Experiencing Norway's National Day

Mostly written on the 17th of May, Syttende Mai, Norway's Constitution Day, in Oslo.

We are in Oslo at a fortunate moment, without having planned it. When we arrived yesterday evening (three hours late on the train from Arvika, but that is another story) we didn't know that today was going to be Norway's Constitution Day. We found out about it before going to bed, having happened to see a notice in the window of the (closed) tourist information office at the station. I noted that it would involve a procession of children through the city to the Royal Palace where the King would wave at them from his balcony, but I never imagined the scale of this parade.

It involves something like 100,000 people, most of whom arrive in red busses, carefully organised and lined up to pick them up in groups again when they need to leave. The organisation is impressive!

I'd been apprehensive about the day because, being small, I find crowds claustrophobic or intimidating sometimes, especially when they're rowdy, and I have a painful back just now from too much physical exertion in Karlstad, Sweden, so thought the standing and watching might get overwhelming, but I needn't have worried. As soon as we came downstairs to the door of our hotel this morning, we saw the people and the bands of children arriving, making their way to the muster point for the start of the celebration. Chris and I perched on bar stools nicely positioned by the coffee shop window where we had our breakfast to watch. Two ladies wearing their provincial costumes came in, looking proud and happy to be in Oslo, and allowed me to take a photo of them, there and then.

We followed the costumed people for a few blocks, since they were all heading in the same direction, and found a vantage point for what appeared to be the start of the parade. It may have been only one wing of the parade, for we later saw that streams of people, mostly children, were merging and converging on the roads that led to the Royal Palace. This was where the King and his family would come out and wave to them. What heartened me most about seeing these thousands of people go by was how diverse they were. Admittedly the majority were blond and blue-eyed, many of the girls wearing plaits in their hair, but there were many newcomers to Sweden among them, obviously, the whole spectrum of skin colours and racial types, handicapped children too, everyone cheerful, everyone feeling extremely patriotic today. It gave an impression similar to the impression we get on Canada Day, although the difference here was that most participants in the celebrations were very smartly dressed, the men and boys wearing jackets and ties. Some men wore hats too. Nearly every woman in Oslo wore her long national dress, adorned with a silver belt or necklace, carrying an embroidered purse. Some had matching jackets or capes.

Another remarkable thing about the children was the number of competent musicians among them: flute, clarinet, bugle, drum players all keeping time and playing in tune, even the little ones. Weeks of practice must have gone into this.

What impressed us as much as the disciplined children was the organisation of the parade. There seemed to be no muddle in the placement of these tens of thousands. Busses were mustered to pick them up at a certain time, in a certain order, at the bottom of the hill by the harbour. Sections of the town had been fenced off to accommodate the busses and the patiently waiting children. I saw no fractious behaviour, although it must have been such a long morning for them. I don't know what the children got to eat; we didn't see them eating. Extraneous people (us, for instance) were kept well away from the school parties.

Chris and I were lucky to find the last seats available at the fish market restaurant that day and had a meal of freshly caught haddock, with chips. (The following day we saw the boats bringing in and selling the fish.) Some National Day gatherings were taking place on board boats in the harbour. After lunch we walked a little further: into the Royal Palace part of the city where we found that we could go into the palace park, a pleasant place to recover from the excitement and watch families greet one another and play on the grass.

In Karlstad

As I write this from our hotel room (the hotel's called Good Morning Karlstad), we have two and a half more days to go in Sweden, then we'll be in Norway for the rest of our trip. Today we took a morning train from Örebro to Katrinehamn (not to be confused with Katrineholm where we were on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning), via Hallsberg, Hasselfors, Degerfors and other such small stations, expecting to stay on this train all the way to Karlstad, our destination of today, but part of the track ahead was undergoing repairs, so we had to get off. I'm ashamed to say that Chris understood the Swedish message about this when I did not. Then a member of the railway staff came into our carriage to tell us in English about the replacement bus, confirming what Chris had worked out. The bus too went via intermediate stops on the railway line, but there was nobody waiting to climb in. Most of the way we rode along the E18, the main highway from Stockholm to Oslo, passing lakes, rocky woods, fields with grazing cows, red farm buildings.

At Karlstad we retrieved our luggage from the bottom of the bus and trundled it through the city towards our hotel, down the Järgsgatan. I had printed a screen shot of the map before leaving Ottawa so knew which direction to take. On the way we had a light lunch at one of the many coffee shops here, as in other Swedish cities. Also typical, I now realise, are the obligatory places on the map labelled Stora Torget, Radhuset, Drottninggatan, Kungsgatan, Trädgarden, Domkyrkan and so on, the cobbled traffic free areas, the riverside walks, the magnolias in the parks. Sweden is thoroughly growing on me. Every kind of person rides a bike, both in Örebro and here, such a pleasurable habit --- in the spring particularly. People have happy looks on their faces. Before we entered the waiting area at Örebro station this morning I took a photo of the hundreds of parked bikes outside it, so obviously the same thing happens there. This afternoon we sat on a bench by the river beside the Opera house in Karlstad, watching the passing cyclists, old, young, helmeted, unhelmeted, for a long time. Further along on our walk we saw an off-road digital counter making a tally of the walkers and cyclists passing by (and incidentally giving the time, date and current air temperature). The number of bikes counted today was approaching 1000.

This afternoon's wanderings took us down to the docks (new residential and commercial developments here, as in Västeras. As we set off beside the inner harbour, inre hamn, a cruise boat, the Stella Polaris, was pulling in. We walked from there to the end of a jetty from which we could see the industrial part of this port with its cargo ships, at the northern end of Lake Vänern, the largest lake in Sweden and in the EU. Having explored some of the waterfront and sat on a bench by the reeds, we walked back to the city centre through an underpass which gives the latitude and longitude of this point, N 59° 22' 11", E13° 30' 44". For the sake of comparison Chris searched on his smartphone for the Ottawa co-ordinates, which are N45°24'40", W75°41'53". In other words, we are 1551 km north of Ottawa, or only just south of Whitehorse, in the Yukon. Karlstad lies on the river Klarälven which originates in Norway.

Karlstad is one of the sunniest places in Sweden and today (13 May 2019) has been no exception. A sculpture by the bridge, the Västrabron, is of a 17th century waitress whose nickname was Sola i Karlstad (the Sun in Karlstad) because of "her sunny disposition". The tourist leaflet we picked up says that the Sandgrundsparken, on a pointed spit of land between inlets, is "a park with sloping waves and green valleys surrounded on both sides by one of the longest rivers in Sweden, the Klarälven." I was puzzled by that description, but when I saw it, I understood what the writer meant:

We had supper outdoors at a restaurant in the Stora Torget: grilled beef with bearnaise sauce and chips, delicious. The Fredsmonument in the middle of Karlstad's central square, celebrating "the peaceful dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905" shows a female figure, Peace, stomping on the head of War (baring his horrible teeth) to do him in. Chris says she's a formidable woman, and we both like the concept!

A weekend in Örebro

Here we are in the First Hotel on Storgatan, in Örebro. It bears some resemblance to the other First Hotel we stayed in, the one in Eskilstuna, in that its old lift (hiss), the only one in the hotel, is very small and has problematic doors that prevent it from working unless its passengers shut them properly. Our room is on the fifth floor and from our window we can look down onto the hotel terrace.

There is no need for Chris or me to wear a fitbit or whatever to count the number of steps we do per day when we're exploring new places. I'm sure we double the daily requisite; our legs and feet ache accordingly. Yesterday was a lovely day, even so. The sun was shining and after our morning hike along the Katrineholm trails, as described in my last post, and a pleasant journey here by rail, changing trains at Halsberg, we then had all afternoon and evening to explore Örebro. So, more walking.

Slottet and King Karl's pedestal at sunset

Wedding guests by the river, Örebro

Our hotel is more or less at the hub of the city, near the old castle, slottet, 700 years old in parts but "restored" multiple times, so that it looks not quite genuine, a restoration stone edifice with medieval foundations and nineteenth and twentieth century enhancements, sitting in the middle of the Svartaån river, at a point where there are weirs and bridges. Behind the castle, beyond the bus-stops and a statue of King Karl on a tall pedestal, is a square with fountain jets for children to play in. Our street, its extension beyond the river, and the streets at right angles to it, comprise an area prohibited to all traffic except for the the local busses (running on biogas), bikes, wheelchairs and pedestrians. At the moment, early May, the cherry trees on the river banks are in full flower, making this spot all the more attractive. We observed a very smart wedding taking place at the castle, the girls in silky, long dresses of pastel shades, the men in black and white, wearing military medals. They mingled in picturesque groups under the trees.

The other architecture in town seems a mixture of large late nineteenth century buildings and mid- to late-twentieth century block structures. There's a long market square (Stortorget) and below it, for it slopes slightly downhill, is a green space with hillocks and daffodil beds, called Oskarsparken. A little further on we were delighted to find the Stadsträdgården, an extensive park, playground and formal garden with ornamental ponds; it is full of flowers and singing birds---blackbirds and thrushes. They sing in counterpoint from separate trees, one answering the other. At the end of the park furthest from the town centre is one of those old resurrected village installations / open air museums that they do so well in this country: Wadköping. It is well and thoroughly done. The walls are all stained red and stand at crooked angles. The courtyards are cobbled, an old cart parked in one of them. Ancient washing hangs on ropes slung between the fences and the trees. There is grass growing on the roofs and you hear the sound of clopping hooves or the beaten irons in the smithy as you enter the gateways.

All these open air museums are free with permanent public access; I wondered who pays for their upkeep, and Chris says they may pay for themselves through the small shops and cafés on their premises. However I also discovered that, according to an agreement between the Green Party, the Swedish Social Democratic Party, the Centre Party and the Liberals, the current minority government promises to allocate 80 million Kroner to making Sweden's museums accessible to everyone:

"The free admission reform is important in opening up our state-owned museums to more people. There is so much knowledge gathered in our museums, and this must not only benefit those who can afford it,” says Minister for Culture and Democracy Amanda Lind.

We came back through the park and along the riverbank this morning, via the Wadköping village, walking as far as a marina where boats are tied up on return from excursions to the lake into which the river flows, Lake Svartån. We didn't walk as far as the edge of the lake; it was too far off. On the way back we saw the miniature train doing laps of the Stora Holmen, the big island in the river downstream from the elegant mansions on the bank opposite the park.

Stopping at Katrineholm

The second stop on our journey from Stockholm to Oslo was Katrineholm, less than an hour's train-ride southwest of Eskilstuna. I wasn't convinced there'd be much of interest here, because this is quite a small town, but was pleasantly surprised. We stayed at the Best Western's "Hotel Statt" or "Stadt" as is written (German spelling) on its awnings, just visible through the gap behind the station buildings in this photo.

There are woods with walking trails all around the edge of the town, blueberry shrubs coming into flower under the trees and pine needles underfoot. It was grey weather when we arrived on Friday, but luckily for us, yesterday was a gorgeous spring day. The immediate scenery is hilly, strewn with pink granite rocks like the ones in the Gatineau Park north of Ottawa. There's a brick built water tower (1907) on a hill to the north of the railway tracks, 59m tall. The town centre, with its pollarded trees, small fountains, and traffic free zones, seemed quiet on Friday night, slightly busier on Saturday morning with the political parties canvassing for votes in the European elections.

Yesterday morning, after breakfast at the Best Western, we set off for a walk to a little hill called the Gatstuberg, apparently the home of "a notorious troll" although the vistors' guide didn't give an example of his notoriety and we didn't see him. Someone had left some graffiti and cigarette butts on the rocks, mind. From the summit of the hill we could see the Djulösjön, a local lake, beyond the canola fields. Given the time available, it was a bit too far to walk to the lakeshore, so we ambled back the way we'd come, detouring through the pine filled cemetery and past its "forest chapel" (skogskyrka), coming across an extraordinary art work on the way: miniature wooden huts on stilts, vandrande Husen.

Prinsessan, by Stina Wollter

Back in the town centre, Chris boldly entered a barber's shop and bought a haircut and beard trim, while I made a second visit to the little art gallery (Konsthall) in the town library, to take another look at the exhibition featuring the recent paintings, photos and charcoal drawings of Stina Wollter. This artist depicts what touches her, ("Det rör mig"). As I interpret it, she tries to show what we keep hidden within ourselves, our pain and our memories, upsetting, nasty memories as well as the comforting ones, all the people who get under our skin or could not be forgotten. Some of her images have gentle connotations, like the ones shown in my photos here, but others seem very dark.

Lisa

Hennes frihet

Further impressions of Eskilstuna

I found Eskilstuna interesting enough to stay there for the rest of the week, not making any more excursions to other towns.

St. Elkis, the 11th century monk after whom this town was named, was an 11th century missionary, allegedly stoned or axed to death for disrupting a native pagan ritual. He was buried at the monastery he'd founded, where the Fors Kyrka stands today. A few centuries later, the town was reformed to become protestant, under King Gustav Vasa.

When I finally entered the old church after two failed attempts (it doesn't open its doors until 11 a.m. and not at all on Mondays and Tuesdays) I liked its simple style and the voice of a young woman practising a solo in the organ loft with the organist accompanying. An elderly man sitting in the front pew glared at me; maybe he was waiting for a service to begin and thought my wandering around obtrusive. I found a row of old carvings on the wall there. The other church of note is the big one on the other side of the river, the brick-built Klosters Kyrka. I went inside that one too and marvelled at its size (accommodates 600 people) and symmetry.

In the 17th century, Eskilstuna was known for its forges; Rademacher, a master smith from Riga, with encouragement from the royal family, created the Rademachersmedjorna Manufakturiet (forge and factory), now reconstructed in the town centre as a cluster of red-coloured wooden huts: a free, open air museum. The townspeople had workshops there, mostly making artillery, but also knives, awls, locks, needles, wrought iron, candlesticks, bridles and other such useful things. It's now a very tranquil part of town, especially if the museum is closed (on Mondays and Tuesdays). Only 50% of the people who lived and worked here in the mid-17th century were actually Swedish; the other 50% were Germans, Finns or Walloons. They baked their own bread and brewed their own beer. In the museum, various personalities are "brought to life" by means of life-sized photos of actors, their stories based on a study of old court records. In the 19th century Eskilstuna became unofficially known as Stålstaden ("The City of Steel"). I came across some derelict steel works by the river, beyond which there's a modern power station (Kraftvärmeverk).

Nowadays it is Volvo who have revived the area, with their construction equipment factory to the west of town, developed around the house originally owned by Johan Theofron Munktell in the 1830s, famous for engineering tractors and the like. The house is still there, serving as their conference centre.

I had a shrimp salad for lunch at the library café, overlooking a square where there was a fountain, a street chess set and magnolia trees, blooming with pink flowers. This is a good time of year to come here, the parks full of cherry blossom, apple blossom and colourful flower beds. I found a rusty iron sculpture representing a beehive; the plaque said that these parks are the home of 50,000 bees (honungsbin). Sparrows there were gathering nest-material in their beaks. The riverside parks featured striking sculptures and flowerbeds. I discovered a stylish tearoom / coffee shop by one of the bridges, and a gula villa, a yellow house, further on.

And so back up the spiral staircase to our room in the hotel where we're staying. The lift (hiss), encased in its wrought iron frame on the right, is the oldest lift in town!

*****

Chris finished what he needed to do by Thursday evening so had an extra day off work on Friday. I had been to the Konst Museet (the free art gallery) and felt it was worth revisiting with Chris along. As I'd expected, he too was impressed by it. Like several other museums in the vicinity---a science museum, city museum, Munktellmuseet, as well as a large swimming pool, gym, school and sports arena--- this spacious art gallery is housed in a former factory workshop. Rather than tear down these substantial industrial buildings, the town has repurposed them. It looks as though the several high schools dotted around the town in old premises are going to be amalgamated into one big glass-fronted school by the river, once the substantial construction work is completed. Because of this, several blocks of the town are closed to traffic at present.

By Maria Nordin

In the art museum, I learned some more Swedish---utan titel, självporträtt, reliefsskulptur, vinterlandskap---for which I didn't need a translation tool. I had to look up "Björknäs": the title of a circular 3-D abstract, painted in reds, that span clockwise; that meant "broken nose"! They had a good collection of Swedish Modernismen from the early 20th century and a good deal of contemporary art. The special exhibition at the far end of the gallery was of large scale (larger-than-life) watercolours by Maria Nordin. A film about her was running; she is a very physical creator, sitting on the floor on top of her paintings, drying them with a hairdryer. In the remainder of the museum were images grouped according to themes, such as self-portraits or small sculptures, old and new together. One very disturbing painting had been done on an old sail for a canvas: Destination Unknown---Destination Okänd.

We lingered till after lunch then collected our luggage and caught a crowded train to Katrineholm, less than an hour away. 

Klev på fel tåg!

Setting off

That means "got on the wrong train" and it happened in Västerås. My ticket printout said Eskilstuna C - Västerås C eller omvänt ..., meaning Estkilstuna Central to Västerås or vice versa, ...1 Pensionär, senior, which I thought would be easy to manage. My outbound journey was fine, no problem.

At Västerås Central station

The return trains left from platform 5, but so did the trains to Örebrö and places west; I boarded one of those instead, without paying attention, and headed rapidly off in the wrong direction. A friendly ticket collector called Lena put me right, scribbling Klev på fel tåg on my ticket in case of trouble, and telling me to get out at the next stop (Köping), take the Stockholm-bound train back to Västerås from the other side of the platform, and start again an hour later. Don't get on the wrong train again! she said, laughing at me. I didn't have to pay an extra fee for my mistake and it was a pretty ride all the way, the scenery through the windows familiarly northern.

Exploring Västerås

Variety filled the day, especially as regards the sky, which changed from moment to moment, heavy, black rain clouds sweeping dramatically through the Lake Mälaren region with vivid white cumulus in a bright blue sky between. The wet foliage, spring flowers, rocks and man-made surfaces gleaming in the sun added to the appeal of Västerås, a city in the midst of redevelopment, it seems. The docklands are full of new buildings; I'll come to that later.

Sculpture in Stora Torget

Getting off the stopping train from Eskilstuna (having come through familiarly northern scenery: pine trees, lakeside wharfs, islands, cottages), I walked through a park and Bauhaus style town hall to the concrete town centre that looked like any other town at first with its kebab shops, MacDonald's, shopping malls, H & M store, abstract sculptures, and bought a latte at the Espresso House to watch the biogas-bussar going by. Further on though, it became more interesting. A number of spacious squares give the town some individuality. The market square where nobody was bothering to shop at the fruit and flower stalls because of the cold weather had a notable sculpture on a wall, a line of men on bikes from the old days half a century ago, busily cycling to work. Beyond this square (Stora Torget---the -et suffix in Swedish means "the", so I learned the other day) I could see some of the old town and the cathedral spire, so I headed that way down cobbled streets shiny with rain and more of those red stained wooden walls and fences.

Djäkenberget

Chris sent me a text message to say his Swedish trainees had told him this was the coldest May here since records began. By that point I had crossed the river bridge and climbed, out of curiosity, up the hill called the Djäkenberget, a park established in 1862, with lookout points and shelters. It was obviously a paradise for children, groups of little ones being herded along in colourful raincoats by their supervisors. There were mossy rocks to climb on with irresistible pathways through the pines. I followed some of these myself. Standing stones were inscribed (in the 19th century) with quotations from poems. Lawns, ponds and flowering trees enhanced the charm of the place, and the local birds (tree creepers, great tits, robins, fieldfares, chaffinches, jackdaws, etc. were much in evidence). At the bottom of the hill swathes of daffodils were still in bloom.

Djäkenberget

The district on the cathedral side of the river is all about a bishop who lived in the 17th century, called Johannes Rudbekius, and his wife Malin. This enlightened couple, inspired by Martin Luther and his wife, it seems, were bold and determined enough to establish a sort of welfare state in this part of Sweden and their influence still lives on. This is enthusiastically documented in the interior of the domkyrka, in both Swedish and English. Rudbekius founded a free school for boys where Theology, Physics, Mathematics, Latin, Logic, Politics and Hebrew were the subjects taught, and his wife ran an equivalent school for girls, the first in Sweden, teaching her protégées Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, the Catechism, Housekeeping and Needlework---true Enlightenment still had a way to go in those days, but it was a start. The couple established city hospitals too, in an age when the plague and other epidemics were rampant.

Bok, beech.

Behind the cathedral was a small botanical garden with all the plants labelled in Linnaeus' fashion with their Latin and Swedish (common) names.

Back in town I found a cafeteria serving vegetarian lasagne with a buffet salad. I made my way back toward the station via the tourist info centre where perhaps I should have started. The girl there did a good job introducing me to Västerås, selling me a couple of little dala horses to take home as gifts and encouraging me to look through the virtual reality headset at scenes from a zoo with local animals and from the concert hall where I was suddenly part of the local symphony orchestra playing Mendelssohn's Hebridean Overture. I asked the girl if it was worth my while going to look at the docklands the other side of the railway tracks and she said, "Oh yes."

So with an hour or so to spare, that's where I went next. I was strongly reminded of Malmö where we last year, although because of the weather the crowds were missing. The docks are being reclaimed as a desirable and probably quite expensive residential area decorated with boardwalks, gardens, shallow ponds. A metal bridge leads to the lake shore from which you can see boats ferrying people across to islands in Lake Mälaren, one of the largest freshwater lakes in Sweden, 120 km from west to east; it drains into the sea at Stockholm. A sculpture of an osprey stands at the waterfront in Västerås; those birds are common here. I saw a pair of Canada geese avoiding the waves; it was a windy day under those livid clouds. I also walked across to the ferry docks passing some large, brightly painted, privately owned vessels named Bore and Anna, fishing boats probably. And a red tug whose name was Stora Le, Big Smile---I did like that one!

In Eskilstuna, first impressions and two suppers

The hotel where we're staying is across the road from the station, so if I sit at a window table for breakfast, as I did today, I can watch the commuters arriving by train or by bus---either a Biogasbuss or one with drivmedel: 100 % förnybar el---across the station square. Apart from Sweden's environment friendliness, almost everyone wears sports shoes here and you rarely encounter someone who's overweight; it's quite remarkable, especially as the meals from Eskilstuna's eateries seem quite heavy and greasy, served in large portions. Yesterday, in cool but sunny weather, Chris and I walked and walked round the town, largely deserted because it was a Sunday with the shops closed: exercise enough for us. We peered through the windows of some large gym clubs full of exercise machines. People were walking, jogging and cycling through the city parks. Same thing in Stockholm, though there you have the added option of renting one of the electric scooters available for pick-up on almost every street corner. All you need is the app. on your smartphone to set it going.

Pretending to scoot, in Stockholm

Eskilstuna is just over an hour's ride on the train from Stockholm. Buying the tickets, we'd treated ourselves to 1st class seats, but when the actual train pulled in we couldn't find our allotted carriage so travelled 2nd class instead. It was old with grubby windows, maybe a replacement train; we enjoyed the late afternoon ride even so, through urban territory as far as Södertälje where (a year ago) Chris met employees of Scania AB, and then through rocky, forested landscape with occasional lakes or grassy fields, similar to Ontario. I caught a glimpse of Eskilstuna's riverfront as we pulled into this town and felt that this would be a very pleasant spot to spend the week. Sure enough, it is pleasant. The light in the sky on that first evening, after our supper at the sumptuous Lebanese Meze Lounge on Drotninggatan, was delightful, falling on the colourful houses that line the Eskiltunaån River in the older part of town.

Chris by the river at Eskilstuna, on our first evening here

While we waited for our supper we'd been interested in the party taking place at one side of the restaurant, maybe a special birthday or anniversary, with balloons and speeches, the attendees smartly dressed and on their best behaviour. At one point they sang a congratulatory song  to whomever they were celebrating---Ja må han leva!

Yesterday (Sunday) evening we had supper at the Bishop's Arms; it seemed an authentic copy of an English pub, complete with a quiz night in which we could almost have taken part, had we been more daring or better at guessing what was said. The questions read out over the microphone by the quiz master had multiple choice answers. Groups of anglophones in the pub, who understood enough Swedish to participate, were enjoying this, giving one another spontaneous translations. In spite of the English atmosphere I was able to order a Czech beer and a typical Swedish dish, råraka, a deep fried potato pancake garnished with loganberries, sourcream, parsley and gherkins.

Restart

I have screwed up my blog, so far this year. And at the end of last year. Finally, during the next week, I might be able to record some of my juxtaposed thoughts and experiences: we're setting off for Sweden where I'll have a week to myself in a place called Eskilstüna while my husband is at work there. I'm starting this post in the Departures Lounge at Ottawa airport. This evening we board a flight for Copenhagen in YYZ, Toronto, travelling on a Dreamliner for the first time. With any luck we shall be in Stockholm by "lunchtime" which I put in inverted commas because there's a 6-hour time zone difference to contend with. Some SAS flights are being cancelled, due to their pilots' strike, but we were told by Air Canada that ours (SK1420, CPH to ARN) is not. We are booked into a Scandic hotel just a block away from the one where we stayed about a year ago.

Unlike my husband, who prefers to be under his own control and fly his own plane, I like the setting-off moments. As soon as we reach the airport, he feels tense while I begin to relax, with a tune humming round my head:

... Heaven is in goodbye, my dear, it's time for me to go ...

with the effort of preparation behind me and the latest adventure ahead. We are leaving disruption behind in any case; the basement of our house is going to get new floors, etc., so we're well out of it. We had to move everything movable out of the way before the contractor and his colleague, the electrician, start work there tomorrow. Some people think I'm too trusting, leaving them to it like that.

I'm leaving work behind me too. Cleaning and tidying, gardening, shopping, washing, cooking, editing. I edited seven issues of the Capital Carillon and am happy to take a break now.