June 6th is Sweden’s National Day. We celebrated by joining the picnic and National Day concert at Hagaparken.

We’ve gone from winter to summer in less than a month. Dandelions, daffodils, cherry trees and the first lawn daisies all blooming at the same time as the last scillas and anemones. Weird. I feel like I have been cheated out of a spring.

Finally, finally a spring weekend!

We brought up the garden furniture from the basement, and the outdoor drying rack, and the Crocs and the water guns. Eric inaugurated the drying rack; the kids had fun with the water guns; I had fun spreading manure in the hedges.

I was out all afternoon – no hat, no warm coat!

Tomorrow I’m packing away the woolly hats and snow suits and winter boots.

After about a week of sustained cold weather (below –15°C) we’re reaching the limits of our old house’s capability to hold the warmth inside and keep the cold out. The temperature in most parts of the house is now down to around 17°C. On the floor, in the chilliest corners, it’s more like 10°C.

For next year we really need to buy a tile stove. For this year, it’ll probably be another electric heater. Or maybe not, because the weather report promises warmer weather from Saturday night onwards, and the house has been quite OK during most of the winter.

Washing dishes, with hot water, becomes an unusually pleasant activity in this kind of environment.

In other news, Ingrid has done the thing that most kids do once and never again: licked a cold metal bar. Blood and tears. (What is it that makes freezing cold metal look so lickable?)

Yesterday I learned what light pillars are and how they arise. According to the news, these could be seen in several areas in northern Stockholm yesterday – and, luckily for us, also from our living room window. Quite cool, and pretty as well. I only managed to catch the brightest ones in the photo but in reality we saw several more. They came and went, brighter and weaker, as the air moved.

(It may seem from the photo as if the pillars are above the street light, but that’s just because they were in the same direction – in reality they were much farther away, above some unknown light source.)

Tuesday: rain, +5
Wednesday: rain gradually turning into sleet, 0
Thursday: snow, -2
Friday: snow, -2
Saturday: clear, -5
Sunday: clear, -13

Some interesting weather seems to be heading our way.

… and two women. (In reality there are a few more women in our office but on this day they must have been camouflaged.)