Sörmlandsleden from Kolmården to Katrineholm. Today: Eskilstorp to Fagerö. Part of stage 31, all of 30, and a teeny bit of 29; 20 km in total.

The first half felt pleasant but ordinary, while the later parts of the day were more scenic, and I’d say that stage 30 is among my favourites of the ones I’ve walked up until now.

Today was the day that the weather app had originally forecast a full day of pouring rain for, but that got downgraded over time, until all that was left was some rain in the morning. I had reached a lakeside shelter and had my breakfast shortly before the rain was supposed to arrive, and thought that I might sit it out in the shelter. It would be convenient to not have any wet gear to pack.

The sky was an even grey, I couldn’t see any difference in the direction where the rain was supposed to come from, so maybe another layer of clouds higher up was responsible for that?

The rain that finally came was so weak that I was almost disappointed. And instead of stopping, it petered out into a misty almost-drizzle. I didn’t want to sit around any longer, so I ended up getting out the rain cover and rain coat after all. An hour wasted for nothing.

Stage 31 mostly went through the usual pine forests. There was a brief deviation onto a gravel road…

… because the original trail somehow passed through (or at least skirted the edges of) an area badly hit by the spruce bark beetle. That looks both unpleasant and dangerous.

On the gravel road I saw two baby birds. Still partly baby-coloured, but I think they looked like nuthatches. Apparently old enough to leave the nest – but still so young that they were just cluelessly wandering around in the middle of the road and chirping. A dangerous way to start your life.

Stage 30 had a more dramatic nature, with exposed bedrock and the occasional big boulder.

I was happy for my trekking poles – without them, I’d have spent all my time watching my footing, and probably still stumbled. Now I still stared a lot at the ground but could relax a little bit about it.

Lunch was late AGAIN because there was just nowhere to stop, with enough space for me, my pack, and my stove. I didn’t get a proper lunch until two o’clock, and I was starving by then. It feels inconsiderate to spread out my stuff right on the path itself, but I might have to force myself to get over that feeling, because eating does feel rather important.

My current go-to lunch on overnight hikes is instant noodles that I top up with other stuff to make it more filling. For this trip, my noodle toppings are canned sweetcorn and hard-boiled eggs. Half a small can of corn is just right for one portion of noodles, and the other half keeps well enough overnight in a small air-tight container.

My lunch stop was at the top of Vensbrinksberget, the highest point in Sörmland. It has a viewing tower, which I now climbed. I’m impressed by the work that must have gone into this – hauling all the materials up here, and then building the tower. How do you even build a tower like this, in a place like this?

The views from the top of the tower were wide but not very exciting. There were markers for the cardinal directions at the viewing platform at the top, but they didn’t make much of a difference – everywhere I looked, it was just forest. The forest is much better viewed from ground level.

I stopped for the night at a municipal lakeside beach on Fagerö. According to the map there’s a shelter coming up in just over a kilometre, but it’s open towards the west, and that’s where the (strong) winds were coming from, so I chose an east-facing spot instead.

Wildlife: A fox, who ran as soon as it heard me. A small rodent who ran across the path during one of my breaks; I don’t know enough about them to say what kind. Loads of songbirds.

In addition to the baby nuthatches, I also saw a family of Great Crested Grebes (tuttpütt/skäggdopping). When they noticed me, the five babies all scrambled onto the back of their parent who took them into safer waters.

Sörmlandsleden from Kolmården to Katrineholm. This will cover stages 32:1, 32 to 28, half of 27, and 27:1. The planning is entirely dictated by public transport. Train + bus to Kolmården today, and I’ll be taking a train back to Stockholm from Katrineholm, so that’s where I’ll have to be by Friday mid-day-ish.

Today I walked the connecting trail 32:1 from Kolmården to the main trail, and then all of stage 32 and part of 31. 17 km altogether.

Stage 32 was among the most beautiful ones I’ve walked thus far. Not due to any spectacular feature or stunning views, but just the overall everything.

There was a lot of airy, open pine forest. The absence of scruffy undergrowth just makes it look extra beautiful.

There were stretches of plank walks across bogs. The bog was all dotted with the white flowers of Marsh Labrador Tea (skvattram/sookail). It’s a common plant, but I don’t think I’ve ever timed any of my bog walks to coincide with its flowering. Photos don’t do them justice (especially since the densest patches were a bit away from the path) – they were like swarms of tiny clouds hovering over the lower plants.

Cottongrass was doing the same.

I took my lunch break later than I might otherwise have done (again, I’m kind of getting used to this) because there just weren’t any good places. The spot I finally found was very cosy, though, even if the bench only had room for my things, especially the stove, and not for myself. The ground around the bench was firm enough to stand on, but very waterlogged.

After the bog, the trail followed the tracks of an old railway, long gone. Straight and even and smooth, it made for easy walking.

I passed a signposted hunting pit. It’s kind of weird that, nearly two hundred years after it was last used, it’s still here and recognisable for what it was. (With the help of a sign, at least.)

There were pretty lakes, as usual.

Dried fruit is the best trail snack. Especially larger fruit (so, like, figs or apricots rather than raisins or cranberries) that’s firm and dry. Sometimes I accidentally buy “wet” dried apricots – I don’t know what they do with them, but I find them horrible.

I’ve got two one-litre water bottles inside my pack, and a small one easily accessible in a hip belt pocket. The small one I inherited from Adrian. He’s too cool for dinosaurs now. I’ve got a Hello Kitty one from Ingrid as well. I’m not too cool to embrace my inner child.

The trail managed to stay away from human habitation nearly all the way. There were no clear-cuts and no gravel roads. Very beautiful and pleasant walking. Only once did the trail descend onto a short stretch of highway, to cross an even larger highway, but as soon as that was done, it moved onto a small path again.

Evening brought interesting rock formations in pretty evening light.

I had vaguely been thinking of aiming for the lakeside shelter halfway through stage 31, but got tired before I got that far. Stopped for the night at Eskilstorp, which, judging from the name, was at one point the site of a small farm or crofter’s cottage. The cottage was all gone, except for the stone foundation, which was still all square and house-shaped.

It was tempting to put up my tent in the middle of the foundation, but the ground there was lumpy and full of big tussocks of grass, so I had to move a few metres away.

Wildlife: a few bones of a dead deer, and birds. So much birdsong! Blackbirds and chaffinches everywhere, but I also heard cuckoos many times, and of course a background chorus of various smaller songbirds. Earplugs were a necessity to be able to sleep.

Another long early-summer weekend, so a hike was more or less a given.

Then the weather forecast started promising pouring rain for all of Friday – up to 5mm per six-hour forecast slot, for the entire day – and I was preparing mentally for having to cancel. Four days of just catching up with household admin would not be a bad thing at all; my to do list is overflowing.

By yesterday evening the rain had been downgraded to nearly nothing, and – forced to make a decision – I said “go”. (My brother comes here to cat-sit for Nysse when I’m out on a long hike, so I need to commit at least a day in advance.)

At this point I wasn’t even sure that I wanted this – the idea of a long weekend at home had really taken root. But I’ve never regretted going on a hike, so I’m sure it’ll be great this time as well.

Gymnasium graduation is a whole thing in Sweden, and more components seem to become necessary traditions with every passing decade.

One very central part is the utspring, the “running out”, where graduating students exit the school building for the final time, en masse, and are met by their families in the school yard. Families have signs with photos of their student, often cute pictures of the student as a baby. I imagine it originally started as a way to find each other in the teeming mass of hundreds of people, and then took on a life of its own.

I kind of remember it being a DIY thing, but maybe I’ve got my nostalgia-tinted glasses on. Nowadays in any case there’s plenty of services that deliver ready-made signs with photo, text, and handle, all assembled. I’m old school, going the DIY route. Today I picked up my photo of Ingrid from the photo printing shop – and half the shop was filled with stacks of graduation signs.

One thing they have that mine won’t (not easily, at least) is a plastic cover. If we get a rainy graduation day, I’m going to have to scramble a last-minute solution. What mine will have, though, is decorations and trimmings!

When I first set up the planters, I lined them with geotextile in an attempt to keep weeds out. “Weeds” in our garden includes not just common couch but also lilacs and cherry trees, both of which spread their roots everywhere.

I tried a non-woven kind of textile in some boxes and a thicker, woven kind in another. I don’t think they made any difference against the roots whatsoever. All they did was make it harder to pull out the weeds that got through. (Or that elected to grow in the space between the box and the fabric.)

There were weeds in the boxes that sent their roots out through the fabric which made it harder to get rid of them. There were weeds that came in through the fabric from underneath. And, in a final insult to the fabric, there were weeds that nonchalantly sent their roots in and out and in through the fabric again, totally unbothered by it “blocking” the way.

Now that I’m trying to remove the fabric, I sometimes have to cut the roots first so that I can even get the fabric away from the ground.

I was out digging.

Nysse was out digging.

No wonder the lawn looks uneven and has dents and holes in odd places.

Active Solution celebrated the start of summer with a day at Gröna Lund amusement park for all the employees, with families. I haven’t been there for ages and was very happy for this opportunity.

We were offered armbands for unlimited rides, or a bundle of tickets for the various competitions. I’ve always been fond of roller coasters, and absolutely chose the armband. So did both Ingrid and Adrian, of course.

We were ready to enter when the park opened. Even a bit before – the gates opened before the rides started, so we were literally on the first round of the first ride. The park was nearly empty, almost spookily so. Teenagers sleep late, of course, and the chilly, windy weather was also on our side. (I was properly layered up but was still cold most of the day. Some poor folks in their t-shirts must have been freezing.)

We went straight for the roller coasters. For the first hour or so, we could go on the most popular roller coasters with barely any queueing at all. Twister was one of our favourites – a classical roller coaster with wooden tracks.

Monster was another favourite. On a busy day, the queues to Monster are 30 to 40 minutes, according to Ingrid, who’s been coming here regularly every season. Now they were next to nothing, so we waited a few extra minutes to get front-row seats.

Three or four back-to-back roller coaster rides later, I was actually feeling a tad queasy. Am I getting too old for this? Probably not – mostly it was the abrupt braking at the end of Monster that shook up my stomach. The rides themselves were no problem. We calmed down with less challenging attractions like the “funny house” and “tunnel of love” and the “scary train”.

After lunch, the kids convinced me to try the Catapult. It’s like a free-fall ride, but goes both up and down. I was afraid it would be too much for me but said I’d try it once – and it was my favourite ride of the day. No shaking, just flying! And with wonderful views.

More roller coasters. Monster sitting at the back instead of the front (less wind, less view, more surprise, more swoosh). Häxkvasten, like Monster but tamer, which used to be my favourite. Vilda musen, which I remembered not liking, and also did not like this time, because it was all rattling side-to-side (to the point where I was afraid I’d end up with bruises from being thrown into the side of the cart) and no soaring at all.

We had planned to go on the Eclipse, a giant star flyer, way up high, but were turned away at the entrance – it was closed due to the evening’s concert. Which we had been informed about, kind of, but the info just said “closed during the concert” – not that it would close two and a half hours before the concert started. Bummer.

The old-school wave swinger was nice, but not quite same.

The park was getting crowded now, and there were actual queues. (Many visitors probably came in the afternoon for this evening’s concert with KAJ, the Melodifestivalen winner.) One last ride, we said, and went back to the Catapult.

After that we all felt we needed some sugar to boost our flagging energy levels. Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for Adrian and myself; candy floss for Ingrid.

Last year I started removing the planting boxes, but then got distracted by other things. Now I’m at it again. A gentle deadline always helps: I want the garden to look tidy for Ingrid’s graduation party in three weeks’ time. (So does Ingrid herself, of course.) Now that the evenings are light, I can work on this even on weekdays after work.

Closing session for the embroidery club for this season, with a mini-exhibition and a potluck meal.

I almost managed to finish mounting my work in time, but gave up at midnight yesterday and left the last bits until later.

This season’s first lunch out on the deck.