A Royal Celebration

In Sweden, 30th April (Valborgsmässoafton / Walpurgis Night), followed by 1st May (Labour Day and a holiday), is when we officially welcome Spring in Sweden. Among the traditions are bonfires, choir singing, and also student parades.

30th April also happens to be when our present King, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, was born. This year, he celebrated his 80th birthday with quite a lot of "pomp and circumstance". So on the national level, that kind of took over. (Ordinary local arrangements like bonfires and student parades probably just went ahead as usual, though.)

However one wanted to celebrate, we had beautiful, almost summer-like spring weather all over the country. For my own part, I'm not keen on going out in the evenings these days, so I did end up in front of the TV, following the Royal celebrations instead. A big party was held in the royal palace in Stockholm, with no efforts spared, and lots of foreign royalties and other important people invited. 

Among the advantages one has as only taking part via TV is that one is free to snap as many photos as one likes of the screen with one's own phone. So I did...

King Carl XIV Gustaf and Queen Silvia

  

Crown Princess Victoria,
her husband Prince Daniel,
and their eldest daughter,
Princess Estelle

Prince Carl Philip with his wife, Princess Sofia

 

Princess Madeleine with husband Chris O'Neill

One thing our present day royal family have in common is that they all - including the King himself - married non-royals. Prince Daniel was made prince by marrying the Crown Princess Victoria, and Princess Sofia was made princess by marrying Prince Carl Philip. Princess Madeleine's husband said "no thanks" to the royal title though, and remained Mr O'Neill. (Their children still retain the titles princess/prince, but have no official obligations.)

People giving speaches during the dinner:
Crown Princess Victoria (first), Queen Siliva (last),
Andreas Norlén - Speaker of the Parliament,
Ulf Kristersson - Prime Minister

The King listening to his daughter's speech.

The Queen, Princess Madeleine and Prince Carl Philip

People breaking up from the tables after dinner

The evening ended with a "Tattoo" (Swedish: "Tapto") performance in the castle yard.
(A military term for a drum beat or bugle call to signal the end of the day.)

 

King Carl XVI Gustaf

Choral Singing and Autumn Colours

Following a rainstorm last week, we were blessed with another couple of beautiful sunny days this weekend, with autumn colours beginning to show. I had no specific goal for my walk this afternoon, but along the way decided to extend it into the town park. 

When I got there, I could hear music. It turned out there was an open air choir concert going on - something we've not been spoiled with during the past 1½ year... I recalled I'd probably seen something about it in the local paper - to do with a choir festival this weekend, and also with Borås celebrating 400 years as a town. As the weather was nice, and it wasn't too crowded (totally possible to "keep distance") I ended up staying around until the end, i.e. about half an hour. (I arrived in the park shortly after 3 pm. Don't know if they had started at 3 or earlier.)

 

 

 

Below: Autumn colours on my way back... Nature seemed to be "singing", too!

400 Years

On 29th June, Borås celebrated its 400th anniversary. 

(Continuing from my previous post:)
After having been to see the new sculpture Devil Whirls,  I went down to the park, where I discovered that the fountain in the river had been restored in honour of the jubilee. It's been out of order for a whole year or more, and I've been missing it, so was happy to see it again. 

From there, I turned back home again, though (did not go into the city centre). While walking home, I heard an airplane in the air above me, but it wasn't until I was close to home that I looked up to check what was going on. (It's not all that uncommon to hear a plane passing, but more so to hear them circling around back and forth...)

At first I didn't get it.
Then I did.

Not sure I approve of the environmental aspect, but visually it was good day for it!

Back home, I watched the official digital celebration ceremony from the park on my tablet, while having lunch. Part of it was sent live from the park; other parts had been filmed in advance.

(During my weekend with a broken tooth, "mixed salad" took on a whole new meaning as I pretty much had to run all my food in the blender to be able to eat at all... And on Tuesday, my mouth was still sore...)

 A fanfare was played from the top of the tower of the 17th century church.

A new tree was planted in the park

Every year on the town's birthday, they also appoint a new "ambassador" for the town for the next year - usually someone already nationally well-known. This time a former prime minister (Ingvar Carlsson) who was born and grew up here. (Follow the link to Wikipedia if you want to learn more about him.)

...

Speaking of former PMs, we're still in the midst of the national political crisis which I tried to explain here (21 June). After the parliament voted for no confidence in our PM (Stefan Löfven, leader of the Social Democrats), he had two options: Either to call a snap election himself, or leave it to the Speaker of the Parliament to try and seek another solution. The PM chose (on Monday this week) to step down and leave the process in the hands of the Speaker (while continuing to serve as interim PM, pretty much as before).

The Speaker then (quite according to practice) handed the 'ball' to the leader of the biggest opposition party, the Moderate Party. Meanwhile, one of the old government's support parties, the Liberals (at present a very small party) has declared a change of standpoint and joined the opposition. But at the same time, the Left (who kind of started the no-confidence thing) again declared they'd rather see the old PM back than the right-wing alternative. The balance hangs on one (1) vote in the parliament (175-174) but the leader of the Moderate party today declared that he does not seem likely to be able to win; and thus the 'ball' has now once again been handed back to the old PM to continue negotiations with those that still support him; and report back to the Speaker on Monday. They know how to keep the country in suspense...!

'Devil Whirls'

I don't know where to start. Perhaps I'd better just pick up where I left off...

Towards the end of Midsummer Eve, Friday evening, I cracked a tooth (a pre-molar in the upper jaw). It broke in two, but the loose half did not fall out. I spent the rest of the weekend keeping my jaws clenched and/or keeping the tooth in placer with my tongue; with occasional breaks for very careful intake of fluids and half-liquid/mashed food. And worrying about how to manage Monday, when I knew I'd need to call my dentist first thing, hoping they'd be able to fit me in the same day, and preferably early, as in the late afternoon I also had my important 2nd covid jab scheduled, which I also had to count on to perhaps be followed by similar flu-like side-effects as with the first one, and...

Well, I did my best to distract myself from worrying too much over things I could not do anything about over the weekend anyway. But it wasn't easy!

I thought of contacting an on-call dentist but for one thing I wasn't in severe pain (just "in trouble"), and for another I really thought it best to have my regular dentist handle it. (Even if she's new and I'd only met her once before. But I've been going to the same clinic for 30 years, and they have all my dental records etc.) 

On Monday morning I got up early; I needed to get dressed and have some sort of breakfast (yogurt) before calling (as soon as they opened), in case they would be able to fit me in early. I called around 7:50, actually did get an appointment at 8:30 (and walking into town takes me around 25 minutes)... Good news: Although it was a tricky job, the dentist was able to replace the broken-off half of the tooth with a filling. (Bad news: Next time something happens to that tooth it might not be fixable any more... But I'll worry about that when the time comes...)

I was back home again before 10 am, and my covid jab was not until 5:30 pm (across town). In between, a (local) friend messaged me - the same friend who was kind enough last time to offer to drive me to the vaccination center. I asked if she would have time to do it again, and she did. I feared there might be more of a queue this time, as I knew they were carrying out at least around 1500 vaccinations that day.* But again, it turned out well organised. I got there around 5:20 and was out again by 5:45 including the 15 minutes wait afterwards. 

*The reason I knew the number of people that day is that all of us were the same 65+ who had been given our first jab the last weekend in April. (My friend's husband also among them, by the way. But not the same time of day as me.) Back then, we were all told we'd have to wait until 2 August for our second jab, i.e. 14 weeks, which was longer than the 9-12  recommended. In between, some people have protested about that; and then recently the 'delta' version of the virus caused some concern, so the authorities decided to reschedule after all, and - with extra resources - moved all of us forward to 28 June. So we ended up waiting only 9 weeks instead of 14!

Felt very relieved last night to have it over and done with, but was prepared to face similar side-effects as last time setting in during the night or morning (fever, headache, muscle ache etc). However, that did not happen. My morning temperature was normal and I felt pretty much as usual (except still a bit sore in my mouth, from the dental job!) 

So I even decided to go for a walk into town (late morning, back before noon) and take some photos of that new sculpture at the travel centre; which by now I knew had been unveiled already the day before (we caught a glimpse of it from the car when driving to the vaccination centre). They filmed it in advance to include it in a digital celebration of the town's 400th birthday today.

Here it is:

 

 

I like the sculpture; less sure about the name... But while writing this post, it struck me as a quite suitable title for this whole post after all...!

More about the 400th jubilee and some other things to follow - another day.

Swedish National Day Celebration

Sweden's National Day is celebrated on 6 June in honour of two historical events: Gustav Vasa being elected king 6 June 1523, and the adoption of a new constitution 6 June 1809. 

This year offered a really warm and sunny day for it; which  meant that quite a lot of people turned up for our public celebrations in the park. Me & camera included! 

It's a good opportunity for "people watching"... But I try not to get too personal with the photography - taking most of the pictures from a distance or from behind. (Only zooming in on those up on the stage...) 

 

Parade coming from the other side of the river...

 

The children's choir is from the municipal music school.

 

Greeting Spring on April 30th

In Sweden, 30th April, Valborgsmässoafton (Walpurgis Night) - marks the arrival of spring, and is traditionally celebrated with bonfires, choral singing, and (in some places) students' carnival parades.

This year, we had an absolutely lovely day for spring celebrations - even if capricious Nature then chose to start the month of May with a backlash to cold showers again (even including frost and snow today, brrr!)

Today, through my window...
Yep, the white stuff is snow!!

But on Tuesday, we were still in a magic spell of early summer...

I went into town in the afternoon to a music school violin orchestra concert in the old church. After that, a stroll around town and in the park; and an ice cream enjoyed on a park bench in the sunshine. And then another session of music + traditional spring songs sung acappella by a men's choir in the square.

Photos taken with my phone:

I also recorded one of the songs sung by the choir. I was hoping to be able to upload the video here too but that did not go as planned... (Maybe I have to do it via YouTube. I'll give it a try another day.)