For Swedish people, midsummer is a big freaking deal. Only beaten by Christmas in the importance ranks, and that is quite frankly only because you get presents at Christmas.
An ideal midsummer is a gorgeous Swedish feast eaten on the front porch of a country side cottage, dancing, singing and laughing in the glorious sunshine and to round things up at midnight; picking your seven types of flowers to place under your pillow with the expectation to dream of the man you'll marry, because that is obviously all us girls think about (it is also the only time Swedes are allowed to be sexist).
In reality, it will rain and then rain some more, it will even rain on the god damn mustard herring that no one likes anyway. No one will sing other than the guy with the guitar who really should find himself another hobby or at the very least learn a third song. There will frequently be at least one official row ending up with one spouse crying over the meatballs and the other finishing exactly all of the snaps before 9 pm. Oh, and after indulging in wine and vodka all day, the seven flowers will be weeds from the back garden of the cottage plus half of the bouquet you brought as a hostess gift and after a day of copious amounts of alcohol in the rain, your dreams will be nightmares often involving Alice Cooper. Or Ozzy Osbourne. Both if you're unlucky. Someone will also spill red wine on your white dress and proceed to tell you that it's ludicrous spending 250 pounds on a white dress. Someone will remain single forever.
I have since long given up the hope as far as the perfect midsummer goes. The less you try to make it perfect, the greater the chance of having an awesome day.
This time though, I was determined to at least have a flower garland, just like in the old paintings of midsummer celebrations from a time when people had nothing better to do than arrange flowers into crowns, stuff their own sausages and make sweaters from scratch. Whilst I will never knit or pretend to be a butcher, flower garlands are enough of a non commitment for me to get onboard with it.
Showing up at Hyde Park I shortly realise I have no god damn clue how to make a flower garland. We never did them in my house growing up - four kids in I suspect my parents considered midsummer a success as long as none of the kids killed each other in the car ride to the country.
Thankfully, another Swedish girl saw me attempting to tie four roses together to make a square and place it on my head after which she kindly took mercy on me and helped me get started with the process properly. I bet they made flower garlands in her house. I also bet she's an only child.
45 minutes later, I was no longer a flower garland virgin. And that is probably as close to an idyllic midsummer as I will ever get!
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| Well worth 45 minutes of rose thorns in my fingers! |
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| My first flower garland student! |
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