Krageholm with the Pålsson family

Since the big ride life has slowed down somewhat. It needed to!

Since sunday I've been staying with the Pålsson family - mum & dad Ingeborg and Christer, and two of their daughters Astrid and Hedda, with the other brother and sister Karl and Ebba studying elsewhere in the country at the moment, though I have met both of them.

Christer manages the 2,000 or so acre Krageholm estate (where the family live) which grows various crops including wheat, peas and rapeseed. I was fortunate to arrive during harvest, so spent most of the first day riding shotgun in the combine (harvesting rapeseed), then on their fleet of 220 to 380hp Case and Claas tractors which were ploughing, cultivating and pulling trailers.

Tuesday was a media day - Christer quietly contacted two of the local newspapers who came and interviewed me about the ride! I'm not sure I've really been interviewed before so it was a bizarre yet enjoyable experience, and as always happens with such things; you think of much better answers than you gave later that day!

We're swum in the Baltic sea for five days in a row now at four different spots which has pleased me greatly. The Baltic is quite unique in having very unsalty water as so many rivers pour into it from the Baltic countries, whilst having quite a narrow opening into the North Sea so saltwater can't really come inwards. This makes it quite pleasant to swim in cause there's no salt to get at your throat and eyes.

My food on the cycle was often all about filling up on energy cheaply, and therefore was a bit bland at times. Since arriving at Krageholm this has all changed and my pallette has gone from black and white, to full vivid colour! The girls have put together some wholesome and very tasty meals - often various combinations of Swedish meats, veg, salad, and bread. I've had a cracker-type bread, barbecued  Swedish sausage, a wheat drink roughly comparable to Coke, lavender biscuits and local brown ale amongst others. Very nice!

This past couple of days I've been at an 80th birthday party! Ingeborg's father, called Inge, lives a bit further north so we travelled up to Solvesborg and seen a bit more of the country along the way. He, like every Swede I've met speaks fluent English, helped in his case by his late wife being English originally.

The party was a great insight into Swedish life, and an education as well - I suspect that Inge has single handedly written a few encyclopedias. It appears 80 is but a number as he is so switched on; knowing everything that is happening now, and reciting facts and figures on everything and anything from the past.

Inge is also a prolific wood carver and his home is full of his work. He regularly carves for other people as well, and he tells me he is usually paid in meals rather than cash! At breakfast the morning after I first met him, he presented me with a wooden 'Steve' he made for me the night before which was both unexpected and very kind of him.

Apart from this we've made a couple of trips to the local city Ystad (pronounced 'ooh stad'), drank a lot of tea, discussed everything and anything, spoken some very broken French to the exchange student Constantine who works here, and I've been learning basic Swedish... I'm up to about 10 words!

I'll probably be updating the blog every few days now rather than daily - life isn't quite as chaotic and full of tales off the bike!