Scandinavian dispatch

Just home from our one week's stay in Denmark and Sweden, sporting a totally unexpected suntan. We had taken half a suitcase-full of winter clothing, but they remained pristine and unused, the whole region having basked in one of the hottest spells seen since the 1940s. The blond ones clearly being unused to such temperatures (in the low 30s every day), our hotel rooms, while featuring triple glazed windows and radiators on every wall, air con was nowhere to be found, and as a result the rooms were oppressively hot.

Copenhagen is an advanced, sophisticated city and definitely heaven if your preference is for tall, willowy blonds with wearing the shortest of shorts over the longest of legs. Everyone speaks English of a high standard and are friendly and welcoming to tourists. I, however, was struggling with quite disabling back muscle spasm, which rendered the exploration of the city difficult, though I did my best to ignore it and make the most of our stay. On the 4th day, with the pain receding, we hired a car (fyi, a Honda CRV) and made the 100 km trip across the Oresund Bridge to the southern Swedish town of Ystad, setting for several of Henning Mankel's "Wallander" books. With the weather holding out we used our time in more rural pursuits, searching out Viking stone circles and neolithic burial mounds, between trips to the beaches, which featured the most delightful, soft white sand, againstwhich lapped the dark waters of the Baltic Sea. Twice we took a dip and found it surprisingly warm. One tends to think of the Baltic as one of the less appealing places in which to swim, and doubtless it is during much of the year. But it seems we were lucky.

Humorous moments dept:
1. Eating breakfast in Ystad on the first morning, we noticed how quiet it was. "It almost needs music", my wife pointed out. But what? We could think of Norwegian composers (Grieg, Nielsen) and Finnish ones (Sibelius), but what of of Swedish? After a moment's consideration, I came up with Benny and Bjorn. But, my my wife asked, what would I choose? To which I offered:
"How about 'Thank you for the muesli?'"
2. Searching for a parking place on our last day in Copenhagen, I thought I'd found a convenient spot, but my wife stopped me in my tracks:
"You can't park there! That's reserved for the Portuguese ambassador!"
A great little break. And who'd have thought that we'd return from Scandinavia and feel an unaccustomed chill in the air when we returned to England?