Finally... Midsummer!

So after being rained away on Friday we managed to get bit of a traditional midsummer today.

I'm afraid I didn't do "the little green frog"- my excuse is that no one would show me how!

I'll post some more pictures from today and from our meal on Friday later

Midsummer

If the previous video clip failed help you understand the Swedish holiday, maybe this article (from the official Swedish portal) or this (more irreverent article from The Local) will make it clear!

If the weather stays clear I may be able to bring you the reality later!

My Swedish lesson!

I'm trying to read my way through a Swedish magazine I got last week.

(I find them good because they use fairly simply language, have short paragraphs, and are on a subject I have some interest/knowledge of)

Its called "Allt Om Flugfiske" (all about fly fishing) and the article I'm reading is about the history of Farlows .

In case you want to try the article is here:




(I'm actually just over half way through!)

Öströö Fårfarm (lamb farm)

Last week we went to Öströö Fårfarm, a Lamb farm about 30 minutes from here. As we drove in and saw the lambs running around for a moment I thought it was going to be like the old fish restaurants... I had visions of them asking, "which lamb would you like? before returning with some cutlets!

As it turned out we didn't get any meat. It was all frozen, not fresh (although that might be because the lambs are still too small). However this traditional wooden cottage housed was filled with different items all made from wool, sheepskin or other lamb related products! We might be back later!

What's the most important news story here at the moment?

Well it might be the proposed electronic surveillance bill been debated and voted on tomorrow (I might post about it later), but actually its more likely to be what the weather is going to be on Friday.

Why?

Because Friday is Midsummer's Day and highlight of the festive year!

(and sadly since the weekend its being grey, cloudy, showery, and sometimes stormy)

The weather centre say that Friday could be dry, or showery!
-They'll be more certain after Wednesday.

So what is Midsummer's all about... maybe this will help!

(this is an IKEA Germany ad which was pulled after IKEA HQ saw it and was banned from being shown on TV)

(I'll let you know after the weekend if its accurate!)

I am a number not a name

I got my "co-ordination number"/(tempoary) personal number yesterday in the post.

I think this means I can look for work, apply for language classes, etc.

It reminds me a bit of this...

Eurovision ("Melodifestivalen") 2008- The Swedes lose their innocence? (things I didn't get around to posting...)

The Swedes take Melodifestivalen very seriously- they even repeat the whole (and I mean whole, no editing here, the whole 3 hour plus) thing the next day in case you missed it...

By comparison the only reason its on UK TV is the fact that Terry Wogan needs a job (and that the BBC is one of the 4 networks that pay for it...)

I will admit to watching it in the past- We would get together on a Saturday night after a days work at Russell's and make fun of the contestants, flip popcorn at the screen and generally abuse the performers- I think that's the traditional British approach. We realise that its useless fluff and drivel and either ignore it, or mercilessly mock it. (The first time I realised that somebody took it seriously was when I was at college: I was working in pizza restaurant and a Croatian colleague was bemoaning the fact that he was missing Eurovision. It took us all a while to realise that he was serious!)

Anyway as I was saying, the Swedes take it all seriously (I don't know, maybe its their ABBA History...) even holding televised regional contests in order to find their entrant.

You see the Swedes make the mistake of thinking that the music really counts and that Eurovision is a genuine cultural, artistic and musical event...

Oh dear...

So they turned up with their entrant, Charlotte Perrelli (although why anyone would want to change their name from a normal sounding "Nilsson" to a topless car tyre calendar is beyond me...)- the only singer who can make themselves look 10 year older than they really are, and expected to win.

To be fair, even the BBC news website tipped them, so I suppose someone outside this small country must have rated her song (I will admit to hearing it- I wore some radio headphones on the afternoon of the contest to drown out the sound of a chainsaw- although personally I preferred the sound of the saw to "hero"... sadly the 43% of Swedes who bought the single disagreed). So the country went into corporate shock when she ended up 18th!

Newspapers called it a scandal, editorials claimed they should pull out of future contests, and I even heard it referred to from the pulpit the next morning!

Sweden had finally discovered that Eurovision is a thinly disguised political freak show with votes going to fraternal nations with little regard to the quality of the music (although as that too is lacking is this surprising?). This is something that the rest of us knew and took for granted for years.

Have the Swedes lost their Eurovision cherry? We'll see what happens next year!

June 6th- Swedish National Day (things I didn't get around to posting...)

Yes its National Day (not "national commemoration day"), but what does that mean?

As this article in The Local shows, people really don't know what to do! Although the day goes back a long time- its commemoration is only a recent thing.

The real celebrations take place a few weeks later at midsummer.

Instead everyone seems to just fly a flag, stick yellow and blue ribbons up, watch the royal family on TV, enjoy a public holiday (which gave everyone a long weekend this year), and look forward to midsummer!

The "Bullet Button" (things I didn't around to posting...)

I got a new keyring at the Vargerg Fortress Museum.

As it says on the label...

'The bullet button has been exhibited in the museum since 1932. Karl XII was considered immortal and "hard against bullets".

To be able to use supernatural powers you had to take a button from the king's uniform and use this to kill him. This was done at the fortress of Fredriksten, Norway in 1718.

The legend lives on through the bullet button'

We were going to go to Varberg to get one last year when I was here in July, but my frequent trips to the doctor and a hospital stay put pay to that plan. Now I have my keyring... just need a key to put on it!

Varberg Fort (things I didn't get around to posting)

Whilst In Varberg we visited the Fort. Despite being an imposing looking building it never saw any action, instead becoming a jail and now a museum (although the jail hasn't really changed- its become a youth hostel!)

There are several interesting exhibitions including one about a mysterious preserved medieval body found in a peat bog near by.



Apparently some sort of "lake monster" lives in the moat... although having visited Loch Ness and Loch Morar, I doubt the moat could hide anything bigger than a pike!

Varberg (Things I didn't get around to posting...)

Last week we went up the coast to Varberg.

Its a nice little (although larger than you'd think) coastal town with a harbour and old fort.

As you can see from this old postcard, we're not the first tourists to visit!

(Things I didn't get around to post...)

- This is my new series of late posts covering all the things I forgot/didn't write about at the time!

It's Grey Today...

Today it is overcast, windy and chilly.

Why is that worth noting?

Because apart from one hour of spotty rain, since we've arrived here almost four weeks ago its been hot (25+ has been normal!), bright and clear...

Oh well, can't have it like that all the time!

Fortuitous timing...

Last week google launched a Swedish version of its translator.

Its not perfect- but in tests on theological and fishing (as varied as you can get!) websites showed it to be good at getting the sense of a page...

give it a try!

At last... real CAFEchurch

I'm not a big fan of "cafechurch".

Why?

Because although I like the contemporary setting, service and atmosphere, its still cafeCHURCH.

Or in other words its still a church, just one laid out as a cafe rather than a church. But its still church and the people who don't go to church don't go to "cafechurch" (ok, I'm generalising here but for the most part cafechurch simply attracts Christians who dislike traditional church and want something more contemporary- nothing wrong with that, I understand the desire).

I've said it before- real cafechurch would be in a cafe in which there happened to be a church meeting. Here people who would never go to a church building might be found.

And at last its happening- in major UK coffee shop chains.

Read all about it here

UPDATE: Our boxes (should) arrive today... (they did!)

Without retelling the whole saga, we decided to use a firm to move most of our goods to Sweden.

When we arrived just over a week ago we received an e-mail on the same day telling us our things would arrive today.

This morning we tracked down the Swedish office to call and see when they would arrive... after a while they said that they didn't have anything booked and couldn't see our delivery on they schedule.

We can't get hold of anyone in the UK as its a bank holiday.

So we'll just wait and see if our things arrive today!

UPDATE: They did arrive- on a UK truck. Which is why the local depot know nothing about it...

Falkenberg: S:t Laurentii kyrka

I decided to visit the local church yesterday

The main church is being refurbished so services are been held in the older St Laurentii church in the old town.

Inside the church has a painted ceiling and walls and the service looked fairly well attended (on par with the C of E services I've been too- with a corresponding age range!)

I had fun following along with the Swedish service book (fortunately enough was familiar to make sense!) and trying to sing along to the hymns.

Until my Swedish improves there's not a lot more that I can say about the service- I'll make a few observations abut the church here later.

A cottage by the lake

We had a couple of nice days away at Peter's summer house on the lake. It changed a bit (in a good way) since I was there 2 years ago. Here's our green car blocking the view of his cottage!


We stayed in the annexe


I did get out and fish (twice)...

But we caught nothing!

We also helped out with some of the odd jobs around the place. This is part of my mountain of split logs (fortunately, in the 10 years since I last tried it there is now a machine to do the job so you don't have to swing an axe!)


So we had a really nice time, thank you!

Gone Fishing!

I'll be away for a few days. My friend is over here at his summer house doing a few jobs before the next guests use it and he's invited us down (it will be a nice break, and interesting to see what he's done to it since I was there 2 years ago).

So we're on our way (its not too far from here). He says the fish are in the lake so we'll take the boat out and see what we can catch.

I think my trout fly set up will make landing a pike "interesting"- so I'll either borrow some spin gear or try to catch some smaller fish on the fly...!

A week...

I haven't updated the blog as much as I wanted-I've been settling in, trying to get out and walk a bit more (I'm trying to get a bit better!), and the pictures I took of the town came out badly as it was too sunny! (Although I spotted, stalked and photographed two sea trout in the river the other day- and here are the pictures to prove it!



If you've emailed me... well I can receive on both my addresses, but I can't reply on one of them so you might find my reply in your junk folder as I'm using googlemail to reply to all emails.

Falkenberg: The weather today will be...

Skrea Strand is a beach a few km from here. So if you want to see what the weather's like here check out their webcam

It looks like its going to be another good day (did I mention that we need to go to some shops in Skrea today?)

Reasons to like Sweden: clothes that fit!

Ok, so this might not be a big deal for most of you, but for me it is.

I'm slim- in fact in UK sizes I'm a waist 28. The problem is the smallest trousers/jeans/etc most UK shops stock is 30 (with some only starting at 32...).So you can imagine my surprise at seeing jeans going down to 26 (with a few 24) in a high street jeans store here in Falkenberg at Christmas.

With the exception of two pairs all my jeans and trousers come from Sweden!

We went shopping for shorts (my only pair is a child's 3/4 pair I got last summer which look knee length on me!) I even managed to find a pair of "combat" style (you know- the ones with hundreds of pockets on them) shorts in my size. Big deal I hear you saying... well I haven't been able to wear them before because if I put things into the pockets of larger shorts they simply fell down!

So another reason I like it here- Clothes that fit!

Falkenberg: The River Ätran

I thought I would start sharing my new surroundings with you...

Less than 100m from the place we're staying in is the river Ätran- there is a walkway accross bridge (with a forest walk/park area on the opposite side).
-here is the view upriver from the bridge

-and here is the view down river to the town centre and eventualy the sea (the building you can see is a famous open air theatre)

There is a walk along the left hand (southern) bank which leads towards the centre

In the centre you find the Tullbron (toll bridge- the historic entrance across the river into the town

You can cross the bridge and walk back up on the other side...

That's all for now- I'll show you some more next time.

(oh did I mention that the Ätran is one of Sweden's best known Salmon rivers? I didn't- well I'll come back to that when I unpack my fly rod!)

Falkenberg? Where's that?

In case you wondered were we were, we're here in Falkenberg on the west coast of Sweden.

You can visit there tourism website here, and watch a videoabout the town (there are also some other brochures available as .pdf's)

Arrived!

Just a short note to let you know we arrived on Thursday morning- since then we've been catching up on our sleep, trying to put away all the things we managed to stuff in the car, enjoy the sunshine and shopping for a few things we needed.

I'll start to tell you more about life here soon!

Update

Ok,

Sorry for the blog silence but things have been quite hectic what with packing, arranging transport, changing transport, repacking, being ill (at times quite badly ill), more packing, etc.

The flat still hasn't sold...argh!

But we have someone to stay in it temporarily until it sells...phew!

The boxes finally went... at last...

We're not to well and need to leave quickly... sorry

So,all the people who I wanted to see and say good bye to...

I'm sorry... (but too be honest I haven't been very well and it might have been a struggle to get around...)

But don't worry- I need to be back quite soon because I need to sort some things out so I will be back and I have already started planing to see you all...

I hope you understand...

I think we're leaving tomorrow sometime to catch a boat on Wednesday morning... yep, that soon

I feel a bit like this!

Another of Jon Birch's excellent Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus

don't they teach history in San Francisco anymore

spotted at a Free-Tibet demo when the torch was passing through...

Stuff of life

Who's Irresponsible now?

The Union Unite (disclaimer: I used to belong to this union in of its earlier guises...) is threatening a 48hr strike at the Grangemouth refineries over pensions... The owners Ineos, claim that they will have to shut the plant down for safety reasons and that this will put it out of action for a month. Now I've heard two "experts" give differing views about this proposal, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the stoppage is necessary for safety.

What I won't accept is Ineos claiming that this "risks petrol shortages" and claims that the union would be responsible.

The same "experts" claim that the UK has a 70 day reserve...

So the talk about shortages is just Ineos spouting rubbish in an attempt to portray the union in a bad light...

The thing is, if they aren't lying, and they didn't know about the reserves, then they really shouldn't be in business and the unions claims sound much more believable...