a small town spelmansstämma, or an excuse to hang out with friends

[kareina]

This weekend was the Sorselse Folk Music and Dance week 25 year Jubliee. Sorsele is a small town two river valleys south and far enough inland that one can actually see some small mountains in the distance. One of our good friends, L, from both SCA and Lajv grew up there and now lives in the city of Umeå. She and our friend D, who also lives in Umeå, had come up to Luleå this summer for our Spelmansstämma (gathering of folk musicians) and stayed with us that weekend. We has so much fun hanging out together that weekend doing music and dance that we agreed to do it again when her home town did their music and dance weekend this autumn, and I am so glad we did. The whole weekend was a delight.

Friday was a rainy, blustery day, so I was not surprised to get a text message from her that afternoon saying that there were storm warnings for drivers heading to the mountains, and we should drive carefully. However, as luck would have it, lord_kjar wasn't done with work and other responsibilities before 18:00, so we weren't on the road till 18:30, which meant we missed the bad weather. Sure, it was still raining a bit when we left the house, but it ended a half an hour into the trip, and the roads were clear and nice (though occasionally still damp) for the rest of the trip. The storm had brought with it warmer weather--it has been dropping just under freezing at night the last week or two, but this weekend it stayed just above zero, so we didn't even see places where the roads were icy.

We did, however, pass a place where the storm had caused a problem for someone else earlier in the day. In an area where the land to either side of the road is quite open and not forest, and rather prone to high winds in the best of weather we passed a semi-truck on its side and lots of emergency vehicles dealing with the problem. I hope the driver wasn't hurt.

We had hoped to go the folk singing workshop on Friday evening, but given our late start we weren't able to get there before it started (it is a 3 hour drive), so instead we just drove straight to L's parent's house to meet her and D. After a short visit there with her folks we drove on into the forest to the family's summer cabin, where we would be staying for the weekend. We wound up needing to take two cars to the cabin, since we had brought his nyckleharpa, and violin and my dulcimer, and had packed all three instruments into the back seat (filling the trunk with folk dance costumes, change of modern clothes, and jackets and boots in case it got cold), so there wasn't really room for two more people in our car (and it wouldn't have been worth trying to move everything into hers).

Friday evening we were all tired, so the boys played violin and nyckleharpa whist I did yoga, and we all went to sleep before midnight. Saturday we slept in till after nine, which makes this the longest I have slept at one go in ages. I have been having an issue with minor pain in my back in the muscles along the right side of my spine in the area between my waist and the bottom of my shoulder blade. This issue only comes up when I sleep, and, when it first started coming up it only happened if I slept for more than 7 hours--then I would wake up with that area hurting a bit, but as soon as I got up and started moving around it would go away.

However, over the months since this first came up it has been happening during shorter and shorter sleep sessions, and now sometimes only four hours of sleep is enough to have the (still minor, yet annoying) back pain wake me up. I haven't been able to figure out what was causing it, since I hadn't changed anything in my sleeping position. Some time back lifeofglamour complained that she had been having back pain when sleeping, and that the solution for her seemed to be sleeping on her back instead of her side. I did try that, but, really, I can't sleep on my back. I may get tired enough to drift a little bit into sleep in that position, but it isn't real rest, and soon I need to turn onto my stomach/side for proper sleep, so that solution wasn't going to work for me.

Somehow, a couple of days ago, I suddenly wondered if the problem was the position of my arm. I have always slept with the downside arm up, over my head, tucked under the pillow my head is on, but on top of the pillow half under/half behind that pillow. It is a nice, comfortable, warm nest to keep that arm in, but the muscles that have been complaining if I sleep to long are, in fact, engaged to lift the arm to that position. Thursday evening I tried instead having that arm down, along side my ribs, and woke up Friday morning with no back pain at all. It wasn't the best test of the theory, mind you, as it was only 5.5 hours of sleep, but since that much sleep had been causing the issue recently, I still took it as a win.

Therefore I tried that again on Friday night, and, indeed, as of my 04:00 trip to the outhouse to pee there was no hint of back pain. Sadly, I then fell deeply enough asleep that autopilot came into play and I rolled over into a normal sleeping position, so that when I woke up at 07:00 my arm was up over my head between the pillows, and my back hurt. No one else was stirring, and I was still tired myself, so I moved my arm back along side my ribs and went back to sleep. Much to my delight, unlike so many nights in the recent past I was able to go back to sleep, and by 09:00 the pain in my back was noticeably less than it had been at 07:00 (Note for people who experience real pain in their lives: this isn't it. It is enough to notice that my muscles are sending a "something is wrong" message, but it isn't anywhere near bad enough to cause me to even consider taking an aspirin for it.)

Saturday's program had one workshop in the morning that we weren't interested in, so we had a leisurely breakfast and relaxed a bit, then took both cars to her parent's house and dropped hers off, since her dad wanted to do something with it, and we took only one car to town, along with one violin for each boy, and only one nyckleharpa--we left D's nyckleharpa and my dulcimer at the cabin. We got to town in plenty of time before the "allspel" (everyone plays), so we were able to hang out a bit, greet friends from Luleå and Umeå who had also come out for the event, and get introduced to a variety of L's friends and family members who were there. lord_kjar joined the "allspel", but D, who is on the shy side, choose to sit with us girls in the audience instead, which I thought a shame, since he is so talented a musician. The stage was totally covered with people playing, and a fair few standing on the floor in front of the stage with their instruments, and there was lots of room in the audience, so I counted. From where I sat I could see 46 people playing instruments during the "allspel", and another 46 of us in the audience.

Before we arrived on site L had told us of her high school Spanish teacher, who was one of the few people living in Sorsele who didn't grow up there or move there because of work or due to marrying a local. Instead he decided that he wanted to move to the mountains and left Spain to settle in northern Sweden just because it seemed like a good idea (I can relate to this interest!). Because life is full of little coincidences it did not surprise me that pretty much the first person L introduced me to was said Spanish teacher, who was at the event with his 7th grade students, who were doing a bake sale to raise funds for their upcoming trip to Spain. None of the four of us had cash on us, so after the "allspel" we walked over t the bank so that we could all get cash so as to buy snacks from the kids to support their cause. (Never mind that I had baked and brought more than enough food for all four of us for the weekend.)

The rest of the afternoon we four spent in one of the side rooms of the hall, the boys playing music, we girls took a nap (I got so rested this weekend!), and I worked on nålbinding projects. Then we ate dinner in a local pizza place (I wound up having only fresh tomato and the tomato sauce on mine--Swedish pizza places have NO other toppings I am willing to put into my mouth. Where is the spinach? broccoli? artichoke heart? Anything else I put on home made pizzas? "shinka"!, yuck! Ok, I do eat pineapple and banana, both of which appeared on lord_kjar's pizza, but I don't like them cooked, and I don't want them on pizza.

After dinner we went to the concert by Alberg, Ek och Roswall. Oh, wow, are they GOOD! These three musicians (Emma Ahlberg, who plays fiddle, Daniel Ek, who plays harpguitar, and Niklas Roswall, who plays both moraharpa and nyckelharpa) did some amazing things with their instruments. Their sound blends so well, and they so clearly play together really, really often, so that they are perfectly in sync with the changes in dynamics. It isn't often I feel like it makes sense for those of us in the audience to be paying for the privilege of listening to something, but this time, it so did. We also bought both of the CD's they had with them for sale.

This was the first time I have seen a Swedish moraharpa in use. It looks so tiny and delicate compared to the huge one I bought from Harry Wass in Tasmania. I kind of want one--it is so cute, and Niklas Roswall makes it look so easy to play. However, there is no point in my getting any other instruments until I get good enough with my dulcimer and have a large enough repertoire that I can bring it along to the Sunday afternoon folk music sessions in Luleå and actually play along with most, if not all, of the songs.

After the concert was the dance, which, lets face it, was why I was there. L and I had both put on our folk dance costumes before the concert, and so were wearing them when we arrived at the dance hall. The band started playing as I changed into my dance shoes, and no sooner than I had them on and a cute little lady with silver hair asked me if I waltz (what they were playing). Of course I said yes, and we started dancing. We were the only couple on the floor, which is really no surprise--often lord_kjar and I are the only people dancing for the first few dances of an evening. Why would the others come on time to a dance only to stand (or sit) out the first few dances?

I, of course, danced every dance that evening. Often with the silver haired lady, who comes from Finland, but has been living in Soresle since 1965, often with lord_kjar, L, D, and also with L's mother and her friend. I occasionally tried asking someone else, but only one other stranger said yes all evening. Silly people to miss out on dancing. I understand all of the musicians who were ensconced in one of the rooms in the buildings across the field doing music--they have an excuse to miss dancing, but the ones in the room who just sat there while a few of us danced, that I can't understand.

The dance ended just after 23:00, so I only danced for 2 hours, and 15 minutes, but it seemed like enough--while I could have kept dancing, I was also satisfied. So we four went across the field to the building where the musicians were and the others ate sausages, since they were feeling hungry (I, of course wasn't--I don't recall ever feeling hungry at night), while we enjoyed listening to the music there, and then we returned to the cabin, where, again, they boys played for me while I did yoga. However, this time the boys took turns playing while the other did some stretching too, since they had also been dancing.

Sunday we didn't have anyplace to be before dinner, so when I woke up I went for a half a hour walk, enjoying the forest, and then we spent a lazy day relaxing, cuddling, and doing music (yes, I even played the dulcimer). Then we went to L's parent's house for dinner. They had asked us the day before if we eat lamb, and I explained that I don't eat store-bought meat. They said that the lamb wasn't store-bought, so I said it would be fine, and oh, was it!

On the drive L explained that her mother loves to cook, and that she had never had better food at a restaurant than she could get home at her mother's house. When we arrived her mother had just finished adding cream to the gravy, and I begun to understand why L felt that way about the cooking. My family always used milk in gravy, and it never occurred to me to use cream instead. My, does that do lovely things to the texture and flavour. Sadly, her mother likes salt more than I do, so the gravy wasn't exactly to my taste, but the next time I get my hands on a piece of meat that would benefit from roasting that came from an animal I am willing to eat I am so going to try making my own gravy with cream in it. Her lamb roast, on the other hand, was perfect--the meat was tender and falling off the bones, and she served it with a plate of roasted root vegetables, and the mix of red (beet), orange (carrot), with the potato (+/- other white roots?) was pretty. She also had tomatoes and capsicum from her garden, home made lingonberry jam, home made pickles (I, of course, didn't try those, since I don't do anything pickled or containing wine or vinegar), and a few other things.

After dinner we said farewell, and we drove back north and east, while L & D drove south and east. We, as expected, got home too late for folk dance here, but still plenty early enough to do yoga and get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

This morning we had a home inspection. We have decided to switch insurance companies, and the new company wants an initial house inspection. Ours did just fine, of course. The inspection was by the same company who inspected the house before we bought it, and they did't find any new problems with it, and we were able to report having solved the mold under the floor in the one room in the cellar issue.

Tonight is nyckleharpa night, Tuesday is choir, Wednesday some friends are coming over for dinner (in part to thank them for loaning me so much nice Viking stuff for the larp earlier this summer, and in part because it has just been too long since we have seen them), Thursday is a meeting of the folk music and dance society, and Friday our choir band meets here at the house. In addition I start my new job on Wednesday, so it looks like it will be a busy week.

Comments

[fjorlief.livejournal.com]

banana on pizza?! 0_o

I have heard of pizza with pineapple, usually in conjunction with ham or canadian bacon, but even that seemed odd to me when I first saw it in a restaurant. I cannot imagine what banana pizza might taste like, but then I do not like banana very much, and it doesn't seem like something that would go well with savory food. Oh well, different places different tastes...

[kareina.livejournal.com]

Yah, that is pretty much what I said the first time David put banana on his share of a home made pizza. At first I just chalked it up to him having very adventurous tastes (soon after I moved to Sweden I mentioned to one of our friends "you Swedes eat the weirdest combinations", and everyone in the room insisted that I should NOT judge Sweden on what David eats, because they think it is weird,too). But then every time we had friend over for a "decorate your own pizza" party if there was banana in the house most of the others would put it on their pizza, too. Then I noticed that it appears on the menu in the pizza parlors here, so I guess it must be a fairly standard thing to do in Sweden, but I still don't want to go there.