Town of the dead?

Just came back from a sunny and warm Stockholm to a rainy and grey Small Town. I think, however, that is more symbolic for how I feel about the place than a mere meteorological fact, the weather is actually quite good here and I think often better than in surrounding places...

However, I do think there are more dead people here than alive!

Very close to where I live there is a HUGE cemetery. It is very beautiful and park like, but it is really huge for such a small town. I kind of assumed that would be the only cemetery in town and hence that big, but today I saw from the train, that there is another one, just next to the church and it was also very big. And it was also very neat, tidy and well kept, so it seems the town cares more about the dead than the ones alive, let alone the ones really living...

Now I am off for another "night on the town". I am meeting some of my colleagues in a bar, we'll see what will happen this time...

Community action

Just to let you know that I am not only whining about The Small Town-misery, but also take some action against it; I want to inform you that I just sent an e-mail to the town council complaining about the parking ticket policy. Not my personal ticket, that is under my dignity, but I just wanted to inform them that this little shitty town actually can not afford being that rigid about these things. If there is one thing this place have more than enough of, it is empty spaces! So why the hell charge people at all if they want to park the car there and try to see if they can find anything worth spending their money on in the few shops!!??

So, now it feels a bit better!

Hating The Small Town

Today I just felt I hate The Small Town! I took the risk of staying here over the weekend. I will do my best to avoid that in the future!

The reason for staying here was that I have been away lot lately and felt tired and just felt like relaxing and sleep late in the mornings and then I also felt I really had to do some cleaning and organising in my apartment as well as work a bit. When I woke up however I thought it could be nice to go out for a while first, as the weather was quite nice. I also thought I could take the chance to go to some of the many flee markets in town as they are only open Saturdays. As I slept late and had a long and relaxed breakfast it got a bit late before I got out, but I could not see that that would be a problem. It was; I realised! ALL the flee markets closed at noon! They are only open Saturdays 9-12!!! My God!! Is it so strange and weird to sleep late one day of the week?!!? But maybe it is only the old, crazy, disabled, mad and unemployed here that go to the markets anyway…

After that I was a irritated but still wanted to do something, so I parked the car and went strolling through the city streets and the few shops. It did not take long, but I also talked on the phone and went through a park and along some nice houses before I went back to my car. Only to discover I had been given a parking ticket!!! Apparently I was a little late; the time I had paid for had expired. Seven (7!!) minutes after it expired I was given the ticket! I completely freaked out!! Especially as this town has absolutely no parking problem. My car was the only one in a huge parking lot, and still they have to fine me for being seven minutes late!!! In this ugly, disgusting, horribly boring, shitty little town they feel they have to harass people who are seven minutes late to their cars!?!? And then they wonder why people don’t want to live here. I was so frustrated and angry I just felt I had to get out of town.

I had found a brochure of a manor house not far away. It looked very nice in the pictures, a big white house in a park by a lake and with a restaurant and a café and a conference centre so I decided to go there and have lunch or at least coffee. At first I also had plans to stop in one or two of the towns I had to pass on my way there, but when I saw them I realised they would probably be like The Small Town so I kept driving. Once I came to the manor house it was as beautiful as in the pictures. But of course it was closed!!

I am so tired of this place! I really don’t want to live here!! I think several of my colleagues are going through the same at the time. And I am really worried for what it will be like in the autumn and winter. I hate winter in Sweden anyway and I don’t think it will be better here…

Time reference

Sometimes I feel I have difficulties to realise how old I am. Today I was in Oslo for a meeting and after the meeting I had one hour before the train left back to The Small Town. I used that hour to walk around Oslo centre and the harbour. I was thinking about the last time I was in Oslo and realised that it was almost twenty years ago!!! That is scary!!! Especially as I - at least at that time - thought of myself as a grown-up then. At the very least I was definetly not a child. That is scary!!

I remember a time when I was not even aware that I was alive twenty years ago!!
But I guess that time will probably come back again. Hopefully not so soon! Or maybe it will then more be a matter of not remembering what happened 20 minutes ago!

Facebook explosion

What has happened??!! The last weeks Facebook has formally exploded in my environment!! I don’t really remember when I first got the invitation to join, but I did not pay particular attention to that. After some time I did reply to a request and opened an account, but did not do anything further. Then a couple of weeks ago almost all my colleagues started talking about Facebook and also more and more friends seemed to have it and I have received more invitations. I have signed up for yet some, but still haven’t done much about it. I realise it would probably be a very nice and useful thing for me as I have this strange habit of moving a lot and finding it more and more difficult to keep in touch with friends. But on the other hand; when would I have the time to maintain it?! I feel the thing with it is that you are supposed to spend some time on it regularly. I find it hard enough to maintain my blogs! Ok, maybe Facebook could replace the blogs or at least complement them, as it is more interactive, but still every now and then I feel like writing more than suitable for Facebook.

But is it not interesting how things spread over internet?!?! All of a sudden some things just get this hype and people all over the world are busy reading, editing, checking, yes simply doing more or less the same thing!

Back again!

Been away for a couple of weeks. In Stockholm for a two weeks course. I did not think that would stop me from writing some things for my blog, but yeah was I wrong!! It has been two very intense weeks. Long days full of lectures and after that lot of group works and case studies that we had to work on and of course also a lot of social activities!! Unfortunately the group that I was in did not work very well together. In the beginning I thought it was just because we took more active part in the socialising than some of the others, but later I realised that we were just a very dysfunctional group! So did the facilitators and then they made us elect a leader for the group, which we of course should have done immediately, and unfortunately that was me. It almost made me crazy!! All the participants were great people, but it was just impossible to get everyone working together! At last we managed to create some kind of presentation, not a good one, but at least we did not have to stand there and say nothing. I can not say that our case study taught me a lot about our case, but a lot about working in a multinational environment. In our group we were two Swedes, one Brit, one Italian, one Nigerian, one Sudanese and one Indian and that is some cultural mix!!

The course also contained some practical exercises in weapons destruction by use of saw and oxy torch. Good fun! Pictures enclosed.


An automatic gun after being cut by an oxy torch, simply melted away.


A Rambo for peace!!





As the course took more time than I had expected I did not get as much time to see my Stockholm friends as much as I had hoped, but still got some time for them. That was nice! I miss living in a city!! It was not very nice having to go back to The Small Town. I have realised though that it might not be my noisy neighbours that are the problem here; it is the fact the town it so very silent! I do prefer to hear traffic sound than the sounds of my neighbours!