Socially engaged

Today we attended two social engagements. The first one we’d been invited to, was a not-a-garden-party at Nicoline’s place. We stayed at her AirBnB back in May and she invited us there and then. She said we’d meet lots of people from Trosa, which would be a good thing if we were going to live here. She was right. On both counts.

The other social engagement was Joakim and Veronika’s wedding. Joakim was the previous owner of the Red House. A lovely man, he not only gave us a painting that Mirinda greatly admired, he also handed us an invitation to his wedding. And it was also an opportunity to meet local people as we stood and chatted to Tommy and Suzanne, our new neighbours.

It was a lovely, chilled wedding, held at their new house, which is just a short walk away from us. They were wed by a celebrant, under an arch built specifically by Joakim and his best and oldest friend, first thing in the morning.

Each time we’ve driven past the house, I have questioned the need for three bath tubs, which were laying on the grass. This mystery was finally explained. They were to be used as coolers for booze. Joakim and his friend had built frames for them to sit in. A genius idea.

Unfortunately, because of the timings of the two engagements, we had to leave before the speeches and meal because we had to collect Anna and high tail it over to Nicoline’s place.

The Swede’s are sticklers for punctuality. We discovered this way back in 2021 when we were invited by Camilla and Anders for a midsommar drinkfest, singalong and herring binge but were a bit lax about the time of arrival. This time, we managed to arrive at both the wedding and the not-a-garden-party almost exactly on time. We had to walk up and down the road for a bit before the wedding and a snail paced car slowed us down by a couple of minutes on the way to Nicoline’s, but I reckon we were punctual.

The crowd at Nicoline’s was full of the most amazing people. Obviously there were some of the people we’d met at the Commune but there were also a lot of others, including Nicoline’s kids, and their other halves, the extraordinary Kristina, who seems to do about a thousand things, and Peter, a man I could seriously drink with.

There was a popcorn stand and lots of wine. There was a woman who was supposed to be a clown who ordered us around and into groups of family, friends and people from Trosa. We were then asked lots of questions, most of which were helpfully translated for us by Christina. It was all such a lot of fun.

We have often heard that the Swedes are standoffish, and it takes an age to get to know them enough to mingle on a social level, but today put paid to anything of the sort. It was a glorious day where we met a lot of potential friends, had many laughs and swapped stories with all and sundry.

If today was a mark of Trosa hospitality, then you can count me in. What an amazing day.