Any excuse for a holiday

Finally, a full month in Sweden! Just as I'm settling into the rhythm of Stockholm life, it's time to prepare for the next trip back to Midtdalsbreen. Tomorrow I'll be driving across to Norway with Benny to meet Sven (Professor at Lund University), Lena (his PhD student) and two Master's students, ready for 5 days of digging holes to look at the sediments I've been surveying.
Sadly, this field trip will be a little less luxurious as Kjell Magne and Marit are away so we'll be cooking for ourselves and the lack of snow means transport will be via foot.

Putting the students to work with the radar in a bog

Since my last post I've demonstrated to some BSc students how radar should be done in a bog, I've made the most of the arrival of summer with BBQs, swimming, picnics and have even sourced some (extortionate) Pimm's, I've helped Charlotta move house and have munched my way through a couple of food filled festivals in the city centre.

Having taught the class of 9 second year students the fundamentals of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) the previous Friday, it was time to put this into practice out in the field. So, I joined the class, along with Peter and Stefan (both senior professors) down in Tovetorp (about an hour south of Stockholm: pictured at the top of this post) ready for one day surveying a bog and another trying out the GPR over an archaeological site, near the field centre. The first day in the field went well; I tired all of the students out by getting them to walk back and forth over a tree filled bog, towing the GPR so that they would later be able to process this and find the depth to bedrock and contrasting sediment layers. Come lunchtime I discovered that Swedish field food is far superior to the usual British cheese sandwich and a penguin bar. We settled down on a sunny roche moutonnee (glacially eroded rock formation) and were handed a chicken and quinoa salad along with sparkling pomegranate water.
That evening we realised that we'd managed to leave the high frequency radar antenna for the following day's archaeological survey back in Stockholm, oops! So after dinner I caught the train back to Uni, ready to return early next morning with the 500 MHz antenna (sadly this meant missing the extensive breakfast spread). Having completed the surveys and a quick tour of the zoological field centre with it's various animals, we loaded up the minibuses with a load of sleepy students and returned to Stockholm.

Since returning from Tovetorp I've actually had a chance to get stuck in to processing the GPR and seismic data from the April field trip; quite a mind boggling task! Over the last few weeks I have had much relief from my computer screen though as we've had days off for Ascension day and Swedish National day. These were both wonderfully sunny occasions so Felicity and I cracked opened the Pimm's and gave the others a taste of the British summer in between chilly swims in the Baltic and pot luck picnics in the park.

Over the weekends I've been to a few more Meetups, hiking around Hellasgarden (20 minutes South of Stockholm), trying delicious curry and watching various forms of dancing at the Indian Culture festival and a couple of drinks socials in town. To make the most of the arrival of Summer, Yan Ma organised a BBQ with an impressive range of food and a good few rounds of the Swedish lawn game, Kubb.

Charlotta has now moved from her house by the lake to an apartment a little closer to the city to make

The King and Princess

the commute a little more manageable. A few weeks back, Felicity and I went over to see the new place and help with the move. It turns out we were also joined by Charlotta's parents, daughters, uncle and aunt so very little help was needed on the moving front and we instead spent much time having fika and a lunch of moose that Charlotta and her Dad had hunted over Christmas. This day made me realise just how far I have to go with my Swedish as they all chatted away at great speed while I just grinned and nodded along!

Last week, a large food festival was held in central Stockholm with food stalls from all over the country and cooking demonstrations throughout the 4 days. I, of course, made the most of this event and popped by a couple of times to sample foods from around the world and learn about food waste reduction innovations in Stockholms. On the Saturday I joined Abhay and Felicity for dinner and on the Thursday (National day), I checked it out after our picnic and ended up stumbling across the Swedish royal family, parading past in horse drawn carriages.

Things are starting to wind down in the department now as people prepare to disappear off to their holiday homes for the summer or head out to collect data during the summer field season. It's been noticeably quiet since we had our department summer lunch last week and will almost certainly be quite deserted after midsummer.

Since starting this blog post I've actually travelled across to Norway for my next lot of field work, so I've been spending the last few days hiking back and forth to Midtdalsbreen to dig holes in the sediments up there. I'll update you on this trip when I get around to writing my next post.
For now, I have a busy few weeks ahead; when I get back to Stockholm, Katrina, my friend from my Master's course, is arriving to celebrate Midsummer with me. I'll then be popping back to the UK for a few days before setting off on my next adventure to Borneo with Libby. Let's hope that this week of hiking will stand me in good stead to tackle Mount Kinabalu!

Lena, Benny and Sven on the Little Ice Age moraine.