Taking the opportunity for a few days R&R I am about 15 miles north east of Filipstad in Värmland County – surrounded by hundreds of thousands of acres of forest. I stumbled upon Västerbotten cheese (Västerbottensost) which is aged for 14 months and is absolutely stunning and in limited supply outside the region – its a softer Parmesan style salty, sweet and bitter – a really complex set of flavours, now all I need is some Surströmming.
It never ceases to amaze me just how kind and generous people are – having shredded the rear Dunlop after only about 1800 miles and being recovered by Assistancekaren to Huskvarna – the guys in the Alex Autoservice workshop deserve a mention, spending ages on the phone tying to find me a tyre the right size, staying open late and then driving me into town to find me a hotel and then working right through to get me back on the road. So if your stuck in central Sweden and need some help go to Grannavagen 18 and the junction with Tenhultsvagen 54… 
Camping on the edge of a Dutch lake this week, a night in Amsterdam and today touring Huskvarna in Sweden, I came to a realisation that city life only works when housing and retail are jointly combined and inter developed. In Amsterdam for example, all the shops and supermarkets are within housing complexes and flats – no real out of town centers and yet the city center thrives, the same has to be said for the beautiful town of Huskvarna… I got chatting tonight with Ingrid from Israel, now settled in Sweden ‘for love’ she tells me, she was fascinated by my shoes (5 Fingers) so much so that she nearly got run over watching my glossy black toes – she said I looked like I should be going for a swim…what could I say, ‘packing light’ loses a lot in translation.
P&O came to fore again and bumped me to an early boat – and riding through Flanders I was struck by the sheer numbers of vivid red poppies growing as far as the eye could see which bought to my mind the the three battles of Ypres. Calling into the town of Ghent for lunch and basking in the shadows of the city’s medieval architecture I got chatting to a couple of BMW riding Dutchmen who recommended a good stopover in Amsterdam so… at the end of day one, I find myself alongside a canal having a beer near Stadhoudersnade in the setting western sunlight with a small plate of hand salted Norwegian smoke salmon for company.
Today is the final preparation day before I leave the UK – back end of August with a rough itinerary and a small handful of cash. Have to say the bike looks a lot better than this now after 2 months of total refurbishment by Mike, couple of minor niggles to get sorted today and after a Sunday panic had the frame section welded on Tuesday… bit last minute for me but learning to just go with the flow… and there are not many MOT stations where you can strip down bits of your own bike and rebuild before they do the test… many thanks to Castle Garage. 