Good Friday

I like that name, Good Friday, it has a positive and content, happy-to-be-here ring to it. In Swedish the name for this Easter friday is Långfredagen (i e Long friday), and that just seems a bit tiresome and endless...

Since I'm not very traditional when it comes to Easter, have never been and have no intentions to become, me and my family have no musts during this holiday (in Sweden at least 4,5 days from Maundy Thursday to Easter Monday). Of course it's quite nice to give and recieve chocolate and candy or a gift in an Easter egg, but other than that no.

When I was a child and there yet were no playful cats in the house we did have those fun and cute twigs decorated with colourful feathers around Easter. Do I have to mention that's a no no nowadays...?

I did begin to put colourful feathers in the two tuijas that guard my front door every Easter, when I moved here, but this year I never did get around to it. Instead I have to enjoy the feather-decorated bushes and trees in my neighbourhood. Like this fun one you might be able to discern in the picture. I didn't want to be seen as a peeping-Pia, so I just took a quick photo when I passed that garden. The garden comes with a very nice house too. A yellow house in wood with white corners and a glassed-in veranda. Just that kind of house that's one of my dream-houses.

This house with its colourful feather-bush, is not on my regular way home from the station. I usually take the bus. But when there's an errand or two to run in our local little centre of "town" I'm inclined not to pay for a bus-ticket (since it's not a must-have handbag!) AND besides those feet are made for walking.

And the errand of the day, that day, was to pick up my first (and it sure won't be my last!) book-delivery from Ad Libris, the largest online bookshop in Scandinavia. Where I was able to find books I haven't found anywhere else, not always to a very low price but often than not anyway. Some of the books I took home with me, that day, caressed tenderly and glanced through with sparkling eyes, were two cook-books (yes I have realised I buy quite a few of them - not because I'm a kitchen-witch or even have aspirations to become one - basically only because I often find the food-photography to be very inspiring and moodlifting) and a pocket book, the first in a series of seven, I got a tip about;

• Nigella Lawson: Nigella's sommarmat
• Susanna Tee: Glass, läckert för lediga dagar (gorgeous pictures!)
• Armistead Maupin: Ett annat liv

I'd never heard of the Tales of the city-series by Maupin before. I'm not sure if that's a sign of total decline literaturewise or not. And since I haven't begun to read it yet either I'm not sure it's a book of my fancy. Even though it's suppose to be a classic...

So, back to Easter, when it comes to celebrating the traditional way with lots of food, too much food perhaps, and family, too much of the family perhaps, that's not my cup of tea. I'll spend it with various, selected members of the family and friends, reading a lot, watching movies, having my own spa á la Pia at home (facial and intensive moisture conditioner for the hair, check!), writing job-applications, celebrating a four-legged birthday, maybe trying out some new recipes since I do happen to have bought, hm, a few selected cook-books at the annual book-sale (late February in Sweden) and pampering my tummy with some nice chocolates.

If you happen to be interested in the way Easter can be celebrated by some Swedes, why not pop over to Sweden.se. A website where you can find all sorts of interesting, maybe not always very truthful or scientifically based, information about Sweden, the Swedes and the Swedish traditions.

And of course, a happy Easter to you all, however you might like to celebrate this Spring-holiday!