Days of falling apples...

Wild apples falling on backyard lawns and roadside fence-lines...late days of summer here in Mellan-Sverige, school starts tomorrow for my kids, the rest of us sort of back in the rhythm of work, sort of not, trying to fit that last picnic in, that last swim, even as black sweaters appear on Stockholmers everywhere...Fascinating, this time of transition between seasons, just at the edge of the change...In the City we'll hold out as long as possible, sipping our dubbel macchiatos on the outdoor café-terrasses till our shoulders are too cold, the sun hanging lower at the other end of St. Eriksgatan...Maybe September will be nice again this year...I can easily imagine the whole scene covered in blue-white snow again, but that's because I love Swedish winters...I won't take you there just yet!...

Tomorrow I will celebrate that epic moment of La Gastronomie Suédoise, in the company of our good friends the Larssons: Surströmming...Herring in the most advanced stages of, er, nuclear fision, canned sometime last year with no preservatives, served from bloated cans out in the local birch forest as far from the house as possible...Please extinguish all smoking materials...I will try just about anything (except fromage corse) at least once, and I usually like it, being the curious, open-spirited Michael Palin-wannabe that I am...I'll let you know how it, uh, goes...