Ekerö church is not far from us. Today it sat in a flat, snowy landscape, looking picture postcard perfect. Behind the church, the water of Lake Mälaren, shattered sheets of ice laid across its surface, was glinting in the sunlight. The church itself is Romanesque, built sometime in the 12th century and stands proud and tall.
Inside, the box pews give the church an air of community, as if whole families could sit together in small groups and meet with their few neighbours in relative comfort.
There are various wonderful things dotted around the inside of the church including a rune stone and a delightfully plain votive ship model, hanging by a window.
You could almost imagine it sailing across the Sea of Galilee, watching out for water walking prophets. Though not necessarily with a square rig. Of course, the square rig was very much favoured by the Vikings. The ornate and pagan features seem to have been left off, for obvious reasons.
We were at the church to listen to a wonderful concert of Baroque music, performed by students of the Kungliga Musikhögskolans (The Royal College of Music) in Stockholm. Mirinda spotted a poster outside the Coop and decided we just had to go. It’s a bit like the Trinity Laban concerts we’ve attended at The Farnham Maltings, which give students a taste of performance in front of strangers rather than just family and teachers.
But it wasn’t the only thing we did today. We also popped down to the dock of the Jungfrusund Färjeläge (the car ferry) and had brunch at the fantastic Kolmilan Restaurant, which has amazing views across the water with the ferry making its inexorable way back and forth a fair few times a day.
A very brave couple sat in the chairs above but, like all the other sensible people, we took a table inside and had the choice of an awful lot of food in a traditional smörgåsbord. It made us think of the half smörgåsbord we had at Kumla Herrgård back at Christmas 2020, when the pandemic meant that the cold food was brought to the diner rather than the more traditional way.
We had an excellent chat with the new half manager (there’s two of them) who was very forthright about how she intended to sort out the business which had been flagging. She was also very funny. In fact, she and Mirinda made a great double act for that brilliant but mythical TV program, Australians Try Speaking Swedish in Restaurants. The first episode would, no doubt, be titled Don’t Pee on the Tree.
She was also yet another one of those typically beautiful Swedish women. As was Cecilia Nyberg, the priest at Ekerö church. I feel that Ginger Apelgren was also a BSW.
Which brings me back to the concert at the church.
We were treated to pieces by the likes of Gabrielli (1651-1690), Pandolfi (1624-c1687) and Uttini (1723-1795) with Alex Gulberg on recorder, Kerstin Baldwin Sterner on harpsichord, Johannes Rydén on cello and soprano, Elisabeth Hellström, singing up a right storm.
I managed to get a discrete photo of them all performing at once.
They were all, really, very good. And the perfect end to an excellent day.
