Even serious works – like this blog – need a scherzo. Here’s mine for now; some superficial holiday observations.

After a pleasant month in Less-than-Great Britain, Kajsa and I are now on our way back to Sweden: her lifelong home and my alternative one. She is privileged, I feel, to have experienced some interesting moments in British history, including a history-changing (we hope) national election, and a typically honourable defeat in the football. Our Swedish friends will be hanging on her every report.

For me the journey back has been equally enlightening, although in ways that have only confirmed most of my prejudices. We’re taking the long route back – we didn’t want to expose our beloved dog to a flight in a cage in the hold – by overnight ferry between Hull and Rotterdam; and then Kajsa driving all the way up to (and down from) Stockholm. (I’m no longer allowed to drive. Poor eyesight.) It took us four days each way, and four overnight stays (if you include the ferries), but took us to some marvellous places: Rotterdam, Utrecht, Bremen, Lübeck, Rostock, and a town in southern Sweden I’ve forgotten the name of. (It’s famous for its peppermint rock.) I know Germany pretty well – Köln was my first trip abroad, in a school party – but mostly the south. Northern Germany therefore, and the Netherlands, were new to me

What impressed me were the cleanliness and tidiness of all the places we passed through; the wonderful brick cathedrals with slender copper double spires; the way the motorways were sheltered from the communities behind them with beautiful tall fences covered with greenery; the multiplicity of ‘health and fitness’ shops in the towns; and – despite this – the number of ‘beer bellies’ walking about. On the boats I was also impressed by the efficiency and helpfulness of the Asian staff, even though they were all ‘blacklegs ’ taken on after P&O’s mass sacking of the British crews a year or two ago. Should I not have travelled with them?

It has been a welcome break from the intensity, excitement and depression of British, American and French politics over the last few years; and a sign – even the beer bellies – of what might have been, but for that disastrous referendum vote in 2016. But of course it’s not all – or even mainly – due to Brexit.

And of course I only experienced a beautifully manicured Germany. AfD reminds us that the old devils stalking her have not all been exorcised.