Category: Articles

August Strindberg was born in Stockholm in 1849. At that time, it was still a relatively small and provincial place, at least compared to the main cities in continent. Its total population was 93,000 people and still had a rural feel.  Although he lived a large part of his life in Stockholm, he left for…

My main project here is to work on a new script which is a sort of comedy about Swedish playwright August Strindberg and Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen meeting in the afterlife… Hilarious stuff, right? However, this proved a much harder task than I imagined, for many reasons that I will explain another day, but the…

If you thought that Björjko seemed lonely and desolate, that’s because you haven’t heard about Arholma yet. Arholma is the twin island of Björkö, just next to it but you need to take a ferry boat to get there. The ferry doesn’t come very frequently in winter, so you have to plan the journey carefully….

We were watching a Swedish movie the other night. It ended with a woman driving away, furious, and a man, her ex-lover, walking backwards and forward in despair. Then large black letters appeared on the screen: “SLUT”! For a few seconds, I thought it was a comment on the actions of the female character, until…

I was planning to go to Stockholm this past weekend, but because of some other developments at the house, I had to postpone the plan to a later date.  Perhaps it was just as well, because this weekend there were large protests in central Stockholm against “vaccine passes” and other restrictive measures, and it probably…

As I mentioned before, the bird came to my window again yesterday morning, but it was so quick that I couldn’t take his picture. So I put some sunflower seeds to lure him back. He hasn’t appeared since. I suppose Swedish birds are not as materialistic as German ones, they are not interested in seeds,…

The bird appeared again at my window this morning, but let’s forget about him for now. Today I want to talk about Swedish houses. I don’t know about Stockholm, Uppsala or other big cities, but around here in Björkö-Arholma most houses follow a similar pattern. Almost all are made of wood. And the colour is…

A little bird appeared on my window this morning, right next to the desk where I usually sit. It was a yellow and blue bird: in English it’s called a “great tit”, which sounds a bit funny to my ears, but in Swedish it’s “talgoxe”, and in Italian it’s “cinciallegra”. They are pretty common in…

“Dangerous winds”, said the weather report. The trees outside were swinging as if they were drunk and dancing to ABBA songs. There were news of power shortages in the neighbourhood. “Don’t go out”, said everyone. But I feel as if my days here are slowly ending, and of course I had to go out, wind…

In my first attempt to use the washing machine here at the house — the only washing machine for miles, unless we ask a neighbour to wash our clothes, or go to the launderette in Norrtälje which is 48 km away, unless there is something at Älmsta which is slightly nearer at 30 km —…