Greetings from Sunny Sweden

I forgot to mention that we're off to Sweden for a week, I think. Luckily, there's web access from Arlanda airport, which is deathly quiet on a Saturday afternoon in January; it's quite eerie. My cross-stitch is going well; I could ask for nothing better with which to pass the time while waiting for our connecting flight in an airport cafe, and I've managed to cunningly conceal all my major errors.

SAS airline's food has gone downhill over the past 5 years; I used to look forward to it - a simple repast of bread and cheese and cold cooked meats, but it all tasted good and was moderately fresh. Now they do complicated pasta salads which aren't fresh and taste pretty awful, which, while more interesting to read menus about, is less of a gastronomic delight. I don't generally eat food based on how interesting the menu is, or I'd have eaten a lot more squid in my time.

We probably won't check email while we're away, so you'll have to call us on our mobiles if you need us. Good luck.

Going to Sweden

On Saturday, we left as dawn was failing dismally to crack through seven o'clock in the morning. I'm told that the sun did actually rise over England later that day, but as we were safely ensconced in Heathrow, we saw no sign of it. We got a taxi to the train station, bought bus tickets and a hot drink, and boarded the bus to Bangor - no, I don't know where that came from, isn't there a frightfully jolly English holiday song about it, from the same people who brought us such phrases as "going on a beano"? - and arrived in Heathrow some time later. Rob, having slept on the bus, was somewhat dopey when we got to Heathrow, and I was, as usual since the baby took up residence in my innards, travel-sick. We narrowly avoided several quarrels, and managed to check in eventually, having ended up somehow in a queue for a flight to Singapore instead for about three minutes.

After we checked in, we found Rob a big fried breakfast, which restored his mental capacities and his temper, and then we pootled around not buying things (I do a lot of not buying things in airports; there's never anything I particularly want to purchase, but the chairs are all so uncomfortable that I hate to sit in them, especially knowing that I will have to sit even stiller in a plane, later). I changed into my compression socks (which are a great idea, by the way, and I'm seriously considering using them sometimes when I'm not flying, just because they help with the oedema, I think) and we found our gate and boarded. Heathrow Terminal 3 is even worse than Terminal 1. the flight wasn't particularly full, and the food wasn't particularly good, and the toilets weren't particularly clean. I don't understand people who make a complete mess of a public lavatory and then don't clean it up. Surely they might want to use the same lavatory again later? (Memo to self: Reread J. P. Donleavy's The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms for purpose of sharing many moments of profound sympathy with title character).

The food on Skyways has disimproved, also. (Whinge whine whinge, say you. Nobody's forcing you to read this, say I; where am I entitled to whinge if not here in the largest unmoderated publishing forum the world has ever known?). But Arlanda airport hasn't; it never had any shops of real interest, but it now has a couple of pleasant cafes, and a very well-organised area for net access. Plus, it's lovely to wait for a flight knowing that fewer than a dozen people will be joining us. It makes the safety demonstrations seem really quite silly (lots of people don't watch them, you know. Presumably they are the ones who will proceed quickly and quietly to the nearest exit, lifejackets correctly donned and not inflated, in case of emergency. I always watch them in case the one day I don't is the day they launch a new kind of lifejacket, or a whole new way of operating the emergency exit doors over the wings, or similar; I'm quite convinced that taking 2 minutes to read that shiny card with improbable illustrations will save my life one day. Besides, Mike Knell wrote a lovely piece about it once).

We arrived early in Visby, and were met by Rune, as is now usual. I slept in the car, at least partially because it was so incredibly hot; indoor spaces here are overheated, presumably to compensate for the outdoor ones (I noticed in the Netherlands, too, that indoor spaces were overheated; I have a potted theory that my oedema sprang up so suddenly because I was slightly dehydrated throughout my stay in the Netherlands, and it has become worse in Sweden because I am slightly dehydrated here too; I suspect my body is retaining water from a fear of not having any, or something). When we arrived, the table was distinctly bowed under the weight of the food prepared for us by Mormor Greta - a fish and potato dish I have never been able to eat (it smells like a fishing harbour, which can't be a good sign), meatballs, potatoes, pickles, sausage, gravy, butter, bread, cheese . . . We started eating almost immediately, and were still eating some time later when Linnea (number six grandchild, I think - artistic, and very musical) came to visit. A recently discovered lactose intolerance has rendered her vegan, which ties in nicely with her political sympathies anyway, so she's not too bothered. It's always embarrassing that Rob's relations' English is far, far better than his Swedish - and aeons better than mine, of course, but that's at least partially because I can't overcome my embarrassment long enough to speak them damn' stuff. I write it cheerfully enough, and I understand a great deal (though not as much as I would if Swedes were less polite; they speak English to us from good manners, which makes it even harder to learn; a little rudeness might do my vocabulary the world of good). Where was I?

We ate, and then, I think, we slept. Just before bedtime we investigated my backup cross-stitch kit, for when the first one was finished, and discovered that it's alittle more ambitious than I thought. However, cross-stitch isn't exactly a challenging art, just incredibly time-consuming and requiring a certain pedantic attention to detail, which suits me nicely, so I am confident that I will finish my second piece before I die. I'm sick tot he back teeth of my first piece, which wasn't even a nice picture to begin with. I console myself with the thought that at least it served to (1) provide me with a needle and some potentially useful ends of thread, and (2) show me that cross-stitch is exactly what I need for those times when I'm too tired and stupid to read, but too awake and alert to sleep. It gels nicely with almost anything else, such as listening to the radio, conversation, probably watching TV. And unlike painting, say, or weaving, or beadwork, it takes no setting up or putting away time. It's just there. In our house, in particular, this is immensely useful. I must see about getting a sewing bag for myself; I like the idea of a sewing bag, and you never know, I might use it.