The Charity Auction

On Saturday was the Handcraft (Handverk) Auction held by the Ryd Sewing Mafia (official title and yes, I belong, so be careful).  I was highly privileged, according to my grandmother, in being allowed to make two pies (paj) for this.  Ha, you may say, what’s the problem? Pies are different here, so I did an apple (no Bramleys!) and a black currant crumble. I have done Board papers, been on the end of official inspections, been a government advisor (bizarro) and I have never been so nerve-wracked.  I’m still awaiting the verdict, but people are still speaking to me, so it may be OK...

The Auction itself was great fun.  They are really, really old-fashioned now and this is one of the few still going. Yeah, we be in th’coun’ry.  It would be a shame if they did die out though.  The UK equivalent would be the Church Bazaar in that women run them, raise money for charity and have lots of handmade stuff.  There was a proper auctioneer, who told funny stories and was an ex-policemen, so I did wonder what was going on there then (groan...) and, of course, fika.  Fika is the totally and utterly amazing Swedish word for snack.  It tends to mean a roll and cake.   When I say cake, I mean multi-layered fruit, cream, jam and sponge confections that also can include meringue and crème de patisserie.  The joy...

Back to the Auction.  The stuff that was auctioned was handmade and I managed to secure a hand woven table runner.  I missed out on the bags that were made out of coffee bags.  Yes, the bags that are used to package ground coffee were sewn together to make a really cool shopping bag.  I am now saving coffee bags and have asked my grandmother to do the same, though she thinks I’m mad and may not take any notice of me.  There were also things like ‘choose and cut your own Christmas tree’ and homemade crisp breads as well as the usual knitted tomte (Google it!), jams, socks, embroidered table clothes, etc. The thing that really took me by surprise is that there was so much ‘lotto’, much more than the auction itself, in fact.  There was the normal raffle stuff (American lotto – why, no idea!), but they also sold, say, bread or hand-dipped candles with a number on the packet and you could win a prize.  I thought that was an excellent idea, you get something for your money, even if you do not win.

It is a shame that less people are doing handcrafts even though here, too, there is a bit of a revival.  I suppose that we cannot fit everything in any more.  Why only yesterday, I spent all my time playing Zelda and barely had time to eat properly let along knock up a cross-stitch rug.  I think that is why it’s fashionable to knit etc, because it means that you have time and it is that that is the luxury today.

Things we like about Swedish media

Once upon a time, a long time ago, lived a little girl who went on holiday to a country far to the north.  Sometimes it was very rainy and she couldn’t play in the forests and fields, so she asked her daddy if she could watch the television set in the corner of the room.  She saw that Bonanza was on one day, but Daddy said that she couldn’t watch it as it was on too late.  “Why is it on at 11pm?” she asked her Mummy. “that’s because it has manly fisticuffs in most episodes, if not gun fire, and such violence is not for children. You may take your grandfather’s shot gun and shoot all the villagers in an orgy of sickening terribleness”.  “Oh” said the little girl, “but I will be far more damaged by watching bearded and socked accordion players wink at me!” “then watch the home-spun slapstick comedy on the other channel” came the reply. The little girl sighed to herself, watched the news for the 4^th time that day and read some more Enid Blyton.

Nowadays how things have improved!

1)      Only 4 free channels – the restriction in choice is quite, quite restful and given that the other channels, apart from sport, merely run the same type of programmes, I don’t really feel deprived. Graham does, but he shouldn’t watch sport.

2)      The clothes of the presenters – The main news readers have become besuited clones of either doily bird seriousness or agéd gravitas, but the others are much more fun, especially the weather people.  My current favourite is one of the local news- readers, who is blonde, bearded and has the most comprehensive collection of loud, checked shirts that I have ever been privileged to see. No wonder the Vikings conquered Istanbul.

3)      There is 15 minutes of culture news every single day on the main channel, just before the local news and the main news, and a weekly book programme, which isn’t at 11.30pm, and a general cultural show. 

4)      The media assumes the audience has a brain each rather than one between the lot of them.  Example: Questions in quiz on trashy music radio programme, sort of like Capital, ‘who was the previous Finance Minister’ and a question on the rotation of the earth that involved serious maths.  There is an hour’s politics show at lunch-time on the equivalent of Radio 1 and a proper science programme on the telly for an hour each week at peak time.

5)      They don’t take themselves too seriously (apart from the critics of course).  There are coughs and splutters, wrong camera angles and delightfully timed “hummms”. My favourite quiz programme is DooBiDoo, which has a totally fab presenter who presides over singing anarchy quite, quite marvellously and makes the whole thing such a joy. 

6)      SG-1 is at lunchtime.

7)      They don’t censor lyrics.  I have learned such a lot about the hip-hop culture that I only knew in theory before.  The mad thing is that the sub titles can be a bit mealy mouthed in a rather random fashion.

8)       They import programmes from all over the world and sub-title them,  rather than dub, so on one day on one channel, there will be a David Attenborough documentary, an  Italian film, a Finnish short drama, an American comedy and some sort of Japanese programme (as yet to be determined as I don’t think the sub-titler knows either).

9)      The Swedish produced programmes have improved beyond all measure.  There are no longer wall-to- wall accordion players, though the comedy does tend to slap-stick.  All in all not bad at all.

10)   Everyone over the age of 35 complains that there is nothing on the telly.  Plus ça change!

Brush with Blighty

Brush with Blighty

Apparently, there are a number of rules that make a successful blog.  One of these is that there should be an new article  4 times a week minimum.  Whoops....

This time I do have an excuse.  The wilds of Cardiff do not have the internet.  Is that a puzzled look I see on your face? Do I hear cries of “but I thought you were in Sweden!” ?   It is all explained by the family emergency that saw my mother hot-footing it to one of my sisters in Amsterdam and me scrabbling to get to Cardiff to Dad-sit before she left. 

As I arrived at Heathrow, I wondered whether my heart would lift at the return to the UK and I would get too homesick to go back to Sweden.  Sorry chaps, but the place is dire.  Dreary, drab and dingy, the country looks as if it needs a good scrub. The people in the shops are gloomy and glum and the whole thing has lost politeness and manners.

I decided that I had gone completely native when the traffic in Cardiff seemed totally manic.  Previously it had been remarkable for its sparseness and general non-manicity when compared to London. Then I arrived at the flat and my father.  Argghhhhhh.

It is a dilemma writing some of this without appearing to dishonour my father, which I don’t really want to do.  However, it may, in some small way, help those who have difficult parents who get Alzheimer’s, so I will do my best. Theologically, I do not believe in Purgatory, however, I think that there may be a case for its presence on this plain of existence when the sheer tedium of the endless repetition of anxiety that is my father is experienced.  The holding pattern of questions (where’s mum, where’s she gone, why) took an average of 8 minutes to circle, apart from the night, when it was every 2 hours.  When there was some concentration required, like sleep, the questions would be even more anxious. The constant insistence on telephoning was difficult to head off without being bossy and prescriptive.  That was every 32 minutes, in case you think it would be ok to just let him phone. 

None of this was a problem to me really, though not being able to read or start anything much was slightly annoying,  because it is to be expected and there would be an end for me (poor, poor mother!).   The most difficult thing for me to deal with started at 2pm on Sunday – “but what about me? Why isn’t she looking after me?”  There was no comprehension that the world was not about him.  I do tend to find narcissistic egotism difficult to cope with at the best of times and when I was particularly weary, the only thing to do was to leave the room.  I had a headache for 5 days.

It really did make me ponder whether I managed my life to make everything about rather than care for others and about my insights into my behaviours.  I just hope that it isn’t too late.

 Ooooh, it was nice to come back.