Less stress than anticipated

Ages ago, I wrote about the problems I was having trying to book my Weasel trip to Amsterdam in April. The problem was the lack of timetabled trains for the most direct trip. To get around this, Mirinda suggested I take a more roundabout approach. This approach included a ferry from Trelleberg to Rostock then trains from there. I booked everything and was ready to go.

Then, yesterday, I received a text from Stena Lines telling me that the ferry I was scheduled to catch had been replaced with a TT Lines ferry and was leaving two hours later. Of course, with all the convoluted connections, this did not work at all. For one thing, if it was possible, it would mean arriving in Amsterdam at around 3am.

In great frustration, I started cancelling things. Then, this morning, I booked the more direct train route (the timetables seem to be sorted now) without any problem at all.

All of that was an unexpected task for this morning. It was followed by a few changes I had to make to the Hindhead website. Again, this was unexpected. Then the day slipped into the expected.

Two things we knew we’d have to do today were pay Euromaster what we owed them and change our address for our Personnummers. So, having changed trains and website information, we headed out to the pretty unattractive Brandbergen Centrum.

A couple of good things though. This time we knew where to park and the footpaths were ice free. Oh, and the new doors into the centrum were working, rather than using the building site. I guess, one day, it will all look much more inviting than it does at the moment. But, of course, we’ll probably never see it again.

The best thing about having to go, though, was the fact that we were almost the only people in the office. We were seen, dealt with and farewelled all within about ten minutes. Our timing had been immaculate, especially given a crowd of people entered just before we left.

Then, it was off to see the wonderful Micke at Euromaster.

On the advice of Tommie (of the Perfect Swedish Family) we ordered and had fitted winter tyres in December 2020. That was when we first met Micke. He was very helpful and, Mirinda reckons, fancied her. Then, going full circle, Max went back to his normal tyres near the end of April 2021. And, of course, in January, we had our winter tyres sent to Trelleberg for this trip.

The tyres had been in the hotel at Skogås and Micke transferred them south for us. But we still had to pay for their accommodation. Which was why we went over today, given we’re moving to Ekerö on Sunday.

He seemed to recognise us as soon as we arrived, which is pretty amazing given he didn’t know when we were coming. After some deliberation and higher mathematics, he arrived at a price and we paid. Though not before we all had a jolly chat.

I was kind of dreading today but, all in all, things turned out okay and the stress was minimal.