It’s the place where we Aussies cook on the barbie, play cricket, kick the footy, hang a tyre-swing, install a swimming pool, build a sand-pit, sunbake, plant perennials, curse possums, rake leaves, throw a tennis ball for the dog and hang out the washing on the ubiquitous Hills Hoist.
Inevitably, we make it our own. Depending on our background, interests and other proclivities, we build ferneries, install sprinkler systems that save water by dripping not spraying, create retaining walls with retired red-gum railway sleepers, string up hammocks, plant extensive vegie gardens or design yukka lined-perfectly paved courtyards and populate them with expensive outdoor furniture.
The backyard is where we do our own thing, our private, suburban kingdom.
By contrast, in central Stockholm a balcony is gold! It’s a much-coveted piece of outdoor space. There’s never enough room for a vegie garden or a ball game, but it’s still a treasured space. Minimalist clothing is common in the summer and beers go there to chill out in the winter. Hanging out the washing, it seems by unwritten decree, is strictly forbidden. But for any activity more expansive than intimate dining or tending to a flower pot or two, the park is the place to go.
The recent summer weather has drawn legions of Stockholmers out into the green spaces. By simple necessity, city-living Swedes do in public what we do in private. It’s one big backyard community with smoking barbeques, Frisbees, eskies, picnic rugs, dogs, kids on bikes and naked flesh. It creates a vibrant, colourful, festival atmosphere. So, whether you’re sunning in Södermalm or grilling in Djurgården, next time you’re out there, raise a toast to Stockholm’s big backyard and enjoy the fact that you don't have to mow the lawn!
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I think that's the kind of back yard I could manage! That and a balcony, neither of which require planting or mowing, sound like my kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteI have a sort of courtyard type of backyard. It contains a worm farm (which is going to be donated to a local community garden as the worms really need a larger and cooler piece of compost to live in than a small black plastic container in a hot courtyard). It contains a Perth-shaped rectangular pergola structure which keeps most of the rain and quite a bit of the sun off the outdoor furniture. It contains pots with herbs growing in them and a potted dwarf lemon tree. It has a weber baby gas barbecue which does stirling service in the hotter months when one must outsource the cooking heat or die. I am trying to imagine inviting half of Stockholm in to the small patch of grass (hardly worthy of the name "lawn")but I think I will leave them happily sprawling in their park, watching what their neighbours are putting on the barbie. And I do have to get out the bright orange Flymo line trimming lawn clipping device, and trim the grass, alas, now that it has started to rain here occasionally and things are greening up.
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