I'm starting to write this at the boarding gate for Flight SA7979 to Stockholm, from London, Heathrow. This will be the first time either Chris or I will have set foot in Sweden, and we're full of curiosity. According to our itinerary we'll be there for 11 days, flying back via Copenhagen on May 30th. It wasn't possible to book our seats simultaneously so we shan't be sitting together on the plane. I am in a business class seat and Chris isn't, though he does have a window. It is a beautiful, high-pressure day, with the Royal Wedding taking place in Windsor; we have absolutely no desire to be among the crowds there, though we have been seeing snippets of the TV coverage in the Terminal 2 Departures hall.
I set off last Sunday evening, landing here the next morning and travelling on to Cardiff by train in order to spend Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning with my mother at her care home. I'm afraid that, suffering from senile dementia, she doesn't remember my visit. On Wednesday I was with her for over 8 hours, an exhausting day, even though we were doing little more than sitting. I had to encourage Mum to eat her meals, something she is reluctant to do and finds difficult . At nearly 99 years of age she has lost so much: sight and hearing to a large extent, her sense of balance, ability to walk more than a few steps with assistance, her sense of taste, and all of her top teeth except for one, which wobbles. Most disturbing for the rest of us is her loss of weight from refusal to eat; she looks skeletal, although when the nurse measured her blood-pressure, pulse rate, blood oxygen level and body temperature, all was normal. We had a visit from my nieces and their children on Wednesday which was a happy distraction and I also met Rhiannon and Justin for a vegetarian lunch one day, at the Fino Lounge in Whitchurch.
Now in the air, over Sweden! We have just had an announcement from the Captain that the computers at Stockholm airport have failed and we are therefore diverting to Gothenburg where we'll be delayed for a good two hours, not good news. Never mind, it all adds to the interest of the journey. We flew over some Swedish port a little while back, after plenty of water in the northern seas. In English airspace, we followed the River Thames to its mouth before heading up the East Anglian coast. The weather is still good, with isolated anvil clouds in the distance. So far, the Swedish landscape looks very like Canada, with rocky islands in lakes surrounded by coniferous trees. I have been reading my guide book, learning some Swedish vocabulary. Like Romanian and Japanese, a lot of it looks fairly understandable and what isn't like English often resembles German. The Swedish (sverige) word for German is tyska.
Yesterday (18th May) I was awake very early, following Chris' transatlantic progress on the Flight Tracker. I caught a bus to the Heathrow Central bus station and met him in Terminal 2, just as we had met George, back in January, when he flew in from Australia. There followed a fairly lazy, sleepy day, catching the bus to Teddington, seeing the grandsons coming home from school with their dad that evening, their mum arriving later. We all went out for an Italian supper on the High Street, in a noisy restaurant, full of kids, followed by a walk in Bushy Park, where a game of cricket was being played. Chris and I had seen more cricket practice elsewhere in the park earlier, young boys being taught how to keep their elbows in and their bats straight. It is that time of year. Descending into Gothenburg now, so I'll resume this later.
We are fully fuelled, ready to go, but are waiting for permission to depart once the Stockholmers have sorted out their computer failure. "Hopefully it's good news ahead," says this phlegmatic Englishman, but for the time being we have to remain on board. We shall have priority for landing, once we get there. However, before this he said we'd be waiting "for at least two hours" so I suspect we shall need to be patient. I can update my blog for the duration. So far, only 5pm, British Time.
We landed in Stockholm, finally, at about 19:20 local time and took the Arlanda Express to the city. Chris' was following our flight on his tablet and took a screenshot of the diversion: see image above!
Our hotel, the Grand Central by Scandic, is only a three minute walk from the station and the lobby vaunts the words HELLO, GORGEOUS! right in front of you in pink neon lights. We were greeted by a blonde receptionist who fluttered her very long, artificial eyelashes at Chris as he checked in to our Superior Twin room on the 5th floor. This evening we ate a buffet supper at an inexpensive Chinese "restaurang" on Kungsgatan and then strolled further through the city, seeing some of the romantic waterways and bridges near the Rijksdag after sunset. It was still not completely dark, even at 22:30.
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