Once upon a time, the holiday of Christmas revolved around celebrating the birth of Christ. There were angels and wise men and frankincense and myrrh. But some of my more irreverent friends don't quite see it in the same light. Indeed, one of those friends came down for a visit yesterday and presented me with The Holy Toast as a birthday gift.

While I'd like to think that she appreciates the depth of my Catholic faith and her sole reason for giving me this was the genuine thought that it might promote religious reflection during normal activities like making breakfast, her cheeky grin told another story. Though it was far more tasteful (hard as that is to believe) than what she wanted to buy me, but was forbidden by her boyfriend from doing so...




This stamper actually creates an imprint of Mary on your morning toast. After all, isn’t a little worship with your jam exactly what the priest ordered? Poor L-G was not sure who was the madder - myself or Justine, but hey if it's sacrilege for such a modest price, what else can I say but Amen to that!

It will now be holy toast or nothing in my house from now onwards. I wonder if I should make a sign for the door? And I wonder what our Swedish friends who stay here in the summer will think. They were already alarmed by the postcard this same friend sent me from Lourdes last year, complete with the Virgin of Lourdes who "appeared" depending on how you viewed the card....

But we had invited her down from Stockholm for the day with the promise that she could see a boring town where everything was shut. The weather gods however decided to pull a fast one on us and sent down a great deal of snow, then plunged the temperature to -15C (5F) and turned on the sunshine to make every snowflake glisten and glitter like dazzling diamonds. And even Oxelösund look nice!




This is the view of the harbour in the early morning (well, early for us, anyway). The mist you can see above the water is called sjörök and is caused when the air passing over the water at a much lower temperature. I've seen patches of this before, but never the whole harbour and all the way out to sea. We just sat there in wonder, watching it all drift slowly and calmly across the bay. We reluctantly left the stunning view across the harbour and headed up to Nyköping to collect Justine from the impressively named Nyköping's Central Station, which was little more than a deserted platform...




See, even that looks presentable with a covering of white powder. We apologised profusely for misleading her into thinking this might be a grey, dull and boring day, but she decided to be gracious and stay since she'd travelled so far.

While we were here, we decided to see how fast the rapids were running down by the old mill on the river. And it was a fantastic sight.




The scene was like a picture postcard from a winter wonderland. Justine told us that while cold in Stockholm, there was not much snow around. Obviously there was some kind of divine intervention going on to turn on all of this beauty for her visit. "Damn", we muttered to each other "Now she'll want to come back again!"




Nyköping is in fact a beautiful, lovely old town and it was especially dazzling and sparkly in the snow, with the water powering through the weir, creating spray, mist and ice sculptures everywhere we looked. Justine was kept busy snapping away at everything like an embarrassing Japanese tourist.




As the water powered down and the snow stirred softly in the gentle breeze, you could still hear the sounds of the birds frolicking cheerfully in the trees. The snowy trees were like Christmas all over again. Even parts of the waterfall had frozen and there was snow on the eaves of the buildings, cottages and sculptures. It was straight out of a Christmas card.




The spray glistened in the sunshine, creating whirling rainbows and the snow was pure white in the dazzling sun, stirring up the imagination. Hmmm...not at all the experience we had promised... It was as though someone had come through with a big can of spray on marshmallow and coated everything. And when the sun glittered off the snow crystals, I was reminded of those Christmas cards people used to send with glitter on them. I used to love those cards with the sparkling dust on them. In my innocence, I used to think that someone really rich had sent the card.




Lambi was über-unimpressed being forced to be out in the cold when we should have been home eating saffron buns and admiring her instead. We stood watching the stream, looking at the laxtrappa (salmon ladder, leap, stair?) and wondering if the salmon could actually use it. It would seem so, if this fishing website is anything to go by (and yes, that madman is standing in the freezing water). Apparently they catch trophy sized salmon up to 23 kilos and sea trout up to 13 kilos here.




This is a popular walking route through the town as it follows the winding river all the way past the castle and into the sea. We walked a bit more (under extreme protest from the frozen poodle) looking at teenage boys fishing from the shore, people out strolling, dogs walking (not that it inspired Lambi to bother), kids on sleds and families out feeding the ducks and enjoying the day.




Feeling a little frozen, we went back to the car and continued our exploration around town. This time Lambi was cross that Justine was in the front seat (which is HER place) and she whined piteously until Justine was forced to nurse her the whole way back home. Hee, hee.




We didn't go straight home, but detoured to take her through the woods and out to the lighthouse keeper's cottage at Femörehuvud. It was a bracing walk and the sea and sun were refreshing, except to Lambi who couldn't for the life of her understand why we were there without a picnic.

I actually put her down for a short time so she could practice being a real dog for a change and you should have seen her reluctantly skulking along, much to the amusement of everyone there. She's incorrigible.



Those two guys were really chuckling as they waited for Lambi to make her way through the gate. So yes, I picked her up and carried her the kilometre or so back to the car...

We were then able to get down to the serious business of afternoon tea, chatting, dinner and the gift giving. Much more to Princess Lambi's style, especially as she could just lay in her basket and be warm and admired and slightly singed when she came too close to Justine's piece of bun).

Justine had also bought me flowers. And not just any flowers - she found sprigs of sugar gum and golden wattle - in Sweden! L-G could not understand my excitement, even when I recited the lines from the Monty Python philospher's sketch: "This here's the wattle, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand." (I did this while Justine was at the loo in case she thought I was nuts. Needless to say, this was before she gave me the Holy Toast maker....)




As far as he's concerned, a flower is a flower. He had no idea that I'd go crazy over what looked quite ordinary to him. Yes, I can see him failing the Australian Immigration test miserably if he fails to recognise it as the floral emblem of our great land.

This morning, while the Holy toast was cooking, the kitchen was filled with the lovely scent of eucalyptus and wattle. It was both a welcome reminder of home and provided a contrast to the winter landscape outside as well.




And the snowy and ice continue today, with even colder temperatures. The big chill is settling in up north with temperatures plummeting to -35C (-31F) overnight. It was a more tropical -20C (-4F) here, but still I see that bays in the Baltic are starting to ice over and some of the more sheltered waters in the archipelago might be skateable this year - the first time in a few years that it has been possible.

All I can say is brrrr..... and pop some Vegemite on my Holy Toast.