Lucia!

On the 13th December every year Sweden turns into an ocean of lights for the celebration of Lucia. The traditional way of celebrating this annual event is to dress in a white dressing gown and carry burning candles while singing, often there is a choir performing or school classes and the celebration is mostly held in churchs.

Lucia originally comes from Saint Lucy, but is also known as Saint Lucia, (283 – 304) who was a Christian Martyr. Her name comes from lux, lucis "light", and she is the patron saint of those who are blind. Lucy, or Lucia consecrated her virginity to God, refused to marry, and had her dowry distributed to the poor. Her would-be husband denounced her as a Christian to the governor of Syracuse, Sicily. Miraculously unable to move her or burn her, the guards took out her eyes with a fork. In medieval accounts, Saint Lucy's eyes are gouged out prior to her execution. In art, her eyes sometimes appear on a plate that she is holding.

Sometimes the story behind this celebration is forgotten and vanish behind the happy celebrations, which is a shame since Saint Lucy was and is saint to keep in mind and look up to.

Over&Out

Sara

It´s getting dark now.

Sweden is truly a beautiful country with great nature and magnificent scenery; we have got considerable lakes and majestic forests, open fields and maybe not the highest of mountains but still a few hills to “climb”.

As a Swede I am proud of the variety my country has to offer and the fact that the very soul of Sweden can be found where ever you decide to go in our tall country which form Sweden; in the south you´ll find it like a whirlwind across open fields, in the midlands it is sneaking around in the deep woods and drizzle in little brooks, in the north you´ll explore the absolute face of nature with the northern lights.

There are though a few disappointing details about Sweden too... For example it can get very dark up here, and it does get really dark. Right now, 5 pm Swedish time (1+ GMT) it´s already pitch dark, about a month ago the sun was still up at this time, but during autumn the amount of sun hours decries very rapidly, unfortunately. In the very north of Sweden during winter the sun will barely go up in the middle of the day before it decides to “call it a day” and go down again. Although during summer there are several days when the sun won´t go down at all. And this is what I can´t stand about my so beautiful country; darkness. What´s the point with a astonishing nature if no one can see it anyway? The dark time of the year stretches from the end of September to sometime in March, normally and I´m now referring to the part of Sweden where I live, which is the sort of southern west coast, around Gothenburg. In other places in Sweden it will be different. The lack of sun can make you depressed since you do not get as much C-vitamin from the sun as needed and just the darkness itself can bring your mood down, surprised? Although the autumn/winter sometimes shows a nice side to it too, with snow and ice, and it redecorate our woods to dramatic white landscapes and fields turn into to snow white canvas, truly stunning. But that is if it´s bright enough to see it of course. =D

Over&Out
Sara

Travelling and an empty HQ

Our grand travellers have now left for Latin America and the office feels rather empty frankly, it´s quieter and a bit darker for some reason. The only advantage as I see it is the fact that I can play music as loud as I want. Without disturbing a single soul. Mari´s office is too far away for her to be disturbed ;)

There are a lot of things for Marianne, Niklas and Melvin to do, they are meeting up with the minister of culture in El Salvador and I think a dinner with the president was on the schedule too. (Correct me if I´m wrong)Further they are visiting an orphanage and Melvin mother even! In Peru the release of our two new Spanish titles will be held and hopefully lots and lots of press will be there to acknowledge the authors and their great books! In the previous blog post by Melvin you can read more about these books.

But, back to Sweden... The office is empty and the Bombadil dog Pixie is a bit worried about the fact that Marianne is not here, but Pixie is in good hands with the rest of the Bombadil staff. She spent last night wakening up poor Mattias and apparently she really enjoyed jumping up and down in his bed, whilst he was trying to sleep after dropping our grand travellers in Örebro to catch their coach to the airport. He mentioned something about snoring too, I just can´t recall if he was talking about himself or the dog. Since she is staying with me the coming week I think I will invest in a pair of ear plugs, just to be on the safe side.

During the time Marianne, Niklas and Melvin is gone the Bombadil work in the Bombadil office continues as usual. And we have a new project to start up, which we need all our readers, mentors and authors to participate in! We want to have pictures of people all over the world photographing themselves wearing Bombadil t-shirts for our new "Bombadil all over the world"-photo album. So if you happen to have a Bombadil t-shirt, take a photograph in front of something that is typical or representative for your country and send it to us! I for example; I would probably have my picture taken whilst sitting on an elk (?) or strolling around in a great forest... Yeah something like that.

And if you don´t have a Bombadil t-shirt yet, check out this link to get one! http://www.cafepress.com/Bombadil

Over&out
Sara

The Bombadil family is growing and growing!

Well, our dear family is expanding all the time, as we could read a few days ago; Matthias is our last acquisition as co-worker at our office in Gyttorp. But in the international side are we growing too, a lady from Peru, Maggy Jacinto, has started as a mentor and proofreader, as well, in our family, she had experience of office and printing work and she is mother of two young girls back in Peru, I want to welcome Maggy in the name of all Bombadilians and we´ll see toward new adventures together in our wonderful world of books, our world of writing, our world of creating and building a different world, a better one, there all the young people around the world have the possibility to express them self and show the world that the young people can create a new better world… and want too.



Maggy Jacinto Salazar.

And we got several fresh writers from Colombia and Venezuela, young people who inspire other young writers, and older of course, all around the world, and the marvelous felling to be part of this family get me this sensation difficult to describe, but easy to understand for everybody in our expanding family. Come together everybody and get this feeling, the Bombadil feeling and be part of this wonderful world all around us, the Bombadil World! YOUTH TO YOUTH.

Melvin González

Competitive coffee

Bombadillians are not by their nature fiercely competitive, but an element of competition is never a bad thing. Sara has been laughing at me for quite some time now because I am in possession of a very small USB memory stick, whereas she has a 2 GB memory stick. Well, today I am laughing because my new 16GB memory stick has arrived. It's rather funny though, I remember having a computer with a 1GB hard drive, and the hard drive was an optional extra.

Our author school video is finished and up on Youtube. We had a lot of fun making it; it was a lot more scripted than the shorts (we even drew a storyboard for it). See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7cIHvA4SV4



The Media Centre cafe is being planned at the moment, but that hasn't stopped me campaigning for a pub. I'm not holding out much hope, but you never know. But the point is, you're all invited for a cup of hot, inspiring Bombadil coffee one of these days.

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like socks. Again...

Books and, er, books, I suppose. Oh, and creativity. Lots of that.

There are many wonderful things about living in Sweden. The climate is pleasant (except for today; it's raining), the scenery is unbelievably beautiful and the Swedes are a particularly pleasant bunch. There are huge lakes, tall green trees and lush forests. There was at one stage a point to this paragraph. What the point was, however, escapes me now. I guess I'm just trying to say that Sweden is a pretty fantastic place and I spend my days in a basket of creativity. Those of you who spend an hour a day in the great orbital car park that is the M25, you have my sympathies.

Two books are nearing completion, Sahil's role-playing adventure book "Inz The Warrior" has been sent to the printer today and Seth's book "The Noresemen's Saga" has been sent off to be proofread. Note, proofread, not edited, as we do not believe in taking an author's work and then mercilessly chopping it about.

The big Learning Swedish effort is progressing steadily, if a little slowly. I have just discovered that rabbit is kanin, which sounds for all the world like canine. Dog is hund though, which makes a little more sense. And cat, well, that's just katt.


Detta är inte en katt...

In other news, the Bombadil dog currently smells like pantaloons.

Continental explosions, engagements, cream cakes and an unrelated picture

This week - and today was no exception - we have had several howls in the office. Not wolf-like howls, but jubilant, exhilarating, happy screams of, well, exhilaration. We now have a presence on every continent on the globe. I know there are not that many continents, but it was indeed a milestone for us and the number of countries in which we have a presence has risen to 19. There is a map on the website for those of you interested in the updates. However, the reason being on all continents was such an important milestone is that it means that the Bombadil concept has not only been accepted but also appreciated by writers from disparate backgrounds and cultures, making it a universal concept.

There are obviously many differences between the authors but there are so many things that unite these young people, their passions and their dreams and that really pleased me. It also pleases me that they are so talented, motivated and passionate and on a personal note, it pleases me that there is so much to learn from the generation ready to take over running the world. I have a lot of faith that they will make it a wonderful place in which to grown old. Yes, I am not quite old yet (according to my definition though not that of my children), but I look forward to the day, with these many talented young beings at the helm.

Another jubilant cry was when we heard that the Crown Princess was getting married to her Daniel. In my eyes, there is very little more endearing that watching love dance in the eyes of newly engaged couples. My sincere congratulations to them, and I hope I will one day be able to tell them so in person. Sweden is a small place, so it might well happen. Until then, congratulations Victoria and Daniel.

Another jubilant cry was when we realised it was cream cake day. It is the last day before lent, and traditions proclaim that one is allowed to eat copious amounts of cream cake. I only managed one, but it was very good indeed. I could not manage more than one, but neither would I need more than one to make it though lent :-(

Now on to something completely unrelelated to jubilant howls, though I was rather jubilant about it. I just realised that it was Sara who had taken over my kitchen duty because she had forgotten to blog yesterday. I was so busy yesterday that I did not even check (I usually enjoy catching up with my colleagues thoughts by reading their blogs) and today I was very surprised that coffee was made and that the kitchen was spick-and-span. I actually just thought that somebody had taken pity to my workload and done it for me. Regardless of the reason, I am pleased not having had to do it: Thank you Sara.

And in case anybody wonders, the dog is cuddly and lovely! I have a cold, so I cannot comment on the smell.