Midsommar, and the quiet art of doing nothing

Today is Midsommarafton, and if you tried to reach anyone in Sweden right now — a plumber, a bank, me — good luck. The office is empty in the nicest possible way. My inbox has gone still. Somewhere a little north of here, a herring is being eaten with great seriousness. It's the one day of the year the whole country quietly agrees to stop at the same time, and honestly, it might be my favourite thing we do.

Flowers, herring, and a bit of rain

If you've never been to a Swedish Midsommar, picture this. A tall pole dressed in birch leaves and wildflowers. A ring of grown adults hopping around it like frogs — yes, hopping, yes, in front of each other, completely sober for now. Long tables of pickled sill and the first new potatoes of the year with dill and butter. A snaps or two. And, more or less guaranteed, a stretch of rain that everyone decides not to let ruin anything.

There's an old bit of folklore that if you pick seven kinds of wildflowers and put them under your pillow tonight, you'll dream of the person you'll marry. I've done it. Mostly I dream about the potatoes. The point isn't really the flowers — it's that you spend an evening outside, with people you like, doing something slightly silly, while the sky stays bright far too late to make sense.

Why a holiday ended up on a tech blog

We talk a lot at Banimo about calm over noise — apps that do their job and then leave you alone. Midsommar is that idea turned into a whole day. Nobody is optimising anything. Nobody is shipping. The country just puts the phone down, eats too much, and lets the long light do its thing. It's a good reminder that the busy season is not the only setting a life has.

So we're closing the laptops too. The work will be there on Monday, a little more rested, and so will we. If you're somewhere with a midsommarstång nearby, go do the frog dance — you've earned the embarrassment. And if you're reading this between bites of herring, even better. Glad midsommar from all of us. Hej så länge. ☀️