Sleepless in Stockholm

I can't sleep. Perhaps it's the noise of the city after two weeks of gazing at the sea in Åland, perhaps just the excitement of being in Stockholm in mid-August, just when the city wakes up from its summer slumber. The children go back to school here today; the Stockholmare return from their islands in the archipelago, tanned and even more good-looking than usual; the number of tourists in Östermalm slowly reduces; the traffic outside my mum's flat increases from the one car in every half an hour to two.

As I sit here on her cool balcony (the temperatures here are still over 20C – very unusual for this late in the summer) and look over the well-tended gardens of the houses opposite I wonder how it would be to live in this orderly city. I've been here before, so I'll try not to go on.

But I'd forgotten how good the shopping in Stockholm is. I know I wrote before about Södermalm, but boy does Östermalm too offer some goodies to a Nordic girl living in fashion starvation in London (OK, not quite true....) Although makes such as Marlene Birger, Filippa K, Sand and George Jensen are also found in London, their stock here seems quite different. I even found American designer stuff here that I haven't seen in London, or online.

In spite of spending nearly a whole afternoon in town yesterday, we didn't manage to buy a single thing. We saw lots we wanted to get, but somehow the day turned into a series of stops for coffee, wine, lunch, wine and dinner. I guess it is such a long time since we've had proper Mother-Daughter time.

We started the day off with a walk around the island of Lidingö where my mother lives, then breakfast at a wonderful bakery, Gateau, opposite her flat. I had liver pate and dill cucumbers on sour dough (you see I've gone native). In town we headed straight for NK and the cafe & champagne bar where we both had huge, healthy salads. Then it was off for a coffee via a bit of browsing in the store, then when the shops shut at five we had wine in Kungsträdgarden. We did a little more window shopping around Östermalmstorg and then decided to head for dinner at an Italian place, Capri on Nybrogatan where the waiters had a strange combination of Swedish and Italian arrogance. Once I told them the stylish blonde sitting opposite me was actually my mother, they calmed down a bit.

Today we know exactly which shops we're heading for, having done such a comprehensive reccie yesterday. I'm hoping for a few items at both Marlene Birger and Sand as long as we can keep away from the bars and coffee houses....

PS. Sorry no pictures, I've had a bit of a technology fail on that front.