I woke up with the heavens open…and Alan scurrying around pulling plugs out of the wall…phone, computer, electricity…you name it…out it came. On Vemara my concern is figuring out where the rain plans to come in next so I can keep my computers, books and files one step ahead of the deluge. Exploding modems and burnt property are not my principal concern. Nowadays I disconnect the computer and all its ancillary pieces from the power supply when I turn it off and pull the plug out from the shore supply up on the bank when I go to town.
In England we start to count when we see a lightning flash…and then wait for the thunder. This tells us if the storm is coming closer or going away. Knowing gives us a spurious sense of control. The rule of thumb is 5-seconds per mile as lightning really shifts compared to the 775 miles per hour that sound takes to rumble across the heavens…at 70oF.
Rules are meant to be broken. This particular Baltic Storm decided to sit over Ljusterö and not budge for an hour while discharging itself at any earthly target…like Jennie’s cat…that took its fancy. How sweet to be a cloud floating in the blue…particularly an incredible Little Cloud from which a gold string is dangling…psst…cue for a song.
More often than not Rye Lightning comes wrapped in a howling gale so counting seconds makes sense as the storm clouds have direction as well as attitude. At sea with your mast erect and ready to greet the storm the fine art of spotting a squall before it hits you is something you get quite good at…after a knockdown or two.
At night Connie and I would reef the main sail unless we were becalmed…when you need to catch all the breeze you can get. And this happens. In 2001 returning from Morlaix on the North Brittany Coast with Dmitri Le Pêcheur Pinschof as cabin boy bound for his cousin’s wedding…and an engine out of commission…we managed it for three days in mid Channel on the Autumn Equinox. This feat has been rivalled just once in the Annals of Rye Nautical History…when Connie and Helena drifted with the tide in the shipping lanes in mid-channel in September 1998.
On our way back into town in the afternoon we called in on Sundviks Trädgård for Ekologiskt Odlade Grönsaker and a few dozen organic free range eggs. It is quite hard not to eat properly in Sweden. In England it is a struggle to avoid poisoning yourself with processed junk.
I was dropped at a bus stop somewhere in Stockholm’s northern suburbs and told to jump on the Number 177 bus. No problem. But where to jump off again? The juxtaposition of Solna, Vretten and Ulvsunda…where the bus went…to Sundbyberg…where I wanted to get off…was not immediately apparent. So I opted for caution and nostalgia and stayed aboard until we arrived at Brommaplan and familiar territory.
My ex-father-in-law Erik Lundell ran an Ironmonger Shop at Brommaplan for many years…he had a second one at Nockebytorg and a third somewhere else close by. He eventually sold out to Svenska Handelsbanken in the 1960s and bought a couple of apartment buildings on Byggmästarvägen in Abrahamsberg a ten minute walk away from the family home on Gurlitavägen. Interesting that both my parents and Ingrid’s parents were Homecomers and not Onward and Upwarders. After the war they wanted nothing more than to stay in a place they knew and had learnt to love. None of this roaming the world for pastures new…over the hill…or beyond the ocean blue.
From Brommaplan I went by Tunnelbana to Fredhemsplan to escalator myself down a hundred feet to the Orient Express. But not before another nostalgia stopover at one of my old haunts…the Konditori on St Eriksgatan just round the corner from Alan’s old apartment at Fleminggatan 111 where I spent many happy hours back in the ‘90s. Imagine my amazement to discover that the konditori was exactly the same as I left it. Even the Art Deco statue of the young girl with her bare breasts was still in place. In England the Womenslibbers…pronounce slibbers…and the Paedopolice would have had her locked up long ago. In fact little seems to have changed in the area as a whole.
The Socialist Bookshop on the corner has gone…replaced by a Hair Stylist and a Finger-Nail Boutique. But as signs of the time go this is modesty indeed. With Thoughts on Being Sixty on my blogging agenda there will be more to say on this and the imbalance creeping into our Rates of Life.
