Tuesday.

To return to mid/North Sweden. The area where Nea lives is, in fact, about a hundred miles South of the arctic Circle. On a map it looks like North/Central Sweden, but is treated by the natives as being  in Northern Sweden. On the photo above is part of a lilac hedge near their farmhouse. We saw several of these, although lilac in full flower seemed strange to our eyes in mid July.

The picture above is taken from the top of what looks like a modern water tower. On top of it is a circular glazed area which contains a very good restaurant (we lunched here three days of our stay- and excellent grub it was, too). We had a window seat looking over the town, the lake, and the surrounding hills. The lake is huge -several miles long. According to local legend it contains 'the Great Lake monster' . He appears to be something like our 'Nessie'.  Animal activity was last observed in the waters of the lake about two years ago.

 Back at the farmhouse, our granddaughters and Nippa, the dog, soaking up the sunshine on the front porch.Should say the young lady on the right is now exactly the same height as I am (or slightly taller), whilst her sister, on the left, is an easy three inches taller than I am, i.e. about six foot two.

One day we drove out to 'the Swimming Lake'. It's a smaller lake (about two miles long) with a beach at one end. We didn't swim (the first year there we haven't, but it was tooooo cold). In a field near the lake I photographed these three cranes, large birds, about three feet high at the shoulder.

I think we're nearly at the end of the holiday snaps; one more blog entry should do it. Grit your teeth. Then it's back to the usual Suffolk scenery.
Hope you haven't been too bored,  Regards, Mike and Ann.