‘Glad Midsommar!’

And … we’re back. Our Swedish adventure has filled our memory bank with so many wonderful sights and experiences, and I’ll share some of them here. I’ll begin, not at the beginning of our holiday, but at (almost) the end.

Last Friday was Midsummer Eve. We’d planned a day of sightseeing in a part of Stockholm we hadn’t explored at all, and hopped onto a ferry – our preferred method of travel in a city built on 14 islands, with up to 30,000 more in its Archipelago. At the terminus, puzzling over our map, an American offered his help. We could tell that he was no fellow-tourist, as he had a pushchair laden with with rugs, picnic hampers and all the clutter needed for a day out with his – as it turned out – Swedish-American family. ‘You can’t go into the city! Everything’s closed!’ We’d forgotten. Swedes celebrate on the eve of a Big Day. Christmas Eve is their Christmas Day. Midsummer Eve is their Midsummer Day. He argued that we needed to jump onto a ferry bound for one of the many small islands and join in everyone’s fun. Why not follow them, and choose Sticklinge on Lidingö? It sounded like a plan.

On our ferry – especially dressed with branches for the day – we met a young Swedish woman as encumbered by gifts and picnic paraphernalia as our new American friend. She said she was doing what every Swede aims to do – celebrating Midsummer on a small island with friends. Hers was a stop or two beyond ours, but she Googled our destination, and got us the programme of events.

The ferry stopped at this and then that island, where families laden with good things got off for their own celebrations, and then at ‘our’ island for the day. We were not burdened with picnic paraphenalia, so toiled off in search of an open shop. A slightly shabby convenience store yielded nothing better than nuts and biscuits, but we wouldn’t starve…

A quiet path through the woods took us to the beach.

And here, we found ourselves part of low key celebrations. Families quite simply enjoying time together: eating; beach games; swimming; linking up with friends, neighbours, acquaintances. Our new American friend’s mother arrived with plates of food for us, aware we had little of our own to eat.

An accordian player loosely compered the event, and at two o’clock, the maypole was raised: not be-ribboned, like its English relative, but hung about with greenery. The accordian player acquired a little team of girls who wanted to sing along. More and more people arrived: women and girls – often in white, or pastel shades – and decked with home made crowns of flowers for their heads.

Then it was time for dancing around the maypole. We had no idea what was going on- lots of miming: pretending to scrub laundry (?) or jumping as frogs during the frog song (?) We thought it best to sit it out and watch.

After that, we thought we’d go, and leave families to finish their day out together. We went for a wander in the woods, before we took the ferry that puttered back and forth collecting passengers from the many little islands here. Then it headed back to our starting point, where that lucky chance meeting had given us the gift of enjoying special Midsummer Moments.

I’ll now resume normal service. I’ve not been reading anyone’s blogs for the duration – sorry – though I hope I’ve continued to respond to comments.