At Jan and Keith’s

It rained all night and Mr C found his pillow was wet - we think a seal on the back window wasn’t sealing properly so he is going to run a bit of olive oil round it.

We decided (I decided) we’d call into Gavle on our way north - I just couldn’t face another 5 hours in the van without a break. Mr C wasn’t keen because of the difficulty in paying for parking. There are so many different apps for different places and we have only one. Anyway we found a carpark with one man sitting in his car so we checked it was ok to park. No it wasn’t. The site belonged to offices and the man was staying in his car till his wife got back, in case the inspector came.

I got us to the station where we could park and luckily it was near the only really old part of town not burned down in the 19th century., Gamla Gefle. We had a lovely wander round the quaint cobbled streets which had prettily painted cottages with lovely flower boxes. The first house we came to was interesting - it has a board saying Joe Hill-Garden, trade union activist and singer, credited with coining the phrase “pie in the Sky” and executed in USA in 1915, had grown up there.

We then strolled by the river to the oldest church which has a leaning tower and beautiful woodwork. We could not take a wander round though as there was a service going on. We listened to the beautiful singing but had to leave before the end as we wanted to head north. We had a date to meet my BlipBuddy Jan who had very kindly invited us visit tonight, even though they are very busy with electioneering.

We got there about 4 and after a tour of The Red House and Betty’s, and the garden, we had a cup of tea in the sun. (The Blipmis Mr C and Keith, taken from Betty’s). Jan is every bit as welcoming, thoughtful and vivacious as she appears on Blip and Keith is as lovely as she tells us. She fed us so well with many tasty dishes and we had so much to talk about. We were particularly interested in hearing about their political involvement and life in Sweden. This was cut a bit short because we needed to ask for advice about our onward route, and then after another long day we were ready for bed.