The perfect Swedish family

After yesterday’s foray into the deep, scary woods, Mirinda decided we’d have a far more placid walk around a lake this morning. Not quite all the way around, but far enough to constitute a walk.

There’s a lake near us, about the size of Frensham Big Pond, called Lake Flaten. It is very popular in the summer for swimming, mainly because it has the best quality water of all of Stockholm’s lakes.

It also has a lot of fish in it and, given you can catch fish and actually eat them here in Sweden, it’s very popular with local fisherfolk.

Along one edge there is also a large nature reserve (created in 2007) which features, along with an awful lot of English oak trees (Quercus robur), very big boulders, ripe for climbing. Not by me, I hasten to add.

There’s lots of carabiners permanently fixed to the rock to aid the brave. It made me think of Jason who was a keen climber once. I have no idea if he still is.

During our walk, we chatted with a few fellow travellers.

Firstly a group of three women, one of whom was Irish. She’d lived in Sweden for 45 years while retaining a slight lilt. The other two ladies were Swedish. They were all flabbergasted at our intention to visit Sweden for the winter experience. Mirinda tried to explain but they left us looking mystified.

Then there were a couple of ladies out for their morning constitutional. They looked like sisters and they gushed over the girls. In Swedish. Eventually we convinced them that we didn’t speak Swedish and we had a perfectly normal conversation in English.

Then, as we were heading back to Max, a loud voice came from behind us. A man with a massive, ferocious looking dog was approaching and speaking aggressively in Swedish. We’d let the girls off their leads a few times and we quickly put them back on as he drew nearer.

“Sorry, we’re Australians who only know one language,” We gave the usual greeting.

He instantly switched to perfect English and explained that our two little dogs should be on leads because his huge dog hadn’t had breakfast yet. That sounds like he was being angry but, quite the contrary. He was actually very nice, and we joked a bit about the dogs.

This is, so far, our experience of the Swedes we’ve met since arriving. All nice. All friendly. All able to speak English.

This was very much highlighted this evening when we met our future dog minders.

Finding someone to mind the dogs was one of the most important things we had to do once arriving. We want to go into Stockholm on certain days but are loathe to leave the girls alone all day. We needed a Swedish Sue. And we have found one. Or four, if you include the whole family.

We met them tonight and they are, what can only be described as, a perfect family.

They really, really want a dog but, because of their lifestyle, it would mean the dog would be left alone in the house most of the time. So they borrow dogs. And cats sometimes.

And they LOVE dogs, something that Emma and Freya instantly realised. In fact, I’ve rarely seen Emma take to other human beings quite so readily. She had them throwing toys for her to retrieve almost the whole time we were there. Freya, in true Monkey style, settled down on Sara’s arm and went to sleep.

We sat and chatted for ages though we knew they were ideal the moment Emma accepted them. We have our Swedish Sue.

Today, this happened

Before today, in 1726, no-one knew what or who Lilliputians were. That all changed after Jonathan Swift published Gulliver’s Travels.

The original title was Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships but that proved difficult to ask for in bookshops so, perhaps, it was shortened to something a little easier.

It is described as a satirical novel. Swift claimed it was written in order to vex people rather than “…divert them.” He was clearly having a go at the travel books which were very popular at the time.

In the 18th century, generally, travel writing was primarily from ship’s captains. For instance, Captain Cook’s diaries were very popular. Also, a little later than Swift, people heading to Europe on the Grand Tour, figured that everyone else wanted to read about their trips. Regardless of how effective they were at holding a reader’s interest.

I recently read a travel book written by Thackery (Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo) which was excellent and very readable. This is in direct contrast to a Spanish travel book I read, written in the 19th century, which was very turgid.

A Handbook for Travellers in Spain was written by Richard Ford. He also wrote a lot of other books but, after the Spanish travel guide, I’m not keen to read them.

Swift’s book came about as a result of his membership of the Scriblerus Club. Along with Swift, Alexander Pope and many other famous authors of the time, the club satirised various literary genres. Works were meant to be written under the pseudonym Martinus Scriblerus and, the almost complete Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus is possibly the best known work from the club.

Well, apart from Gulliver’s Travels, of course.

By the way, according to the map in the original edition, Lilliput is east of Australia.

Also today, in 2020, Amazon started operating its first distribution centre in Sweden. It coincided with a delivery we were expecting that had had to come from a Danish centre because there wasn’t a Swedish one three days ago. Maybe it was because of the opening celebrations but our delivery was subsequently delayed. We’re hoping it arrives tomorrow.