Here in Sweden, Father’s Day is celebrated this weekend, so we were invited down to my in-laws’ house for a family fika (coffee and dessert), followed a couple of hours later by a surströmming dinner.  Because she is the kindest woman on the planet, my mother-in-law not only gave me a pass for the dinner part, but she made a special vegetarian meal (carrot soup and veggie pot pie) for me to eat before my hasty exit just prior to the opening of the first can of fish.  You can’t get much more accommodating than that.

Lydia and Brynja came home with me, but Tage and Petra stayed with Olof and by all accounts, enjoyed their induction into that most norrländskt of clubs.  Me, I don’t especially enjoy the oily, sour smell clinging to their clothes now, but it washes away easily enough.  As long as I didn’t have to watch them eat the rotten stuff, I’m happy as a clam.