Dog teeth in a bowl

Today was a bit full on. With our departure getting quite close, it was important to organize EU pet passports for the girls, as well as changing our winter tyres back to summer. I had arranged both last week and today was the day. Because both appointments were in Nyköping, it made sense to have them on the same day.

On our first visit to Trosa this year, the guy at Boman’s told us that you could everything you needed in Trosa apart from electronics and underpants. For those, you went to Nyköping. Then, the other day, Lisa, Mirinda’s hairdresser, told her that Nyköping was awful; full of gang violence, drugs and lawlessness. This did not bode well.

But, needs must, so we gritted our teeth and set off across some of the most beautiful landscape we’ve seen this trip. Of course, Maxine wanted to take us via the E4 but, I had already plotted a route that took us on the ‘old road’ as the vet called it. It was so worth the slightly longer journey.

Our first stop was Euromaster.

And yet another good looking Swedish man served us. Mirinda wonders if Euromaster goes out of its way to only hire cute men. We’ve been to three different branches so far and it seems so. And very friendly as well. I can’t complain about anything. Well, maybe the fact that we had to buy three new tyres, which was a tad expensive.

Our old ones were cracked – he showed us – and he couldn’t guarantee they’d be any good for much longer. When I asked if they’d get us back to the UK he laughed. He looked up their stock availability and they had some. He switched the tyres in 30 minutes. We drove away poorer but safer.

Then it was to the vet.

Nina was born in Germany, worked in the US then headed for Hungary where she met Patrik. They fell in love and married. They moved to Sweden where Patrik was from, and set up shop in Stockholm where they had some kids. Nina decided she’d had enough kids and convinced Patrik to have the snip. Apparently he now keeps his vas deferens in a jar above the stove.

Nina and Patrik are both vets. Patrik specializes in canine dentistry. As well as his vas deferens, he also has a bowl full of dog teeth in the house. I like Patrik already. Which is good because he’ll be looking into fixing up Emma and Freya’s teeth. And maybe add them to the bowl.

I also really liked the over sharing Nina. Without too much fuss, she set us up with passports for the girls as well as a prescription for them in order to protect them from ticks. And, worming tablets.

As I learned last time, they need worming no shorter than one and no longer than five days before we arrive back in the UK. Nina has us buy the tablets and she watches us feed them to the girls before filling out the passport. We arranged to meet in a garage in Trosa on the day we set off.

So, a very successful, if somewhat expensive, day. And, even though it rained for most of it, our spirits were no dampened at all given the lovely drive back and forth.

Oh, and Nina said Nyköping was very nice and not the Gangsta’s Paradise that Lisa would have us believe.