Rentjärn

Sweden

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”

John Keats

We sleep in. There is no walk or morning calisthenics. This is as close to a hangover as I have had since arriving in Europe.

I cook some porridge and serve it with vanilla yoghurt and blueberries. It does wonders for the hangover. It could be the five coffees, but porridge is definitely restorative.

In the end it is a relatively late departure.

An hour in, we stop for a roadside luncheon.

A few hours into the drive, we encounter a lone reindeer walking down the middle of the road. It crosses to one side, back to the road, over to the other. We finally stop to let it do its thing. Its thing is to turn around and run back past the car in the direction it came.

“I’ve crossed some kind of invisible line. I feel as if I’ve come to a place I never thought I’d have to come to. And I don’t know how I got here. It’s a strange place.

Raymond Carver

Soon after, an entire sambey is commandeering the road. With the lead reindeer clanging its renbjällra with every step. Deeper than a cow bell, there is little chance of this mob being misplaced by the Sámi.

We stop on the way to pick up some supplies for dinner and lunch tomorrow.

Our place tonight is a tiny cabin on a larger property. We share a bathroom and toilet, which is not so bad. The cabin smells like a bastu and is perfect. The silence is disconcerting to the constantly interrupted mind. Wind in the trees, bird calls and the buzzing of a million horse flies that could eat you alive.

There is a garden planted with potatoes. Sweden does excellent potatoes. The potatoes here are named after the person who gave the owners the seeds.

The dash to the shower is a life threatening experience.

We settle in for some reading. I quietly judge the distance to the showers and assess the risk.