Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream...

This morning, I was out merrily rowing my little boat, on the quiet river.
The warming sunrise gave new hope and made the birds twitter away, ready for a new day's struggle to find food. I felt the rhythm from the rowing through every muscle and got into an automated, 'second breathing' which allowed me to forget about time and just...exist, as my vessel floated along. I was one with nature.

Then I woke up, removed my I-pod from my ears and climbed off the rowing-machine. Time for shower and a hearty breakfast.

Life is but a dream.

Cardiovascular networking

I often find myself travelling around the country. Although I try to travel by train, the very nature of my work means this is not always possible. Unfortunate as it is, I have become quite an expert on road numbers, motorways, their junctions and where they lead. Sad, really. Knowledge fitting for a pub quiz, I guess.

During my ten years in this country, I have definitely noticed an increase in the number of cars you see on the road. I never cease to be amazed that it all sort of ... works.
All these travellers - all going somewhere, heading home or away, to meetings, work or pleasure. I cannot help thinking what it would be like if they all had a sign on their cars, informing fellow travellers what they were up to. Like a giant, mobile Twitter community. "Nipping down to Tesco for a weekend shop." "Going to airport for my dream holiday"."Picking up granny for a family do". "Attending a conference in the City".

It would undoubtedly make the journeys more interesting, but it would probably not work. Road safety aspects, I guess. And - not much of privacy either, come to think of it. Plus - you wouldn't get a runaway white van advertising "Just robbed the local Natwest. Off to Bahamas." Would be handy for the Police, though! "Chasing bank robbers up the M1".

Our motorways are like a giant system of arteries, with A-roads being the smaller blood vessels and B-roads the capillaries. Sometimes, you will see blood clots clogging up the system, while the busy heart of it all - the M25 - is busy pumping away.

When I think about the number of roads we have in this country, how busy they are, how much pollution is being spewed out in the atmosphere every day, week, month and year - it becomes mindblowing. And this is just the UK. With all the other networks of roads around the globe, the car loving USA as well as the emerging economies wanting to have a bit of the same cake - it is not difficult to see that our planet needs help. Now.

Maybe the economic crisis in some strange, backwards way have done something good to the environment? Not for a minute do I suggest it is a positive thing that thousands of people have lost their job in the car manufacturing industry. That cannot be good for anybody.
But the downturn has also meant that the demand for big gas guzzlers have decreased, as people - who can still afford to have a car - change over to smaller engine sizes. And that has got to be a good thing for all of us.

Pie in the sky

Bankers' bonuses...
There is no end to the frustration you feel when you hear the astonishingly high figures being repeated on the news.
Has there ever been a clearer illustration of the inequalities in life? Pensioners lose their life savings, struggle to keep warm and to pay their council taxes - whilst the creme de la creme-people enjoy the good life. And - the best bit is they are the ones who have messed the whole system up in the first place! Bonuses used to be for doing something remarkable, something extra-ordinary. I guess one can argue what they have achieved is rather remarkable, but - still.

As many bloggers and columnists http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/4623601/Outrage-at-bonuses-wont-solve-the-mess-were-in.html point out, however - there might just not be the incentive for politicians and decision-makers to stop this from happening in the future. I think many politicians also want a chunk of the good life and - well, with a bit of luck, they might end up there - safeguarding a pension worth dying for, so to speak. Or a peerage.

What we need is an independent body forcing investment bankers et al, to declare all the bad depts and clear the deck from this nasty financial virus once and for all. Only then can we build from scratch and create a better future - provided the government gets a grip on the economy!

Some time ago, I went in to my own bank in the village - a very small branch of one of the national banks. It was just before closing time and I was the last customer. The security-man comes in to collect today's earnings, helmit in hand. But - he brings something else, as well. A home-made rhubarb cake with custard, which he hands over to the bank manager, with the words: "I made this yesterday for you." How nice...

Now, that's the type of bonus I could accept - even for top bankers. Provided they had earnt it, that is.

Strange encounters

A strange social phenomenon occurs every time I go for a walk where I live.

My picturesque village is situated on the outskirts of a major town - in an estuary, close to the sea. The walk takes me from the centre of the village out to the countryside, along a field with cows, followed by a bird sanctuary with views over the sea. Finally, it leads back into the village, with its many shops, ten pubs and restaurants again. (Sorry, that should be eight pubs. I noticed today that two of them had closed down, due to the recent financial crisis, one guesses.)

Now, I could of course tell you about the many signs of Spring I saw this February Sunday - the lovely air and the warming sunshine. However, I find it more interesting to draw your attention to something which has puzzled me for years:

Why is it, that strangers you meet during the countryside part of this walk always greets you with a polite "Afternoon" and a smile or maybe a nod and a "Hiya" - but noone even as much as looks at you in the village? In fact, you can meet the very same people when passing the Post office in the centre later, as you met when passing the twitchers' bird-hide, but their reaction will differ. All of a sudden, they have become anonymous and...well 'urban'. You sense the 'tube' feeling, if you see what I mean.

Why is that? To many 'urban' distractions? Green fields and cows bring out the best in people?

Comments welcome!

Friday the 13th

I do not consider myself to be of a particularly superstitious nature. However, I must admit I was a tad concerned when booking a flight on Friday the 13th. I finally came to my logical, rational senses and so clicked the Submit button. After all, that was the date I needed to travel. Why would a date – really just another categorising of the environment we live in – rule me in my decision-making?

Since I was a little girl, I have heard my Mum telling me what her Mum passed on, from generations before her. You know the thing; never put keys or shoes on the table. Spit three times if you see a black cat crossing the street, never walk under a ladder. That sort of thing. Not that I think my mother really believed in that sort of stuff, but she felt she had to say it, anyway. A bit like a curse, for the evil spirits who might have turned up had she neglected mentioning these old sayings.

But there are sadder versions, too. Never compare hands. The effect of this will be death in the family. As will dreams about you loosing your own teeth. The most depressing one, in my opinion however, is “Never sing – or laugh - in the morning. You end up crying before going to bed.” How sad is that!? It reminds me of words some religious sect (whose name escapes me now) insists on: “You walk towards death, wherever you go.”
Uplifting in mind and spirit, isn’t it?

So, if I wake up feeling like singing, I intend to continue doing so. No matter what. What made me reflect upon the significance of Friday the 13th in the first place was the fact that two plane crashes actually did happen that particular day.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7890952.stm
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/crashlanding+at+city+airport/2948957

One in the States and one in London – the latter almost exactly as I touched ground at Stansted myself. Strange – or just a coincidence?

Homeward Bound

I met an old teaching colleague yesterday, whilst strolling around in my wintry, Christmas cardy home town in Sweden. We had been working together in the 80s and 90s and had not seen each others for donkeys years.

He came to talk about how it is living in two 'homes', never really feeling at home in any of them. He asked me how I felt about living in the UK and if I was missing Sweden a lot. Although he had only moved from one part of Sweden to another, his longing for his original 'home' had become stronger and stronger with age, he said. It must have been over 30 years or so since he moved.

When he was here, he kept thinking of how much better things were over there. But once he was there - he experienced some kind of 'Is this it?' type of feeling and wanted to come back to his present 'home'. The grass is greener, you know.

I guess we all build up a perfect picture of how our childhood homes were and, with age, with things moving on - they change and maybe not always for the better.

My late uncle lived most of his life in the USA - a place he had been longing to go to ever since he was young. Back in the 50s, his dream became reality. After a week's journey on the mighty 'Gripsholm America boat' which set off from Gothenburg, he came to settle there.

With time, he started to compare the countries and thought less and less about America. Sweden was the place to be. But, with work, family and friends - he never really complained and kept the home-coming dream within himself.

He wrote letters to me and I could read between the lines how strong his homesick feelings really were, even if he did his best to disguise them. Every time he came to visit, I recall seeing him looking out over the lake in our home town, with tearful eyes and - he hated saying goodbye.
In his old age, when his son had moved to another part of the US and his wife died, he eventually did move back.

But times had changed. He was of course older, most of his old mates had died and - well, things were maybe not as exciting as he had imagined.
He ended his days in a home, suffering from Alzheimer's. As it happened, I was in Sweden on a visit from the UK when he died and I sat by his bed, holding his hand as he took his last breath.

I wonder if future generations will feel as torn between two continents as he did. Today's world provides ample possibilities to travel and settling down does maybe not have to be for life, in the same way as it used to be.

I said to my colleague "I think I am the sort of person you can plonk down just about anywhere in the world and I will adapt." If you think about your whereabouts as temporary, wherever you are on this planet - you avoid feelings of loss and longing. It is the people who inhabit these places that matter, not the actual places themselves.

Or at least - that's what I would like to think.

Recording life

Travelling can, at times, be rather tedious and boring. But every time I pass my time in train stations, in checking-in queues, in airports, I get very excited about observing people. Everyone has a story to tell, a journey to make and reasons for being where they are. Some are sad, others happy. One has won the lottery, another learnt her auntie has just died.
I find myself guessing who they are, why they are there and where they are heading.

Fragments of life are passing by in front of your eyes and there is not enough time to capture all of it. I sometimes wish I could.

This afternoon in Stockholm, I saw this fair haired girl on the tube, frantically texting away on her mobile. Nothing unusual about that. But she was totally unaware of people around her, completely obsessed by the words her quick fingers were creating on her mobile display - and, what's more, she had this special smile on her face. I am convinced her lover was at the other end of the invisible telephone line. It was a revealing smile, meant for the person she could not live without, that kept her going, that meant the world to her. I think.

A man from - and I am guessing here - South America, rushed in to the crowded, somewhat steamy waggon and managed to get a seat just right opposite me. He looked at me for a split second, with warm, friendly eyes. Then he took a deep breath and I could see he was tired - even exhausted, maybe grateful for finding a place to rest his weary body after running along the platform to catch the train. He closed his eyes and just...existed on his own for a while. I was wondering where his mind went. Maybe back to his home country and folks at home? Or maybe he was pondering about what to have for tea tonight. I will never know.

Whilst strolling through a town, you hear little snipbits of reality flowing in the air. This can be just as interesting. I have been meaning - many times - to carry a small note book with me and make quick notes of things people say as they pass you. Not everything, you understand - only the good ones. Yesterday I met a couple in the street and the young man said, when passing a restaurant: "We should go here. We have never been here before." The words just kept ringing in my ears and sort of made sense, in a slightly philosophical way.

A couple of streets away, and a woman says - with some emphasis - to what seemed to be her partner, maybe brother - or friend: "You cannot promise someone you will feel things, you know."

Again - very wise words. When I start thinking of how many wise words must be uttered by similarly wise people in the world, it gets pretty mind-blowing. Someone ought to make a record of this. Write it down, for the future. I just might do that.

Snow, snow, snow...

There's snow - and then there's snow.

Inuits have 40 words for snow, or so I thought until I learnt it is nothing but a modern-day myth. Maybe it is just that Inuits don't bother to talk so much about it - they just live with it?

In the UK, snow has caused a lot of disruption, and still does. I just heard on the news, there have been around 80 complaints by police about snow ball throwing. Sounds like the consequenses of a normal Swedish school lunch break to me.

As a Swede who spent my childhood playing in the snow, making snow huts and snowmen, playing hockey in the then rather empty streets - cursing the gritting lorry when it arrived - I obviously find this ado about nothing rather amusing and wimpish. But, at the same time, I realise the significant economic implications which would occur, were the UK to prepare the nation in the same way as us Nordic countries do. As it happens so rarely - would it be worth doing?

It might be grim up North, but at least we all have very well insulated houses, central heating and double glazing. Once you are indoors - you're fine. By law, cars and buses have to be equipped with tyres that cope with any frozen, uphill slope. Plus the snow that falls on the roads is actually shifted and taken away.

A true sign of Spring is when specially made vehicles come and sweep up all remaining grit on the streets - once the snow has gone. Fine, dry dust flying off in the much welcome Spring sunshine, icicles dripping and dropping from roof drainpipes and gables.

Oh well - we're soon there!

What to expect

I have started a blog.
Here, you will find observations and thoughts about anything which I feel like commenting on - society, politics, environment, media, arts, culture, people, travel, music....
What you will not find are notes about what I had for breakfast or what toothpaste I use.