Saturday 18/5/2019.
Book signing day. The reason for our visit. Surprisingly, we weren’t at all nervous. For our signing in Cardiff, we were terrified and wanted to cancel. We’re much more relaxed in a foreign country. Or perhaps it’s because we’re now on anti-depressants. (Shout out to Sertraline!) Pelle came home in the morning with today’s papers. We’re on the front page! Must be a slow news day in Söderköping. There is a huge article in the paper. We never get this much attention back home. We arrived at the Bokhandel at 10:45 and found a sign outside, advertising the signing. A daughter of Christina’s friend collects autographs and wanted ours. She’d printed off a photo of us so we signed that. She also bought a copy of our book, Silent Dawn.
We’d barely put our rucksacks down when the first of the customers arrived. Fortunately, everyone speaks perfect English, so communicating was easy. One woman saw the article in the paper and was curious so came to meet us. She bought a book. Everyone seemed really excited to have twin Welsh authors there. One man saw the article, and while horror scares him, he wanted to meet us. He’s interested in hiking so we told him about our beautiful mountains in Wales. We bought another book. We’ve spent the past two days in a bookshop. It would be rude to leave new friends behind.
Mysterious Message
We got back and were preparing to explore a nearby mountain when Christina got a message from Anders. A man named Michael had seen our article, and in it, we mentioned wanting to visit Stegeborg Slottsruin. He came to the bookshop but we’d already left. Anders told them that as Pelle’s car needed new brakes, we couldn’t go to the castle. Michael offered to drive us and gave Anders his number. Christina rang him and he arranged to meet us at the library. Most of our adventures start off like horror films and always turn out well, so we accepted. Meeting a complete stranger and travelling to castle ruins in his car is how all good adventures start.
On the way, we saw an unusual sight – two men pushing a small plane. We expected to see new sights in Sweden but that wasn’t one of them. We also saw horses, cows, calves and alpaca. No wolves or bears. Duolingo made it seem like they were everywhere. Duolingo is a liar.
Stegeborg Slottsruin
It turned out Michael’s a guide at the castle and his family are descended from the Vasa Royal family who lived there. We got a special guided tour. His brother built the herb garden behind the castle. So were mixing with someone of royal heritage.
The castle is beautiful. The oldest part dates back to the 13th century. The top half of the tower was added in the 15th century and the king imprisoned his two daughters in it. Unlike Rapunzel, they didn’t have long hair to lure a brave rescuer, so they escaped using ropes from wooden beams then made their getaway by horse and cart. But the horses wore their shoes backward so it looked like they were going the other way. We found vegan sorbet in the gift shop as well as a model of the castle how it used to look. And we befriended a small black dog. We came to Sweden with a lot of Kronor, as people warned us it would be expensive. So far all we’ve bought is ice cream and books.
Later that evening, Christina looked Michael up. He’s not a guide at Stegeborg. His family owns it. He said if we ever wanted to do a book launch, the castle would be ours.
Day 3: Number of elk seen: 0.
Read Day 2.
Read Day 4.