Stockhome

Get up, stand up

Sunday was forecast to be a sun-day. Clear all night, they said. Humid, so water in the air was likely to form mist and maybe even frost. I’d had a scenic walk planned for a while but after the terrible Google maps experience the prior day, I switched to Apple Maps. Now then…

First up, quick peek out of the window as I hurriedly put on Saturday’s clothes again, running 20 or so minutes later than intended. Oh, yeah, that’ll do.

Outside and it was fresh. Crispy. Probably colder in actual temperature terms, but virtually no wind. Lovely, basically. Internet says it was -2ºc. Apple Maps started by telling me to go somewhere I couldn’t. Inauspicious start, and I was already annoyed because I’d had to make 4 separate routes because I couldn’t find a way to make a multi-stop route. Auspicion improved though, ‘cos it seemed to reroute well.

Very quickly though, it IN TEN YARDS, BEAR LEFT though, it made the podcast BEAR LEFT the podcast in me ears a bit annoying to listen to. An instruction would get read out, and the podcast rewound by 5 seconds or so. Didn’t figure out how to turn it off, nor how to get the directions on my watch which just happened naturally with Google. But, apart from that initial hiccup, the instructions were actually spot on for the first route.

Here come the photos

This is gonna be photo heavy. Everything was ace, and I barely took any notice of where I was. Here, here’s a map from my watch.

So yeah I guess I went to Skeppsholmen then Kastellholmen then Gamla Stan and then eh I dunno. Let’s do this mostly visually.

Sun hadn’t come up yet. The frost risk was real, but only on the wooden pavement across the first bridge. Super slippery. Did not like. Good crown though.

That’s enough photos from the slippy bridge. Instructions were to go straight through the first island and onto the second, I was heading to a castle. But, hang on, what’s all this mad art work?

Genuinely no idea. There was a sign, in English, but I don’t recall what it said and don’t much care.

Barely anyone around, this is like one of my favourite things on earth to do. Walking around in the early hours, somewhere dead pretty and picturesque, in crisp pre-sunshine, with a mild hangover. Just so very me. But c’mon, it’s cold and the sun might start rising a bit too quick. Let’s get to that castle… in a bit. First, let’s see a load of different size boats.

Oh and that fairground. Not so busy at this time.

But now! Finally! The castle!

Oh for fucks sake. The castle is 100 percent covered in netting. What is it, loads of strawberries being protected from theft? How brilliantly disappointing. And that was the end of walk 1. Apple Maps did me proud, incessant and relentless podcast interruption notwithstanding. Walk 2 ahoy! And look, you know what you’re going to get here: a load of sea and boats and architecture in civil twilight.

Don’t worry! The water stuff finishes (for a bit) soon, ‘cos the route had me go inland. I had to walk past the armed guards at the palace, and then it’s STATUE TIME.

Up by the side of the palace, there seemed to be two people … I dunno … “queueing” for the palace to open? At like 0740 on a Sunday? Bit odd, and they got in the way of the photo I wanted to take. So I took these instead.

Legit no idea what any of this stuff was. Don’t really care. It’s pretty and that. But just round the corner, I did know what it was: the Nobel Prize museum!

Oh hang on. That’s the side entrance. Let’s have a look at the front, in situ.

Now I did sort of know where I was. This is Gamla Stan, the old town super interesting and beautiful and narrow-streety cobbled island. Apple was leading me towards the narrowest street in Stockholm, a staircase called … I dunno, someone or other’s staircase. We’ll get there in an bit.

Anyway, then I got to the staircase. It was shut. Gate locked.

Route 3 had me go straight back to the hotel. But I’d walked WAY faster than anticipated, so asked Claude to do me a more scenic route back. You know what that meant? More cobbled streets and water and architecture and stuff.

The sun was coming out now too, and a few more people were around. Not a lot, but a few. I left the island and walked to, I dunno, what is it, mainland? Another island? Couldn’t really keep up with that. Here’s a big, I dunno, school or something.

Across the bridge and towards some big terrace or other. LOTS of water on the other side of that.

By now I thought maybe breakfast would be a good idea. Perhaps I should head back. No, not perhaps, but definitely. Time to head back. Walk towards the weird modern architecture and then under the railway and then look at the statue with the sun directly behind it.

Last thing before the hotel was the King’s park. I think that’s what it’s called. It’s the park near the tube station I took a pic of the day before, the one with the grotto. I’d walked through it a few times already in the dark, but now I got to see it in the light and… er… it’s odd. I mean it’s OK. Nothing special. Some stone stuff and, bizarrely, a big fountain surrounded by full on astroturf. What the fuck!

There’s another smaller park VERY close to the hotel, again, only previously seen in the dark. Turns out there’s a massive ball.

And… well, that’s your lot. I mean it isn’t, I did a bunch more stuff, but can I be bothered to write about it? I dunno. As usual the text here is a big stream of consciousness thing as I relive what I did, and if I end up deciding to write about the journey home then you’ll see it below.

The journey home

Well, I guess I decided to write about the journey home. Let’s start with hotel breakfast, briefly. The internet says my hotel’s breakfast is stunning. I say it’s middling. Very poor selection of hot food on the buffet and didn’t try ordering an omelette. The cold cuts are nice, the sugary stuff is extensive. But that’s about it. No pics, it was VERY crowded at 9am.

Adobe Express is almost making me cry with frustration. It outright stops working completely, mid-sentence, if there’s the slightest blip in network connectivity - and then it throws away the last 15 minutes of work. I hate it so so much. Thank fuck for Claude Code meaning I can get off this piece of shit ASAP. Anyway… this paragraph is apt, because it’s happening to me right now BUT ALSO happened to me on the Arlanda Express. I spent the whole journey happily editing the post about Saturday, while tethered to my phone, everything looked good and no interruptions. I put the iPad in my bag while making my way into the airport, and next time I opened it in the lounge, everything I’d written and laid out was gone. Just the most ridiculous enshittification from what was such a perfect app for me. I hate it so much. Fingers crossed this is the last time I ever have to use it.

Anyway, at least being at an airport cheers me up, right? Well, let’s see about that. I wandered up to the “fast track” queue and it was terrible. Not moving at all, because it was too crowded the other side of the barrier. People running late for their flight were trying to push in or jump barriers. When I finally got through, the 3 piece family ahead of me took the longest of anyone I’ve ever seen to get their shit together. Apparently they all had about 15 things in each of their pockets, and had zero idea that, y’know, you might need to take electronics out or put liquids in a clear bag. Like those extremely common rules still present in more airports than not in Europe. Liquids were distributed among multiple cases and it must’ve taken them literally 8+ minutes to get everything sorted. Meanwhile yours truly waited patiently to and got through in seconds once I finally got to the front of the queue. Sigh.

Anyway, Arlanda T5 is pretty small and there’s not much going on. Upstairs there’s a bar called Upstairs & Bar. Looked pretty nice, but I opted for the lounge despite reviews making it sound a bit odd and naff. It was alright. Very busy, I was lucky to find a seat. Glad to have some healthy food after the last 48hrs.

No row 28 like on the way out, on the way back I was in row 1! 1F, window seat in business class. Yay! I was mostly … I guess not exactly raging, but I wasn’t happy about how everything had gone since getting off the train and I was very much hoping some champagne would calm me the fuck down.

That’s if we are to leave at all, mind you. I was one of the first folk on and easily fit both my bags (no seat in front to put anything under) in the storage directly above my seat. But as the plane filled up, everyone’s lack of luggage tetris skills was woefully exposed and arguments broke out between the other business class folk. A woman was trying to arrange things so that everyone’s fit, and a pensioner had a go at her because of something about delicate items on top and why was it hers that had to move and why didn’t the other woman check her bag and etc. Unpleasant.

Announcement after announcement was made about putting small items under the seat in front of you, and arranging your larger items sensibly, seemingly to no avail. It got all sorted eventually, just in time for a toddler to start screaming and the jet starter unit to develop a fault meaning we were unable to push back from the stand. Fucks sake. Fucks sake!

But, contrary to my fears about being offloaded and stuck with a planeful of angry passengers back in the terminal, a replacement jet starter came along and started the jet. To the skies!

BA771 ARN-LHR

The woman sat next to me kept her laptop open, working on a presentation for her work (I think) right up until the last moment before takeoff, and then put it in the pocket attached to the bulkhead. 2.5hrs later she would forget to pack it back in her bag until I reminded her, about 5 seconds before she would’ve left the plane (stepping off from the aisle seat in row 1, after all).

Sweden looked nice from above.

And then CHAMPAGNE ARRIVED! Finally! :champagne: wait, those colon-word-colon emojis don’t work here? Damn it. <note to self> Anyway yes, champagne! Hurrah! This was the first of 4 glasses, the last of which was in a plastic tumbler as we started our descent because the cabin crew “couldn’t bear to pour the remainder of the bottle down the toilet”.

Also food, some really quite delicious pasta tbh.

The coast of … Sweden? Denmark? No idea what route we took, but anyway, the coast looked nice. But halfway across the north sea it got cloudy.

And then it got really cloudy. Like, I didn’t see any of London cloudy - the least visibility on a descent I can think of for a long long time.

Much to my surprise, when we finally got below the cloud we were, I think, approaching from the west. It looked drab. We landed in the pissing rain and taxied for a while, parking up near a stand to our right that the pilot described as being to the left… kinda glad he got us down safely if he gets those mixed up. Anyway, a sign above the stand said INVALID APU WARNING or something. Sounded bad, but we parked up so what the fuck do I know?

We’d come to T5B, so needed the monorail but that wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. I did wonder though, what’s the deal with the walkways underneath the monorail if you’re arriving? I use them almost exclusively when departing, but never thought about the arrivals story. Something for next time maybe.

Through the border, quick loo and snack break then off to get the bus. Checked the trains from Woking and, oh, fuck. There’s no trains from Woking today. Engineering works have messed up Guildford royally. So the coach all the way from Heathrow to Guildford, spent largely fixing this blog’s RSS feed (thanks to Ian for the bug report), then chaos at Guildford getting a rail replacement bus home.

Shitshow of a journey home with only the brief respite of champagne and nice views of the country I’d just left. Grr. But hey, the house has Helen, beer, fish fingers, and Friday’s Traitors episode. All’s well that ends well.