The weather forecasts this week have been predicting a fine, sunny and windy weekend, so we had been making plans to go away sailing and take advantage of what could be one of the last fine spells for the year. Charts have been consulted and discussions about likely destinations have been a nightly feature over the last few days. And certainly, the days have been promising, with the last vestiges of golden leaves still glittering in the sunshine.



This is quite a change from earlier in the week when it was grey, wild and stormy, with waves coming in and crashing over the shoreline around Strandvägen.



We had planned a Friday getaway, returning on Monday which should have given us time to make a reasonable distance. It seemed perfect, so I really should have guessed that a large spanner would be thrown in the works. This in the form of a surprise when we went back to the apartment on Thursday evening (only so that Lars-Göran could put in a bid on some navigation software he saw being auctioned at Tradera). We discovered that the builders had given us the wrong working dates for our apartment. In some ways it was just as well that we DID go home as they are due to start building our bathroom, not on November 31 as we had been told, but on October 31. Yes, I know there is no such date as November 31, but I wasn’t thinking when we got the sheet. I simply glanced at it and noted they would be here at the end of November.

I do feel a little sorry for them as apparently the original blueprints for our apartment building that were lodged with the local building authorities in 1951 bear no resemblance to reality and it has been very time consuming for them to try and work out where the piping actually goes. Apparently, it started off okay in part A, but by the time they got to B and C, they were pretty much on their own. We live in part D and here it is even less like the blueprint. In fact, our apartment and the one across the landing from us do not even exist on the plans. Instead, the small hill on which our section of the building is built should have been blasted and levelled, with the entrance being on street level and consisting of two shops! You can see on the next picture, that the back entrance to the apartments in section D are up a dozen stairs (which also don’t exist on the plans).



In order to change the pipes on our bathroom without having to demolish half of the staircase to the cellar area (and wouldn’t you know that we are the only apartment affected like this) is to lay them directly through our klädkammare (a sort of box room or storage room). So we were required to spend Friday emptying everything out of our storage area and hallway and to cover everything in the kitchen and living room with plastic sheeting as well as tape plastic sheeting across all doorways leading to the hall. Not my idea of fun at all. Apparently we are going to lose about twelve inches in height in our box room, so they will put in a false ceiling and rebuild the fittings we have in there. The tentative finishing date for the bathroom and box room is December 9th, with the kitchen area having to wait until after the Christmas break.

We didn’t finish until late on Friday and we did consider simply motoring away a couple of nautical miles to a little bay for the night and continue in the morning, but somehow the inclination had disappeared, so we veged out on board for the evening, with a glass of wine and a good book.

In the morning we remembered that the Lions club annual autumn market was on in Nynäshamn. This is a well attended event, now in its 16th year, with proceeds this year going to help the earthquake victims in Pakistan. We had a good time there last year, so we wanted to try our luck with looking for some more books and perhaps a rug for the boat as the wooden floor is getting rather cold as the water temperature falls.

As we expected, town was jam packed with people.



There were a wide selection of stalls – second hand goods, clothing, handicrafts, food, Tivoli, bric-a-brac, plants, jewellery etc. Most stalls looked like they were doing a roaring trade and most of the locals were out in force. Lars-Göran took a few random crowd pictures, with the camera held high above his head. This one also by chance includes a shot of Kerstin (in the lilac coat) and Salvatore (sporting sunnies) from whom we purchased our apartment.



You can see that the sun is shining, lighting up the golden birch trees, but you can see by the way that people are dressed that it is still quite cold. The markets are quite large and extend along the commercial stretch of Centralgatan as well as along two of the cross streets. Up towards the library and theatre area, a sideshow and rides area had been set up which was packed with families. I looked in vain for a fairy-floss stall, but there was none, so I bought myself a couple of big, fat, freshly made liquorice straps instead.

Then it was on to the second-hand stall, where we made a beeline straight for the books.



You can see that Lars-Göran has snaffled a few already and tucked under his left arm, he has a trasmatta or rag-rug that was a bargain at 10kr ($2) and looks like it will be perfect for the boat. In the end, we managed to fill our shopping trolley with both Swedish and English books – ideal for the long dark months ahead. We also bought Lars-Göran a nice fully lined dark charcoal fleece jacket from one of the clothing stalls. I bought one for myself four years ago at the same stall and it is so cosy, warm and good that he had to have one for himself. All in all I’d say that it was a successful morning’s shopping with the money going to a good cause.

Now to see if we can salvage some of the weekend….