Feelings: Carefree, Uncomfortable.
Grumpiness is pervading me. I can’t account for it. It’s cars and speed and compromise and new but not wonderful underwear, it’s weariness and time and orderliness and its lack. It’s evading my finger tip.
The Scandinavians don’t seem big on the going-out-for-breakfast option. Nothing seems to open until about ten or eleven. We thought we saw a lovely restaurant on the side of a lake a few kilometres before town. We did but it was more like twenty-five kilometres and then it wasn’t open for breakfast so we headed back to Vimmerby and made our way to Astrid Lindgren’s House for one of the best coffees we’ve had so far—with a traditional cinnamon bun. That gave the brewery time to open and it was our next destination. You could smell apples even though it is actually the Abro brewery (beer) and they also make soft drinks—cider seems only a small part of the operation. Tours don’t start on a regular basis until the twenty-seventh, we were told, could we come back then? Or, actually, there is one this afternoon at five if we wanted to join that one. We had a cider to help us decide. It was the seasonal flavour for Summer 2011—wild apple and elderberry. It makes a cider thirteen times more enjoyable to have it on ice I’ve decided. I haven’t decided actually, I’ve experienced. The decision was rather inevitable—we’d forgo the tour and press on.
Our next stop was in Jönköping—a stop much necessitated by the stress acquired driving down a roadwork area on the wrong side of the road (palpable). The stress worked in our favour as we stopped in the middle of town and ate at a lovely pub with an amazing dagens ratt of salmon and boiled potatoes. Maybe it is just watching your life pass before your eyes that makes you appreciate your ability to enjoy a meal.
To try to ameliorate the grumpiness we had decided to try and stop each evening before a certain time—we were going for five-ish. Five-ish found us close to Lidköping but the camping place didn’t look fabulous. We took the chance and drove to the end of a little peninsular that stretches out into the lake. The roads got tinier and tinier and somehow that seemed to suggest to the driver of our vehicle—remaining nameless—that maybe now was a good time to become a rally driver. Alive, again, a short time late, we stopped for the night at Läckö Strand. A tradition of the hytte started here—camping ground huts with basic bedding, shared showers and oodles of character (usually, but not necessarily, in a location also suffuse with character). But maybe their characterfulness is attributable, again, to having lived through a second near-death experience.
Spiken was a little village on the rally track to the Läckö Strand—it’s turnoff had invited comment in reference to ‘the big bad’ being back (see Spike, Season Four, Buffy the Vampire Slayer). We returned there for a dinner of fish from the lake.
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