In May 2002, I arrived in Sweden to take a long-needed break from London, England. I had never been to Sweden but was encouraged by my dear friend Frida of Laholm and Uppsala University to go. Frida and I had met in London and my invitation had been outstanding for months before I could take advantage of it. I arrived at Arlanda Airport near Stockholm stricken with flu, however, and checked into the Radisson Hotel just outside the airport. The next morning, I woke up determined not to see my first days in Sweden spent in a hotel, sneezing my way through life. ///I put on my running kit and spilled out into the road leading to a huge forest outside the airport at Arlanda. I ran, and ran, and ran for nearly an hour through the crisp air on very wet ground. It had rained all night and the sun was making its attempt to break through the clouds but instead just squinted at me. I returned to my hotel completely recovered and spent the rest of the day on the phone looking for a Bed and Breakfast in Stockholm. When I had completed executing my plans against accommodation worries in Stockholm before I could proceed to Uppsala, I returned to the airport to look for shops and food. ///Instead, I found another Radisson Hotel within the terminal building and, out of curiosity, walked in. There, in front of me, was a beautiful grand piano in the hotel lobby. I sat down and played my favourite classical music pieces for 2 hours. I still think of that lovely piano and the hotel staff who put up with me. I made my way, grudgingly, to Stockholm and checked in to the B&B. It was a tough experience because the Greek lady who was my hostess was unfriendly. I went out of the B&B and was more encouraged by my immediate surroundings of Kungliga Biblioteket and Carl Linne Park nearby. ///My friend Frida soon arranged for me to rent a friend’s flat in Gardet and I moved in after 2 nights in the B&B. It was difficult to see how to make friends in Stockholm but I soon found them without expecting them. I started playing tennis at the Kungliga Tennishallen after I had placed an advert around the area. On one occasion, a young lady attending at the courts gave me a hard time. Her continuous apologies later led to her inviting me to meet her family and spend Midsommar with them. I travelled to her family home north of Stockholm for about 40 miles and had a wonderful time there. ///Later, Wania introduced me to her friends in Stockholm, including Hannah, a lawyer and now a most valued friend. A beautiful twist to my visits with Wania’s parents was an invitation to speak about East Africa to the Rotary Club of Stockholm at Gamla Stan. There, one Monday during lunch, I told this group about how we in Africa had gained from the very close friendship between Olaf Palme and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, and how a Swedish donation of bending-buses had modernised transport in Dar-es-salaam. As I attended church services in English in Stockholm and discovered that there were services in Swahili as well, a language I had gained in my teens in Mombasa and Dar-es-salaam! I spoke about Dag Hammarskjold, the UN Secretary General who had died in a plane crash in the Congo, where he had been helping to overcome the friction between the political factions and the mess they had inherited from Belgian rule. I spoke about the noble actions of Raoul Wallenberg, who had saved Jewish families with visas out of Hitler’s clutches. Anybody who knows what Hitler thought of Africans knows that Raoul has to be seen as a friend! ///When my talk was over, I was astonished to learn that a relative of Raoul Wallenberg was in the audience. This same man was also the brother-in-law of Kofi Annan, then the UN Secretary General. Among my listeners was a former commander of the Swedish Army and the great Swedish writer, Olov Svedlid, and many other Swedish professionals. I was deeply touched by their grace and human kindness and the egalitarian spirit with which they had listened and welcomed me.///I spent many days in a café on Kungsgatan, where I made another extraordinary friend, Helena, and was inspired to return daily to working on a new novel I started writing there with the help of glorious hot-chocolates she made for me. Asked to return to London to teach A-level Chemistry by a school there, I gave up Sweden and my plan to apply for residency there. In December of that year, I returned during the post-Christmas period to visit Frida’s family in Laholm. We had a wonderful time sitting round the house, playing carols on the piano or going out to eat and see Laholm and folding origami stars. Their open hearts gave me not just friends but a Swedish family of my own! ///The organisation and care that the Swedes still give to their country in the face of an attitude of apathy in other European countries made for me an indissoluble bond with that country. It reminded me of Uganda when we were still a country with foresight, sense and common sense, a Civil Service to put them to good use and a government that worked. This experience made me determine that Sweden would be part of my life. I am still in London teaching Chemistry and Biology but living in Sweden in my head, recalling my friends there; tennis at the Kungliga Tennishallen, where my heroes Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors and Bjorn Borg often played; the Kungliga Biblioteket, where I read and wrote; the Stockholm Archipelago I visited weekly; the spontaneity of a trip to Helsinki; Uppsala and my family in Laholm.