7th June 2016. Skillinge, Sweden.

In the morning we cycled down the lane opposite the field to Gislövshammar and came across a stack of hay bales which had a red heart painted on it, very pretty but very unexpected (surely that can’t mean the same as the hearts we saw in Germany, can it?).

It turned out that Gislövshammar consisted of a few cottages, some rowing boats and a robotic lawn mower (busy in someones garden), at the end of the lane there was a stile that led to a burial mound across a field but we couldn’t get the bikes over the stile so we carried on down the lane (actually the truth is we were being lazy and couldn’t be bothered to get the bikes over the stile).

It was a pretty place but it didn’t take long to cycle round it so we cycled in the opposite direction to yesterday’s outing, to Skillinge.  On the map it looked bigger than Brantevik but it wasn’t really.

There were lots of houses and although there were some restaurants they hadn’t opened for the summer yet.  We did some shopping in the tiny but well stocked supermarket and came out to find a group of cyclists studying our fold up bikes, they were intrigued by them and by the fact we were British, we have yet to see any other Brits on this trip.

We cycled towards the dock to find somewhere for coffee and cake but were disappointed to find that the little restaurant only served lunch, we had only just got enough change together to put in the honesty box at the ställplats and we were limited to coffee and cake temporarily so we cycled all round the houses (literally) in the heat looking for somewhere for coffee.  There were a few ‘teaser’ restaurants that were closed and a sign saying Kapel Cafe, which was very pretty and hidden away down a little cobbled lane.  It took us quite a while to find and although there was an elderly couple sitting at a table eating ice cream the cafe was actually shut.

Eventually, after our wild goose chase we arrived back at the supermarket where our plan was to buy cakes and water.  However, lucky for us, as Darren came out with the cakes he noticed the ice cream van had just opened so we cycled over to get coffee.  Unsurprisingly the lure of ice cream was too much for Darren to stand and although we couldn’t work out what the flavours were Darren chose two flavours and let me try them only to discover that the black tinged one was liquorice YUK!! DISGUSTING!!  (No, no, no, it’s double yummy!).  The young girl and boy working behind the counter thought that was hilarious.  I chose lemon to get rid of that nasty taste (it was very good ice cream) and we sat at a table with that and our coffee watching little sparrows hopping around our feet and arctic terns swooping over the bay.

As we cycled back to the van we passed an equestrian centre which looked like Southfork from the TV series Dallas and we stopped for a short while to watch a woman practising dressage on a very fancy looking thoroughbred horse.

The route back was sprinkled with wild flowers, lots of bright red poppies in the wheat fields intermingled with blue cornflowers.

As we got back to the farm I tried to take some photos of a Kite circling above a barn.  It had been outsmarting me since we arrived.  Every time I took a photo he’d wheel away and disappear off out of shot!  I wasn’t much more successful this time, I DID manage to cycle up the hilly field to the van door, however, nearly had a heart attack in the process but felt a huge sense of achievement!

Now we’d had the fun part of the day it was time for Darren to ‘knuckle down’ and do some work and for me to resize photos for the blog.