What happened?!?

Well, as I suppose you all know, the ash cloud lingered on for quite a while. Fortunately spring decided to come early (yes April is early here) and I decided to take a trip to my family’s summerhouse. There I used up half the wood my dad had stored and managed to keep the house really warm and cozy even though there was snow on the ground one of the mornings I was there.

We don’t normally use much wood now days. When I called my dad to tell him I wouldn’t be doing anything involving an axe when I was all alone on an island with no idea about which neighbors might be around or not if something happened, he told me, with a bit of laughter in he’s voice, that he’d chopped that wood about ten years ago and that I was free to use it all up I wanted.

When I was younger there was always a fire in the stove at night, and hearing the crackling sound can give me wonderful flashbacks of early spring or autumn out on the island. Sometimes it makes me remember that year we had hail large as tennis balls, or at least that’s how I remember it, and sometimes it makes me remember how a cup of warm chocolate used to taste when I was little.

It’s a bit sad having had my entire vacation messed up like that but I’m just glad I didn’t get stuck somewhere I’ve never been before with no way of getting home and hostel prices skyrocketing. At least I was home and I did manage to have a really nice vacation after all.

Do all swedes have a countryside?

No but many of us do (I was asked this by a german girl online)
I'm beginning to wonder if its a socialist thing. That this only becomes common in a country where it's natural that the ordinary worker should be able to get out of the city once in a while too. The only other country I know has this is (or maybe was, I'm not sure) Russia...

A few weeks ago I took a whole bunch of pictures of the butterflies that was flying around in the mint by the waterside at our countryside, and the one I like the most ends up being one where it hides behind a leaf.