40? 45? 35? Have I missed my window of opportunity for a midlife crisis? I could have gone out and bought a convertible or picked up a toy-boy.

So, what have I done with the 50 years for which I've graced the earth so far?

No, that's a bit boring. Better yet, what haven't I done?

In 50 years:

I still have not improved upon my housecleaning skills.
I haven't discovered, invented or created anything. Pre-school clay ashtrays do not count as creations.
I haven't travelled on the Orient Express.
I have yet to kill anyone despite my constant braggings that I will.
I have never been arrested. I suppose that's a good thing. (that's not to say I've never been in handcuffs).

I've never been introduced to a pizza that I didn't like.
I've never grown past 5'6".
I never bungee jumped or skydived or participated in a daring, dangerous sport.
I never played on an organised sport team.
I never made an assassination attempt on a world leader. Not even to please a person I was stalking.
I never dived off from the high diving board.
I never tried to get rid of my procrastination problem.
I never locked my sisters in a cupboard. I still owe them that one.
I was never sold to the gypsies like my mother said I would be one day.
I never turned down an offer of a free drink.

But mostly, in 50 years, I have never grown up.

That's a good thing, right?