I remember the Swedish easter candy sale. Kristen and I thought that it was something to do with the change in weather: the sun was out, Valborg was approaching, the smågodis were on sale (we didn't realise why), and those Swedes went crazy for the stuff. I have never seen anything like it in my life, the supermarket staff couldn't refill the candy stands fast enough and the queue to get a little shovel to scoop out the lollies was more of a free-far all. It was very cheap though...

The snow had almost all melted away, apart from some nasty dirty bits left over, but the slope down to ICA Väst was deadly because the grass looked normal and we didn't realise how waterlogged the ground underneath was. If you walked down too fast or weren't concentrating as you put your feet down, the grassy top layer would come loose and down down down you would go. Ooops.

Flowers started sprouting up everywhere, in unexpected places, and I realised I had never seen wild tulips before. The days started getting longer. And longer, and we didn't even notice until it had happened.

The squirrel in the tree outside the kitchen came back, cuter than ever. Perhaps he wasn't the same squirrel.. And a bird built a nest perched right on top of the tall dead tree outside my window, I would see its little head poking out over the top, and soon enough, there were multiple little heads poking over the top. Before summer they were gone, but the nest, perched in what looked like such a precarious location, stayed stuck to that branch.

Lauren's grandmother died and she flew back to Australia for the funeral. Kristen got glandular fever and I had to try and explain it to the people in our class, I used all the words I could think of: glandular fever, kissing disease, Epstein-Barr, mono. The only one that triggered a knowing reaction was kissing fever. Hmmmn...

Kristen and I went to Gotland and cycled all weekend. I thought my ass would never forgive me, especially when we realised we had no food and would have to cycle back into the city to get some; Gotland crepes with saffron ice cream. And, I have never had such bad sunburn in my life, I still have faint marks on my arms where my t-shirt stopped and the sunburn began! A permanent farmer's tan!!


Good times.