Time for vacation at the coast

Monday morning we packed for the third week of vacation, which we had decided to spend at the cottage house of Olle’s parents. Some food shopping on the way and then we met Maria’s parents and the two children of her sister, before taking the short boat ride to the island in the outer archipelago in Östergötland. We spent almost three days together, enjoying the outdoor life a lot. We had barbecue one evening, the next we went for swimming since the sun was shining so nicely. Not so warm in the water (17C anyway), but some stayed in the water for a longer time (read: Maria is usually late into the water, but even more late up).
During the days we went picking blueberries to lunch (the other lunch we had raspberries) and took a rowing tour to a neighboring island, when the weather was on the better half. The days were partly sunny and partly cloudy, with some rain as well – just standard Swedish summer weather.
Each evening we went to a nearby small hill to look at the three light houses visible from there, a relaxing end of the day before going to bed. We and the children slept in the same small house (more of a lot of smaller buildings there, then a big house with several rooms), and fell asleep at the same time as the kids.

On Wednesday our guests went home and we had a few hours (to clean up) before Olle’s parents came.

Thursday lunch we joined some friends to take a boat tour to the light house Häradskär. It took over an hour to go there since they had an open fishing boat not going so fast. We walked around on the island and had lunch on the cliffs. Before we went home our friend asked one of the few year-round locals if there was possible to enter the closed lighthouse – he was on a good mood and toured us. During an hour he told a lot of old stories both about the light house and how it was to grow up on an island in the outer archipelago. Except being really warm in the light house with the lamp on, it was really nice. A rare opportunity. The boat ride back home was dramatic, with over meter high waves, as well as more and more clouds.







Friday evening we went to the mainland to listen to the singer Lill Lindfors together with musicians.

Saturday showed up with really nice weather, so Maria would get a good ending of her vacation. Unfortunately, the wind had changed to west, so all warmer surface water disappeared from our normal swimming place (cold 13C) and you more washed yourself than took a swim tour.



Sunday afternoon we drove to the train station an hour away, since it was time for Maria to go back to Umeå. She took the night train to the north, this time in a sleeping car. Olle will stay for a while longer on the island.