Städledare / Cleaning-up Boss

Those of you who know me and especially those that have seen my office will realise how inappropriate it is for me to be appointed städledare (roughly translated person in charge of cleaning/tidying) for our part or our housing estate. We have 20 houses in our delområde (subarea), and each year the next household takes it in turn to be städledare.

We moved in 21 years ago, and got the job after only living here for about 6 months. We could (sort of) speak Swedish, but didn't have a clue how this was supposed to work. I'd been on one städdag (cleaning/tidying up day). The main job of the städledare is to decide on the date of the städdag and deliver a note to everyone calling them to meet in the car park with the apropriate tools.

I did this, and was a little alarmed when one of the longer standing residents came up to me in the car park one evening before hand and said that he couldn't come, but would do his bit on another day, and to please leave him something to do! I don't actually remember the day itself, but it probably went like most of the 40 odd that have happened since. We all gather and start brushing the car park (probably not necessary this year since it's been cleared already), then go round to another part where we do similar work. No-one seems to actually run it is such, and it doesn't take much more than an hour.

I've since discovered that we are very fortunate in that last respect, as in many areas the whole day is consumed. I can't say that our area looks any worse that those places but perhaps I'm a bit biased.

I got the call to a meeting with the new leaders of the other 7 areas and a member of the committee late this year, just last Tuesday. This means that I'll have to call the städdag next Saturday (2-May) when of course some people will have travelled away for the weekend, since the Friday is 1-May, a national holiday here. Good job there isn't a lot to do (at least I hope not).

The committee gives each leader 200kr each year towards a group activity, like coffee and cakes or whatever. Well unique to our area we haven't spent this for the past couple of years (since it's been introduced), so together with this years sub we've got 600kr to spend. Something else I have to decide about! We'll probably try to fix something in the autumn in connection with the other städdag.

Well I've written the kallelse (announcement) and blamed the committee for it being so late. Perhaps a few will turn up. I've always assumed that it's because our städdag meetings are shorter than other that we get a relatively good turn out. There are a few that practically never come, but most come almost every time. This is an area of much angry debate in some places, and while there is sometimes talk about it, we don't have much of a problem.

I hope we can get it over with farely quickly because I have guests from England coming in the afternoon, Kathy and her husband Gary. She is coming to play the Vaughan Williams work we studied at Sigtuna in January at the Mazer Monday evening. I might write more about that later.

(2009-05-05) It was very quick indeed, we started at 09.00 I was back in the house at 09.45! About 15 turned out, which is very good considering the inappropriate date. We only filled about 4 black sacks with sweepings, which I was able to deliver to the dump together with our own stuff the same day.

Cycle season started

This year's cycle season has started, for me at least.

Two Sundays ago was the first group training for Energitrampet. This was led by Patrick Serra (ex profs cyclist who organizes Energitrampet). We were about a dozen of somewhat varying ability (I put myself towards the low end on that scale!). We rode out to Strömsholm, where we stopped for fika (coffe/tea and optional cake). Our average speed, according to my bike computer was about 28 kph, something of a record for me.

On Saturday the weather here was really beautiful, warm and sunny, so after fixing the second puncture in two weeks caused by the very sharp sand the kommun uses on the cycle paths, and discovering that I don't have all the tools needed to fix the broken spoke in the back wheel, I went for a 28 km ride.

Yesterday I joined in the slowest group of three of the Energitrampet training session. Although the average speed was about 24 kph this time, there were periods when it went too fast for some of our group, and there was a certain amount of discussion about it! The main purpose of this training is to learn how to ride in a group (klungåkning) where the leaders change all the time, so that no-one has to 'pull' all the time. The problem is that the riders who are supposed to ease off when they are on the inside, and let the outside rider move over, don't, and so the outside rides goes a bit faster in order to pass, and so the overall speed just gets faster and faster!

It was very nice however, although I felt quite tired the rest of the day. This might have been made worse by the (too much) beer I had the night before, or the big fried breakfast on Saturday morning, who knows.

I hope that the weather stays nice enough to keep up this rate of cycling. For the first time I know about I'm actually ahead of the target training distance as defined on the Vätternrundan web site! With Easter coming up I expect that'll slip, but I might get out on Good Friday, while Margie is at work.