Home decorating tip #321:

Not wishing to be left out of the current home styling trend, I attempted some to bring some Japanese flavouring to my kitchen last night - quite literally. It came about while cooking a stir fry for dinner and after I momentarily forgot about my throbbing left elbow and attempted to pick up a bowl of teriyaki sauce to add the finishing touch to the meal. The less said about this entirely regrettable episode the better, but suffice it to say that if you imagined yourself and your kitchen would look great with Jackson Pollock splashes across every visible surface, you'd be very wrong. You're going to have to trust me on this one. Even poor Lambi scored a little teriyaki makeover, making her think she was living in Denmark! In the immortal words of the Brainiacs, "Don't try this at home".

I've been reading a book about an English girl, Jenni Atkinson, who participated in the Tall Ship's Race in that late 1970's. Tall Ships are exercises in international friendship, held to give young people from all over the world the chance to participate in sail training on classic old sailing ships. I was interested enough to look up some information about the race in general and would you believe that next summer they are coming to Stockholm.




I can't let that go by without taking a long look, so I've already informed Beth and Anders that we are tying up to their boat which is moored in the centre of Stockholm itself along Strandvägen while the tall ships are in town. We'll take them for a sail among the ships and have a front row viewing place to experience the atmosphere that surrounds these visits. I had to laugh, though. We haven't even begun summer 2006 and I'm already booking mooring for 2007. I'm nothing if not organised.

Today it feels as though Sweden has skipped over spring altogether and launched straight into summer. It was sunny with a warm breeze and temperatures around 25C - really perfect. I almost wished that we were sailing already, but it is still one week to go. We decided that it was a good day to raise the boat and pressure clean the hull. Of course, the frigging crane was its usual erratic, moody self so what we had hoped would be a short job turned into an all day affair. Actually a several day affair as we put her on land and will polish the freeboard as well while we are at it. Still, it was a lovely day to be outside playing with the water.




The best discovery was that the hull is smooth and clear with no sign of the osmosis anywhere. What a relief! It made all of that ghastly work last spring almost worthwhile. Even though it was a weekday, the wharf area was very busy with a queue for the mast crane, several boats washing their hulls and those still on land busily working away to be ready to go into the water. We popped up to the upper wharf and found Jorma and Lena busy with their boat Ghita II which is an OE-36, the same model as our own boat, Fiona. Lambi as you can see was also there to pay her respects.




They are sanding off all of the layers of anti-fouling paint that have accumulated over the last ten years and will paint her fresh and new. It is a heavy, dusty and tiring work and made me feel glad that we did that (quite reluctantly I might add!) last season. It's always much better to do this sort of work when it is warm and sunny rather than battle in subzero temperatures.

The long walk home from the boatclub was made more pleasant by the warm conditions and the explosion of spring taking place around us. The leaves are beginning to burst forth and trees that resembled skeletons just a few days ago are now sprouting a fuzzy green coat. The birds are all busy and over near Oskarsbron I spotted a nesting swan in the reeds.




She's found herself a sunny spot in a well protected area. I think the only predators around here are foxes and they won't be able to reach her out in the reeds. I doubt very much that the other notorious egg stealers, the wily minks, will take on a bird the size of a swan. I wonder how many eggs she has? The swans around here seem to be prolific breeders and for a few years in a row the breeding pair in our local park have had up to seven chicks in a clutch!

Around in the park, I didn't see the nesting swans who must be hidden in the reeds, but I did see the family of Canada geese come in for a perfect touchdown. You do have to admire these handsome birds, even though they are a damn nuisance.




These birds are an introduced species and while it was a well meaning person who brought them over, it has been a disaster. These these adaptable, opportunistic birds have disrupted the ecosystem and displaced the smaller native species to such an extent that many scientists consider them to be a serious a threat to the preservation of biodiversity in Sweden. Of course Australia is no stranger to the problems associated with introduced species. Just mention rabbits or cane toads to Australians and you'll get the picture!

So we press on with polishing and painting the waterline tomorrow, with promises of sunshine and warm conditions again. It may be the last nice day for a while, though, as rain is forecast for the rest of the week. Let's hope the forecasters have got it wrong - though that rarely happens with bad weather.