ticket to ride

Not much of a newsletter this Sunday after a week of trains,

[lithographed tinned fish labels at IDDIS in Stavanger, the brilliant combined Norwegian Canning Museum and Norwegian Printing Museum]

museums,

[a whole wall of paintings by the Skagen Painters of people using their hands to weave, knit, sew, mend, write etc in Skagens Museum]

more museums,

[detail of the Brutalist Svømmehall (1971 swimming pool) in Stavanger - excellent “mitred formwork imprint at the corners”, as per our architect son-in-law]

swimming pools, churches,

[Aarhus Cathedral]

cathedrals, ferries,

[cafe on Norwegian train]

more trains, public libraries, countless yarn shops, rugbrød, coffee, great architecture (eg Alvar Aalto in Aalborg), books, bookshops,

[Aalborg Station]

lovely natural planting, fine railway stations large and small,

[Skagens Museum collection]

knitting, and looking out of train windows as the towns and landscapes of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden again, pass by.

[mosaic in entrance to the City Hall in Aarhus (1942) des. by Arne Jacobsen and Eric Møller]

After two weeks, we’ve gone full Interrailing mode: washing clothes in bathroom sinks, forgetting what an iron is for, not unpacking in each new place and, for the first time in years, not even bothering with summer nail varnish.

[travelling round Europe, 1966]

And now, like the Beatles, we’ve got a ticket to ride. This time to Gothenburg.

Happy Sunday!