Camera walking in Gamla Stan

Back in October I went to Stockholm for a few days to see my family, who I hadn’t seen for over 2 & 1/2 years. I’m never that keen on going back, not because of seeing family, but because Stockholm and I just don’t get along. There’s definitely a reason why I moved abroad, and every time I go back I get reminded why I was so happy to leave. It was just a really bad fit in the end. But this trip was better than usual, as I got my priorities right. Usually seeing my family is like a by-product of me going there, but this time they were the only ones I saw. Call it Covid Clarity - the realisation of what and who is important in your life. Anyway, one Saturday morning, me and my sister H went for a walk in the Gamla Stan (Old Town) neighbourhood, which used to be the capital back in medieval times. Most of the medieval streets are buried under the cobblestones, and the houses that are there now were mainly built in the 16 and 1700’s. Look how narrow this street is! I’m guessing you don’t get much daylight in these buildings.

About 3000 people still live there, in houses like this, mainly divided into flats. Jammy sods. Might get an Airb’n’b there one day, but I bet they’re pricey - and tiny… I never really paid attention to Gamla Stan as I was growing up, but from now on I think I’ll try and always make sure that I go here for a walk and a nosey.

Back in my teens this was my impression of it - Västerlånggatan, the main street, the touristy naff street (but hey, I’m a tourist now too innit). The street always full of people. This trip was my first abroad since Covid, and being there was quite nerve-wracking as, compared to the UK at the time, there were no restrictions to speak of. I insisted on wearing a face mask indoors, especially on the tube, and tight crowded places like this made me nervous. Wearing a face mask in Sweden generally meant that you had Covid - so I was grateful for people keeping their distance from me, haha!

Best to stick with the quiet residential streets instead, eh?

Thought this looked sweet; two climbers holding hands.

Not so sweet was this sight of a dog, looking like it was stuck to the wall.

There were however lots of cool details that caught my eye, like this door knocker,

this sign,

this small half circle of a garden,

a funkis house number, against a great colour palette,

a shoe mender’s sign

and an optician’s.

Lots of different architectural styles - and colours too. The pale orange house was built in 1520. Crazy.

I also liked the contrasting quoins on the corner of this pale red building. But the I guess quoins usually are.

You don’t get buildings in these colours here. We really could do with more colourful apartment blocks against our grey skies too.

Hej, it’s me, Squinty McSquintface! L8er Gamla Stan. I’ll be back.

An August weekend away

Seeing as it’s been greyer than grey for the past few days, I thought I’d stay back in time, for a bit of colour and something a bit different from the late January gloom outside. I know I always say it every time I post pictures from my father-in-law’s house in the Cotswolds, but why we don’t go here more often is beyond me. I think it has something to do with the fact that we have an only child, so with him in mind we try to go with friends when we do go, which takes a bit more planning. Anyway, last time we went we arrived a few hours earlier than our friends, so I walked around the house taking pictures.

Nice, isn’t it? My interior taste is changing and I’d love more old stuff in our house too. Actually, we’ve inherited two of these style mirrors - I just don’t notice them anymore. Do you find that too? That you can’t see your surroundings properly, a bit like being snow blind at home?

To be honest I am a bit in this house as well. It wasn’t until S, who had never been there before, said how photogenic it all was (she’s an interiors nut like me too), showing me the pictures she’d just taken of it, that I realised that I should pay a bit more attention to it again.

Like this fireplace. Why have I never noticed this red brick beauty before? I know I’ve noticed the newspapers jammed into it, but not the thing itself.

And who have we here? Bella, that’s who. A new addition to the H family and very well she behaved too. She’d finally gotten over her manic puppy phase from the last time I saw her.

And yes, of course we went on our usual walk. This time Mr Famapa pointed out the skeleton on one of the headstones. Can you see it? Bella clearly didn’t.

I love this tree and how it hugs the ground exactly right. Surely someone must be trimming it to be like that?

Along the walk the blackberries were already out and kept us full. Thank you nature.

Ahhh, so nice to see this green again, and to also know that it will come back in a few months time. I’ll lose my winter swimming, but I’ll gain SPRING.

On the way back from the walk there’s two ways to come down the hill; the sensible one (my personal choice)

or the steeper one, that some people can’t not run down. I’m just too scared that I’ll twist my ankle or something stupid, and seeing that when I last twisted my ankle, it took 10 months before I could go out running again, I ain’t taking my chances.

Just by the front door of the house there’s a few plants, cheerily welcoming you home, and this rose was a rather color delicioso.

And next summer I better plant some Cosmos in our plant border at home, or I’ll be very cross with myself.

In the dock of the bay

Right, time to jump back in time and to our Yorkshire trip in August. Just like the previous recap post about The Kilburn White Horse and Rievaulx Abbey, an episode from Winter Walks made me want to check out Robin Hood’s Bay (if you can watch the episode where you are, Simon Armitage - the Poet Laureate - guides us there on his winter walk; you can see when he arrives at RBH at 23:31min). In the 18th century the village was the busiest smugglers community on the Yorkshire coast. Apparently you could send up a bale of silk from the bottom of the village to the top without it ever leaving the houses, and the reason why will become obvious further on. Its location made it the perfect spot for this line of business, as it was surrounded by marshes on three sides and the sea to the east. It has also been a fishing village but is now home to just 42 people, as 75% of the houses are holiday lets.

It’s ridiculously pretty don’t you think? I’d actually love to come back here in winter and rent a place.

When we arrived we quickly grabbed a table at a café for some snacks, and as we were sitting under a massive parasol waiting in the rain, there was an awful racket. A seagull chick, almost fully grown, was hopping from parasol to parasol, squawking like only a loud seagull can, and at one point it tipped ours so a whole load of water came down the side of it. Luckily none of us got drenched.

Bellies full we headed down to the beach, where the tide was out, to have a little wander. This was the view looking southwards.

And this northwards.

I was not tempted to swim. Too much of a faff afterwards.

But that didn’t stop the kids. Nothing stops kids when you’re at the beach. There’s something in-built that makes them want to dip their toes, or in this case their legs.

Even in the rain. And yes, a Saul Leiter homage is going on right here.

Rae the dog had a go too.

Looks like some nice bit of rock pooling is happening here.

We also went exploring in the village, which meant getting higher up.

A couple of cool crazy fonts on the way.

Talk about being close to your neighbours. Also, no cars. It did make me wonder how the hell you’d get all your shopping home from the supermarket, or all your suitcases and bags to your rental. And what happens if you live here and you’ve bought a new sofa, or if you’re having work done on your house? Maybe that’s when you get your neighbours to help by passing things up and through? Although the village seems too empty for that to work these days.

You must have known your neighbours pretty well back in the day, living this close to them.

Even from up here you can see how narrow the lanes/paths between the houses are.

If I was a painter I’d for sure paint this view. Alas, I’m not, so this will have to do.

Maybe they used pack mules to get stuff into their houses?! That’s it. I will accept that as the answer. You can also imagine how easy it would be to shake off anyone chasing after you, as it’s so much like a labyrinth here, with lots of nooks and crannies to hide in.

So there you go, that’s what our day in Robin Hood’s Bay looked like. There’s a new series out now of Winter Walks, but part of me is thinking that maybe I should save them, in case things here turn worse and we enter a fourth lockdown in a few weeks time. I’d be very surprised if that is what happens, but I’d also not be very surprised if it is. If there’s something I’ve learnt in the past nearly two years, it’s that you never know what’s around the corner (which we actually never ever really knew anyway, we just tend to kid ourselves into thinking that we do know our futures - or we rather did). Well, at least we can always look back, eh?

A day in ruins

More from this summer. It was so different in many ways, but the main one was that Mr Famapa worked away for most of it, leaving me and Oomoo to our own devices for weeks on end. To break it up me and O drove up to York to go and stay with friends for a few nights. The weather was all over the place (mainly on the wet side) but I had a few places I wanted to go visit.

The Kilburn White Horse was one of them, and this is the best picture I got of it. Not only can you not see the horse, it’s also not white. There’s quite a story about it; a wealthy Victorian business man had been to see the chalk hill Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire, and wanted to create something similar near the village he grew up in. The local schoolmaster, together with his pupils and volunteers, set about to cut the horse out of the hill, but as it wasn’t made out of chalk, the horse did not end up having the desired white colour. Tons of limestone was instead poured over it to have the same effect, something that has been done regularly ever since. Well, it had obviously not been done for a long time when we were there, so if anything it could probably be re-branded to a more accurate name like “The Greige Horse”.

Walking up the steps up to it (and down like here) was quite an experience. They went on forever and were ridiculously steep. Quite a workout!

From there we continued to Helmsley for a spot of lunch, and walked past this ruin of Helmsley Castle.

Twice.

We didn’t stop as we had a bigger ruin on our itinerary: Rievaulx Abbey. In the depths of the third lockdown I savoured watching Winter Walks, where you got to follow various people in the public eye go for a solo walk in Yorkshire and Cumbria, accompanied only by a 360 degree camera they were filming with themselves with, and a drone. This blogpost describes exactly what it felt like for me to watch these beautiful, soulful programmes in the bleakest of winters (let’s hope this coming one won’t be as bad, because the last one was ROUGH here), and the programmes proved handy with lots of suggestions of what to explore in Yorkshire.

Rievaulx Abbey did not disappoint.

A Cistercian monastery since 1132 (!), this extension of the cloisters was completed in the 1220’s. At its most populous point around 650 people lived there, with the minority being monks, and the majority lay brothers.

Shut down by Henry the VIII in 1538, it was quickly dismantled, with the roof lead and church bells saved for the king.

It didn’t occur to me that maybe it was a bit unsafe to walk around like we did, but the upper walls were reinforced with hidden concrete beams in 1918, to preserve the ruins for the future.

Dotted around in the grass were signs showing where different areas used to be.

Must be quite something to live so close, in these houses, right next to it.

After the dissolution of the abbey, it continued on as an iron forge, which already existed, as the lay brothers at Rievaulx forged their own tools, nails and cutlery. Eventually it too got closed down, and the land was handed down generations of landed gentry, and finally given to the state as a historical monument in the 1900’s.

Lastly, in the grounds café afterwards, in a really well designed seating area. Those windows!

I’m so glad we’re finally exploring England more (and I hope we get to travel round the rest of the UK soon too), as in the ‘Before’ we usually went abroad for our holidays. I always knew that there are so many amazing places to visit here, and it’s crazy that it took a pandemic to make us appreciate what’s closer to home. But I guess sometimes you have to learn the hard way.