On the Friday morning we (David, Hilary and me) set off bright and early to drive to Stansted for an early afternoon flight.  As is always the case when you leave plenty of time for a possibly difficult journey, we had no trouble at all, and got there in an hour and a half – quicker than the journey to Heathrow!  Fortunately Katie had lent me the latest Harry Potter, so I could while away a few odd hours quite easily.

As we were flying on the recommended wedding flight with Ryanair, we met up with one of David’s first cousins (the groom’s aunt), her husband and three sons (the youngest, 16, was also reading Harry Potter) as well as the groom’s sister, who were the only other guests from our side of the family.  A coach had been laid on (we took a photo to show Anya as her favourite colours are “pink and purple”) to take us to the hotel where we were all staying, and where we soon met up with several of the groom’s mother’s relatives.

Having a whole weekend of festivities, with everyone staying in the same hotel, made it a very pleasant and relaxing celebration.  You know what it is usually like at weddings, etc.  By the time you have spoken to all the relatives you know, the party is over and it’s time to go home.  This way, we all had dinner together on the Friday evening (followed by schnapps and coffee) and then breakfast on the Saturday morning, so by the time we actually got around to the ceremony, we’d all had a good chance to get to know each other.

The wedding ceremony itself took place at the other side of the lake from the hotel.  A fleet of taxis was laid on for us although it was only a “15 minute” walk.  David walked it – but he was the only one who did.  Some of us were wearing our best shoes!  The ceremony was held outdoors, at a very pretty site overlooking the lake – and they were incredibly lucky with the weather.  It had been raining in the morning; it then dried up for them in the afternoon, and didn’t rain again until we were safely inside the reception hall.

The ceremony was conducted mainly in Swedish, but one of the bridesmaids (far left) translated everything into English for us.  We had been looking forward to seeing a traditional Swedish wedding, but this was a modern affirmation of commitment (or whatever) devised by the couple themselves.  The registrar (?) who conducted the ceremony also dashed off to stand beside the guitarist to sing the odd song, which rather surprised us.

We had champagne and nibbles (including smoked reindeer) and photographs beside the lake, before going inside for dinner.  It is apparently the custom at Swedish weddings to have lots of speeches – fortunately anyone who could only speak Swedish had arranged for a friend to translate.  Needless to say the courtesy was not reciprocated – but then not so many of us felt the need to say something!  The use of PowerPoint presentations to accompany several of the speeches was quite a novelty!   It is also traditional for the bridesmaids to “compose” a song – so we all sat around singing a version of  the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” the chorus of which was “ May they live in a Herson Wonderland…”  O.K. so some of us were laughing so much we couldn’t actually join in with the singing!

With bilingual speeches and folk dancing (an exhibition, not joining in) and wedding cake, and disco dancing for the younger members, it was one in the morning before they served hot-dogs and schnapps and even later for the taxis back to the hotel.  (The last taxi was about 3am, but I was sound asleep by then!)

Breakfast was served rather late on the Sunday.  After spending most of the morning saying “goodbye”, we all got on the coach back to Skavsta airport, where most of the party flew back in time for work on Monday, but we picked up a hire car for the rest of our holiday.  Although we had booked a Daihatsu Matiz we were offered a Citroen Berlinga – far more luxurious!

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, Pippa wasn’t having so much luck with the weather.  She’d planned an outdoor party at Bramber Castle for Anya’s third birthday, but had to do an emergency room hire at the leisure centre when the heavens opened!

The bride and groom, of course, weren’t going to work on Monday.  They were flying to Tanzania for their honeymoon.  A few days on safari, a few days on the beach – and, in between, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I think I’d rather have gone to work!

David had asked one of his Swedish ex-colleagues for recommendations about what to see in the country – so he had invited us for dinner – and pointed out that his wife runs a B&B now that their children have moved out of the family home. He is still working – or what passes for work in Swedish/Euro circles!  So we had dinner with them on the Sunday evening and spent a couple of nights in their home on the southern outskirts of Stockholm.

On the Monday morning we visited Drottningholm Palace – a Swedish version of Versailles.  Fortunately we looked around the gardens first, as it came on to rain while we were in the palace – and we had to have our picnic lunch in the car in the rain.  It was still wet in the afternoon so we went to the first ever IKEA – which is also the largest in the known universe, although we were quite restrained in our purchasing.  David couldn’t resist some (small) picture frames (made in Peoples’ Republic of China), a chopping board (India) and a couple of wine racks (yes!) from Lithuania.  Real Swedish souvenirs!  In fact, in a supermarket a bit later, I found some coffee filters – you know of my global quest for cheap coffee filters – and they were made in Sweden.  However stainless steel cutlery, from IKEA was made in China – very worrying!

On Tuesday morning we headed out into the unknown.  We had been recommended the area around Lake Siljan, known as Dalacarlia, about 3-4 hours drive away.  We stopped for a break at the pretty town of Borlänge (famous as the home of the tenor Jussi Björling) and at the visitor centre there learned that there was a major classic car rally all around the area that we were heading for and that at least one town was fully booked.

Not deterred, we carried on to the town of Leksand at the southern edge of Lake Siljan and, after directions from the tourist office there, found beds for the night at a local folk art high school/college, where they not only rented us a room, but also bedding and towels.  It seems that Swedes carry their bedding with them on holiday!  We had two nights there (using the same sheets for economy) and were very comfortable as not only did we have a (triple) bedroom, but a TV lounge and kitchen as well.  Although we technically had to share these facilities with about six other rooms, not everyone wants to self cater and fill the fridge etc.  They had picnic tables outside, so we could have our coffee each evening overlooking the lake, very nice.

Wednesday, in the real world, was our wedding anniversary, and also the day when I finished Harry Potter.  We drove north along the west side of the lake first to the town of Mora and then further north to Orsa where there is a bear park.  According to “The Rough Guide” the bears are allowed to roam freely and the tourists are caged in, which is something of an exaggeration, especially the mother and cubs that seemed to have a very small enclosure – no better than a zoo.  At least they were easier to watch than the larger bears that had big spaces to play hide and seek in.

We then drove back along the eastern side of the lake stopping off at the town of Nusnäs to see the home of the famous Dala horses.  Many years ago the local people started carving wooden horses which have now become the symbol of the country.  The earliest reference to wooden horses for sale is from 1624 – as you may imagine nowadays it is a major tourist trap.  David had thought of buying one each for the grandchildren – but when we learned that one only 3cm tall cost over £5, we realised that they wouldn’t really appreciate hand-carved wooden horses – but we did find a bag of jelly horses which Anya is enjoying – especially the pink ones.

On Thursday we went slightly north again to visit Dalhalla.  This is an old limestone quarry which has been converted into an open air concert hall.  Hilary had been quite keen to go to a concert there, but tickets were very expensive – and the weather unreliable!  However for about £3.50 they let us in to see the quarry – and it just so happened that the Bolshoi Theatre Company were in there rehearsing their performance of “Turandot”.    It is apparently the first time that they have come to Sweden (clearly a major undertaking as there are 300 people in the group), and their first concert was that evening.  Needless to say, we didn’t spend £50 a head on tickets when we could hear it all for free.  The acoustics were amazing.  Some famous Swedish opera singer (female!) had recognised the qualities of the shape of the quarry – although they didn’t say how many quarries she had to sing in before she found a good one!  They can seat 4000 people – and don’t need any microphones.  In fact when they were just talking amongst themselves on the stage, you could hear them at the back of the auditorium – not that we could understand them of course.  The Italian director spoke to them in Russian and to some (presumably Swedish) children in English – they had to run on and off a few times to learn the right positions.  The singers seemed to get it right first time, although the flag wavers needed a few goes to get them to drape correctly – much more interesting than a polished performance!

As the rain moved in after lunch we visited another Swedish store.  This was Clas Ohlson.  From the description we’d had from our fellow guests, it had sounded rather like the American L.L.Bean – originally a mail order company that sold everything (although Hilary referred to it as B&Q).  It was clearly very popular with the natives – but we couldn’t find anything to tempt us – even in the clearance section.

We then drove a little nearer to the airport as our time in Sweden was nearing the end.  We stopped at the town of Fagersta – and for once none of us had spotted the tourist office.  We parked in the Co-op car park and asked some friendly natives for directions, which seemed rather complicated, but ended up – “follow me” from a young man who had just put his sleeping baby into the car. So he led us to the tourist office which was closed (it would have been closed even if we’d seen it when we’d passed within yards of it earlier).  Hilary spotted some notices on a board advertising B&Bs, but of course we had no idea where they were as we didn’t have any detailed maps.  Our friendly guide studied then, found one he knew, whipped out his mobile phone and checked availability, then led us to the home of Joachim and Inger who advertise “Rum”, ”Stuga”  and bed and breakfast.

A stuga as we now learnt was rather what you might call a garden shed.  Or perhaps a little wooden chalet sounds better. Swedes are allowed 2 of them, up to 9.9 m², without planning permission!  He had several in the garden – Hilary’s was just large enough for two single beds – ours had a bathroom complete with washing machine and kitchen sink – and a sauna – except that you only have saunas in the winter – he’d made it up as children’s beds for the summer.  Again we had to rent our sheets and towels separately.

Joachim was a mine of information.  He not only has several teams of huskies to draw sleds during the winter – only two rather nervous ones were penned up beside the breakfast room – the other 30 or so were safely “over there”.  He has a couple of classic cars – American classic cars are very popular in Sweden – it seems that General Motors are very good about spares and cheap insurance and it isn’t at all an expensive hobby!

He was busy cooking dinner for a party of (5) lady golfers when we arrived, and didn’t offer to feed us so we went into town for a pizza.  We went back there to make coffee and sit in his lounge to play “Snatch” a word game that Hilary had bought some time ago and hadn’t got round to trying.  While sitting there, Joachim came out with a large warm cheesecake and a huge bowl of raspberries for us – and offered us refills on the coffee.  It didn’t help my ability with word games, but was very nice.

After breakfast the next morning he gave us three plastic bags and told us to help ourselves to make lunch!  The number of times we’ve sneaked rolls from a breakfast table to have at lunchtime – and just because it is openly offered we had to decline as we’d bought rolls and salami the previous evening! 

On our last day, we did a bit of a detour to visit the town of Mariefred located on Lake Malerin not far from Drottningholm.  We didn’t hear a local say it, so have no idea how it should be pronounced.  Swedish pronunciation should really have a paragraph to itself.  The town of Nyköping (close to Skavsta airport) is pronounced somewhat like “knee shopping” and it seems that there are several random collections of letters that make a “sh” sound – so there may well be one in the middle of Mariefred.

Gripsholm Castle at Mariefred was a really amazing castle – full of portraits with an old theatre at the top of a tower.  In the leaflet it says “be sure not to miss the State Portrait Collection” – chance would be a fine thing – there were hundreds of them – including King Oscar (I & II.)  In Drottningholm palace the theatre was an extra admission charge and we didn’t do it (to the disapproval of our Swedish friends), but at least we saw this one.  We saved our salami rolls for the airport, and had a very nice buffet lunch on the terrace of a lakeside restaurant instead.  We had another gentle stroll around the castle gardens in the afternoon, and then it was time to drive to the airport to return the car, eat our rolls and fly home.

We were all very surprised by how busy Stansted was at midnight.  I’d thought that it was quite a small airport, but we had to queue to get through passport control (I’m all in favour of security, but quicker, please!), baggage collection also took ages and when we finally got into the main public area I couldn’t believe how many people were standing around to meet friends.  I have a theory that they must be all the homeless people, gathering together to look busy/ keep warm/ have a roof etc.  It was packed – don’t other people ever need to sleep?

A very enjoyable holiday – and the only Swedish meatballs we’d had were the ones we’d taken with us as a snack on our outward flight (from Somerfields)!