There’s a moose loose aboot this hoose – Lord Rockingham’s XI
Now what has ‘Hoots Mon’, a UK No.1 from 1958 to do with the price of Irn-Bru?
Only that the moose is considered a measure of distance in northern Sweden.
Which we’re all looking at enviously because there’s no lockdown there.
In the region of Norbotten locals are warned to stay ‘one moose length’ away from each other.
Check out the lights. Photo by Jonathan Petersson on Pexels.com
While in the rest of the country they’re still eating meatballs, smorgasbords and pickled herrings and highly-priced beer in bars and restaurants.
All the time following Prime Minister Stefan Lofven’s guidance to keep social distance.
The Swedish hinterland
So what is it that Sweden is doing right?
Well, in a nutshell, they believe it is not sustainable to keep its people in open-ended lockdown.
A night out in Sweden
And that they are prepared to accept certain restrictions on movement and interaction over a prolonged period.
Rather than to take the pain today for jam tomorrow.
She and her fellow Swedish politicians recommended this on internal travel at Easter.
The government exhorted Swedes not to travel to their summer cottages or relatives but did not ban them from doing so.
Which was 90 per cent lower than in previous years.
The Abba Museum
All of which progress and good husbandry focuses our attentions rightly on Sweden…
And talking about husbandry I’m reminded of what a good husband I would have been to Agnetha Faltstog, my first love.
Alas her husband Bjorn Ulvaeus was on the scene… and I was only 11.
ABBA’s Greatest Hits was the first album I ever bought.
And it was my love of Abba that got me innocently into trouble in my Jesuit Catholic all-boys school when I brought copies in of The Sun newspaper.
The ABBA Story
All because they were serialising The ABBA Story… I even used my lunch money to pay for the newspapers.
Easy ahopping
However my teacher suspected that I was ogling the bare-breasted Page 3 girls instead. All of which landed me with a belting.
I will continue to make it one of my life’s missions to track down Agnetha in her retreat.
And the best starting point is to actually get out to Sweden.
SAS Scandinavian Airlines http://www.flysas.com is your best bet, and they fly out of Dublin, and in the UK from London, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle.
Don’t worry about me, I’m enjoying the Los Lounges life… in my boardies, pulling my surf stunt, with my Beach Boys music on, and a Strawberry Daiquiri waiting for me.
They are memories and pictures that I can pull up to transfer myself to a favourite place.
And just one of the distractions to being holed up indefinitely.
While, yes. I missed that day’s itinerary which had involved a trip to the Warner Bros Studios and their sets https://www.wbstudiotour.com.
Budge up Sheldon
And the chance to sit in Sheldon’s spot but I did get to do just that when Hollywood My Weekend With Marilyn came to Anaheim for the American Travel Fair, IPW.
It won’t surprise you that today’s conversation has gone off on a tangent… a bit like Alan, one of our coach drivers snd guides in the Eastern Cape in South Africa… http://mobi.alantours.co.za.
Alan’s magical mystery tour
Of course with five wordsmiths in the coach we were never short of a word game or two to while away the time we spent lost in the South African national park…
Food should be fun and taken out of the hands of foodies… and chefs.
I’m writing this while eating my Swedish ‘vacuum cleaners’ or dammsugare for fika. These are named after the tube-shaped vacuum cleaners of the Fifties.
I had been given them in my godispase, or goody bag.
Clean sweep
Let’s break bread
The godispase had come courtesy of the Stena Estrid, Swedish ferry cruise company‘s http://www.stenaline.ie.
What’s the difference between Walt Disney and Bing Crosby? Bing sings but Walt Disney.
That’s just one of the jokes you’ll hopefully not hear on this Disney cruise.
Forgive me for trotting out a Dad Joke but it’s just that Daddy’s Little Girl gave me a box of them for my birthday… and some of them aren’t even mine.
So what better match-up than my favourite holiday hosts and my favourite form of travel… a Disney cruise?
Cassidy Travel http://www.cassidytravel.ie is offering a seven-night cruise on Disney Fantasy from €7661 for a family of four of the Western Caribbean.
Visiting Mexico, Grand Cayman and Jamaica from Cape Canaveral.
There will be daily shows and activities, dress-up themed nights, fireworks display and kids’ clubs.
There is even a private island, Castaway Cay, with water sports and sandy beaches.
And, of course, you’ll be sharing the ship with these guys…
Corphew
That water looks so still you could walk on it… the Aegean Sea that is.
So I tried, in Corfu, and ended up swallowing half of it, adding water skiing to a list of water sport calamities.
Which can only grow next week out in Tobago.
But I won’t have the Scary One to burp me like a new-born baby or like Jerry does to Tom.
Corfu is best admired from aboard a cruise ship with a stop-off.
It was another layer of poignancy to the death of Princess Diana that she should have lost her life in another country.
Because the Princess of Wales was an avid traveller, obviously in her official capacity, but as a wide-eyed adventurer.
The images of the royal on Dodi Fayed’s yacht off the French Riviera are reminders of that late summer of 1997, her last.
Our own summer holidays with The Son and Heir had been planned for Bulgaria for that first week in September.
A Diana fan: Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Pexels.com
In truth, I was glad to get away from the mass hysteria and national meltdown following her death.
I, of course, never knew the woman or met her. But the Irrepressible Miss F did have cause to take her picture and that of the other royals.
It was part of her job as a photo-journalist and with us working in the Royal County of Berkshire they were on our doorstep.
Winning smile: The Queen
And so it wasn’t an atypical day for Sarah to find herself photographing the Queen or Prince Philip while I might be covering the courts, council or a fete opening.
But she always approached these jobs with respect, the ways of the paparazzi were not then nor ever have been her modus operandi.
And she proved that she could capture the royals at their most relaxed and respect distances at the same time.
A different side: To Prince Philip
Of course these pictures taken from our scrapbook can never do justice to the real prints, but then that’s a hard screen and a blog for you.
Just a big kid
The pictures, of course that Diana most enjoyed were when she was with her beloved boys, Prince William and Harry.
