Today we went for a drive. We haven’t done that for a while. It was something my family would sometimes do on a Sunday. We’d hop in the car and Dad would just drive somewhere. That sounds incredibly simple, and it was, yet it was also a fun family adventure.
Mirinda and I also used to often go for a drive of a Sunday in the UK as well. There were trips up to Odiham with lunch at Next Door at the George and a good wander around the town afterwards.
Anyway, today, after our usual (and third last for the season) lunch at Emils Backe, and given it was a gorgeous day, we decided to go for a drive. Mirinda suggested we head for the island of Mörkö.
We drove through a landscape of mainly farmland and forest with land islands dotted through the fields. It was cattle and sheep country with animals happily chewing on grass. It was delightfully bucolic, a word that Mirinda said was the opposite of onomatopoeia. At the end of the road, we came across a cable car ferry which takes visitors to Oaxen.
The island of Oaxen was once famous for limestone mining and Skärgårdskrog, a world renowned restaurant that moved to Djurgården where it was awarded first one then two Michelin stars. The limestone mining stopped completely with the closure of the lime mill in 1974 and the restaurant closed in 2022.
Not that we visited the island today.
The cable car ferry, which has operated since 1955, came and went as we watched. We decided we’d pop over on another day when we had a little more time.
Somewhere we did visit, however, was the church on Mörkö.
Dating from somewhen during the Middle Ages, the church acquired its current look in the late 18th century. It sits bright and quiet on a shady hill.
Obviously, it being a Sunday, the church wasn’t open. There was a chap tending a family grave, but otherwise, the place was completely deserted.
There was a minor incident in the churchyard when a foot operated tap, I turned on for the dogs to drink some water, refused to turn off again. Mirinda, in excellent Swedish, asked the chap if he had any idea how it could be turned off. He tried a few things, then shrugged. Hopefully, the water stopped running after a while.
Water aside, across the road from the church, there was a marvellous rune stone.
All up, an excellent day just pootling around without a sunroof.
And, just to complete yesterday, as well as the crayfish party, in the afternoon, I attended the first chamber music concert of the season. It was entitled Freedom and Limits and featured a whole slew of musicians from all over Sörmland.
But it didn’t just have music. Interspersed between the musical pieces there was poetry. Obviously, I didn’t understand the poems but that didn’t matter. The music was at times intriguing, at others beautiful. Above all, it was yet another excellent performance courtesy of Trosa Chamber Music.
Weatherwise today, while it was beautiful and sunny all day, the temperature just after 7am was 4°. Delightfully cold. I persisted in shorts and t-shirt.
