Swedish Childcare

One thing that is obvious about Sweden is that they have a very different attitude to childcare from the UK. Saturday lunchtime - probably a bit above freezing. A very well wrapped-up baby happily sleeps outside a cafe while mum and dad have their lunch. (Baby so well wrapped up you couldn't see them as you walked past).

It's not something you see every day but it also isn't unusual. I can't think if anything wrong about this - if your child is dressed for being outside then they'll be OK sleeping too, and it's not as though people go out looking for babies to steal.

The Sun

Finally the sun appeared this week - it was a momentous and joyful occasion. Then my colleague complained that the glare on his monitor was too bright and asked if I could close the blind on the window. Farewell bright friend - see you sometime in spring.

Weather has also gone cold - I suspect we won't see 10 degrees until the spring either.

Greyness

Some greyness

This week it has mostly been grey - I don't think I've seen the sun since last weekend. There was a bit of blue sky today and the sun tried to come out but then the cloud thickened again and thwarted my hopes. To be honest it's so gloomy it's getting a bit depressing. It's also very mild - some people still running in shorts - not swedes obviously, they wrap themselves up properly as though they know it's suddenly going to get very very cold.

Darkness

This will probably not be the last time we mention the darkness. Our days are about 1 hour shorter than the UK at the moment and it will only get worse. Once the clocks change, the sun will set at 16:01 tomorrow. One rainy day earlier this week it felt like it wasn't fully light until 9:30 - when lunch is at 11:30, this feels very late. The evenings feel so long - it seems like it's been dark for hours and then you check your watch and it is only 9:00. Probably photos to illustrate the gloom another time.

Super-Tasty Snack Time

On the way home from Wednesday's run, we stopped at Nystekt Strömming at Slussen to sample the majesty of the strömmingsrullar. Fried herring and mashed potato with salad in a flatbread - yumyumyum. Not certain why it has taken us 9 months to try, but we'll be back there for sure. Superb filling wintry food.

Further Signs of Approaching Winter

#1 Grit bins appearing on pavements
#2 Adverts of TV for spiked car tyres so you can drive on frozen lakes without a worry.
#3 First sound of a car driving past with spiked tyres - metal spikes in the tyre make a pretty unmistakeable sound as a car drives past. Spiked types are permitted from October 1st and winter tyres are compulsory December 1st to March 31st.

James Turrell at Kulturhuset Järna

Many months ago now we had a weekend away in the countryside outside Stockholm. This was very exciting compared to the other bits of Swedish countryside we had been to because it was a bit open. Being outside and being able to see more the a few hundred metres is not something we are used to - normally there are a load of pine trees to block your view.

Järna is a concentration of Steiner schools and businesses run on Steiner principles - there is a biodynamic farm and mill. Being Steiner, all the buildings have organic shapes - heavy on curves and light on right angles. 

Spread across this 'campus' were a load of installations by American artist James Turrell. Best known for his ongoing work at Roden crater, he works with light and colour. Obviously this doesn't make him sound very special - what sort of artist doesn't work with light and colour? Turrell makes large installations which generally have lots of light (or sometimes very little light) and sometimes changing colours. He also make 'skyspaces', a large cylindrical roof with a circular opening in the roof. I assume the intention of to focus you on looking at the sky since that is the only place you can really look. This photo above is a sneaky one looking up in the skyspace and is rather reminiscent of 1960's Apollo mission pictures of the earth.

Autumn Silence

So 1 and a half months since the last post - what has happened? Autumn has hit and has hit hard. No swanning around with several months of rain and cooling down - it is just chilly. Last post we were wandering around in shorts and t-shirts in the blazing sunshine. Now it is hats and gloves weather. The real problem is that it's about 7-8 degrees and we've got another 20 degrees to fall - it doesn't feel like we are only halfway from hottest to coldest.

In Clas Ohlson last weekend we discovered they sell three sorts of thermometers - 'normal' (-10/+40), 'outside' (-50/+50) and 'sauna' (0/+120). so hot and also so cold.

When Nature Goes Bad

We returned to Tyresta national park and this time made it far enough in to walk across the part which was burnt in a large forest fire in 1999. As you can see, some of the old trees remain standing, but mostly it is small growth. Standing on higher bits of ground you had the very unusual experience of actually being able to see into the distance without being on a lake (not so easy when the whole country is wooded).

To continue our cultural assimilation as true swedes, our main aim was to pick berries and mushrooms. We were successful in finding blueberries and lingonberries (not hard - they are everywhere). We thought we had found a nice load of chantarelle mushrooms, but closer inspection of various websites showed they were in fact false chantarelles - not poisonous but not edible was the advice. So they went in the bin instead of into a pan. 

"He's coming straight for us"

Wildlife was spectacular - highlight was a white-tailed eagle soaring above. It was a huge bird with massive straight wings just effortlessly gliding around. Also watched a juvenile grey-throated diver try to dive - lots of dramatic splashing around and wing flapping occasionally followed by the bird managing to get underwater for a little while. In the mean time his parents were successfully diving down for a decent amount of time. However the real excitement came during another berry picking session. Off in the distance I noticed a capercaillie in full mating display - head tilted back and tail feathers spread. That's exciting we thought and quietly got out the binoculars to have a closer look. The capercaillie seemed to want to have a closer look at us too and wandered over. Living in the woods, he eats a lot of berries which stains his beak with red streaks. He continued to come closer and closer with his bloodstained beak until he was just within pecking distance. At this point we decided we did not want to find out what happened if you clout a capercaillie with a sketchbook in self defence and beat a hasty retreat. 

We're pretty sure we weren't anywhere near his nest, but we'll never know. I reckon it was just a psycho bird which had got the taste of walkers blood. Our bird book says "retiring in habits"!

Hairy Biker visits

Our friend Dan was our first visitor to stay at the new flat - he was one his way home from an epic motorcycle trip from the UK to Siberia. Having got the motorbike flown from Magadan to Moscow he then needed to ride home. Luckily for us, Stockholm is sort-of between Moscow and Calais. Dan was rather taken with Stockholm - partly I'm sure because he'd spent the previous 3 months in various bit of the former USSR and so being back in 'western' Europe was quite a dramatic change. His route was something like France Belgium Germany Austria Hungary Romania Bulgaria Turkey Iran (yikes! but Dan made it sound nice) Turkmenistan Uzbekistan Tajikistan Krygyzstan Kazakhstan Russia Mongolia Russia (flight to Moscow) Finland Sweden Denmark Germany Belgium France.
Dan and Ed's blog is at http://brighton2expeditions.co.uk/siberia/ It is full is interesting words and amazing pictures.