A Retired House Husband in Sweden

I have started reading the latest choice of volume for BookBusters. It is a book about fungus and, for the first chapter at least, is excellent. And, this morning, on my way down the driveway, heading for the ICA, I spotted this little group in the grass, following yesterday’s day of rain.

Conversely, there was no rain today. In fact, as I walked back from shopping, upset about a lack of aubergines in the veg section of the supermarket, I wondered how long after I walked into the house, Mirinda would announce we were going out on The Bob.

It wasn’t very long at all.

We packed the boat bag, told the girls to get into the car, bought some lunch and then headed for the dock to unharness the boat.

And she was right, the day was perfect boating weather.

It wasn’t just us, either. There were lots of boats out today. Powerboats, yachts, kayaks, jet skis and even a ferry. Not to mention the masses of birds, including this family.

The plan was to head for the main Kråmö dock but, once again, it was rammed with other visitors. We ducked around the back of the island and drew up at the deserted dock. We headed ashore for our picnic.

The day was perfect, the weather a joy. A very pleasant way to spend Reading Hour while Mirinda took Emma for a walk and I sat with Freya, keeping an eye on the boat.

There was a bit of an interruption when a woman and very small child in a very big life jacket decided to stop and chat. The child was very interested in, firstly, Freya but then my beard and ponytail. She was ridiculously cute. Such a pity we couldn’t understand each other. To be fair, I couldn’t understand her mother either.

Climbing back aboard the boat, we headed for home, having thoroughly enjoyed the bulk of the day. Two worn out cockerpoos took the return trip quite easy.

Back at home, I set to making dinner. I had originally planned to make parmigiana but because of the lack of aubergines, had changed to lasagna, which, to be fair, is quite similar.

We’d invited Nicoline over to help us eat it and we had a lovely chatty meal.

Pretty much the perfect day. Well, apart from the aubergine situation.

Meanwhile, in Stupidland.

How come so many supposedly well-educated British intellectuals leave the ‘g’ off of the end of words that is normally pronounced? Singing, thinking, painting, educating, etc. I was listening to a podcast this evening, an interview between Katie Hessell and a famous art curator, and both of them seemed to think the letter ‘g’ was superfluous. After a while I could only hear their bad English. I stopped listening.

Also, while on the ‘how come’ quest; how come Germans have forgotten what the Nazis did and how bad life was under the Russian thumb? I merely ask because of the AfD success in Saxony-Anhalt this weekend. I am very surprised. Presumably Putin and Musk are deliriously happy. Now the world is waiting for the wall to go back up.

I was listening to The Week in Art podcast this evening, as I prepared dinner. It was the first episode since their summer hiatus and was a recap of things that had happened during the break. Possibly the biggest story concerned the Trump administrations attempt to change history.

It seems that the current incumbent wants signage erected around the Smithsonian warning people about the inaccuracies in the museum. This follows a rather odd and inaccurate report, written to right the wrongs perpetrated by museum professionals, historians and other well-educated people. A report that, incidentally, contradicts itself.

Trump’s Domestic Policy Council also directly contradicts itself at times. “NMAH’s only special programming to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary, In Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness, fails to celebrate America’s Founders and the American Founding,” the report claims. But the following sentence admits that the exhibition “highlights 250 objects from the museum’s collections, including remarkable artifacts like the desk Thomas Jefferson used to draft the Declaration of Independence, George Washington’s uniform, a ship of the early U.S. Navy, and, of course, the Star-Spangled Banner, the 1813 flag that inspired the National Anthem.”

Stein, Marc, 2026, Time Magazine online at: https://time.com/article/2026/07/08/trump-s-attacks-on-the-smithsonian-are-an-attack-on-american-history/

Trumpians want the museum to show a more conservative history rather than the real one. In other words, the white, pseudo Christian, pathetic old men want history told the way they want it rather than the way it actually happened. They want the US to be more 1984 than 2026. The inaccurate past is somewhere they pine for.

Not that far from what Winston Smith was doing at the Ministry of Truth.

So, my question has to be, why did any Native Americans, Latinos, anyone identifying as LGBTQ+, women, African Americans, and, basically, anyone NOT old, white and male, vote for their own exclusion from US history? What was it that they thought was being achieved by electing an administration that hates them and would rather they were gone?

I mean, some of them must have voted for this monstrous pile of lies. Otherwise, it would appear that elections are decided by the self same people who want to rewrite the past in favour of the lies they tell themselves.

Another question I have often asked leaps to mind: When was America great before? For real, I mean, not in the imaginary past apparently preferred by the Republican Party.

There was me thinking that Stefan had once more descended to the ranks of Nemesis when, in fact, he had just fallen out of the habit of walking to the ICA each morning. Every time I hear the annoying noise of a moped, it sends me back to the days avoiding his horrid little red machine. But, no, I was wrong.

This morning I spotted him, heading home with a pair of Nordic walking poles. We stopped and chatted.

Apparently, he had just fallen out of the habit after a short break. Then, a couple of days ago, he was woken in the middle of the night with an awful leg cramp which had him thrashing about. Eventually he got out of bed and wandered around the house, frightening his cat but exorcising the cramp. It was then that he realised he needed to get back to the walking.

When I asked about the poles, he told me that he had had a weird pain in one upper arm and a friend told hm that he should use the poles when he walked to properly exercise his upper body as well as the lower.

I have no idea if this is true. The people I tend to see with Nordic walking poles look like they would fall over if they didn’t have them. Anyway, whatever they do, Stefan seemed happy with his. He strode away from me, cheerful and revitalised.

This was not the only major interaction I had this morning. As I sat in the ICA bistro, enjoying a few pages of my book, Bengt suddenly appeared in front of me. And, of course, we chatted.

With the elections only a couple of weeks away, he has been busy canvassing and telling people who and why they should vote for them. This morning, he was handing out leaflets at Vagnhärad station from 05:45, the ICA at 09:00 and, this afternoon, was at the local high school as they had a play election. He was expecting to get home at about 21:00.

He was oddly pleased about his very busy day talking politics.

We also discussed a possible French meal at our house but agreed that the women in our lives were responsible for this sort of organisational stuff. We, after all, did the cooking.

Walking home, I stopped at the second bench for a short rest and bathed my ears in the bird song of the woods. It was blissful. The lack of any kind of two wheeled horror had me sitting there a little longer than necessary.

One of the books I am currently reading is The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. He started writing the book in 1921 and never really finished. I think it is incredibly funny in parts. It also has long, rambling paragraphs which remind me of my own style. Here is a snippet which I particularly like. By the way, Ulrich is the man without qualities.

Once a man has put his house in order it is time to go courting. Ulrich’s girlfriend in those days was a chanteuse in a small cabaret who went by the name of Leontine. She was tall, curvaceously slender, provocatively lifeless and he called her Leona. He had been struck by the moist darkness of her eyes, the dolefully passionate expression on her handsome, regular, long face and the songs full of feeling that she sang instead of risqué ones. All these old-fashioned little songs were about love, sorrow, abandonment, faithfulness, forest murmurs and shining trout. She stood tall and lonely to the marrow on the tiny stage and patiently sang at the public with a housewife’s voice and even if something suggestive did slip in now and then, the effect was all the more ghostlike because she spelled out all the feelings of the heart, the tragic as well as the teasing, with the same wooden gestures.

Man without Qualities by Robert Musil

This morning, as the final day of the Retreat began and after making breakfast, Bo took everyone through the process of making shapes appear on photo sensitive paper. She had the group collect leaves from around the garden and place them on cyanotype paper, exposing them to the lacklustre sunshine. Then, after ten minutes, they were rinsed under a tap and images appeared like magic.

It was then just a question of letting them dry. But they had to leave before that was complete, so the sheets spent a few hours flapping about in the occasional breezes. I think they look quite cool.

The use of this type of process to create images has been around since 1842. It was perfected by Sir John Herschel, following a few other pioneers in the process.

After Mirinda returned from driving them to Vagnhärad station, she declared the Retreat a success and, shortly afterwards, went off for a walk with Nicoline along the new boardwalk that skirts the Baltic and leads to Trosa via the back way. She returned, reporting that the new walkway was excellent and wide enough for two to walk side by side.

That was about it for today as she was very tired.

I didn’t do very much beyond prepare food for lunch and dinner. Dinner especially given I made two new, for me, dishes. One a Turkish dish featuring aubergine and chicken and the second a Persian side with halloumi. They were both given a huge thumbs up.

Speaking of which, I would definitely give Bo a thumbs up for her breakfast oatmeal.

She volunteered to make breakfast every day and I left her to it and didn’t partake. This was for two reasons. I don’t normally have breakfast and, possibly more important, we only have five dining chairs and I would make a sixth.

Then Hannes went home last night, so I decided to try the breakfast which everyone was raving about. And I soon found out why they were raving. It was delicious.

My only complaint would be that there wasn’t enough.

I’ve heard so much about this group without meeting them (apart from Miguel who I met back in July) and I have to say they are all a delight. I can see why Mirinda enjoys spending time with them.

I was discussing whether I was an intellectual with Nicoline last night which led, unexpectedly to my talking about working as a sheet metal worker for nine years. Actually, I think the conversations were not linked at all and I started talking about my working with metal after seeing a bit of spiral ductwork on the ceiling of the dining room at Lagnö.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what order it happened in or why. The fact is that I did work as a sheet metal worker for nine years, only stopping because I was sick of getting up early (that seems ironic now given I can only get up early) and being dirty.

I started because my dad asked me if I’d like six weeks temporary work on a site where he was the foreman. I would be a tradesman’s offsider. I was unemployed at the time and thought, sure, why not.

The first site I worked on was a hospital extension in Camperdown, Sydney. As I said, my dad was the foreman, and he decided who I worked with. He managed to share me around to just about everyone I think. At least I didn’t have to go and buy striped paint or a left-handed screwdriver. Though that may have been because I was the bosses’ son.

I have three distinct memories of the Camperdown job. One was working with a very big chap called Haystacks.

Obviously that was his nickname and I cannot remember his actual name. Back when he was younger he was an ice man: he would haul huge blocks of ice and deliver them to houses without fridges, in the inner west of Sydney. Apparently he was as fit as a butcher’s dog. Young, strong and built like a brick shit house.

He married a girl he loved and was happy for a long time. Then she died. He was heartbroken, being a sensitive soul, and he went rapidly downhill. He put on weight, he started smoking and drinking. Eventually he lost the ice gig and, at some stage, became a sheet metal worker. And, unfortunately, was on a one way journey to self-destruction.

I worked with him a little bit, and rather enjoyed talking to him, but he had the great skill of falling asleep in any position, at any time, doing anything. One memorable time was when he was standing at the top of a very tall ladder, drilling a hole in a bracket meant to secure a section of air conditioning ductwork. I was standing below, holding onto the ladder when the drill suddenly stopped. He’d fallen asleep, hand still holding the drill in place above his head.

He would often fall asleep in the shed at lunchtime and drop his partly smoked cigarettes onto the table where someone would pick them up and put them out. He was a very sad man. I heard that he died when he dropped a lit cigarette onto his sofa and the smoke killed him. Poor Haystacks.

The other memory I have of my time at Camperdown was working with Nuff Nuff for the first time. His real name was Frank, but he had a hair lip so his nickname was obvious. And he was an amazing tradesman.

Working with him was brilliant. He taught me so much. And not just at Camperdown. We also worked together for years on the Qantas building. We became quite the dream team. I have Frank to thank for many skills I managed to attain, with metal and other trades.

The third memory was the day of my 21st birthday.

I was at work and the men took me to the pub next door to celebrate at lunchtime. I had been drunk before, obviously, but not quite as drunk as they got me. There was a lot of beer, a lot of jokes and a lot of swaying. Dad managed to get me home unscathed, but I don’t actually recall any of that. Though I sort of remember saying something inappropriate to FI, the site supervisor when he decided to pay us a visit in the afternoon.

It was a great life for the first little while. Then I started performing in clubs with the musical group I was part of. This meant, effectively, getting a few hours of sleep whenever I had a performance. It was crazy and dangerous. Something had to give. It wasn’t the acting and singing!

And so here endeth my early years as a sheet metal worker.

Meanwhile, at the Retreat, the group went to a local-ish farm and had a wonderful tour, met some goats and bought some cheese. There were other activities but I don’t know much about them so I’ll leave them up to the readers’ imagination. Suffice it to say, they all enjoyed themselves.

What a lovely bunch of people. I have very much enjoyed having them here, doing their environmental thing.

Oh, and the decision about whether I was an intellectual or not was discussed extensively and exhaustedly. I decided that, by Nicoline’s definition, I am. And here was me thinking I was an ignorant savage. Dammit.

And for those unfamiliar with the term, FI stands for Fucking Idiot.

Ralph Erskine was an interesting chap. He was a celebrated British architect who may have either rowed or cycled from the UK to Sweden just before World War II. That may or may not be true but he reached Sweden somehow and ended up staying because he loved the place so much. That sounds very familiar. Apart from the rowing/cycling bit. That is also not the interesting bit. The most interesting thing is that he designed the first shopping centre in the world.

The shopping centre was built in Luleå and it opened in October 1955 barely a month before my birth. Americans may boast that the first shopping centre was in Minnesota but that’s just fake news. That one was built a year later, in 1956.

As a side note, he also designed Ekerö centrum which I got to know really well when we lived there for a bit.

Now, you might wonder why I’m talking about Ralph. It’s a fair enough question. I wanted to ask Gertrude myself when she suddenly brought the subject up tonight but I was so fascinated with her tale that I just sat and absorbed her story.

Not that Gertrude knew Mr Erskine. At least I don’t think she did. It may have had something to do with the fact that I don’t speak Swedish. It seems that Ralph may also have not learned it either. Which I have to say, puts me in pretty good company. Along with Joseph of Hairy Pig fame.

Gertrude was talking to me across the table at Lagnö as we tucked into plates of some amazing salad and grilled meats or meat substitutes. I was there with Nicoline, celebrating Autumn, listening to Swedish and escaping from the Retreat which had taken over the red house.

Today, the Retreat was all about building insect hotels. Well, after the oat and oat milk breakfast was made by Bo. (I have to admit that I don’t know how to spell her name but it’s pronounced Bo so that’s what I’m going with.) Speaking of Bo, I told her about Dogs of Summer, the book by Andrea Abreu that we’re reading in the Other Book Group, and she went all ecstatic, saying she’s off to Tenerife some time soon and will now have to read it first.

They all worked very hard under the instruction of Nils and there was some solid beavering* away at their task in the glassroom because it was absolutely pissing it down outside. It was so wet and Nils was so wet I think he may have shrunk a bit.

Apparently they are going to mount them outside tomorrow when (if) the rain has stopped. I was well impressed. I’ve never seen Mirinda with a hammer or screwdriver working away with wood before.

Once they had achieved maximum hotel construction, they all jumped into Zed and headed into Trosa for lunch at Tre Små Rum. I chilled with the girls. I also typed up a few old entries and accidentally published one which made Nicoline ask me why I sent her an entry from 2004 about a boring Anglo Saxon conference I attended in Falmer with the Weasels. To be honest, I don’t remember it at all. Mind you, that was in my drinking days. The sending her the entry was a stupid programming error by me.

When the Retreat participants returned, I had an hour to show Bo how to show a movie on our giant TV before being picked up by Nicoline.

Now the food was, as expected, an absolute delight as were the numerous queries as to the whereabouts of my wife. There was also quite a few questions regarding my t-shirt which featured an exhibition I saw at Liljevalchs a while ago. I have worn a lot of t-shirts over the years but this one has garnered more questions in one day, than any other one I’ve worn. Ever.

Now that I’m looking at it in the photo above, I admit it does seem rather creepy and odd. Actually, one of the Retreat people asked if I’d seen the exhibition and if I’d heard what Ann-Sofia was up to these days. I said yes and that I had no idea. He said she seems to have dropped off the radar.

Anyway, back at Lagnö, we were not just there to talk to Gertrude and eat delicious home grown salad. We were also there to listen to a band. A rather political band that sang songs about protest and corrupt politicians and death. That makes them sound a bit dirgy but, to be honest, if you don’t understand the words, they sounded quite jolly at times.

I was a bit disappointed though. With Nicoline translating what each song was about, I was thinking they really should have finished with a rousing rendition of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.

The band was called, I think, Friends of Marsha. I haven’t been able to find anything about them online. I don’t think they have anything to do with The Brady Bunch.

It’s a pity about the music stands but there you go. And Nicoline was not that keen on the voice of the main singer (the woman on the left) but I thought she had a very interesting (in a good way) voice. According to Nicoline, this evened things out nicely.

Also, staying with the photo, it looks like the woman on the left is playing some strange sort of nose flute thing. She isn’t. It’s the microphone.

Of course, I saw Anita, Annika, Mårtin (briefly), and all the other regulars. It is always lovely going to Lagnö. And an education. For instance, you would not believe how Aboriginal is pronounced in Finnish.

Anyway, I got home to all the Retreatees sitting down to a very late dinner, prepared by them all in my tiny little kitchen. I made myself very scarce.

* That was especially for Nicoline.