Oh, that glorious light

Summer in Sweden means a lot of things: mosquito bites, ticks, wild raspberries, garlands of flowers and, of course, those long heavenly evenings when it never really gets dark.

In fact, in the north of Sweden, the sun never goes down below the horizon at all. It is called the Midnight Sun. It is quite an experience to be able to read without lights on at three o’clock in the morning! (Of course, the opposite is also true in the winter when the sun doesn’t peek above the horizon and they live their days in perpetual twilight.)

Here in the Stockholm region, the sun dips below the horizon for two or three hours, and the eerie white light of night turns a little duskier for a few  hours. Then, the sun climbs up into the sky again and the birds start twittering (that’s the birdsong variety not the online one!) at about four o’clock.

How do you get to sleep? The answer is: with difficulty.

When I first came to Sweden 12 years, it was summer and light. All the time. My body wasn’t used to all this glorious around-the-clock light and I couldn’t sleep for more than three hours every night. This went on for what felt like months, but was probably only a couple of weeks.

I steadily got more and more tired.

Then, one evening, I collapsed on the bed at 6 pm and slept the whole night long.

After that experience, I was cured.

The jetty near our house on a summer's evening

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