Sorry about yesterday, first I visited my friend at the garden center and I can proudly tell You that I didn’t bring home and plants this time 🙂 I had been tired since the moment I woke up and when I came home I took a nap for well over an hour but was just as tired as before so I went to bed and slept all night long. I guess that I actually am having a cold because after our morning walk today I napped well over two hours but this time I’m not that tired again 🙂

     

So I was going to write something about our national day and why we celebrate it. There are two reasons for it, the first is that June sixth Gustav Vasa became king here in Sweden. Sweden was at that time occupied by Denmark and their king (we call him Christian the Tyrant 🙂 ) made a blood bath killing lots of the nobility in Sweden including Gustav’s father.  He wanted revenge and fled north to gather the support of the people in Dalarna (a region in Sweden that sort of have become the picture of what Sweden is when it comes to traditions). No one really did support him but he did eventually get their support and he of course promised them a lot in return. The Danish king was driven out and when the good people in Dalarna actually expected to get what he had promised he happily slaughtered them.

     

Before him the nobility here always chose the next king but after him it became an inherited title. He had three sons all more or less insane and all became king over Sweden and Finland (which was a part of Sweden for centuries). The first one I guess had schizophrenia, married his non nobility mistress which wasn’t liked at all so his brothers put him in prison and eventually poisoned him with arsenic. They spared his wife and children though but she had to move to Finland, promising never to claim the throne for her children and what I know they had a great life there.

     

The second reason is that we got a new constitution 1809 that removed most of the Kings power, that I see as a really good reason to celebrate though but very few know about it here. The king by the way was a French buddy to Napoleon which he then turned against and we helped to win over him. Denmark’s capital Copenhagen was heavily bombarded by the Brits so that Napoleon wouldn’t be able to use their harbors so they sided up with Napoleon instead. So after Napoleon lost Denmark was punished by giving Norway to Sweden. There was however a big problem with that because Norway had already declared they were now independent of Denmark. So they were pissed of by this (in my opinion they rightfully were so) but back in the days You really couldn’t do anything unless You were prepared to go to war with the big powers in the world. To be honest we really didn’t want Norway because we wanted to get Finland back from the Russians who had taken it from us by winning a war against us but Russia was also on the winning side so Norway it was. Lasted until 1905 when they finally became a free country. Not that the Swedish king wanted that but he was wise enough to not start a war. To be honest I don’t think we ever have won a war against Norway, the last time we tried our own troops finally shot our king with a big button. 

     

So anyway we haven’t had a national day for that long anyway, until 1983 it was the Swedish flag day (the next oldest country flag in the world, only the Danes have an older one) and it didn’t become a holiday until 2005. So since most people don’t know why we celebrate and to be honest Gustav Vasa was a horrible dictator, we never have sort of understood how to celebrate it (and to be honest they removed another holiday that we wanted to have much more so that sort of dampened the cheers 🙂 🙂 ) They do try to make it more festive but so far it is sort of a meh celebration we’re having 🙂 🙂 🙂

     

The morning walk was really pleasant, cool enough to keep flies and mosquitoes away but still sunny and no wind. We met two foxes and the deer doe was outside the garden once again, she doesn’t even react when we go out now days. Now however the rain is pouring down and it is quite chilly and we might get thunder later today. The weather will be much the same tomorrow, sunny morning and rainy before noon and with lots more rain. I don’t mind even though it would have been nice if we could have reached 20C (68F), we’re not even close today.

 

 

 

 

Have a great day!