Summer's Midnight Sun
When the days are never-ending
As I sit here, typing away, it’s 11 pm. Totally past my bedtime but it’s light outside. The sun is just about to drop below the horizon. So I’m up!
In wintertime, I’m usually struggling to keep awake past 9 pm so I’m often surprised by how I feel here in summer - it’s so easy to stay up! I’ve grown up used to having nighttime all year. Summer or winter. During summer, the days were longer, but we weren’t far enough south for it to make a difference to the length of the days - just a few hours.
Here, in the Nordic region, the contrast is extreme! During the summer, leading up to the solstice on June 21 and a few weeks beyond, it just never gets dark. The sun dips below the horizon where I live, hovering there, just below, colouring the sky with a lovely glow. Even further north, the sun never sets.
Last night I woke around 1.30 am and had trouble going back to sleep. There’s a cuckoo that’s moved in somewhere close, calling desperately for a mate… non-stop… all night long! Talk about keen! He’s a bit late in the season to be on the lookout - most birds have paired up and have a line of fluffy babies or sleek young birds in tow. But not this cuckoo! His calls echo over the whole bay. I swear a swan started yelling at it to shut up last night!
I’d never actually heard a cuckoo that wasn’t popping out of a clock until the last few weeks. Apparently, there’s never been one around here. They’re certainly repetitive. I think I’d prefer knowing when the clock strikes, they come out, then disappear.
I am still in constant awe of the type of wildlife around, how intense their spring and summer is. It’s fairly quiet in winter so the explosion of life for both flora and fauna can be pretty overwhelming for someone like me who has been used to a slower pace, with mild winters.
I have been exploring the local area in different ways - finding local walking paths through forests and next to the coastline, and driving around to areas I’ve never been to. It’s been really lovely to find small beaches to paddle my feet in or patches of wild blueberries. I’ve even found a patch of small, wild strawberries, called “smultron”, near our sauna. It’s pretty exciting! They’re tiny and very cute. And tasty if I leave them to get ripe.
Tomorrow, we’re heading off in our boat for a few days. We’re visiting some friends first, then heading off into the archipelago. It should be pretty relaxing and much needed after a long winter and chilly spring.
Hope all is well in your neck of the woods ~ thanks for reading!
Lisa x
My Recent Reads
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrall - a magnificent book! Winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction and well deserved. I’m halfway through and only picked it up today.
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton - my incredible sister sent me this book and I loved every minute of reading it. What a talented writer Dalton is! I’m looking forward to reading his second book.
Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes by Elizabeth Lesser - an excellent book on stories, myths, and how they can change our world. I’m a third of the way through and it’s fascinating!
Poetry
I’m still writing bits and pieces and thought I’d share this little poem I wrote, inspired by a line in a book I was reading, “There’s no money in poetry.” It has been really popular, which kind of surprised me because I wrote it really quickly. I guess inspiration can be like that! Click on the link then let me know what you think.
xx
Wonderful pictures. I remember in Latvia it was almost the same. Funnily, it was a bit further south from where you are now, which in the hemisphere I grew up in means more darkness at night :).