I’m another year older and we celebrated with a trip to the beach. We planned to visit one further South, but ended up staying closer to home because neither of us had our pre-illness energy levels back. It was so good to get out after staying at home for days.

Scott asked me what I wanted for my birthday, in the run up to the big day. I replied with “snow” and as you can see, he delivered!



Lunch was “spicy flavor” noodles. Something quick and easy was ideal because this was the first time we’d cooked food on the Jetboil (only tea in the past). Being able to have a hot meal and drink in the wild is great! We may need to get a larger pot eventually but the one we have does the trick for smaller lunches.

That red mystery powder was more delicious than it looks!

We sat slurping noodles and looking out over the sea. I had a moment where I couldn’t believe we were sat on a snowy beach in Scandinavia with the forest behind us; we are so lucky.

It was very cold but my clothes kept me nice and warm. I was wearing two bottom layers (one of which was longjohns) and three top layers, plus a hat, scarf and gloves. And the tea kept my internal furnace ticking over.

Pudding was homemade brownies with a Swedish flag poked in the top (instead of a candle). The brownies ended up half way between a brownie and gooey kladdkaka… delicious. When the food had been demolished, we packed up our gear and ripped up the wool blanket that had frozen to the snow. The seat pads we placed on top kept our rear ends warm though!

A combination of steep paths and sheet ice made the walk down to the beach a bit hair-raising. We decided to walk to the next train station rather than heading back the way we came, and that gave us a chance to make a few snow cats along the way…

It was nice to have an alternative birthday!
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