Stockholm Syndrome

Stockholm Syndrome

06 Jul

After we realised it should take 3 days to travel from Oslo to Stockholm but had accidentally booked the Stockholm campsite for the 2^nd night we made a long trip across Sweden. We had tried to move our reservation forwards one day but they were fully booked. We made it with heaps of time to spare and had a great dinner at a bar/restaurant called Stage. We were at first concerned about being too hot but the outside dining area where we were sitting was almost a wind tunnel. This must be a common occurrence as the tables had blankets for the patrons not suitably prepared for the wind chill.

Dee had a bit of an upset stomach earlier on the previous morning and it was still there the morning in Stockholm, so she wisely decided to rest for the day and go on a bread and water diet to get better.

For PT I decided to walk/run the rough path we were thinking of taking when exploring after breakfast. Unfortunately, I took a left turn at Ablerque and the session took an extra half hour to get home. When I came home, Dee had decided to rest so I took Gene out into the drizzle to explore the city. The cunning plan was to be back by 2pm to check out, re-fill one of the gas bottles, buy a few odds and ends for Springy and position ourselves just outside of Uppsala for our visit there the following day.

Even with the rain, Stockholm was amazing. We ended up walking on 6 of the 14 islands that Stockholm is built on. We headed for the old part of the city which has the Royal Palace, stopping like vagrants under one of the bridges to rest Gene’s sore legs (just to the old city was 2.5km). After an obscenely expensive morning tea of 2 hot drinks and a slice of cake for $23, we strolled the old city and looked at all the bits of the Royal Palace we could get into for free. The Chapel’s sculptures and paintings were amazing in their detail. We also peeked at the Throne Room but didn’t go past the ribbon barrier that required payment.

We strolled the city, getting slightly misplaced but having a good time. 

I saw a gentleman that reminded me of someone and he looked at me likewise. I finally said hello and it was Simon, a fellow Napoleonic re-enactor, who was with his wife seeing the sights after participating in Waterloo 3 weeks ago. Small world!

After having a fulsome lunch that cost slightly more than morning tea, we made the long looping trudge back home, just in time to pack up Springy and go looking for the a gas bottle refill. That happened reasonably easily and cheaply which is a massive relief as I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find a place that refills ‘swap and go’ bottles. As we left, I spotted the same type of shop I was planning to go to but it right there, so I went to gather the required bits for Springy’s makeover. It was a bit difficult as nothing was in English but I persevered. I was away so long I received text messages from the girls wondering where I was. After visiting another shop for some groceries, we were off and slowly left Stockholm with its peak hour traffic.

After making dinner, I fixed the passenger side door as it was becoming recalcitrant and repaired the door of our hidey hole at the back where we keep our fold up chairs and water hose. Ever since we bought Springy that door has been an issue, mainly with one of the catches not catching. We tried to sort it out with professionals but it was only a temporary thing. When I looked in the afternoon, the metal strip that held the hinges for the door had started to pull away as the catch wasn’t supporting the door. It’s a bit like having a sore back because you have a gamy ankle. Hopefully I’ve sorted it all out. I replaced the shorted screws that failed on the metal strip with longer ones (I just have to find someone with an angle grinder to cut the tips off as they are poking through) and I made a new right angled bracket for the catch from a metal cigar  case I picked up a couple of weeks ago. After a bit of hammering, folding and screwing, it’s doing the job well. It’s something that McGyver would be proud of.

J

We are also the proud owners of some convex mirrors to put on our side mirrors to cover the blind spots. We’ll have Springy running wonderfully just in time to sell her.