Midsommar

Midsommar in Sweden means four things:

1. Buggering off to your country house
2. Making crowns of flowers and dancing around a maypole
3. Singing drinking songs and getting absolutely hammered on aquavit
4. Taking off from work until mid-August

I did none of those things yesterday, iconoclast that I am. Instead, I slept off a slight hangover that I incurred the night before whilst hanging out with the Duskstalkers (one of my old teams at work) and celebrating Kim's new job (Staff Engineer, well done Kim-tacular!) and impending birthday. After rolling out of bed around 9:00, I took Rover out for his morning walk and then had a light breakfast whilst losing a few games of Dominion online, then did some light housework, and rewarded myself by plopping down in front of my son's computer and playing about 4 hours of Civ V!

At some point, my mate Simon (of Guitar Hero fame) texted to invite me over to his place for dinner, so Rover and I buggered off over there (not a country house, sadly) to enjoy not making crowns of flowers and dancing around a maypole but instead making a barbeque with Simon, and getting absolutely hammered on prosecco (not aquavit) whilst listening to Spotify. So we had a lovely evening, despite failing at midsommar-hood. I am taking off from work until September, though, so I guess I won't have my Swedish passport revoked for nonconformity.

Simon and his partner Pippa are tremendous fun and really smart people who have informed opinions on pretty much any topic, so it's always fun to have a few drinks with them and solve the world's problems. The only downside is that we don't necessarily remember all the solutions the next day, and I guess most of the solutions depend on people consulting us before doing things, which tragically I've been unable to convince people to do, even though obviously my superior judgement would have helped us as a species avoid the various sticky situations we now find ourselves in.

Since there was no designated driver on hand, Rover and I spent the night, then had a nice late breakfast and a dip in Lake Mälaren before coming home. And now here I sit, sharing my non-traditional yet lovely midsommar evening with all of you.

Now it's time to either finally get HTTPS working on my blog or maybe just play some Civ V (I'm playing as Thailand, and having just taught the Mongols and the Germans some good manners, I'm swallowing hard as the Koreans and Ottomans have turned on me and unleashed a huge expeditionary force).