With the exception of my sister’s birthday, midsummer has never meant much more to me than shortening days, or shortening days and birthday cake if you include my sister’s birthday. But in Sweden, and all of Scandinavia, midsummer is a big occasion – the most celebrated day of the year, after Christmas and the day of the reindeer. There are a number of traditions for the day, of which a few of the better ones are upheld.
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Tom and I were invited by our most fantastic hostess, Victoria, to join her and her friends at Johan’s farm, and of course we accepted. Johan lives in an area so deserted that he has only seen two police cars there in all his life, one going to an upturned snow-mobile and one (possibly the same one) coming back from that way half an hour later. Anyway, we arrived at the farm at about 2pm and started with a few beers. Over the next 18 hours we ate barbequed food, had a teeny weeny bit more alcohol, swam in the lake, danced like frogs, chased sheep, sacrificed a small child and played croquet (with made up Swedish rules). All in all a great party with yet more cool people. Our trip has been full of cool people with the exception of 2 dorks (only a dork says dork).
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But the party is over and so once again we have to leave when we really don’t want to, we’re about 300 km from Finland now and should be there within a couple of months.