Preparations
For the last two years I have spent the first of may having an elegant picnic in trollsjöpark listening to socialdemokraternas speech and looking as bourgeoisie as possible. Why? Because what else would I do.
I usually plan to wear a dainty summer dress for this until I realize usually the day off that may is in fact NOT a summer month and I have to find something else or brave hypothermia. I will do a lot for aesthetics but not freezing.
So I spent the weeks leading up to it worrying about the weather (it's been snowing lately and yes, I am writing this several weeks in advance) and planning what to eat and what book to bring.
The book the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. The rules state that it has to be a book I'm actually currently reading and I am reading it just slowly... with long breaks. The the problem with books like this is that while it contains the great classics like the Raven etc there's also a lot of short stories no ones ever heard of like the Imp of the perverse mostly because they just aren't very good.
I have recently moved and this would be the first may in the new town and I was faced with a dilemma. Because here there are not just one party having speeches but three. Possibly more they are terrible at updating their websites and most I found was for earlier years.
In the end the answer was obvious. One simply cannot have a pick-nick at Gustav Adolf square. So it had to be Vansterparty in Slottspark.
On the day
The first of may dawned clear and bright and I spent the morning packing(after some job hunting) my basket, doing my makeup and setting my hair with pin curls. As luck would have it I could actually wear my pretty dress.
The march was supposed to start at 11 and I left home at 10.45 and I hurried a bit to get to the park assuming that it would take them half and hour to an hour to get there. Last year I was late and had to do a bit of power-walking to pass them and get there before them. This time I needn't have bothered. When I get there it's mostly empty a stage is set up, chairs, tents and what I suspect is a deflated bouncy castle. But almost no people and I have my pick of spots.
12.15 rolls around and by now I have everything set up. I've taken far too many pictures of my food, eaten both my sandwiches and read two stories. To be fair they were short stories but still. Yet no sign of them. But it was a beautiful day clear blue sky, 20 degrees and a strong wind. So I'm not complaining.
12.30 and I was starting to get bored. Enough time had passed that I had to move my blanket if I wanted to keep it in the sun. Around me the grass had slowly filled with families. Maybe lured there by the promise of a bouncy castle.
12.51 by now my tea is cold and I have moved my blanket again further away this time. I have also just remembered that blogger don't really let you paste text into it without it messing with the format so all these notes I have been doing I'm going to have to rewrite later.
13.22 I've read another story and re read The Raven coming to the realization that it's better when read aloud, but it's also partially a tongue twister so that's not easy. By now stubbornness is at least 50% of the reason why I'm still here.
Also I have now switched to writing this directly in the blogger app. But at long last I can hear them approaching. I think it's a bit hard to hear above the music playing on the stage. As an aside I brought macrons to this pick-nick and after having tried all the five flavors I have concluded that they are overrated as a cookie. The Filing is fine but the cookie bits really don't have much flavor.
13.58 and they are finally here, I don't understand how it's taken them three hours to go from möllevångssquare to here but apparently it did. Though they are moving quite slowly so that might explain it.
But I'm packing up and leaving, stopping to take a picture of the crowd. I had planned on staying for the speeches but at this point I had been here for several hours and was starting to worry about sunburn more importantly I'm out of tea and that simply will not do.
I hope to keep this tradition alive for at least a few more years but next year I'm going later.
