High up we find our roots to happiness.

Sunday April 5^th 2009: Yesterday we experienced our first real spring day here in Stockholm, it was warm and the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. Yes, both Marianne and I have been waiting and now finally it was here, the first real sign of summer approaching. We had made ourselves ready for this and we started Friday afternoon when Marianne came home after work. We needed to prepare our balcony for what was about to come, according to the weather forecasts anyway.

Living in the center of Stockholm five floors up practicing agriculture is somewhat limited. But that land limitation is something that doesn’t bother us anymore, instead it’s a challenge. So we replaced our old scrappy flower boxes with much better looking new ones and this year I also had this idea about setting up a corner espalier to sort of screen the neighbors a bit. Most our farming like arranging flower boxes and the espalier was done on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning Marianne went out buying some small spring flowers to put in our flower boxes and a bigger pot with daffodils intended for our very small garden table. So with that done, our early spring farming activities were almost complete.

However agriculture is so much more and as the sun started positioning in on us over the roof tops Marianne got this idea. A silly idea it was and I immediately was in on it. I mean there actually are enjoyable silly things people can do that prolong life making the day, and its all about going back to our roots… agriculture or whatever I mean. There was something on our balcony missing and a day as this Saturday was developing into we grabbed the moment. Agriculture can be enjoyed in so many ways, so instead of the scenery and owning a lot of land, we refine these things that nature brings and make them fit our balcony and we did it even further than that.

Marianne and I swiftly cleaned away bits and pieces from the balcony and put up our small round garden table and our two foldable garden chairs. We had planned and bought food for yet another enchanting evening dinner and we just happened to have bought three bottles of Rosé Champagne, two small and one big bottle for special occasions. So in one silly second our planning was changed. Marianne prepared our evening dinner starter for lunch out on the balcony and I was the one choosing what to drink. We argued a bit about that, as we both knew what would happen letting me choose drinks for silly occasions like this. After two seconds happy arguing I of course took out the best big bottle of Champagne from the fridge and then we were all set.

A just perfect day. A half avocado each, a shrimp salad and trout roe to fill it with and we took our time eating. The sun passes our balcony about two pm, but that didn’t matter, our day was done. We started our lunch at twelve and after those two enjoyable hours it could only be better. The rest of the day we spent chatting doing nothing much and the Saturday evening dinner was just as perfect as lunch had been. I have forgotten who choose the dinner wine, but that didn’t matter as there were only good wines to choose from. I however do remember that Marianne replaced the dinner starter with dry martinis including olives and some snacks. The dinner we had was light sautéed salmon placed on top of fresh salad, pure and simple, and with lemon squeezed all over it. As a side we only had some slices of white tasty bread to go with it, just great.

Sunday started out raining, but that didn’t matter as that two-hour Saturday lunch covered it all. We spent a wonderful weekend out of track doing nothing much. And in the same spirit we now hope for many more weekends like this to come. And when they do, Marianne and I will make our best to refine those moments even further, like arguing about which one of us should choose drinks and so on.