Well, I don’t.
I found myself thinking of the quote from the Jon Mayhew interview, where the poor aspie needs calming breathing exercises when the soups display in the supermarket changes. I’m getting borderline for some deep breaths right now. IN. OUT.
So. When I arrived in the holiday house I went through all the advertising rubbish hiding in the letter box. There was real post. Three items. One letter informed me that my postcode has changed, seeing as it’s been the same for about 43 years. Life will be so much better now. And I will have to tell everyone without even moving house.
Another told me my dentist has moved. Not house, but surgery. OK, worth knowing before the appointment three days later. Panic, panic. Where is it? How to get there? Look up the bus timetable on the internet. (Dial-up. Slow.) NEWS from bus operator! Magnetic tickets no longer valid. Oyster card type tickets instead. Yippee. Cash no longer accepted on the bus.
Worth knowing I can’t get on the bus to go to the dentist who no longer is where he’s supposed to be. And that’s my second region new oyster card in three days. Not the same as each other, naturally. Dentist’s receptionist suggests walking, so that’s what I end up doing. Lovely riverside walk, or would have been with sufficient time allowed.
Post-dentist I had a little look at one of the local bookshops to see which of you are represented on their shelves. Fewer than I had hoped. A lot of native YA. Did find Tim Bowler and Marcus Sedgwick, which seemed appropriate, somehow, as they are ‘my’ Swedish speaking authors. Got a bright new pink (very sorry about that) bookwitch diary for all those plans I have to make.
Having purchased an armful of currently valid bus tickets, I boarded the bus back home to the new postcode. Encountered man kicking the bus. Turns out he’s the village idiot, except I’ve never seen him before. All the teenagers boarding the bus greet him by name. Bus gets full of teenagers.
In the middle of a wet field an intrepid teacher boards with around twenty 11-year-olds, and the teen next to me goes ‘sh*t’. I secretly agree with him, while pondering the progression of the English language. Swedes now swear in English. I find I still get a lot of relief from saying ‘sk*t’, complete with Scottish ‘ch’ sound followed by a long, almost diphtonged ‘i’. Most satisfactory, and I didn’t tell the teen next to me that it’s what I said to myself as he and his pals got on the bus.
The reason I didn’t know the village idiot was that he wasn’t my village idiot. He got off, and so did the teens and the tweens, as well as the 19-year-old in the peach coloured satin ballgown with a practically nonexistent back. She was barefoot. Must have been some evening, finishing on the 12.15 from town on a Monday.
Change. The only change I want is 5 kronor coins for public toilets and enough 10 kronor coins to leave my suitcase in the luggage lockers at the station, unlike last week when I had to pull it all over Gothenburg.
The Occasional Bookwitch 
In future you can look forward to 2kr coins and 200kr bank notes!
what a fantastic post! you’re going to write that novel yet, witch, mark my words. love the village idiot who turned out not to be yours and the barefoot teen in a ball gown. sigh. so much story, so little time.
Nah, I’ll just write a very long blog post. She looked so good, equipped as she was with an umbrella and not much else. Not everyone can wear peach successfully.
2kr isn’t enough for the toilets and 200kr is too much for a locker.
Nice job on the interview and pics. I even learned to swear in a different language. Is the “village idiot” related to the “town drunk” and “good time Charlie”?
Why on earth would they need to change a postcode? (Although I did used to live near a residents’ association that was campaigning to get its postcode changed because the members thought it was bringing their house prices down. Rule Britannia!)
Sean Patrick – Swear carefully, will you? Sweden has so many drunks everywhere, that they don’t need any other label than ‘the A-team’. They sit on park benches with their carrier bags full of bottles. My V.I. is most likely only mentally impaired, which means my label for him is very un-pc and very unkind. But that makes it all the more interesting that all the teens greeted him, rather than ignore him.
Hampshire – back in 1967 or whenever it was, this area had very few all-year-round residents and the postcode will have been sufficient. Now there are lots, so I suspect just needs dividing up into several pieces. My dentist has been given a different one from me, seeing as this famous dentist lives not too far away. He even commented on the junk my neighbour across the road has accumulated.
What a perfect short, short story. Heavens, but you paint so brightly, with such precise brush-strokes. I’m with Candy on this one. This was a delightful post. More power to your hexenkessel.
Thank you ladies. I understand it to have been slightly better than all that drivel I produced the first few years.
Now I daren’t write anything ever again. Not even sure that riding that bus back and forth all the time would help. Although I was quite taken with the young man yesterday, complete with mohican pony tail and laden with golf clubs. He got off by the golf course. (I thought golf was for proper people?)
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