Month: January 2022

I was told by locals that people in Stockholm were a bit more closed, less patient, less polite, less friendly, than people at Björkö. I don’t know if it is true, everybody seemed nice enough, but they did seem to be a bit more in a rush in general. They didn’t have much time to…

The storm “Malik” is crossing Sweden right now — it was a hurricane before, but it appears to have been downgraded — and it is still very windy up here, although nothing terrible has happened. Just a lot of wind, and a lot of snow. It is possible to walk outside, it just doesn’t feel…

Friday was sunny and nice the whole day: perfect for a walk around Stockholm. Saturday, however, began foggy and rainy. Since I did not get many interviews in Stockholm, except with the woman at the reception of the Strindberg Museum, who gave monosyllabic answers, and weather wasn’t improving, I thought it was time to leave….

August Strindberg was born in Stockholm in 1849. At that time, it was still a relatively small and provincial place, at least compared to the main cities in continent. Its total population was 93,000 people and still had a rural feel.  Although he lived a large part of his life in Stockholm, he left for…

My main project here is to work on a new script which is a sort of comedy about Swedish playwright August Strindberg and Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen meeting in the afterlife… Hilarious stuff, right? However, this proved a much harder task than I imagined, for many reasons that I will explain another day, but the…

If you thought that Björjko seemed lonely and desolate, that’s because you haven’t heard about Arholma yet. Arholma is the twin island of Björkö, just next to it but you need to take a ferry boat to get there. The ferry doesn’t come very frequently in winter, so you have to plan the journey carefully….

We were watching a Swedish movie the other night. It ended with a woman driving away, furious, and a man, her ex-lover, walking backwards and forward in despair. Then large black letters appeared on the screen: “SLUT”! For a few seconds, I thought it was a comment on the actions of the female character, until…

I was planning to go to Stockholm this past weekend, but because of some other developments at the house, I had to postpone the plan to a later date.  Perhaps it was just as well, because this weekend there were large protests in central Stockholm against “vaccine passes” and other restrictive measures, and it probably…

As I mentioned before, the bird came to my window again yesterday morning, but it was so quick that I couldn’t take his picture. So I put some sunflower seeds to lure him back. He hasn’t appeared since. I suppose Swedish birds are not as materialistic as German ones, they are not interested in seeds,…

The bird appeared again at my window this morning, but let’s forget about him for now. Today I want to talk about Swedish houses. I don’t know about Stockholm, Uppsala or other big cities, but around here in Björkö-Arholma most houses follow a similar pattern. Almost all are made of wood. And the colour is…