Raspberry Picking
It would occur on a beautiful warm sunny day when most children would spend it on a beach somewhere. Me, well, I was with my mom, all dressed in long-sleeved sweaters, pants, rubber boots and covered with bug spray. And it was lovely, albeit hot, sticky, thorny and red juice all over my sweater. The best thing, part from the wildlife we encountered as we made our way through the bushes, was the picnic lunch she always packed.
Picnic Lunches
Nothing fancy. Cheese sandwiches or fried egg sandwiches served cold. Orange wedges. Juice usually in empty corn syrup bottles (Saft in Swedish, strawberry, blueberry or raspberry). And cookies. Always cookies and cinnamon buns.
Blankets shared with ants and spiders, but who cares? We're eating out in the open and nothing matters.
Blueberry Picking
The woods in Sweden are full of blueberries. These aren't the blueberries you buy per pint at Loblaws here in Canada. These are juicy, blue to the core berries that taste like nothing else and stains your fingers blue for days to come. This also reminds me of my grandmother, even well in her 80's she would stoop, not bend, over blueberry bushes with her berry scooper that would not only scoop up the blueberries but twigs, leafs and bugs at the same time. She swore by it though and wouldn't pick a single blueberry with her hands.
Picnics in the blueberry woods with the sun filtering through the tall fir trees is also something. It's from a fairy tale story a la Swedish, where trolls roam the mossy hillsides that are actually sleeping giants, while forest nymphs can put you in a trance and lead you to a brook where you will drown and join the fiddler singing near the waterfall...yep...watch out for them nymphs.
Baking and Canning
Be it Christmas baking, bread baking, cakes for birthdays...baking was such a huge part of my childhood. I remember asking my dad when I was pregnant how one makes it financially on just one income when you have children, his answer - you bake your own bread. I thought it was funny at first, but it was the truth and it didn't just mean you bake your own bread. You make your own everything. The amount of baking and canning and freezing that went on in my childhood is outstanding. Not only did we have a double freezer in the kitchen, we also had two deep freezers in our outside cold storage, along with shelves filled with canned fruit and vegetables. Store bought bread was a rarity although I do remember the weekly "limpa" that could be found. This is a sweet sandwich bread and I loved it either slathered with butter and jam or as per above, with a cold fried egg on top.
Fort Building
I was a tomboy. Dresses were rare, dirty corduroys a daily occurrence. If I wasn't building a complete city in the sand pile by the tractor garage, I was building forts in the woods. When the blueberry picking became dull for us kids, we would build forts and travel further in to the woods, sometimes beyond the eyes and ears of our parents, and create a world of our own. I believe this is partially where my romantic side was born. I would immerse myself in the story that we weaved and fully become whatever my character was. Perhaps I was a maiden, perhaps I was a knight - I never cared which role I played, as long as it was not my own life story.
Books, Books and Books
Yes, I was a bookworm. Dinner time and lights out came with dread as it ended my bookworld and I was brought back in to my real life. Another way that I became the intense romantic I am today. I became part of the stories I read, and I do to this day...
My childhood was amazing...truly. My wonderful parents, my grandparents who gave me the freedom to explore, to read, to create and to live with very little fear of what life is truly like.
