My wife and I use to go to a Christmas fair at mansion called Taxinge. The last year, in the dusk, when we went home, we saw a little wild boar piglet in the meadow. It was striped and very cute, as if it wore a striped pyjamas.
This was the first time we saw such an animal in the nature. We had seen the tracks of them in the wood where we use to pick mushrooms but we haven´t seen them alive.
This year, when we went home from the same market, we saw an animal the second time, but much bigger. We thought it might be a moose, but when the animal turned up on the road we understood that it was a grownup wild bore.
When I broke to avoid an accident, the car behind us overtook us, the driver hadn´t seen the animal. But luckily enough the wild bore got time to disappear out in the wood. The wild bore is back in the Swedish forests. It was extinguished in the 17th century but around 1970 some farmers introduced it in enclosures. Some of these animals escaped from the enclosures and in this way we got a wild strain of wild bores again in Sweden. Now there are wild bores in all the South of Sweden.
And one can also see a new type of warning sign along the Swedish roads – with a wild bore on it! I read in the news that people steal them because they are so odd. Before it was the signs with moose's on them they stole. Especially Germans like a souvenir with a moose on it. Now they sell moose signs to the tourists. But of course, it´s not as thrilling as it is to steal them. Maybe we can find wild bore signs I the tourist shops soon….

A plague is ravaging the summer house area where we have our weekend cottage. Everybody found ponds. My nearest neighbor devoted a couple of vacations to dig up a space for a pond. He´s got fish in it, fish that breed. I´d never do that, that is dig in the ground. But there are other solutions.
On one side of the house there were a place with soil and grass on the rock. I thought there should be space enough for a pond under it. But it was hard work to get away all the soil and grass from the hole.
Well, I filled the cavity with water and it didn´t leak. Perfect! We bought a “waterproof” fountain and some water hyacinths. Incredible!
The pond has a depth of 40 cm. I asked myself if it was possible to have a fish or two in the pond. I didn´t want to buy fish, the pond is a too ground, and It´d be necessary to keep the fish in the bath during the winter.
Then I got an idea. I could borrow a fish of my neighbour. The fish could be in my pond on vacation, on kind of summer camp. I proposed this to my neighbor, but he didn´t like it. He said the fish would feel lonely. Furthermore he pointed out that with such a ground depth, if it was warm, the fish would boil in the pond. And so it is, I´ve to be content with fountain and flowers.
We use to sit down at the pond the afternoons with a drink and listen to the water that flows and the singing birds.

As fast as I saw him I understood that I wouldn´t like him. We were in a youth hostel on the west coast and wanted to take it easy in a calm environment. This gentleman was about 35-40 years old and he turned up with his boys on the place where you have your food. The boys played with their mobiles while the father whistled. I didn´t understand why until his wife put out her head and cried: “I´m not a dog! I´ll come down when I´m ready”!
This occurred several times and the couple seemed rather irritated. The children went on with their mobiles. Suddenly a terrible noise was heard from his mobile. Evidently some kind of music, but far too modern in my opinion and above all too loud. The boys tried to stop him whispering half aloud: “Please, dad. You play too loud”.
But without success, the father kept on amusing us with his strange taste of music, sometimes whistling to his wife, who put out her head etc. The boys got embarrassed and disappeared into the hostel.
I had noticed that my wife was about to explode. And she did. She tried to convince the gentleman that it wasn´t kind to mistreat ones neighbours in this way, and many other matters. But he continued to inundate people with his infantile music.
I´m a peaceful man. Moreover I take antidepressants, which make me even more peaceful. But this was too much. The MCP and I began to yellow and argue: “We aren´t in a gravehouse are we?” (he meant graveyard) And I responded: “No, but not in a funfair either”. The situation got more and more complicated. Then his wife put out her head and she and my wife managed to have us keep quiet.
People around us sat quiet, without saying anything. But they seemed pleased that the noisy one had ended his terror. When his wife came out (the family were about to take a ride by bike) she said to me: “Yes, I know his playing to loud, but you could complain in a more calm way”. And I defended myself: “Yes, but he was impossible to convince…”
Everything ended up with a good by from both parties, and all was well.

Now I´ll tell you a little about Swedish food. Like the cuisine in other countries cooking in Sweden is a mixture of influences from other countries and epoch´s. Also in our country the pizza and the kebab have triumphed. But there are some dishes one can say they are Swedish.
The first one is Janssons frestelse (Janssons temptation). The ingredients are potatoes (8-10), onion (2), one tinned sprat, cream (2 -2,5 dl) pepper and some salt.
Take an ovenproof casserole. Grease it and heat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius .
Cut the potatoes and the onion to slices and put them in the casserole in layers. One layer with potatoes, then a layer of onion etc. The sprats you put between a layer of potatoes and onion and not on top of the dish.
When you put the sprats on you can spice. Pour on the creame and a some of the sauce from the sprats on the dish. Put it in the oven for about 40 minutes. And then: To the table!
They say it´s the Italians favorite dish when they eat in the IKEA-restaurant, and I hope you´ll enjoy it too.
The other example of typical Swedish food is Gul ärtsoppa (Yellow pea soup). Our custom is to eat it on Thursday´s before we eat pancake. Here are ingredients for six persons.
Take a parcel dried yellow peas. Put the peas into water 24 hours before you use them. (Pour water till it covers the peas).
Put the peas in a colander and let them drain off. Pour them in a saucepan together with an onion, 250 gram salted pork meat, two stock cubes, two teaspoons of marjoram, one bay leaf and if you want, some salt.
Pour on two liters of water and let it boil under lid till the peas are soft, about one hour. Take out the pork and cut it in small pieces. Taste the soup with more marjoram or salt if it´s necessary. Put the pork in the soup. Dish up with mustard. Towards the table!

This episode I devote to coincidences. My grandmothers uncle was a bishop. His episcopate was very large. All of northern Sweden was his diocese with the town Härnösand as cathedral city. His name was Lars Landgren with the nickname Långlars (Tall Lars).
Before he became a bishop he was vicar in an area where there was neither law nor order. The name of the place is Delsbo and there is a saying that is as follows: “The dottle in Delsbo he disappeared he.”
To this part of the country came Långlars. Many people made moonshine. This was forbidden and the anarchy grew worse. Långlars decided to end this bad habit. But some people in Delsbo didn´t agree with him and the leader of the “resistance” was named Skytt and they called him Skytt drunkard.
I could give many examples of the resistance and the work as vicar more seemed like that of sheriff. One time when Långlars sat in the parish hall (he was leader of the parish meeting too) in front of the people some of them tried to move the benches in order to press Långlars between the table and the wall. But he was strong and pressed the table before himself and Skytt drunkard and the others had to give in.
Another time they had put a rope over the road to hurt Långlars when he came in his wagon. They didn´t succeed in doing this either. And Långlars went from house to house and broke the home stills. There is a movie from 1949 that deals with Långlars and there you can see more from his life.
I have a mate, Tommy. His cohabs name is Annicka. Once when we discussed travels in Sweden, we told them that we´d been in Delsbo. Then Annicka said: “I have relatives in Delsbo”. And I said: “My grandmothers uncle was vicar there and his name was Lars Landgren”. And Annicka said: “Yes, and my relative that was Skytt drunkard”…

As I mentioned in the episode about the monarchy, our kings name is Carl XVI Gustav, but he is also duke of Sörmland, the region where we live. The duke of Sörmland has a castle called Stenhammar in Flen (our town). It´s white and has got to wings and there is a sundial on the frontage.
Before, the king used to celebrate Christmas in one of the wings (the main edifice has no furniture). This was when they lived in the big castle in Stockholm. Now they live in Drottningholm, a more comfortable and cosy and intimate castle. Stenhammar is also a popular place for walks. There is a little river that flows between two lakes, Gårdsjön and Valdemaren.
To the castle also belongs two big cowsheds where they breed cows. Now they have enclosed parts of the park to have cows there. And the other day, when we walked there, this happened.
We saw a tractor and a car parked across the road, and the drivers discussed something. I asked them: “What´s up?” They answered me: “We are going to change enclosure for the cows”. And we didn´t think more of that but continued stick-walking. Suddenly one of the men yelled: “Wait! You can help us. Put yourselves on the road so the cows don´t take the wrong route.”
I must admit that we are afraid of cows my wife and me… But, what could we do? An offer to be shepherd for the kings cows is irresistible and when the kings shepherd asks.. Sooner said than done, we placed ourselves in the middle of the road. The shepherd had a bucket with fodder and used that to attract the cows. And the cows came almost immediately. With the bucket he tempted the cows until they came to the other enclosure. Our mission was fulfilled.

Having birthday we´ve liked before. But to celebrate that you are 60 and more is more to complain. And therefore we haven´t celebrated that birthday my wife and I. But of course, my wife gave me a new Citroën Picasso when I got 60 and I gave her a journey to Germany when she got 60….
The journey we made last week. We were there four days and we lived on an upper floor with five rooms, but we were alone, so it was cool. It was very cheap too, 128 € for four days.
If you want to know what most Swedes do in Germany (and we too) you can read episode 11, but now I´m going to talk about other things.
The Germans speak a German language, it reminds of Swedish. I speak German and my wife too. Therefore we like to go there and it´s rather nearby (at least North Germany). If we start at 8.00 in the morning we arrive at Burg at 18.00, a distance of 700 km.
Burg is a town with half-timbered houses or houses made of bricks, very nice, and with very kind people. It´s situated on a little island between Denmark and Germany, enough for us (Before in the eighties till 1992 we went to Spain, a distance of 3200 km one way, too long for me nowadays).
There is a little harbor with restaurants where they serve different kinds of fish. Something that seemed a little odd to us was that they eat outside the second part of October.
And if you imagine that it was only 5º C when we were there, you´ll understand that it wasn´t very warm in the restaurant. But people speak and sometimes there are opportunities for a foreigner to practice his German.
Another thing we noticed, was that in the evenings one doesn´t see very much light in the German houses, at least not in the surroundings where we were, outside the centre. Something that made me nervous happened when I checked the tyres. One was almost totally empty and the first that struck my mind was: “A puncture – good Lord!”
We went to check the pressure but I´m no mechanic and I didn´t know what pressure it should be in the tyres. Well, then it´s an advantage to know the language. I could introduce myself to a German gentleman and ask him if he knew the right pressure for my tyres. The gentleman took over the command and filled the tyres and recommended me to check them later.
I felt relieved, because having problems with my car
is something I don´t like to have in any country.

Here´s the continuation of the Swedish course:

family = familj
father = pappa, far
mother = mamma, mor
child = barn
son = son
daughter = dotter
brother = bror
sister = syster
grandfather = farfar (the fathers father), morfar (the mothers father)
grandmother = farmor (the fathers mother), mormor (the mothers mother)

I = jag
you= du
he = han
she = hon
it = den, det
we = vi
you = ni
they = de

big = stor
little = liten
tall, long = lång
short = kort
thin = smal
fat = tjock
dark = mörk
blond = ljus, blond

white = vit, vitt
black = svart
red = röd, rött
yellow = gul, gult
green = grön, grönt
blue = blå, blått
gray = grå, grått
rosa = rosa, skär
lilac = lila
orange = orange

ten = tio
twenty = tjugo
thirty = trettio
fourty = fyrtio
fifty = femtio
sixty = sextio
seventy = sjuttio
eighty = åttio
ninety = nittio
hundred = hundra

twentyone = tjugoett
twentytwo= tjugotvå
twentythree = tjugotre
twentyfour = tjugofyra
twentyfive = tjugofem
twentysix = tjugosex
twentyseven = tjugosju
twentyeight = tjugoåtta
twentynine = tjugonio
(Use the same ”method” for the others. Thirtyone = trettioett, thirtytwo = trettiotvå etc.)

Sweden = Sverige
Spain = Spanien
Finland = Finland
Norway = Norge
Denmark = Danmark
Germany = Tyskland
France = Frankrike
Holland = Holland
Belgium = Belgien
Portugal = Portugal
Russia = Ryssland
US = USA

That´s it, this was all for today. I hope you´ve learnt a little and that you know that it isn´t difficult to speak Swedish!

The day before yesterday I had my friend Mikel from Bilbao on visit. We went to Malmköping, a little picturesque place near us. We had lunch on a hotel with some atmosphere. We had a typical Swedish dish, raggmunk (potatoe pancake) with pork and lingonberry jam.
I spoke Spanish all day long and got very tired. To sit with an exercise book, a pen, a dictionary and a computer isn´t so tough. Talking a language is something different. One has to take rapid decisions; should I use ser or estar? (there is no difference in English and Swedish); is it necessary to use the subjunctive or will presence do? O boy! This night I didn´t need rocking.
Spanish is the most popular language of those the pupils can choose as second language. Not so many want to study German or French. (English is compulsory).
They say that Spanish is easier than the other two. I don´t know. Maybe at the beginning, but when the pupils must differ between ser and estar, it gets difficult to study Spanish.
But in other ways it´s easy. The orthography is consequent. It´s easy to pronounce the words and they have two gender
German has got three and moreover, the prepositions before the noun decides which case one should chose for the gender. For a pupil twelve years old confusion is complete. English has almost no consequent orthography. One has to know the pronunciation for every single word… Well, Spanish isn´t so difficult to learn. To return to my day with Mikel we went for a walk through the town. He who knows Swedish rather well wanted to learn the names of the trees that grows in my country.
I could enlarge his knowledge with at least some species, because he already knows many. And to end this episode I give you the names of the Swedish trees I know: pine = tall, spruce = gran, juniper = en, lark = lärkträd, birch = björk, maple = lönn, elm = alm, ash = ask, aspen = asp, lime = lind, bird cherry = hägg, alder = al, sallow = sälg, weeping willow = tårpil, rowan = rönn, chestnut = kastanj, honeysuckle = kaprifol

Sweden has been a monarchy since many centuries. I´ve written about the development in the episodes about history. Head of State is the king. Our king is constitutional, that is he has no power, the power has the head of government (the Prime minister). The king has only ceremonial functions and ought not to express his political opinions.
Our present kings name is Carl XVI Gustav. The queens name is Silvia
and she is not of royal descent. They have three children Carl-Filip, Madeleine and Victoria. If we had had the old constitution Carl-Filip had inherited the crown. Now Victoria will do that (The royal family´s most important function is to be material for magazines with readers who are totally free from intelligence).
The political life is dominated by the political parties. In Sweden we´ve got two political blocs, left wings and right wings. The left consists of two parties, the social democrats (labour) and the left wing party (the former communists). The other bloc consists of four parties, moderaterna (the right), folkpartiet (liberals), centern and kristdemokraterna (religious)
There is also a green party, miljöpartiet, now in coalition with the left parties.
The parties that get most votes in the elections are socialdemokraterna and moderaterna. The rest of the parties have fewer than ten per cent of the votes (each). The present government is a coalition with the Conservative parties. Some parties run a risk to disappear (out of the parliament) because there is a limit on four per cent of the votes to be represented in the parliament.
There are also parties outside the parliament that haven´t reached four per cent. Amongst them are the feminists (FI) with one per cent of the votes and the Swedish Democrats with nearly three per cent of the votes.
This was a little about the political life in Sweden. If You want to know more You can search on Google.
The Swedish kings from Gustav Vasa to Carl XVI Gustav (the present king):
http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm7HIy2nk6g

My wife has vacations the Easter week. We thought we would enjoy the spring in our weekend cottage. But the weather had surprises for us… As fast as we came into the house the temperature fell, the snow began to fall and the Christmas feeling we missed in December was suddenly there, at the end of March.
The cranes, who had returned from Spain to enjoy the Nordic spring, found themselves in heaps of snow and the anemones hide under the bushes. A friend in the Basque country says it´s the same there. In January almost spring and in March winter weather.
We went home to some friends to have dinner and saw the birds who came to eat feed in the apple-tree
And even the mouse was there to eat.
There is ice on the lake again and it´s dangerous to travel on the roads. I who have changed the snow-tyres to summer tyres with the risk to get fees on 120 euro if the police will find me on the road. And because of that we couldn´t take the car to do things. Kerstin got tired of everything, put on a disc with Swedish Christmas-music. We got depressed and went to Åland.

For a foreigner it may seem a little sloppy the habit to walk with sticks. They say that it was the Finns who were the first to walk with sticks without skis. I thought it seemed corny too when I saw it the first time.
But eventually I´ve got used to it, and it´s strange, I´ve also begun to walk with sticks. I felt a little grotesque the first times, but now I walk without to blush.
The first times there could come some characters and ask: “And where are the skis?” I use to answer: “Can You see any snow?”. Then they shut up and I can continue my walk. But now it´s so common that people stick-walk so nobody cares.
A winter like the one we have this year, without snow and warm, it had been impossible to ski where I live in Sweden, and therefore it has been perfect to go stick-walking. And if there is snow I dare not put on the skis, because my sense of balance is bad, I´m too fat and rather tall, and I´ve got spindly legs. That´s why it´s better to walk without skis and with sticks.

And my doctor says it´s good for the health. To walk like this gives 40% better result when it comes to the energy consumption, and it trains the whole body, not only the legs.
It´s necessary to have sticks with elasticity. To walk with ski-sticks can be a little hard.
Before I used to swim in the municipal swimming-bath. But then I got problems with my neck. Walking with sticks is a very good alternative then, very healthy.
And to conclude, if you want to be effective when walking, I recommend You strongly to walk with sticks.

Here´s the continuation of the Swedish course:

family = familj
father = pappa, far
mother = mamma, mor
child = barn
son = son
daughter = dotter
brother = bror
sister = syster
grandfather = farfar (the fathers father), morfar (the mothers father)
grandmother = farmor (the fathers mother), mormor (the mothers mother)

I = jag
you= du
he = han
she = hon
it = den, det
we = vi
you = ni
they = de

big = stor
little = liten
tall, long = lång
short = kort
thin = smal
fat = tjock
dark = mörk
blond = ljus, blond

white = vit, vitt
black = svart
red = röd, rött
yellow = gul, gult
green = grön, grönt
blue = blå, blått
gray = grå, grått
rosa = rosa, skär
lilac = lila
orange = orange

ten = tio
twenty = tjugo
thirty = trettio
fourty = fyrtio
fifty = femtio
sixty = sextio
seventy = sjuttio
eighty = åttio
ninety = nittio
hundred = hundra

twentyone = tjugoett
twentytwo= tjugotvå
twentythree = tjugotre
twentyfour = tjugofyra
twentyfive = tjugofem
twentysix = tjugosex
twentyseven = tjugosju
twentyeight = tjugoåtta
twentynine = tjugonio
(Use the same ”method” for the others. Thirtyone = trettioett, thirtytwo = trettiotvå etc.)

Sweden = Sverige
Spain = Spanien
Finland = Finland
Norway = Norge
Denmark = Danmark
Germany = Tyskland
France = Frankrike
Holland = Holland
Belgium = Belgien
Portugal = Portugal
Russia = Ryssland
US = USA

That´s it, this was all for today. I hope you´ve learnt a little and that you know that it isn´t difficult to speak Swedish!

Dear readers and listeners. Here comes another episode. I think I´ve told you that I´ve got a site on the web called don Gerardo where I´ve made some interactive exercises for pupils who study Spanish. At the beginning it was for my own pupils, but with more and more exercises I thought I should put them on the web, so everybody could practice.
The site has up to now had 299.516 visitors. Sometimes, with so many exercises, there are errors on don Gerardo. One day a man named Kjell, and who practices Spanish on don Gerardo, informed me that I´d spelled six hundred wrong in an exercise. I corrected the error and wrote an e-mail to tell him. This was the beginning of a correspondence between us.
He asked me if I thought that it was stupid of a man at the age of 63 to go to Peru to study Spanish together with youths aged 20. I answered no, and told him my own experiences in Valencia, where I studied Spanish together with pupils just a little bit older than the pupils I taught in my school.
This gentleman was in Peru when he was a sailor many years ago and then he was there as a tourist 2004 and 2006. Near Cusco he came to know the people in a mountain village. He decided to help a gril in that family. He helps the family economically and materially and the girl does well in school and has good notes A, A, A, A, etc.
But he had a problem, it was difficult to communicate with the family, but he can´t enough Spanish yet to be able to read their letters they send from Peru.
Then he asked me if I could help him to translate them. And of course I accepted the offer. But it wasn´t easy. There were points missing, comma, there were capitals but not where they ought to be and sometimes there was phonetic spelling. But the letters showed a good spirit and warmth which moved me.
Since the girl´s mother couldn´t write more than Quechua (Indian language) she had a translator who wrote in Spanish. And then it´s like this: I´ve translated some letters from Peru, translated from Quechua to Spanish by a translator, to a man from Sweden who can´t enough Spanish.
It´s a small world! And one could add: Thanks to internet…

Sweden is a country with much equality between men and women. We part the housework. There are laws that make it possible for a father and a mother to stay at home with their child after birth. During that period you´ll get the same benefit as for sickness. My wife and I shared the time at home the first year with our child.
1983 it was very uncommon that the father stayed at home with the baby. I felt a little as pioneer. My wife was at home the first six months and I the last. It was a good time, with baby's bottle and nappies and everything… But, normally it´s the women who take the mayor part of the time at home.
I´ve always liked cooking and now, when I´m retired I like it even more. My wife is a teacher of house craft and doesn´t want to come home and make food another time. And then it´s good to have a husband who likes to work in the kitchen.
The working days I cook and in the weekends we share the work. To cook food while drinking a glass of wine is the best there is. My son likes cooking too. I don´t know if it´s an heritage from me or my wife. I hope that I´ve been a good example when I´ve worked in the kitchen.
When I attended a course in Valencia I stayed in family at a lady named Carmen. There lived also some French girls who hardly touched the food. One day I volunteered in cooking for all, something my landlady appreciated very much.
No sooner said than done. With minced meat, onion, potatoes, carrots and some more ingredients I made beefs with rings of onion with an exquisite sauce, and a salad from grated raw carrots.
My dinner was appreciated by all. Afterwards, when we were alone, the French girls asked me if I could cook instead of the landlady, because they liked my beef so very much. Of course I felt flattered, but it wasn´t fair to my landlady who in my opinion was an excellent cook.