Sunday 19/5/2019.
A woman called Thess called round to meet us. She’s got most of our books but couldn’t come to the signing so we gave her a copy of Soul Asylum. She loves horror. Can’t believe there’s a local here who had read our books already. We thought the only person who’d read our books was Christina.
At 12, we got the bus to Norrköping, Sweden’s fourth biggest city. It’s famous for its industrial landscape. Cat forgot her camera so ran back for it then stopped to take a photo of ducks. A guitarist Christina knows came to the bus stop so he sat with us on the bus. He also loves horror.
We went to Konstmuseum, the art museum first. One of the workers recognised us from the newspaper! The first exhibition was of Greta Knutson’s work. She was a famous Swedish artist who moved to Paris and joined the French Resistance. She took her own life in Paris in 1983. The first section didn’t have anything that spoke to us, but then we went to a lower level and found her darker work, which she did in the 70s in the last few years of her life. These ones were incredible and made our black souls tingle. Sadly there weren’t any postcards or prints of her work. We would have loved to buy one.
Fifteen Minutes of Fame
We then went to the Arbetets Museum – the workers museum. It’s a famous landmark in Norrköping as it’s bright yellow and shaped like an iron. On the top floor there was an exhibition of abandoned places. We could do an exhibition of our urb ex photos! Trespassing and call it art. Wonder if the National Museum of Wales would be interested in showing our work. There was also an exhibition on Alva, who worked at the fabric factory all her life, and one of EWT, a satirical political artist. We were thrilled that we were able to understand some of the information.
In the Stadsmuseum, the workers there also recognised us from the newspapers and came over to speak to us. It’s so strange! We’re nobody! Seems we’re famous in Sweden. Christina said we would conquer Sweden and she’s not wrong! Although, unlike the Vikings, our conquering has no longboats and a lot less beserking. The Stadsmuseum had an area filled with old shops and old factory machinery from the days of making fabric.
Hare-Raising
We walked to Strömparken, which was beautiful. There was a stream running through it with a lot of male ducks. We haven’t seen a single female duck in Sweden, only males. We can only think that the females are off hiding their babies while the males escape for some peace and quiet. In Carl Johans park, we saw a wild hare sat on the base of a statue. We’ve never seen a wild hare in real life! We managed to get around five feet away and took close up photos of it. It was really chilled out. We sat there for ages, watching it.
We had an hour until our bus left, so we went to Burgers and Bangers, where Christina’s daughter works and had chips and pink lemonade. We’ve been desperate to buy a pin badge but there’s no souvenir shops. Again, not a tourist destination.
Got back, uploaded photos and did some flexibility. We then watched En Man son heter Ove, a Swedish film that shows off the Swedish melancholy Duolingo keeps going on about. It’s our type of comedy. It’s now been remade as A Man Called Otto starring Tom Hanks. We also watched Let the Right One In. Again we had Swedish subtitles on. It’s amazing how much we’re understanding. Not sure we’ll ever understand Swedish speech, but one day, we might be able to read it properly. Can’t believe we’re going home tomorrow. It’s gone so fast. Ooh and our new guinea pigs have arrived! Draco and Berlin. We didn’t name them but we like their names so we’re keeping them. And no, Draco is not from Harry Potter.
Day 4: Number of elk seen: 0. Number of hares seen: 1.
Read Day 3.
Read Day 5.