Well, here we are, and it is not tomorrow morning by any stretch of the imagination – although photographs will have to wait until then!
This morning, Billy was pup-sitting a neighbour’s westies, so he, Jo and I took them for a walk round the island.
Tranholmen is not quite free from the internal combustion engine, but they are very much limited to excavators being used in construction, lawnmowers and possibly a tractor. Cars are banned, and bicycles and shanks’ ponies are the order of the day.
The whole island is wooded, with gravel paths, and the vast majority of houses are wooden. Many are now lived in 12 months a year, but at one time more would have only been summer houses. As I noted yesterday, Billy and Eva’s house is beautifully warm.
It is linked to the mainland in Spring, Summer and Autumn by a ferry to Ropsten, or your host’s boat. In the winter, they erect a bridge, and the lake freezes over anyway.
After the walk, Billy accompanied us on our first visit to Stockholm city, and took us on a long walk round Gamla Stan – the old city, and also the site of the Royal Palace.
The Royal Palace is quite curious – unlike, say, Buckingham Palace, the public can get very close to it physically. Hopefully pictures I’ll take during the week will show you how close. Perhaps if we’re there at the right time of day, we’ll get to see the changing of the guard as well.
Before we even got there, though, we had noticed a number of zombies around Stockholm C(entral). These undead followed us into Gamla Stan, but the good, or disappointing news, depending on your point of view, was that it was all an arts event as part of the Stockholm Festival.
Tomorrow we are pondering a canal tour and then the 6pm English service in St James’s Church (Sankt Jacobs Kyrka), Stockholm – but first sleep and a long quiet morning!