A rainy day in Sweden

Many homes on the Swedish west coast are white weatherboard with red pan-tiled roofs.

One of the best things about our trip along the Swedish west coast to explore the scenery and the fishing villages was our entertaining and good humoured Swedish guide, Annika. She explained a few useful words in Swedish, such as "tak" for thanks,... as we could say "ta". "Window" is a Swedish word which explains that it is something to stop the wind from blowing into the home, yet allow the eye to see out. Translated "window" means "wind eye". In the towns and villages, our coach took us through, Annika explained that the houses are built close together to shelter the community from the prevailing strong winds, which had, when deforestation took place, effectively blown away much of the top soil, which made these coastal communities more dependent on fishing than farming.

    Sweden has more islands than anywhere else in the world, many of them uninhabited, but we did have to cross a few bridges between them, one of them, had spectacularly collapsed,   when a ship barged into a strut in fog, resulting in tragic loss of life. I nearly lost my way in one of the villages, I was so keen on exploring and taking photographs, I went down the wrong lane, but fortunately I was rescued by a fellow passenger, clutching a jar of pickled herrings bought from the museum. Although the weather was wet, I was nevertheless reminded of the Northern Isles, as the light changed so quickly, transforming the views of the inlets and islands from the bridges.

    On my last trip to Sweden, a few years ago, we explored Stockholm and I identified one or two people I liked to think of as descendants of the famous "Berserks" of norse legend. Today Sweden is known for Ikea and Volvo, which have shops and manufacturing worldwide. Annika has some amusing stories about Swedish culture and eating habits. I was most amused with the statistic of Sweden eating the most bananas per head of population of any European country. Although the Swedes also out-eat the Italians in ice cream, I was nevertheless so impressed by the banana eating statistic,  I thought I could put the Swedish nation up for a Nobel Prize in the prowess. 

    Before we returned to Ambiance, Annika sang us a couple of Swedish songs. One has to accompany the drinking of snaps, which you can't drink unless you sing; it's a rule. Before we left the coach she treated us to a song about a frog, which involved actions and jumping up and down and made us laugh. "We Swedes have a silly sense of humour" she said.

   That evening, at dinner, I was attacked by a "pirate", one of the ship's photographers in a swashbuckling disguise. The resulting print is embellished with a picture of the "Bounty" notorious for its mutiny!