I was walking into Trosa this morning when a woman drew alongside me. “I think it’s Spring at last,” she said as she motored on ahead. I agreed, looking up at the blue sky and bright sunshine. It may have also been because I was wearing shorts and my French artist straw hat.
Harald, who pulled up next to me on my way home, commented on my apparel, saying I had the right idea. And I noticed a lot of other men in shorts while I was in town. I really think we have turned a corner as far as the weather is concerned.
Mind you, this was all spoiled by Erik who claimed that on Sunday the temperature is going to drop and it’ll pour with rain. If this comes to pass, I’ll obviously blame him. It may prove an unfriendly welcome for Lisa who arrives on Sunday.
We saw Erik (and the cherub) at Nicoline’s where we were at a Meet the Neighbours party. This kind of event dates back quite the distance and people bring small things like cheese and crackers and stand around and chat. Of course, strictly speaking, we are not exactly neighbours though, as I pointed out at one stage, we were when we stayed in Nicoline’s west wing. Or east wing…people should know how useless I am with points of the compass.
Victor and Ebba were there and we chatted about what we did with our respective bags of ramslök (they froze a lot of theirs). They also pointed out their house, which was partly obscured by a massive hill of dirt. This dirt will be spread evenly in order to create a vegetable garden, along with other things.
We also discovered that they can identify edible mushrooms, so we might just have to go foraging with them. When I mentioned chanterelles, Jonas said they get a veritable forest of them on the isolated farm. Clearly this is what the Meet the Neighbours event is all about: an opportunity to share foraging possibilities.
An interesting titbit: It seems that Victor and Ebba had a letter telling them to empty their letter box because it was getting too full. Victor said he didn’t even know they had a letter box and had been thinking they’d have to buy one. Ebba spent a lot of time searching for it, finally finding and emptying it. I do wonder about the logic in sending a letter telling people to empty a letter box when they obviously aren’t emptying their letter box.
Jonas was there with KSP and Karl Frederick, their son who, up until now, we thought was a figment of his sister Charlie’s imagination. But no. He is an amazing young man with an interesting job which we found fascinating.
Almost as fascinating as Dr Jonas and his knowledge of brown trout. He meant the actual fish, though I told him what brown trout was slang for in the UK. He really is a Doctor of Fish and not in a medical sense.
KSP provided the title for this post. I have no idea of the context, but just loved the sentence.
I had a long chat with Freda whose husband is English. They lived in Harrow for a while. Freda thought she knew Farnham but it turned out she had driven through Fareham on the way to Chichester. She was also surprised to discover that she knew KSP given she attends her exercise sessions at the Friskis & Svettis.
Harald also turned up, having slaved away at our house for most of the day. He’s fixing the barge boards on the house, one of the things that needed to be done in order to protect us from the elements. It was one of the things that the building inspector pointed out. He emphasised that it really, really needed to be fixed.
We chatted to a couple who are getting married in the country church later in the month. There was a lot of fresco gushing after we said we’d been inside on All Saints Day. Martin knows a lot about churches, so the discussion was wide-ranging, taking in whitewashing, the reformation and the Dissolution.
Ebba bravely tried the foot massager, which I was forced into the last time we had dinner with Nicoline. Ebba enthusiastically liked it, while I was told to go and refill my glass.
All up, it was a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening. I have to say that Nicoline knows how to throw a party.
And can I say that everyone was incredibly generous in speaking English for my benefit. Just another reason to love the Swedes.
