kareina

I heard from a friend in California today. He's going to plant some garlic this week. Meanwhile, look out my door at the -20 C temps and the layer of snow, and wonder at the fact that friends who are not at all far away (cosmically speaking) have garden planting to do. In contrast, my useful task this morning was emptying the freezers to the front porch and unplugging them. By the time I get home from work they will be dry and ready to plug back in and refill. When we do we can sort it into what food will stayvhere, and what I will take with me when I move.

We made good progress last week towards that eventual move. On Tuesday I realised that it was nearly December and that Kjartan had said when he bought my half of the house and I started paying rent that he would happily drop the cost of the rent to half once I had packed and taken away all of my stuff in the public areas of the house and so am occupying only one room. Because we have been taking boxes of stuff to Keldor's dad's house every week when I go down to see him, or he comes here, there wasn't much left besides furniture.

So I double checked with David that booking a trailer for Wednesday 1 Dec and taking furniture then would  qualify for paying only half rent in December. He agreed, and I took a vacation day and booked the trailer. Then, Tuesday evening we heard that a friend (fully vaccinayed) who had attended the SCA event with us on the weekend had gotten sick and tested positive for covid. Keldor and I were both symtom free (and fully vaccinated) but we booked covid tests anyway, and asked our work colleagues if we should wait for results before returning to work. (Yes, of couse they wanted us to wait).

So I took my test Wednesday morning on the way to pick up the trailer. David was working from home that day so he helped me load the dressers, loom frame, treadle sewing machine, bookcase and rocking chair into the trailer, and I added a bunch more boxes to the car and trailer and drove south. Upon arrival we first re-arranged the basement room to better stack and store my stuff that doesn't care if it gets a bit cold, and then more rearranging in his room and the guest room to make room for the stuff I want in the warm part of the house, abd then we finally unloaded it all, finishing it just 12 hours after picking up the trailer.

The next day he came with me to return the trailer, since neither of us could go to work anyway, and we spent much of Thursday and Friday as rest days, sleeping 10 hours a day (way more than our usual 5 or 6), and taking it generally easy. He got his no-covid result Thursday afternoon, but mine didn't come back till Friday afternoon. By then he'd already cancelled our participation in his company Christmas party, but we had a friend's birthday on Saturday in Skelleftehamn, so we drove south (taking a bit more stuff, of course) I came home early enough on Sunday to attend folk dance (first time I made it in weeks), where we pland our performance for the Luleå Hembygdsgille Julfest next weekend. Looking forward to that party.

Even though I know and believe that I will be happy with either path--either the interview for the PhD position in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Bergen will lead to a job offer and I will move, or I get to stay here, in a place I love, still the background stress of not knowing if I will be moving in October seems to be effecting my ability to focus on work in the meantime. I know what the source is, I know it shouldn't be an issue, but still my log of work hours and list of work accomplishments makes it clear that I am not as productive just now as I would like to be.

They told me at the interview that it could be "at least two weeks" (at one point in the conversation) or "two or three weeks" more (at another point in a conversation) before things progressed to the job offer stage. Monday will have been three weeks, and I hadn't heard anything as of the end of the business day on Friday, so I will try to just enjoy the weekend and not think too much about it.

This is in total contrast to my reaction to my other job application that is still outstanding. Just before I went to Bergen for the interview I saw an ad for exactly what I am doing now, except full time, with a better base rate of pay, in a part of Canada where there is snow on the ground six months of the year (and since I love snow better than any other possible weather conditions, I applied, pointing out in my cover letter what a good match my CV was to what they are looking for). They sent a prompt "thanks, we received your application packet" note, and I hadn't heard anything further from them, and I pretty much even forgot about having sent it. However, yesterday I got a note asking me to please let them know my citizenship and/or permanent residence status. I wrote back promptly saying that I hold citizenship in three countries, Sweden, Australia, and USA, and that of these, I felt that Australia would be the most useful passport for a move to Canada, and sent them a photo copy of the Australian passport. So, clearly, they agreed enough with my assessment of the CV match to think it worth asking. Now, if I were them, and I had two candidates who are qualified for the position, and one of them is already legal to work in Canada, and the other would need immigration paperwork, I would choose the one who didn't need immigration paperwork, even if the other were otherwise a stronger candidate. Therefore I am not necessarily expecting that application to lead to an interview, but, on the other hand, neither would it surprise me if they did want to have at least a chat over skype. Either way, there is no sense of this one contributing to my stress levels.

On the other hand, my personal life has some nice highlights recently. Since last I posted we had the performance of the Kadrilj från Sörbyn, the 16 person dance that was traditional at weddings in this area a century and more ago. We did that at the Spelmansstämman held in Boden in conjunction with the town's 100'th birthday celebration. This is the first time that I have been to a Spelmansstämman in Boden, but during the event I found out why--it has been 30 years since the last time they had one! It was a lovely, fairly small, Spelmansstämman. I recognised a high percentage of the folk in the audience as being active in the local folk music and dance scene (Boden is a half an hour drive inland from Luleå, close enough that the two cities share a hospital half way between them. There is a small village near the hospital, but nothing else in the way of city development in the area--just a huge building not far from the highway sticking up out of fields and forest).

Since neither of our cars were working I got a ride out to the event with the lovely couple who organised our dance performance. They have both been doing folk and other dance in the Luleå area pretty much all of their lives--and I attended his 80'th Birthday party some years back, so he may well have met some of the people who did the Kadrilj från Sörbyn at the wedding in Boden 100 years ago--it was the fact that the dance got mentioned in the newspaper as part of the wedding festivities at the time that prompted us to choose that dance for the performance, and before we did the dance he gave a short lecture on the dance customs back then. They opted to head back to Luleå directly after the last of the day time performance and not stay for the evening dances, and I didn't have the motivation to ask after other possible rides home, so I went home too.

Much of that week David spent trying to fix my car. When I had taken it in for the annual inspection the week before I went to my job interview they said that it needed a new spring for the left front tire, and the extra break lights above the back window were working. We were given the deadline of the weekend I was in Bergen to have it done, and if not, then we wouldn't be permitted to drive it till it was fixed.

Since I was focused on preparing for the interview I decided not to worry about it till we got back, and David, who, having talked with his brother, who fixes up old cars for a hobby, felt that he would be able to fix it himself, was also busy just then, so he ignored it. However, his car had had a warning light for some important issue of the sort that doesn't make it impossible to drive, but if you don't do something about it there will be consequences later, so he booked time in the shop for that car. Then, while I was in Boden one day as he was driving between the house and the apartment there was a clunk, after which he could only put the car into certain gears, so he quit driving his car, other than to drop it off at the shop a few days early for its appointment.

This suddenly pushed fixing my car a bit higher on his priority list. Sadly, my car is old enough that pretty much everything that can rust shut had, so he spent one 13 hour day just trying to get the spring out, gradually opening up more and more things in hopes that one of the possible access points would work. A day or two later he tried again, and this time managed to get to it. However, in the process one of the bolts holding the wheel to the axel broke, and the shaft needed to be drilled out. While working on that he noticed that there was another part that was in bad enough shape that it needed replacing too, so the next day I did the bike ride out to pick up that part (half an hour each way), and the following day I biked back out to get the bolt and nut needed to put the tire back on the axel. He got everything back together on Thursday, and it started on the first try (yay!), and then we found the place where the wire to that break light had broken and he soldered it back together. The next day I took it back to the inspection place, arriving 5 minutes early. They looked at it directly, and I was out with the piece of paper saying we are good to drive for another year one minute before my appointment time.

Then I celebrated having a car by doing a largish grocery shopping trip, went home and cooked a bunch of yummy food. Linda, who is back in Sweden for a couple of weeks visit came over and helped me eat it and has been staying for a couple of days. She and I are heading south with Oscar later today for a birthday party of mythological proportions in Umeå (three hours south of here), which leaves my car free for David to use tomorrow for going to help his brother butcher the moose he got.

We did manage to get on the road early enough on Friday morning to swing by Storforsen on our way to Arjeplog, where Josie took a photo to prove we were there. It was a beautiful sunny day, and it would have been nice to have more time there, but since we had a meeting to get to we continued along the way. We arrived at the Silvermuseet about fifteen minutes before 14:00, but the museum is closed for lunch between 13:00 and 14:00, so we went across the street to a cafe and had a bite to eat first. Then I went to my meeting and Josie drove over the hotel and checked in.

I didn't really know what to expect from my visit, so was delighted when Ingela took me in to a back room where she had set out all of their soapstone objects for me to look at, photograph, and measure as I will. That was so cool! I just love the cute little bowl (# 477 in the photo). It is only about 3 cm in diameter. (Yes, I do also have photos with a scale bar, I just opted not to include those on the scrivener cards I have made for each object.)

While I was playing with the toys working, Josie toured the museum and spent time in the giftshop listing to Sami music with the clerk there trying to decide which CDs to buy (she would up getting three of them, I think). I took a quick run through the museum when I was done with the artefacts, but really should go back another time to take a better look. Need more friends to come visit for long enough that we do some sightseeing, too.

We stayed that night in a hotel in Arjeplog, where I copied the notes from my phone into scrivener, and started cleaning them up and adding photos, etc. Then the next day we continued on to Jokkmokk, pausing at the Arctic Circle for a photo. We arrived in Jokkmokk just before noon, which is when the Ájtte museum opens, so we had only about a two minute wait till they opened the doors.

After we left the museum we went looking for lunch. We went into the first resturant we came to, a pizza and pasta kinda place, and I didn't see anything on the menu that I would eat, so we turned around and left. We got a few steps away from the door when an older gentleman stepped out and called us back. He'd heard us discussing the fact that I am too fussy of a vegetarian to be able to find food on a pizza menu, and he asked if I eat pasta. I admitted that I did, and he whipped out a little note pad and started quizzing me on other ingrediants I will and won't eat, and eventually wound up with an acceptable list of things they had in house that I would eat, and he insisted we come in and eat. Josie got the day's special pasta (involving ox tail and a cream sauce), while I got mine with a variety of fresh and canned veg and kidney beans. Much to my delight, the meal was tasty. I ate half of it at once, and took the rest with me, and ate the rest later during the drive.

Saturday evening my friend Julia visited, and David was over, so we just lounged around and talked for much of the evening.

Sunday I worked on getting the rest of the samples into scrivener and their locations plotted on a map (she had given me printouts of maps with the locations marked with dots, so I then had to find those locations on the wonderful on-line Swedish map page and determine their lat/long.

Sunday evening was a special Folk Dance session in Gammelstad. We had about 30 people show up, most of us dancers, but enough musicians to give a good rich sound. This was my first real exercise since surgery (I don't count my daily yoga, which has been kind of modified), and it felt so good to move. I was careful not to raise my arms too high, even when spinning under my partner's arms, and the muscles in my chest/shoulders only complained a few times, and not loudly.

However, I think that pushing myself that much was good for me, since today during yoga I was able to do a handstand for the first time since surgery (11 days ago), and I can now lift my arms nearly fully overhead, so long as they are a little forward. If I try to pull the arms back into the plane of my body when they are up then they lower themselves as I do. But it is noticeably better. Josie says she is enjoying watching how I am a little better each day.

Today I worked from home, and then we went to Nyckelharpa night. Josie loves listening to the music and working on a project as much as I do. Tomorrow I need to actually go into the office, so I had better post this. Luckily, yoga is already done, so there is only a nice hot shower between me and my bed.

Friday I worked from home and then went in for Phire training from 17:00-19:00, and played on the aerial silks with the new students, after which Villiam came over and worked on his jester costume while I started sewing my new linen jester lace-up undertunic thing. Damn that fabric is nice! It is the stuff I bought a couple of summers ago at Spelmansstämman at the folk costume both, where one can buy second hand costumes or fabric for making them. Whomever put it there to sell must have had it there a long time, one doesn’t see linen that nice in stores very often these days. I am going to love wearing this thing.

Saturday I worked from home, making progress on a grant application, then took a break to do a little painting around the windows were we had replaced some caulking earlier this summer, and harvested the kale and silverbeet from the garden. It isn’t supposed to freeze any time soon, and it can take a frost, so I could have left it lots longer, but I know that I will be to busy to deal with it later, and I had a bit of time to spare. I put some cloves of water into a pot with water, and then used the water to steam the greens and ran them through the food processor with some tofu, then I steamed some store bought zucchini and some carrot too, then blended the steaming water with the veg and tofu. It filled one pot about 3/4 full, which is quite a contrast to the two pots worth I made last year—a hot dry summer is not good for the garden, especially when one is out of town during the worst of it and can’t water the poor plants. Later in the evening I made a ( Harvest green lasagna. )

Today I also worked from home, this time preparing a single pdf of all of the maps I need for next week’s field trip, so that I can print it out and make myself a booklet. I took a break to bake some Grahame crackers, and then used them in a summoning spell, sent by text message: “today’s baking is Grahame crackers, lightly sweetened with honey and a bit of Cinnamon”, to which Villiam replied “I will be there in 20 minutes”. He hadn’t eaten yet, so I fed him the Harvest green lasagna and some Grahame crackers and saw some videos from last night’s fire show (which I didn’t attend, since it was in the city centre, and I didn’t feel I could spare the time). Then we went to the Phire board meeting and I finished up the maps for next week in good time to head to folk dance.

There were only five of us there this week, since some are sick and others are travelling, but it was much fun anyway. Our dance teacher has found a CD of odd Swedish folk dance music which has been heavily influenced by other musical styles, including some forms of Metal (I don’t know enough about metal to guess which form(s) might have contributed). One can still hear the underlying Swedish folk music rhythms, and can tell if it is a polska, a schottish, a hambo, etc. Yet the whole flavor is rather different, so we were having fun dancing to it, playing with the styles and modifying stuff to see what worked.

This week, like most of them will be busy, with Nyckleharpa on Monday, Phire practice followed by Choir on Tuesday, Parkour and Aerial silks on Wednesday, and a folk dance performance for some group on Thursday. Then on Friday I will take the train to Umeå, where I will meet Drake and ride with him to a village a bit inland from Sundsvall where I will attend the Gyllengran XXX Jubilee event. On Sunday I will take the train further south to Göteborg, where I will stay with an SCA friend on Monday, and on Tuesday morning my cousin Carola will pick me up and we will then spend the next four to six days driving to 17 different locations where soapstone has been, or could be quarried in southern Sweden. If every outcrop is easy to find, and I can get away with as little as 30 minutes at each stop and we drive directly from one to the next with no detours then it can be done in four days. This is why I booked my return train from Uppsala on the following Sunday evening, to allow for some flexibility in the trip.

On Saturday was the annual spelträff (music-playing gathering) at the home of Birger and Siv. They live on a beautiful old Norrbotten farm on the south bank of the Luleå river, and they know ever so many musicians, having been active in the folk music and dance societies forever. Most years we spend the whole day out there, but this year we are trying to finish up modifications to our sunshade, so we opted to work in the morning and not head out till after Ellinor’s exam was done at 15:00, so that she could ride out there with David, Caroline, and I. We managed to get this far along on the sunshade modifications—just one more seam to sew (one can see the loose flap of fabric in the middle), so there should be no problem getting it done before the two upcoming SCA events we want it for.



Even though we didn’t head out till late afternoon, the spelträff was still delightful, with much music, good food, and plenty of progress on my sewing (I am now up to the seam embroidery on my replacement viking cloak in progress).

Sunday, was, of course, folk dance, and some of the same musicians as we saw on Saturday joined us at the gillestugan for rehearsals for our upcoming dance performances. Today (Monday) was the last nyckelharpa night of the term, and practice for them for their upcoming performances (at the same events as we are dancing).

Today was also acroyoga (the first time since Friday) and training to use the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM—it is such a fun toy!) at work. Tomorrow is work and more acroyoga and hopefully Durham work too (I am embarrassingly behind on that just now, hopefully admitting that here will inspire progress).

Wednesday is Nationaldag, which means we will gather at the gillestugan in folk costume at 11:00 to talk over the plans for dance, then head over to the church for the parade to Hägnan, where there will be performances of folk music and dance. Then we will head in to town to do more performances at Kulturenshus. Thursday morning we have a meeting at work, followed by more SEM training, and then I pick Thorvald (from Avacal) up at the airport. We have a week to do whatever adventures we feel for (so long as I am in town for dance rehearsal on Sunday), and then it is Spelmansstämman, and a full weekend of folk music and dance. Then we have another week for adventures and it is Midsummer, with more folk music and dance. Then he flies home and I get ready for the Broken Arrow SCA event locally, followed by a week back at work before I head south for Cudgel War in Finland, from which I will travel directly to Durham for a conference, finally returning to “normal” life here on 20 July, which, I hope means I get home before all of the wild strawberries are done ripening.

Saturday I focused on trying to catch up on thesis work, though, to be different, I tried setting an alarm to take a break at 50 minutes and then do 10 minutes of handstand and other strength training. Only managed two repeats of that cycle in between other stuff, but it was two ten minute sessions of movement that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t tried setting the alarm, so I will use that trick again. Managed that many on Sunday, too, before David came over and we changed to summer tires on Styx. We could have done it earlier, but our driveway only just got clear enough on snow that I was willing to consider it. Not long after we finished that and it was already time to head to Folk Dance for the evening. This week was one of those rare special occasion sessions, where instead of being just the few of us in the Sunday class learning advanced skills to recorded music, it was quite a few people from the local Folk Music and Dance community, with live music (four violins, one guitar, one bass, and one nyckelharpa). They were in the mood to play lively tunes much of the evening, so the dancing was vigorous, and ever so much fun. After dance I managed to refrain from touching the computer again, and just did yoga and had a shower before bed, which resulted in almost 8 hours of sleep (for the first time in quite a while).

On This morning I took the car in to the service place so that they could look and see if the ABS warning light, which had been shining for some weeks now, was something that actually needs attention, or if the light is just triggering over nothing (the car has done that before on some lights). Luckily it is only a 20 minute walk from there to my office, which meant I was at work by 07:40, so I had time to set up a laser experiment before meeting Johan for our acroyoga practice at 11:00, and then hurried back to tell the laser to do the standards, too, while it was at it. (I can’t set it all up in advance, as I change the max movement speed for the laser stage depending on which task it is doing.)

Then I decided to sit in the office and actually do some data processing before going home, which turned out to be a good thing, as our new PostDoc (who officially starts on Monday) stopped by to say hello, and C. brought by a student who is visiting for the week and made an appointment for him to view a laser session next week. I also got a call from the car service place, explaining that the car needs a new "yttre drivknut vä fram", which, I gather is something important (David confirms that it is), but google’s literal translation doesn’t give me any useful information as to what it might be called in English. I do know that it will cost 5000 SEK to replace it, including labour and tax, so I told them to go for it. They tell me they need to keep it over night, as a part they need isn’t in stock.

I happened to finish work at a time compatible with the rare buses to my place, so I took the bus home, which gave me almost an hour to relax with some food and a book before time to head to Nyckelharpa night, where I enjoyed much more beautiful Swedish Folk music while I made some good progress on my new Viking Coat to replace the one which vanished at the Helsinki Airport.

Now I need to go do my yoga, since I need to get up early enough to take a bus into town for a check up for me (I only recently found out that the uni provides regular checkups through a private provider, and so booked one).

While many of my friends, in a variety of Kingdoms, were off at their Kingdom's 12th Night Coronation, I was at the Trettonhelgskursen (thirteenth-weekend course) sponsored by the Luleå Hembygdsgille. This year was a Jubilee year for the group, so they went all out with three days of courses and celebrations.

Friday the opening ceremonies were scheduled for 13:00, so David and Caroline had planned to pick me up on their way in around noonish. However, they hadn't been feeling well late in the week, and by Friday morning were both sick, and decided that it would be wiser to spend the day resting (especially for him, as he had planned to attend the singing class on Friday, but with a sore throat that wasn't an option), so they called me at 09:30 and let me know. Since I was feeling fine, even though I had seen him on Thursday), I opted to head in on my own, so I spent the morning packing food, folk costumes, and sewing projects, and at 11:00 went out and plugged in the car and shoveled some snow for 20 minutes. Then I picked up a book (the Swedish translation of A Wrinkle in Time, having been reminded of the book when I saw someone on FB mention that they are doing a new movie based on it) for a bit. I should have stopped at one chapter, but somehow two slipped by before I headed out the door, which meant that by the time I arrived on site the opening ceremony had *just* begun, so I quickly found a seat and got out my nålbinding while I listened and tried to follow the announcements (much easier this year than the last time I made it to one of these, all they way back in 2013).

Friday was dedicated to short courses, and I went to one on singing Swedish Folksongs, taught by my friend Göran in the morning, and one on Swedish singing games in the afternoon. Both were much fun. The afternoon course was particularly interesting, since I didn't know much about such games before. Of course I knew the traditional songs and dances that Swedes do around the "maypole" each Midsummer, which fall into the category of singing games. However, many of the games we danced on Friday were a bit more game like:

One had go in a line, holding hands under an arch of two people's arms, singing. When the last line of the verse was reached the arms dropped, catching someone, who added a third pair of arms to the arch, and the rest of us danced through that, till the last line of the verse, when the arch trapped one or more people, who joined the arch. Eventually our line was kinda short, snaking in and out under the upraised arms of a large circle of people, till, finally, everyone had been caught.

Another involved one person standing, with their eyes closed, in the middle of a circle, while the rest of us, holding hands in a ring, danced around them, singing about the fact that they are asleep standing up, and then also singing the reply that they aren't asleep at all, but just thinking of you, at which point the dance pauses, they open their eyes, and the person who happens to have been directly in front of them steps into the circle, back to back with the first person, while the rest of us sing the story further (I forget what we sang), till the point in the song where they are meant to turn over their shoulder and look at one another. If they happen to choose complimentary shoulders over which to look, so that their eyes meet, they get to exchange a hug and the original middle person goes back to the ring. Otherwise (if each sees only the back of the head of the other) everyone laughs, they just exchange a handshake (but the original still goes back to the ring and the new person stays in), and the dance starts over while the one in the middle has their eyes closed. We did one round of this with a single person in the middle, then switched to three people in the middle (each facing a different direction) because we were such a big group, it increased the odds of everyone getting a turn in the middle.

There were quite a number of games, and, sadly, since I didn't write them all up right away, I don't recall all of the details. But they all had short, easy to learn, songs and were much fun. Some of them (like the hugging one just described) seem more like the target audience was not children, but young adults of marriageable age, since it seems like a good way to break the ice with someone one wants to court back in a time before modern approaches to dating.

I noticed one of the books from which she taught games on the for sale table, but, since I don't have a group to play them with, I didn't buy it. Sure, such games would be fun at an SCA event, but I have no idea if any of them are period, and that book didn't say. However, I know where to find it if I ever change my mind.

Friday evening there was a concert, and David and Caroline, who were feeling a little better, arrived to enjoy it (as did a few other people we know who missed classes for reason of being sick, but still made it out in the evening). The performance was by a group of musicians from Norrbotten called "J.P. Nyströms", which name, according to their Wikipedia page comes from a brand of Swedish pump organ. Apparently the guys (or at least some of them) first met at Luleå Hembygdsgille events back in the 1970's and have been playing together since 1978. At least two or three of the guys in the group are Riksspelman, all of which made them a natural choice for the concert entertainment for the Jubilee event. Between the five guys they played a total of four different violins, three different accordions, one bass, one piano, one triangle, and one tambourine over the course of the concert. I am not clear, however, if more than one guy played the one of a kind instruments, since four out of five of them looked so close to the same, with their very short hair and dark sports coats and trousers, that I couldn't tell them apart. Only the guy who played one of the accordions for the whole concert looked different from the others to my eyes, since he wore blue jeans with his dark sports coat, and his hair wasn't as painfully short at the others--it *just* touched the top of his collar (which is to say, that made him the "cute one" in the group).

After the concert most people went over to the cafeteria for evening fika, but since a subset of the band was getting ready to play for the post-concert dance, I just stayed in the room (and practiced handstands as they tuned--my pause before I put my feet on the floor is still short, but at least noticeable these days). I wound up talking to the "cute" accordion player a bit after the concert (because he had been talking with my friend Göran). He was packing up to head home, and I asked him if he would stay and dance. He said no, that he can't dance. I tried to convince him that anyone can dance, and since he clearly is good at music and rhythm it would be easy to learn, but he didn't believe me, and went home. He did suggest that I attend their St. Patrik's day concert at the Bishop's Arms in town, but I don't think I am interested--pub, city center. Besides, if he neither dances nor stays to play for the dancers, then it doesn't matter if he is (slightly) cuter than the rest of the band, he isn't someone I would be interested in.

Then the three remaining guys started playing, so I started dancing, and for a number of tunes we four were the only ones in the room. Eventually, other people finished eating and drinking coffee and the room filled with other dancers. I danced with a bunch of people, and occasionally on my own, if I couldn't find a partner for a dance. David had just enough energy to manage one dance with me, and one with Caroline, before they opted to go home and get some rest before Saturday's classes. (Dancing didn't start till after 21:00.) I danced for just over an hour, and then decided that I should be smart and go get some sleep myself.

Saturday morning David and Caroline picked me up at 08:30, and we were there on time for the morning classes. She and I attended the dance class, but he went to the music class, even though he had been signed up for dance, because he thought that it would be wiser not to burn the energy he needs to finish recovering from being sick by moving (she was smart enough to take the dance course easy, sitting out now and then).

I had fun all day dancing, but by dinner time my feet were hurting. I have had issues with them since summer, when they hurt for a while after Spelmansstämman. My physical therapist says it is from the left-right arch of my foot flattening out somewhat so that pressure is being placed on the middle part of the balls of my feet, and he suggested that I buy some supportive insoles for my shoes. I did this, and attached them to the the felt liners of my winter boots, and it seems to help there, but these don't fit into my dance shoes, and, indeed, the dance shoes, which were hand-made to my foot the year I moved to Sweden, now feel a bit tight, so perhaps that flattening has also made them wider. I have thought several times about buying more of those inserts to have some for my dance shoes, but still haven't done it (and since it is well past my bedtime now, today doesn't look good either).

Dinner on Saturday was a formal occasion in celebration of the Jubilee, which meant that many of us wore our folk costumes, though some people chose modern dressy clothes instead (and not always because they don't have folk costumes--my dance teacher chose modern clothes because she so rarely gets a chance to wear them, and they aren't as warm as the wool folk dance costume). David wore the "penguin suit" we found cheap at a second hand store years ago--made in wool, silk lined, and the finishing work done by hand, in his size. He got a number of compliments on it. There were lots of speeches and lots of time between the appetizers (which were on the tables when we went in) and the main course, and yet more time before desert, so it was, again, after 21:00 before we returned to the dance hall, at which point I had recovered enough that I was keen to dance again, but I also agreed to head home after only 40 minutes of dancing, when David and Caroline decided they had had enough for the night.

We none of us knew if we would have energy to return for Sunday's classes when they dropped me off Saturday evening, so we agreed to call at 07:30. I did, and David said he would go to the music class, so I decided to go too, and he picked me up at 08:30. To give my feet a break I spent the morning in the music class room working on sewing projects, where I finally finished adding the back center gore to the nice herringbone white linen underdress I had otherwise finished this summer. Then I realized that I had forgotten the box of garnet beads and matching wool yarn I need for the other projects I had brought with me, so I borrowed the car, ran home, and got it, getting back on time to join the musicians for fika before following them back to the classroom for the second half of the morning session. (They were in a room in another, much prettier building--an old wooden farm house from the 1800's--the main school building looks like it is from the 1960's.)

During lunch Elizabeth told me that they would be doing a preview of the Herrskaps dance class after lunch, so I decided to stay in and dance, and am glad I did, since it was much fun (it may have helped that I danced barefoot, and these are not fast dances, so nice and gentle on the feet). This class came about, according to the announcement, because someone found an old, hand written, book from 1795 in a storage container at a house in Luleå that was going to be demolished. The book contained sheet music and descriptions of the dances that the gentry did, and some of the local dance scholars have spent the last year interpreting the dances, and are now ready to share them. We will be meeting one Wednesday a month for the next term, and I think it will be a very fun class (and at only once a month, I think I can afford the time to attend).

After class there was a closing ceremony, where those of us who had done the folk song class on Friday performed one of the songs, the children who had had violin lessons performed their songs (to thunderous applause), and the musicians performed a couple of their new tunes (there wasn't room for a dance demo). Then was fika and time to head home, in theory early enough to accomplish something with the rest of the day. However, I have been at the computer for hours, and haven't done anything else. Oops. Better go do yoga and get some sleep before work tomorrow.

We arrived at the school which serves as the main base for the event at 16:00 on Friday, and spent some time hanging out in the entrance area waiting till the people doing check in were ready to take our money. (We got a really good deal on the weekend--not only is the Luleå Hembygdsgille paying for bus rental and petrol, they also organized us a huge discount on the entrance fee--instead of the advertised 950 NOK, we paid only 350 each.)

After checking in a couple of us hurried off to the concert that started at 17:00 at another venue, while the rest of us moved into our classroom, ate some dinner, and relaxed. I was disappointed to discover that the cute little loft play area that I slept in last time I was here (year before last) has had its stairs removed and the entrance nailed shut, so I had to sleep on floor level like everyone else.

The next official thing on the programme was the concert in the gym across the hall from our room, at 19:30. The performers were a trio I have seen and enjoyed on other occasions, and four of their numbers are songs I have heard before , and also the ones with choruses, so also the ones they encouraged the audience to sing along, so, of course, I did. Sadly, the guy running lights and sound turned off even the along the side of the hall lighting that I had been using to work on my embroidery project while waiting for the concert. Gee, I move a lot when not working on a craft project. I massaged my own feet, hands and arms, re-braided my hair, drimmed along to the music, etc. Luckily, I was sitting at one edge of a row (so I had the best pre-concert light for my sewing), and no one sat next to me, so my constant motion didn't disturb anyone.

After the concert I changed into my dancing skirt and grabbed the bag with my dance shoes and joined the folks out front of the building waiting for a ride to the dance hall. After what seemed much longer than it was the bus finally arrived and took us the 6 minutes up the road for the dance, arriving right at 22;00

I spent not quite three hours dancing (often with others, but occasionally alone when I couldn't find someone to dance with), till my feet were really hurting. Then I and one other from my party (and a few people I didn't know) got a ride back to the school where, having done my yoga before the concert, I went straight to sleep and didn't get up till 10:00! (Not counting going to the loo about every two hours all night, having drunk plenty of water whilst dancing.)

That gave me time Saturday morning for breakfast and paying for the song course (classes cost extra), before it started at 11:00. I really enjoyed the course, which was taught by a couple of the ladies in the group Kongero. I wound up buying one of their CDs and their songbook, since the songs they taught were featured therein. I am thinking that it might be time to try to find some friends to sing folk songs with regularly. I keep attending these workshops once or twice a year and then never singing those songs again (most have parts, so sound better with enough people to cover the parts).

After class was a long enough break for a quick lunch before the afternoon concert, which included performances by the talented school kids who have been doing music workshops over the course of the event (which had been running a couple of daus before we arrived). Another of the afternoon performances was a couple in traditional Sami dress performing some very nature inspired pieces. The first was the man playing an etheral tune on a flute while the woman sang sounds that managed to be both lovely to listen to and also sound like a mosquito. During that piece the littler school kids ran gleefluy through the audience prending to swat mosquitos between their hands, often pretty much right in the faces of the audience members. The kids sermed to really enjoy that. Another of the Sami nature songs the children paraded through the audiance with their faces covered by leaves/branches (a different sort for each kid).

Then there was another break before the next performance, which was part of the Family Day of the music festival. This was two women who portrayed a story through the use of song, words, interpretive dance and violin playing. My Norwegian isn't good enough to have followed all of the little nuances of the tale, but I had no problems following most of it (and could have understood a fair bit of the story even if I hadn't understood any of the words).

After that show I had a quick dinner and a half hour walk to enjoy the beautiful mountain views. I also laughed to notice the one peak with a flat top that kinda reminded me of Flattop mountain in Anchorage--what got me to laugh is that Flattop (and all of the peaks of the Chugach Range) are to the east of the city, which means that the sun rises either from behind them, or, in mid winter, to the right of them. To see something that looks kinda like Flattop with the evening sun just to its right was a bit disconcerting.

The concert Saturday evening started, as is traditional, with the allspel(everyone plays), followed by performances by pretty much every group on site, all of whom are good. Then, after intermission, was the performance by the featured group, MäSä Duo who had flown up from Finland just to perform for us, and perform they could! One plays violin, and the other a tiny accordion, both with amazing energy, tallent, and impressive speed. They tended to start many of their numbers slow and dreamy, and after a lovely intro, kick it up several notches in speed/energy, and then do it again a couple more times. I couldn't sit still, but was pretty much dancing in my seat for the hour they played. Then there was a short break to clear the chairs out of the way and set up some tables in the back half of the gym before the dance started. The Finnish duo played the first dance set, and were kind enough to keep the music at a medium tempo (for them, which meant nice, fast dancing). They also played more repeats of each dance tune than is customary in Norway, which I really appreciated. After there set all the other groups took a turn playing for dancing, which meant lots of beautiful music all night long. Once again I only managed not quite three hours of non stop (unless you count running to the loo when they changed bands) dancing before my feet couldn't take any more, so I walked across the hall and went to bed around 01:30.

I woke at 07:00, which gave plenty of time to pack up, have breakfast, do some yoga, and just hang out with my travelling companions before our bus picked us up at 09:00. The trip home took just over 10 hours, some of which I slept, of course, some of which I typed much of the above, and the rest we sang songs and just enjoyed the travel.

I stayed up way too late sewing on my cool witch's hat in progress, so slept in till it was time to get ready to go this morning. It was a lovely cool morning (+7 C), so it was lovely to put on my wool folk dance skirt and bodice over the linen underdress. Since the underdress for the local area has sleeves that barely go past the elbow, I made a point of bringing the long fingerless gloves I made special to wear at Midsommer (since it is often cool here for Midsommer) and my viking coat (turned so that the black with red embroidery side is out, since that goes better with the folk costume).

We made it to the Gillestuga early enough for me to eat my breakfast and wash the bowl before time to do the walk through of today's dance performance. Then the 30 of us ate the traditional lunch Midsommer together. This year instead of cooking it ourselves they had it catered, and the caterers made a point of making dishes for those of us who turned in our list of food restrictions. Therefore, instead of eating only potato and boring lettuce salad from the meal, as I have had to do for the past six years (since the traditional Swedish Midsommer consists of a lot of pickled herring and other things I can't/won't eat), I got to eat a lovely vegetable and lentil dish, with a nice spinach and other interesting greens salad, something in the falafel family, and a nice "home-baked" bread with brie. I don't know how the others felt about the catering, but I was surprisingly happy with it. The only place they didn't do better than our tradition was that while they did serve the traditional fresh strawberries (imported from southern Sweden, since up here the strawberries are in flower but don't yet have berries), they had only ice cream as an accompaniment, no fresh whipped cream. This may be a good thing, as it meant that I didn't go back for 4ths on the strawberries and cream (of course I didn't take any of the ice cream, since it wasn't homemade).

After lunch we went over to the open air museum at Hägnan, where, since this year we were a smaller group than usual, with fewer strong, tall people than usual, we skipped the "carry the Midsommarstång in a parade around the grounds" part, and just put it straight into the hole in the ground to stand it up before dancing around it. I really enjoy the silly dances we do around the Midsommarstång. I think my favourite is the one where we stomp around like elephants with one arm stretched out like a trunk and the other wrapped around it and pinching our nose. (yes, this really is a thing in Sweden--the first verse of that song is about little frogs who are fun to see, as they have no ears nor tails. The verses about the horses, pigs, and elephants are more fun).

Then we did our on stage performance of folk dancing, which, as always, was much fun, and seemed to be well received. After dancing I had just time to hug a group of my friends who were in the crowd and talk to a lady who came up to me and asked "I so want to dance with you guys--do you have to be Swedish?", I told her that I am not Swedish, and she would be so welcome to join us. Turns out she is a PhD student at the uni, from India, and I gave her my name so she can look me up on the Uni web page and I can get her more info on Swedish folk dance. Hope that she does, since I didn't have time to talk more, since we had to head off to the other park, in the city center, to do it all again.

As always there was quite a contrast between the two city-sponsored celebrations. The one at Hägnan charges an entrance fee and is really crowded, while the one at Glitzudden is free for all, and has much more open space, so feels much less crowded (I have no idea how the actual numbers compare, but I think Hägnan really does have more people in addition to less space). Because Glitzudden doesn't have a dance stage we modify what dances we perform there--choosing things one can do safely on the grass (we don't want to do the spins of the polskas on the grass). As always, after doing some performance dances we then invited the audiance to join us for a couple of dances--the ones where we play follow the leader and walk in a pattern--one needs lots of people to make these work, and we have both enough people and enough room at this park.

Then we packed up the sound equipment and took it back to the gillestuga before heading home, arriving at around 17:00, so just over seven hours after leaving. Since then David and I spent some time talking about the upcoming plans for yard improvement when his brother arrives with the digger and tractor next week, and the earth cellar work we want to do this week. Then he took the new lawn mower down to the black current patch to create some paths between the bushes, while I had a quick bowl of popcorn for dinner, and then went outside and dismantled the "corral" we made last autumn out of old pallets to provide a semi-sheltered area for my car to park in the winter. There being no blowing snow this time of year it is no longer needed, and we will need to be able to drive the tractor and digger through that space when we create the place for the container (as in one of those big things that are used to ship things internationally--the container that has been living at his dad's property is moving here as an additional storage building), and the road we are going to put in from the area behind the sheds to the field. By the time I got that done and started moving O's winter tires which we store for him (since he lives in an apartment) from behind the recycling shed (where we will be doing some major landscaping) to the other side of the forge shed David had finished his mowing, so he helped me carry the pallets to the other side of the forge shed, too, and we agreed that I would move the pile of scrap wood from behind the shed to beside the house tomorrow.

Then I worked on my witch's hat embroidery while they had their (somewhat late dinner) and then we had a house meeting, catching up on everything we three ought to know about how things have been going and upcoming plans. Tomorrow C. will work, David will go help his little brother empty the last of his stuff out of that container, and I will stay home and accomplish useful things (like the aforesaid moving of scrap wood, and moving the wild strawberries from the area that will be landscaped, and baking with that pack of milk that went sour when we weren't looking). O. is also planning on dropping by so that I can re-braid his hair for him to have it presentable before he takes his driving test next week.

Today we were out the door just after 08:30, and at the home of the shire's other Laurel by 09:00 for a shoe course he was running. There were at least 17 of us present, all working on shoes. I opted to make a pair of 12th century shoes to go with my bliaut. My inspiration was the photo on page 99 of this paper about silk embroidered leather shoes. The shoe in question was embroidered in Runes, but in Latin, with the phrase "Omnia uincit Amor et.", and I decided that I have to have a pair.

The course ran till 16:00, after which I walked across the street and stitched for two more hours while listening to the musicians of the Luelå Hembygdsgille practice some lovely Swedish Folk music, and then I participated in our normal Sunday folk dance session (which I have missed all too often this winter). I knew that if I had followed D & C home after the class I wouldn't have come back out for dance, and I am so glad that I stayed. Folk dance is so much fun! And that extra two hours of stitching meant that I got one of my shoes stitched all the way around the sole and ready to turn, and the other is more than half way 'round.