Over the years Nigel and I have mastered the art of ‘being’.   It’s the opposite of ‘doing’.  Sometimes you just have to do nothing for long periods of time.  That’s what canal boating is. A week pretty much of ‘being’. If you are a get up early and get on the road so you can get to your destination type person then this isn’t really going to be your thing.

I have to admit, we were both pretty apprehensive about how we would get on especially with manoeuvring the boat (Nigel’s job) and managing the locks and swing bridges and all the other obstacles along the canal (my job).  When we arrived at the Wharf, Colin came to give us an overview of the boat and give us the basics of what we were doing.  He would then ride down the canal for a bit with us while Nigel got use to the steering.  Colin was our new best friend.  He took us through a methodical list of everything we needed to know and told us that any knot’s a good knot and to not get too hung up about it.  He said that the locks will be fine if you take your time and to go off and make great memories.  He said be kind and courteous to everyone and make sure you say hello to absolutely everyone.  He also said that if anything happens to give them a call and they will come and see you no matter where you are.  His advice for if anyone falls overboard is to kill the engine, throw the life ring out and tell them to stand up.  That’s because the water is realistically only waist deep and so after you get over the shock of the cold water you can pretty much wade through the mud to the side and get back on (thankfully we managed not to test this theory).  You go so slowly down the canals that even when we were four days into our trip and turned around to come back we were only a 30 minute drive from the wharf where we picked it up.

Going so slowly means that there is plenty of time for ‘being’ on the boat.  Even the driving was fairly straight forward 97% of the time and pretty laid back for Nigel (the other 3% involved large amounts of swearing and calling our boat a ‘goddamn son of a bitch’).  It’s also a very social activity as you must say hello to every single boat you pass.  I decided one day that I would adopt a different English accent for each boat and having gone through my best Cornwall farmers accent, Cockney Rhyming slang and my poshest Queens English I ended up settling on “How do?!”.  I was very confused with all the English who were asking “Are you alright?”  Is the correct answer to this “Yes I’m fine thanks” or am I supposed to also ask if they are also “Alright?”  Please advise if you know.

What we didn’t realise is that you get people coming along and asking you questions whenever you are tied up.  These people are called Gongoozlers, they love the canals and the boats but don’t actually canal boat.  They stop for a chat and usually ask some very simple questions about the boat and like to watch you going through the locks.  They take photos of you as you pass by and tend to get in the way a bit when you are actually trying to do something.  But they are generally just families with their kids wanting to take them for a fun free day out.  The kids love being asked to help push the lock open or help close them later and it’s a really nice vibe.  Because there is a walking path the whole way along the canal (left over from when the horses use to drag the barges) you get quite a few hikers, people walking dogs and cyclists as well.  Everyone says hello and offers to help if you need it so it’s a very pleasant group of people you end up sharing the waterways with.

On our first day we puttered down the canal for only a short while until we could moor and get use to the boat.  After beaching the boat on a very shallow piece of canal we decided to sleep on it and sort it out in the morning.  It was otherwise a fairly uneventful evening and we just enjoyed being in our own little space.

The next day was a completely different affair.   Our first obstacle came in the form of a swing bridge.  Nigel moored up and I got off to work out which key to put where and what to pull and push when.  I followed the instructions and swung the bridge around so Nigel could get through.  Then I did the whole operation backwards to close it again.  I made it… I was very proud of myself.

Next stop was the Foxton Locks and the reason we had chosen to do this arm of the canal system.  Because I was born in Foxton New Zealand I felt I had a duty to visit the place where our little town was named after and to see what the lock system was all about.  I was completely worried about doing the locks.  It’s a staircase lock system of 10 locks with each gate flooding the next gate and a two lock system to go through.  They have volunteers who help you and give advice on navigating and they were really lovely.  “Red before white and you’ll be right”… that was all I had to remember, which basically meant winding the red paddles open before the white paddles and then closing them again after the gates were open.  In the meanwhile Nigel was shitting himself on the boat.  The currents in the lock tend to bang you forwards and backwards and so you must constantly rev backwards and forwards to stay steady.  All the Gongoozlers kept saying to me “You got the hard job then” as I was winding the gates open and closed but they were so far from the truth.  The driving and manoeuvring of the boat is the really hard part and requires way more spatial awareness than I will ever have.

At the end of the locks I thanked my lockkeeper who had helped me the whole way and got back on the boat and Nigel and I high fived.  We made it!  We were then off to go through our first tunnel which was the 1066 metre long Husband Bosworth tunnel.  As you approach you can see a very small speck in the distance of the tunnel which we assumed was the light at the end of the tunnel.  It was about halfway through that we realised it was another boat and that we would have to cross paths in the middle of the diesel smoke filled tunnel.  There is exactly enough room for two narrow boats to pass in this tunnel.  Literally centimetres apart.  It was pretty nerve wracking.  It really didn’t help that the person driving the other boat was a mad woman who sang “la de da de da” the whole way along the tunnel and thought that passing us was a great game.  We finally got through to the other end and again Nigel and I high fived.  We made that too.

Our next adventure on a very big day was an unmanned lock leading into the Welford arm of the canal.  This one wasn’t painted red and white and so I had to really think about what I was doing to get in and out again.  Nigel aced the driving and I finally thought I had the hang of it.  I then decided to take the tiller for a bit and give the driving a go.  Well that was a complete debacle that ended with the boat almost crashing into the bank and getting lodged sideways on the canal while Nigel loudly shouted “Jen what the hell are you doing?”  We’re still best friends though.

Then we continued on for the next six nights.  Stopping where we wanted to.  Shopping where we could.  Saying hello to every single boat we passed and generally just being.  It has to be a good day when the biggest news of the day was that the three swans from the night before had found us again the next night and wanted more crackers.  Big news!  We also managed to feed the fish, see the deer, spot a couple of squirrels, baa at the sheep and generally do bugger all.  You shouldn’t run your engines between 8pm and 8am and so the whole canal stops for the night.  Most nights we were nowhere near anyone else and had the whole place to ourselves.  It was really really lovely.

We did the Foxton locks again on the way back and it was so much easier than the first time.  By now we were locals.  We could answer the Gongoozlers questions about where the water went and Nigel got a clean 7.5 out of 10 for his mid lake entry passing another temporarily moored boat from the lockkeeper.  The lockkeeper also said that it’s a contact sport and to not worry too much about the dings.  We spent the day studying and meandering about at the locks, bought an icecream and a mug that said “We did the Foxton Locks”.  Having gone back to see other people negotiate the middle lock which has a constant current pushing you around Nigel felt a lot better about his effort.  There were some incredible bangs coming from some of the other boats.

So on the final night we headed back to within a short cruise of the Wharf and enjoyed another night in the middle of nowhere.  We ate tinned English pies and mushy peas and baked beans and generally had a good time.  We fed the ducks and washed the dishes and that was pretty much it.  Perfect.  The next morning Nigel aced the boat reverse turn into the wharf and once again we were genuinely sad to say good bye to our little home.  She had certainly convinced us that canal boating was definitely our ‘thing’.

We have decided that we also need to add a disclaimer to this story.  We were in England for the longest warmest dry spell since 1976.  Every day we had was warm around 27 degrees, sunny and dry.  We got our jerseys out once for about an hour the whole week and the rest of the time we were coating ourselves in sunscreen.  The Gongoozlers all remarked as they went past “hot innit?.  At one point we had two English women simultaneously complaining about the heat of the summer and how much they hate winter.  It was classic.  If you were here in a more normal English summer month on a canal boat you may well have a completely different story.  We were incredibly lucky with the weather we got as I can’t imagine it would be nearly as much fun in the teeming rain and cold.  We’d be happy to find out one day though.

So off on our next leg of the journey… Farnborough Air Show!  We love a good airshow!

After Sweden the three muskateers headed off to London.  We had an Air BnB in Clapham Junction booked and we wanted to show Stefan all the key sights.  He had been to London before but was too little to remember.  Off we went and bought an Oyster card for the trains and tube and a Hop on Hop off bus ticket and proceeded to Hop on and Hop off buses.  Each morning we would head off with our Oyster card and Hop on Hop off bus card and a smile and a good attitude.  We did the canal tour from Tower Bridge to Westminster and back as well and were very disappointed with the scaffolding over Big Ben.  We went to Madame Tussauds which Stefan declared to be catering to the wrong demographic by having 4D experiences and not enough waxworks.  I have to say I agree.  It was slightly disappointing but a box ticking exercise nevertheless for Stefan and he now doesn’t need to return.  Spent a great afternoon at the Tower of London which is always great and I still giggle every time I see Henry VIII’s codpiece in his suit of armour.  The Tower of London also contains the worlds dumbest Americans who literally think that everything in England has been built as a tourist attraction.

Then it was off to the pub to watch Sweden v England in the Fifa World Cup.  Hmmm we were very quiet little swedes that day.  But on occasion Nigel would elbow me and tell me to quiet down when I groaned at the wrong times.  England won quite convincingly and that night was incredibly rowdy in Clapham Junction.  There was a viral video shot about 100 metres from our flat of a guy leaping of the top of a double decker bus and straight through a bus shelter roof.  It was pretty rowdy.

On one of the days we hired a car from Heathrow and headed off for a drive in the country.  Our first stop was the village of Turville (or Dibley as you may know it).  This quaint little village was used for the whole Vicar of Dibley series for all the exterior shots.  Being only 40 minutes from London and having a church and a vicarage it was a great choice.  We had lunch in a pub that was founded in 1550 and does a really good venison pie.  (Jeez England does history well).  We then drove through the University City of Oxford and on to the Cotswolds with their white and black houses with thatched roofs.  It was so blimmin CUTE.  We ended the day at Stonehenge (which is smaller than we thought) but getting up close to it was actually quite worth it (as opposed to the cheapskates who hold up traffic on the motorway past it to take a photo).  To be fair you do get a good photo on the motorway and the traffic is slow enough for you to see it.

Back to Clapham Junction for a late night kebab… as you do in London.

London was fun but incredibly crowded and busy.  Being in the middle of Summer holidays with the best weather England had ever seen probably didn’t help with the crowds.  It was time to head off to St Pancras station to board the Channel Tunnel to Paris.  Nigel and I had never done it before and Nigel was really looking forward to it.  Stefan was looking forward to getting a new country to add to his list, as despite having been to 46 countries in his life, had never been to France.  Fair to say that the trip itself is fairly disappointing.  The queuing to get through passport control, security and onto the train took longer than the actual trip but I guess that’s the point of the high speed trains.  I can tell you too from experience that if you jump high enough up in the air when the train is going 300 kms per hour that you don’t go flying down the back of the train.  But when you arrive at Gare Du Nord and get off in the heart of Paris it’s pretty awesome.

We had an Air BnB that was behind some very large wooden doors in the streets behind Gare Du Nord.  It’s in a part of Paris called Little India, which is next to Little Turkey… you could get a great curry or kebab if you wanted them.  When we checked in the owner also told us that the pickpockets frequent the road and to be very aware.  We were and we needed to be.  Especially the night that France beat Russia to make the finals in the Fifa World Cup.  Apparently (we didn’t see it) there was a riot outside our flat the next night and the police were crawling all over the place when we left.  After the final where they won against Croatia there was more rioting all over Paris with tear gas and water cannons.  I’m quite glad that we weren’t there for that.

While we were there we got a two day Hop on Hop off bus ticket and proceeded to Hop on and off buses again.  By the end of our time we had pretty much seen all the major sights and learnt more Parisian history that you could ever need at a pub quiz.

Stefan had especially wanted to go to the Louvre and so we spent an afternoon wandering about completely lost and standing in queues.  The longest queue was for the ladies toilet and so Nigel and Stefan just had to wander about and amuse themselves for literally 45 minutes.  The Mona Lisa was packed, as was Venus De Milo and Stefan was really disappointed to find that most of the paintings he wanted to see were being borrowed for other exhibitions or were in a part of the Louvre that was closed.  It seems that’s always the way in Europe.  It’s either closed, away on tour or under scaffolding.

We finished our time in Paris with a really expensive steak and béarnaise sauce meal at a quintessential French restaurant.  Food and company and location and wine was fantastic.  Paris you little minx you certainly can deliver.  It was the best 200 Euro we had ever spent.

The next day we went back to Gare du Nord to check in for the Eurostar.  As we arrived we were told there had been a suicide on the track and there would be a 60 minute delay.  Sobering stuff and despite the waiting I think everyone was actually quite understanding. The queues were awful and the technology at the station kept failing.  The ticket scanning service failed and so Nigel ended up going through and Stefan and I ended up in another queue.  We then decided to use our European Passports to cut the queue and ended up getting through faster than Nigel.  His bag scanning machine had broken down and so his wait was awful.  Our issue is that Stefan and I left France on New Zealand passports and then left again on Swedish passports and never actually entered England.  Hmmm we will see if that causes an issue when I try to leave.

Back to London and Stefan took his luggage, his oyster card and a smile and a good attitude and headed off to Heathrow to fly home.   We on the other hand were off to Market Harborough to pick up our canal boat for a week.  Our last night in London was spent watching the canal boats youtube do’s and don’ts video and researching knots.   This next leg will either be amazingly epic or a complete debacle.  I’ll let you know.

 

 

While my mother was alive I had spoken often to her about where she wanted to have her ashes buried.  She was never completely resolute but we talked often about her going back to Danmarksby in Sweden where she had worked and got to know my dad Bengt and then was proposed to and been married in the beautiful Danmarksby Church.  Years later I had been christened there, Mum and I buried my dad there with his parents in 1993 and we had Stefan christened there in 2000.  “If you want to” she would say.  In the hospital while we were all gathered we confirmed with her that we would take her back and bury her with my dad.  Mum also said that if we do all go back to Sweden that we must go and find Rosa Heller, her best friend while she lived in Sweden.  Rosa had visited us in New Zealand once and I had given her the shock of her life one day by showing up at the door in the year 2000 to ask if she would like to come to Stefan’s christening.  She did come and helped us immensely to set things up and do it all properly.   So it was decided.  We are all going to Sweden.

Upon reflection I realise that mum wanted us to make this journey for the following reasons.

1. She wanted to enforce all of us to take a holiday
2. She wanted to keep the family focussed on being together
3. She wanted us to create memories that last a life time
4. She loved the peace and serenity of the church grounds which are so beautifully maintained.
5. She loved my dad and his Swedishness

So in the hospital and the days after she died we agreed and planned a trip to Sweden.  In Summer 2018, during the university and school holidays and decided a date 30 June 2018.  I emailed the church and booked in the time (gets busy with weddings in Summer) and everything else could revolve around that.

So back to the beginning of our Scandinavia Adventure.

Nigel and I arrived and checked in to the ultimate AirBnB in Copenhagen which is an apartment on Nyhavn.  Outside our front windows was the most historic and iconic part of Copenhagen and during our stay we (hanging out the windows) and our apartment featured in approximately 4.6 million selfies.  We met with a friend of mine and her new partner who decided quite quickly that our lounge was better than any other rooftop destination in Copenhagen and so we just stayed put and chatted.  Nigel and I had a lovely few days just wandering the streets and relaxing.  Then came the day we woke up early and went to the airport to retrieve our son who had flown directly from NZ via Bangkok to Copenhagen (Confucius say… that man who go through metal detector sideways… going to Bangkok J). The three muskateers together again.

We then spent a night back up in Sweden with Stefan’s God mother Jen and her lovely family and then woke up on MidSommar Eve where we drove to Lund to celebrate the middle of Summer in the town where I studied at Lund University and Nigel arrived to surprise me… it’s a long but quite good love story if you ever want to hear it.  We went back to the bus stop where a young guy called Bengt helped and paid for Nigel get to the obscure hostel I was living in.  The rest is now part of our little family’s history.

We went back to Copenhagen to show Stefan the sights including Tivoli by night and a long walk through the Freetown.  This little part of Copenhagen was started by a group of hippies squatting in some old buildings and has grown into an independent village of 700 residents where they have made their own rules and have legalised marijuana and self-govern themselves.  After many years of fighting it, the Danish government have now accepted this and just leave them alone.  But don’t try and take anything out of the village as the Police are waiting with sniffer dogs etc. at the gates.  It was really interesting.   We then flew to Stockholm to get ready to meet with the family and extended family.

We decided to stay the first night in Sweden in a self contained cabin in the same camping ground that Nigel and I had lived in when we first arrived in Stockholm and we lived in our campervan until it got too cold in September and we needed to get an apartment.  It was so great.  Lake to swim in, woods to walk in and loads of great memories for us of times gone by.  Staying in camping stugas in Sweden is one of the best ways to stay as in general they are always really good.  Fully self contained and the campgrounds are always on a lake or nearby somewhere to swim.

The next day we went out to the island of Tynningö where we had the world’s most incredible Air BnB.  Built in 1875 on the banks of the Baltic it was a 7 bedroom, two lounges, three bathrooms mansion.  Perfect for the 15 of us who would eventually all end up staying there.  Tynningö is a small island part of the Stockholm archipelago which consists of 35 000 islands and is incredibly beautiful.  Luckily access to Tynningö is part of the Swedish road system and so there is a free car ferry that goes twice an hour from the mainland.  We got pretty good at that ferry as we spent 10 days on the island.

We spent time together talking, laughing, reminiscing and making brand new memories.  The weather was perfect every day and we could all just relax and enjoy swimming and our time together.

In the week before the service John, Ingrid and I went through to the church to meet with the minster and to go and sort out what we were going to do on the day of the service.  We also wanted to see if we could find Rosa.  She had lived in the same house since she moved there from Germany in the 1960’s so it wasn’t too hard to find her house.  We rang the doorbell and 94 year old Rosa opened it.  I didn’t want to give her a heart attack so I said very slowly in Swedish “I’m Jenny Fromén… Margaret and Bengt Fromén’s daughter from New Zealand”.  She was completely bewildered so I said it again.  She went and got her hearing aids in and I said it again.  She looked at Ingrid and John and asked “well who are they”.  I explained it all again in my very best Swedish and then she finally understood.  We gave her once again the shock of her life.  She invited us in and we managed to explain why we were there and that the service would be on Saturday if she wanted to come.  She explained that she didn’t manage too well these days and it might not be possible but that she was glad that she knew that mum had died.  She also explained that she at first thought we were members of some form of cult that was there to convert her.  “I’ve had people from New Zealand show up here before and give me a shock” she said. “Yes, that was me too” I said.

The day of the memorial service we all made sure we were on time for the ferry and headed up to Uppsala.  It was a really lovely service in Swedish with the same hymn from their wedding, my christening, Stefan’s christening and my Dads funeral played on the big organ.  We decided that the religion that was lacking from mum’s NZ funeral service was made up for in the Swedish one but it was really lovely.  The organist came up at the beginning and said that she was the daughter of Dan-Erik Oldeberg and that Dan-Erik and his wife were coming to the funeral.  Dan-Erik was my dad’s best friend when they grew up and he had been at my Dads funeral too.  It was so lovely seeing them and we went back to see them again before we left to catch up properly.

Rosa came to the funeral too.  Her neighbour had driven her down because she thought it was important.  She brought a small bunch of wildflowers from her garden to lay on the grave.  Our mum would have been so pleased we found her.

It has made all of us really happy to know that mum and dad are together again and that they are in the most beautiful place together.  Somewhere that now gives all of us and our children a connection to Sweden and a reason to always return.

Interestingly of all the islands in the whole archipelago we ended up on the one where our friends Malin and Håkan have their yacht moored every summer.  The evening after the service they invited all of us to go out for a champagne sunset cruise which was a real highlight for everyone and something that you can only do if you have the right connections.  As they say if you don’t own a boat then have friend’s who do.  We sailed right around the island drinking large quantities of champagne and having a really lovely time.  It was a great way to end a very emotional day.

The next day we had invited all of our Swedish relations and some friends to come to the house for lunch.  Everyone who arrived was really interested to have a look through the house and so the first part of the day was spent doing guided tours of the beautiful house.  The couples who lived on the island were most interested as it’s such a small island and so everyone knew this house.  We had 46 people in total with everyone playing Kubb or swimming or kicking a football around in between the rolling lunch that we had organised.  At 3pm we had pre arranged with another of our friends that she would lead a Surströmming party.  For the uninitiated Surströmming is fermented rotting herring that is canned and is the stinkiest thing you can imagine.  It is so bad that the smell lingered for a couple of days later even though we had opened the tin in a remote corner of the garden.  Swedes who love Surströmming LOVE Surströmming and get very excited to eat it.  Many of those who came that day were absolutely thrilled to find out that we had it and it was a good opportunity for everyone to try it.  Nigel loved it.  Apparently it doesn’t taste the way it smells (which is a good thing).

Over the week Nigel and I wanted to eat as many of the things we missed and so every night pretty much everyone else in the house would get to try the various odd Swedish foods that we wanted to eat.  Shrimps one night, Swedish sausages another and a crayfish party the next night etc.  Not always easy to find some of the foods as they were out of season but we did our best and scoured every supermarket until we could find them.

Then it was all over.  The house was returned to the state that we found it and we all went our different ways.  Thankfully we also managed a five star Air BnB review from the owners which is great considering how noisy we had been most nights in fits of laughter.  It was an incredibly special time for us and one that we will never forget.

Our final night in Sweden was spent back at the campground where we met up with our friend Magnus who had arranged to take us up to the top of the Kista Science Tower where he works to see the view.  Kista is where Nigel’s office was when we lived there the first time.  It was great for him to see the old building and where he used to work.  That night one of his colleagues from Kista came round for pizza dinner and some drinks.  They had a good old catch up about telco and life in general.  Great way to end our time in Sweden.