Bonde söker fru (farmer seeks a wife) is a Swedish reality television show, and our Tobo class is hooked! On Wednesday evenings at 8, we gather in the TV room to indulge. It is a show about 4 different farmers, different ages, each looking for a wife.

Here are Erik (24), Peter (52), Sebastian (33) and Jonathan (27) from left to right.

They each started with 8 women, and gradually winnowed them down to one each. The shows switch between the different story lines of the four men and their women (the women do not cross over to other farmers!), and between live action and interviews and commentary by the participants. This is the 8th season, so we are late to the party, but each year has had different participants. There have definitely been surprises about who went home and was eliminated. For one farmer, two women left the show voluntarily, but then he contacted one and convinced her to come back.

What is fun is that we are watching together. We began with a few people watching on computers out in the kitchen/sofa area, and then have moved into the TV room as our numbers have grown and it has become a regular event for us. As many as 12 of us (out of 16 living here) have watched at once. The computer streaming version had Swedish subtitles, which I liked because it helped my comprehension, compared with the televised version without subtitles. But it has been frivolous fun to follow this show together and talk about it, and useful for learning Swedish words other than those for music and dance.

I provided links to the show above (photo and title) so you can check it out, and get the recipe for Sebastian’s banana smoothie!