Glimma

It’s cold in Melbourne but I confessed to a slightly incredulous friend today that I wished it was colder. Snowing in fact.

I was so enamored of Stockholm’s crisp, white winter this year that I wouldn’t mind donning a scarf, hat and gloves and turning up my collar against some drifting crystal flakes. Instead it’s a mild 9 degrees and there’s no snow in sight.

To brighten things up, I’ve been to the big blue and yellow store and stocked up on some Glimma for my Iittala votives. Whilst we don’t do winter darkness here with the same depth and duration as Sweden, the flickering of candles on my dining room table lifts my spirits. It wasn’t until my first visit to Sweden that I really understood the importance of candles in the winter-time. They provide light and movement and something indefinable that warms the psyche to inoculate against winter blues.

In Stockholm in midwinter, the sun rises and sets within about 6 hours. It hugs the horizon as if it doesn’t have the energy to push itself up any higher in the sky and it sinks leaving darkness to settle around 3.30 pm. Today we had 10 hours of daylight and patchy blue skies so we really can’t complain.

Even though it would be nice to have some snow.



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Life at Sea

The Otello has just departed Port of Fremantle in Western Australia. I watched as the morning sun lit up the docks and the giraffe-like gantry cranes and this green and white monster slipped out to sea. She has a car carrying capacity of 6,700 and some happy Australians will probably be taking delivery of a new BMW soon. She has sailed off into an approaching storm and as I sit watching this massive vessel disappear over the horizon whilst the swell rolls in at Cottlesloe beach and ominous clouds darken the skies, I’m trying to imagine life at sea.

Daughter Number 2 lives in Fremantle and met our friend the sea captain who lives in Sweden and works for Wallenius Wilhelmsen when she visited Stockholm a few years ago.  She is chuffed to be able to tell her Aussie mates that she knows someone who has sailed these big ships into the port she can see from her window.  The sea captain is never short of a fascinating maritime story and opens a window of a different kind onto another world with his tales. I love listening to him talk about ports and people and about shipping technicalities and navigating the world’s oceans. It fires my curiosity and fills my head with images of rolling blue-green horizons and far-away destinations; visions and fantasies that have undoubtedly lured travellers to sea for millennia.

The Otello is a long way from home. The Wallenius Wilhelmsen online schedule says she left the German port of Bremherhaven on June 1st and arrived in Fremantle on July 7th. Vessels like the Otello count time in days and months whereas flight schedules count time in mere hours. We left Stockholm on June 19th and arrived in Melbourne on June 20th. Thirty hours door to door. The Otello’s voyage has taken thirty-seven days so far. And she’s not even on her way home yet.

So as my mind follows the Otello and her crew over the horizon and across the Great Australian Bite on their way to Melbourne, I’m thinking that sailors are made of stoic stuff. Despite my romantic imaginings, long periods of time at sea must be incredibly tedious and boring and loved ones must feel a very long way away.

Bon Voyage!

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Shame Julia, shame.

Down here in Oz we have just made history. We have a woman Prime Minister.

She was installed last week following internal Labor Party wrangling and political intrigue. Given the coup, I had mixed feelings on day one, followed by increasing optimism on days two, three and four. Today is day seven and for me the honeymoon is official over and I’m not sure if I’ll even stay faithful.

Julia Gillard announced today that she will not support legalising same sex marriages in Australia.

So the bar just got higher. I’m no longer happy with a woman as PM. I won’t be happy until we have a gay, married PM. Male or female, it doesn’t really matter. We need a leader who is willing to stand against discrimination and for a just, fair, respectful and equal society.

Maybe for Bob Brown…It’s Time!


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What to Wear?

Who would’ve thought we’d be cocktail-partying this weekend? It’s a 10th wedding anniversary bash and all I have is in the wardrobe is daywear. The attendees will be young and svelte and Swedishly gorgeous. The hosts are gorgeous too, and they’re genuinely unpretentious so I know they won’t give a damn what I show up wearing.

I was going to pack a little black dress, just in case. It would have been perfect. (I’m worried I’m starting to sound a bit too Sex in the City…). I didn’t pack it because it was in a box in our Melbourne garage somewhere, awaiting a move to the seaside and I couldn’t be bothered searching for it.

Will I need a little black dress when we move? Who knows! It might be all caftans and rainbow head-bands and bonfires on the beach. Meanwhile, tonight I’ll wear jeans and a string of pearls. I never leave home without those!

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The Backyard

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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Smiling at Strangers II

I’m incorrigible. I’m still grinning madly at strangers.

I’m conducting my own little anthropological study about the influence of the weather on the interactive tendencies of Swedes. My hypothesis is that more Swedes will crack a smile in the summer. So far, the evidence to support my hypothesis is mostly absent. There are a few statistical outliers, but they’re not generally factored into any serious analysis. My research shows that Swedish people out walking are no more inclined to smile at a stranger in the summer than they are in the winter.

But today I think I saw my man! The one who kissed me on the bridge in the winter! (See this blog - "Smiling at Strangers", 24th February 2010) This is how it went. I was fartleking through the park and I was in the cool-down phase of my Podrunner Podcast so I was happy. Smiling! Well I think I was smiling, but I might have been grimacing. Slightly. An old man walking towards me started smiling and applauding, mock serious, my clumsy, sweaty efforts. He was old and he wore glasses, just like the man in the winter who proved that not all Swedish people are introverted and grumpy in the winter! I broke my stride and was about to stop, but I'm a runner now and the imperative is to keep moving, so instead I did a grateful Namaste gesture, smiled again and waved as I went on my way.

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Lessons from trees

I’m impressed by Swedish trees. I think I have a lot to learn from them.

In two short weeks, the view into the neighbouring apartment building has been obscured by a verdant curtain. The new leaves are an incredibly intense shade of green. Perhaps the chlorophyll is all enthusiastic and keen to do its thing after being redundant through the winter.

The thing I’m impressed by however, is the sheer tenacity of the trees. Well, they’re generous too, unstinting and munificent. And did I mention beautiful?

The average temperature in Stockholm in April, a mere month ago, was 5 degrees. The mean minimum temperature was 1 degree. On April 22 it snowed. Now if I was a tree, I’d still be in shut-down mode. No rising sap and the promise of Spring for me. Any burgeoning buds would be disowned. I’d be braced against the wind chill, silently watching scarf-toting Stockholmers wade through the remnants of one of the coldest winters on record.

But here’s the thing. Trees don’t think like that! They don’t complain, they don’t whinge about expectations, about being ignored or neglected and having to do the same old thing year after year. Reliably, unquestioningly, bountifully, patiently they push out millions of lush new leaves for the enjoyment of whoever happens to nearby and they rarely even get hugged for it.

So next time I’m feeling a little bored by routine, a little jaded, or when I next feel like spitting the dummy or throwing in the towel…I’ll look humbly and respectfully to a Swedish tree.


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