31.08.2022 | “Juni, Juli, Augusti…” – A Swedish Summer Day 25 Years Ago

In early August 1997 Bro2 drove me all the way up to Stockholm, Sweden from Germany so I could start my term abroad at the Kunglia Tekniska Högskolan. Exciting times. I had been a big fan of Roxette for a few years by then and been to Sweden on (fan)-vacation before. Roxette and the Swedish music Per & Marie had released before Roxette was the reason I started learning Swedish in the first place.

Two of my closest friends (back then and still today) came up to visit at the end of August, before the new uni term started in Germany. Terms hadn’t started in Sweden either so besides the language class I had time to spend with my friends. Or maybe the language class had already ended? I can’t remember, it’s a fucking long time ago. I don’t recall in bright detail what the three of us did together during our visit. The classic tourist things to do in Stockholm. Gamla Stan, the old town. Skansen, the open air museum. The Vasa museum with the sunken ship recovered after it had been down in the sea for a few centuries.

There are two moments I recall well though. The first for unknown reasons. We had spent some time on the inner city island Skeppsholmen and ended up having some snacks sitting up on a cliff on the adjoning small island Kastellholmen. I was teaching my friends the Swedish lyrics to the few new songs Per Gessle (from Roxette) had released with his former Swedish band Gyllene Tider the year before. “Juni, Juli, Augusti” for instance or “Gå och fiska”. Easygoing popsongs.

The 2nd memory is from our day trip on 31st August to Drottingholm, the residence of the Swedish Royal Family, a bit outside central Stockholm. You can’t visit the palace itself – the royal family lives there – but the grounds and parks and such and it was a lovely sunny summer day. At some point during the day we noticed that the flag on top of the castle was flying half-mast and we wondered for a bit. Was it a sign that the family wasn’t in residence? Usually it’s a sign of mourning. But who could have died in Sweden? We didn’t think about it for too long though as I recall. When we came back to the gates to catch the bus back to the city, we passed a small kiosk selling drinks and newspapers. I think my friends might have went to use the restrooms there as well, because I’m pretty sure I was on my own when I saw the front of the Swedish tabloid Expressen with a photo of Lady Di and the headline that she had died in a car crash the night before. I bought the paper and tried to translate the story as best I could for my friends with my still rudimentary Swedish.

I don’t remember how much attention I paid to what was going on in the UK in the days following. My term started and I had to go to classes and start of term activities and get to know other people in my year and all. I’m sure I caught the gist of it. I do remember watching the funeral on my TV in my room the week or so later. I had watched all the royal wedding, anniversaries and such on TV with my mum up till that point, because she had a thing for it. So I did watch it in my room in Stockholm as well. On my floor at the dorm there also had been a guy from the UK. Alex? I don’t remember. I do remember that I thought he was one of the cool guys, a bit punk, but nice. British! I was not cool then. Neither now, but now I don’t care that much at least. We didn’t talk about Lady Di or the whole thing at all, I think. But he was watching the funeral on the TV in the common room and not in an ironical way. It did matter to him. I probably could have joined him, but like I said, I wasn’t cool and way to insecure and all that 25 years ago.

Weird the things you remember. The one other thing I still remember from that TV coverage – maybe because it’s been shown again and again later – was the sad, heart breaking visual of the small Prince Harry (and William of course as well) walking in the funeral procession. I had only been two years older when I had to bury my father eight years before that. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have the whole world watching you while you do that. Looking back on it all now, I feel a bit bad for later having judged Prince Harry for all the stupid things he did while he was getting older: the Nazi uniform at a dress-up party, playing strip poker in a hotel room in Las Vegas… He was messed up. He had gotten messed up with what happened to him and most probably also how his family – the firm – handled it all.

Anyway… that’s my memory of that day in August 25 years ago.

Not Drottningholm, but Stockholm at least 🙂

28.08.2022 | Week 35

I should stop trying to come up with reasons and apologies for not posting more during the week and just accept that at the moment a weekly recap on Sunday (evening) is all I’m ready for or willing to do. There will be other times. Someday. I hope.

Work was mostly fine this week, which is a relief. Still lots to do, but at least I’m getting good feedback and that’s worth a lot. For someone like me who doubts herself a lot. Like A LOT! From next week on I’ll try to be back to the two-days-at-the-office schedule, for as long as the pandemic and/or the expected energy crisis here in Germany will let me. In regards to the energy crisis: on Friday I rather impromptu bought some small solar panels for my windowsill, basically. Usually they are thought to be for people out camping, hiking, that kind of thing, but I thought I could just as well make use of it in my flat and start charging my small devices (phone, mediaplayer, powerbank, rechargeable batteries…) with some solar power. I’m still trying it out, but so far I#m quite happy with how it’s going.

Therapy is still going fine. I learn a lot about myself and bit by bit manage to establish helpful routines and break unhelpful thought patterns. I should have started that years ago. Seriously! I’m also glad that I can talk openly about it with my coworkers, because they also have their share of mental health problems, as it turns out. We really “are just like everybody else” to quote my favourite songwriter once more.

Not much else has been happening. My life is boring AF at the moment. As always. I’m getting excited for Frank Turner’s “Lost Evenings” in Berlin in 2.5 weeks and another Frank gig in Cologne three days before that. Yes, that’s five Frank gigs in a one week. So, what? I’m excited. I’m not sure I’ll do other touristy things during the day of the festival. There will be panels and other side events (still to be announced) and I might just spend my days with a book on the patio of my hotel or on a bench at the canal near by until it’s time to head over to the venue. Pacing myself, because from experience I know Lost Evenings can be exhausting! But I’m looking forward to it. To meet up with gig buddies from all over Europe and a few from the US as well.

Lost Evenings, 2018
“This is my culture, man, this is my home” – Lost Evenings 2018

22.08.2022 | “Just Another Manic Monday…”

The morning started ok without too much dawdling before booting the work laptop. I say not too much, because I always dawdle a little bit in the mornings. I had rather distinct plans of what tasks to start / complete at work today. Hardly any of that worked out the way I planned though. I don’t like days like these, especially not to start the week with.

Phone conference team meeting from 8.30 to 10.30.I realized I need to finalize the agenda for the first (since 2019) “real life” network meeting we’re going to host in two weeks. (That was on my agenda today) Made some phone calls and send mails about it. My office mate is off on vacation at the moment so there’s stuff coming in which I have to deal with in her stead, though I’m not really up-to-date and again have to make some phone calls, send some mails about it. (Again not on my agenda today).

During the team meeting we learned that it’s time for the quarterly request for office supplies, as in what do the people in our team need and then send the complete request off to the admin person in charge of that supply order for the whole department. Usually our supervisor is in charge of that, but as he’s retired and the new one won’t start till October, I already was in charge of the supply request last time. So of course I offered to do it again and update the excel sheet and send a mail to everyone asking them to fill in their request. (Again not on my agenda today).

I had to leave early-ish because of a local committee meeting, so by the time I had done all of the above I wasn’t in the right mindset to start with the BIG task I had planned to spend a lot of time working on today. Instead I took care of a procurement process for something we want to commission. (Not on my agenda today, BUT long overdue, so that was actually useful).

Then off to my council committee meeting. After the last local election I gave up my seat in the Environmental / Planning committee, because it’s often close to what I do for a living as well, and I felt like I needed a break from that. So now I’m one of two Greens on the committee for the municipal enterprise in charge of a lot of the technical stuff of running a city: Facility management of the public buildings, building streets and sewer systems, wastewater, waste management… all that kind of things. And yes, I’m the only female on this committee, because it’s so technical, I guess. And yes, we Greens are often the only ones inquiring more information about the stuff we vote and decide on. There were basically four items on the agenda today. I had a question about each of them. One of the Social Democrats (Labour equivalent) had a question to one of them. That was about it. I guess the others were delighted that the meeting took 30 minutes instead of just 10, because I was asking so many questions.

Sunflower (sort of the symbol of the German Greens)

Later today there will be the weekly local Greens meeting, which might take a while tonight because there will be a lot on the agenda. I’ve been an active member of the local branch of the party for over 20 years now and it has been wearing me down a bit, I’m afraid. Well lots of other things too, the global development and all. But also, just some of the people? Some of the old discussions over and over again? I’m a bit tired, but I’ll try to drudge through and hope that the “OMG you have to do something to change/influence these politics / decisions” spark will return. Someday….