June 14th: Stockholm.

Feelings: Comfortable, Cheerful.

Maybe it is time to grow up. I don’t know. I always got the impression that growing up was over-rated but today I had hoped to be childish and it turned out to be ultimately a little boring. Our destination was a parklanded island called Djurgården. There is something lovely about getting to walk around in green spaces in cities, don’t you think? Like trying to find buildings in the countryside?? We visited—as recommended in the ‘Stockholm for Children’ section of the Lonely Planet—Junibacken, which is a place where ‘tykes and their parents “fly” through the strange and fantastical world of Pippi Longstocking’. I think I can’t remember Pippi Longstocking after all now. Ultimately I just ended up subjecting the poor V— to a long wait in a queue of anxious parents chasing after screaming kids in order to ride a basket over a ‘It’s a small world’ like display of the different stories written by Astrid Lindgren which were all run together into a weird incomprehensible narrative that ended with a disabled brother taking his dying brother on his back and jumping off a cliff. The basket train dumped us at Pippi’s house and a wooden version of her horse. It was not worth the money unfortunately. Sad smiley face.

Dagens ratt is a way to have economical meals in Scandinavia. If I have understood the history correctly, the government originally subsidised the ‘worker’s’ lunch in order that the proletariat ate a decent meal in the middle of the day and continued to be the productive worker in the afternoon. (That is me paraphrasing). It means that for a reasonably reasonable price you can have a hot meal, a salad, a glass of water and a coffee. The meals are usually along the lines of meatballs with mashed potatoes and ligonberry jam (I’m asking for the dagens ratt next time I have that particular meal at Ikea) or a giant meatball on fried potatoes with an egg or fish and boiled potatoes. We had the dagens ratt for lunch.

The rest of the day we wandered around the green bits of the island, had coffee as I complained of my sore knee, and caught the ferry back to Gamla Stan. Laid back, possibly not overly absorbative of all the possibilities of Stockholmian culture, but nice enough. Bought V— a belt to hold up his trousers from the outside and ice-creams to hold both of our trousers up from the inside. Dinner in the apartment again, and sleeping.

I did forget to tell you that there was a ghost in the apartment on the first night. He unscrewed the light fitting over the shower so that it hit the rail and smashed in the sink. He seems to have accepted our presence in the place now, but I still think it may be he who is responsible for the fact that no matter how closely you look to make sure the glass has been swept up, there is always another little piece that inserts itself into the sole of your foot.