Yes, Boreas (god of the North Wind in Greek mythology) has swept over Sweden with a vengeance - just check out those minus degrees on the SVT weather map. Brrr.....

It's -12C at the moment, which is a far cry from the lovely +8C we had a couple of days ago when I was waxing lyrical about spring awakening. Early next week they are forecasting temperatures in the low minus twenty range, so I bet the trains will be late or non-existent every day. Yesterday evening the snow came tumbling down in soft waves, reshaping the landscape and blanketing the world with a soft, white covering.



The snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches. - e.e. cummings

We had made a tentative plan to meet up with some friends in Stockholm today, but it was just too cold to be bothered making such a long journey, so I cancelled and spent the day home instead. We did go out and catch some of the brilliant sunshine, but we forgot batteries for the camera, so there are no pictures. We also wandered down to the harbour and turned up the heating in the boat to make sure that the temperature of the engine room stays above zero. We don't need another burst water pipe this winter.

Meanwhile, back at home, Bruce (one of our inquisitive cockatiels) went for a quick fossick along the desk, spreading seeds in his path.



He appears to have taken it upon himself to sort through our bills. What a pity he doesn't offer to PAY them as well. I wonder if we can simply ignore the ones he managed to chew up? Do you think it will be a good enough excuse?

I am aware that while we are freezing our goolies off up here, Australia is still baking in hot temperatures. My friend Kim sent me a couple of photos from Adelaide during the current heatwave. It seems that it is not only the human population that is feeling dry and parched. Even the native animals are being enticed out of the bush and into suburban gardens.



For those of you who don't recognise the animal, it is a koala (like Teddy and Freddy who are currently appearing at Skansen). It is so unusual to see these little fellas out of a tree. And even rarer to see one drinking. Koalas mostly get the liquid they need from the leaves they eat rather than drinking from creeks or puddles. In fact the name koala means No drink in aboriginal. I'm assuming this one is feeling stressed, so I hope the people who found him contacted the wildlife service.



We were sitting at breakfast discussing our summer sailing and I mentioned that our route will take us past the island where the sixteenth century astronomer Tycho Brahe had an observatory and that it looked an interesting place to visit. "Who?" said Lars-Göran. So I repeated Tycho Brahe and wrote it down and showed him just to be sure. Then the penny dropped. He had no idea who "Tie-ko Bray" was, but of course knew who "Tea-koo Bra-hee" was.

This is not the first time that he has been perplexed by my pronunciation of European names and he usually laughs at how we English speakers mangle them. The first time, it was the name Bach (which I pronounced "Bark" as you do). He had no clue who I was talking about until I wrote it down and he told me it was pronounced "Baa.. then some ghastly sound as though he was clearing his throat from a big pile of phlegm. No way was I going to say that. So instead when his music comes on the radio, I say "Woof! Woof!" instead.

Things were worse with famous Swedish names. Now, we've all heard every tennis commentator in the world say Björn Borg's name. Without fail, they say "Bee-yon Borg" (with a hard "g" on the end). And not once in all of these years have I ever heard Mr Borg contradict that and correct them. Which is crazy as his name is actually pronounced "Bee-yawn Borry". Can you imagine what would happen if they'd mispronounced McEnroe's name? We'd never hear the end of it. But here I've been saying it wrong all of these years.

And worse still is the director Ingemar Bergman. For Swedes reading this, we say it in English as Bögman. This is funny as bög is the Swedish slang word for gay. In fact, it should read as Berry-man.

I'm guessing that as soon as we hit the island of Ven, Lars-Göran will begin to bray like a donkey. It's going to be an interesting trip....