Fria bad

Picking up an Opel Mokka from OKQ8 for 1,130 SEK (a three-day rental bargain, really), we left Gothenburg just after lunch and headed south on the E6. A couple of hours later, we stood barefoot on the soft sands of my childhood dreamscape: Fria bad – or “Örestrandsbadet” as it is now more formally called.

Sometimes nicknamed the Copacabana of Helsingborg, this long beach of white sand had last featured in my life in September, when Anna and I passed it in a blur of sweat and sunshine as we approached the finish line of the HOKA Helsingborg Half Marathon. The weather then had been brilliant, and so it was again today – high summer on full display.

Watching the kids tumble through the wild waves, I felt a strange tug – not quite déjà vu, more along the lines of Mark Twain, that even if history does not repeat itself, it often rhymes. Standing there in the surf, it could well be 1985 all over again.

Later, we drove on to Lund for an evening stroll through the cobbled streets and past the university library before sharing a pizza at V.E.S.P.A. and finally collapsing into bed at Scandic Star.