It's Not a Beach Hut! - a photo on Flickriver

            As is the custom for a Brit abroad, I only really knew what people were saying when they spoke English.  Luckily for me, it seemed that Steve’s family habitually held their conversations in English at home, despite his wife Petra being a Swede, and their four adult children all having been born and brought up over here.  “Are you speaking English for my benefit?” I asked.  “No, we usually speak English.”  Steve has lived in Sweden for almost all of his adult life, and speaks the language fluently - as far as I can tell.  Occasionally he’d be fishing for the English word for something because he’d forgotten it after living here in Sweden for so many years.  Mind you, I often do that myself and I don’t have a second language to fall back on.

But when spoken, Swedish has an odd habit of sounding distinctly familiar at times. I first noticed this as I binge watched “The Bridge” a few years ago, when it almost sounded as if Saga Norén, the very intense Swedish detective in the series, was occasionally lapsing into English for no apparent reason. She wasn't though. She was speaking Swedish of course. And when a group of kids asked Steve what we were doing here at the lighthouse that looks a lot like a beach hut, I kind of got the jist of what was being said. And although Steve sounds like a born and bred Swede to me, much like so many expats across the globe, something tells the locals that he’s been adopted under the blue and yellow flag.  I was pretty sure he was explaining to them that, yes indeed he was English but lives in Sweden, while his friend was visiting from England.  Of course I could be wrong and he might have been telling them that he was an award winning photographer and I was a useless great baboon who didn’t know one end of my camera from the other.  I can't be sure.  Actually now I come to think of it, I haven’t had this camera for long.  It's not that long since I worked out how to switch in on.  

Even so, I'd armed myself with an impressive range of Swedish vocabulary - as long as I only had to say “hello” or “thank you” and Steve handled the rest of it, then everything would be just fine.  At least as long as he wasn’t telling people I was a useless baboon with no business being behind a camera.  At one point I thought it might be an idea to answer a question with a yes, but for reasons unknown I temporarily forgot which country I was in and opted for “si” instead of “ja.” Rabbits, headlights and a well known phrase.  In my defence, the last country I visited before Sweden was Spain.  Is that an excuse?

Soon we were joined by a grey haired gent, who took shots on his mobile phone and chatted away with Steve in Swedish while I pointed my camera at the ocean.  And once the man realised that my silence was due to linguistic ineptitude rather than good old fashioned rudeness, he neatly segwayed into English as if we’d been speaking it all along.  And if I can’t speak Sweden’s language, it can certainly speak mine.  Of course, living in Cornwall I’m used to looking towards the west - and this seemed so familiar yet so new, watching the storms beyond the skerries moving northwards along the horizon.  “What are you looking to photograph?” asked our new friend.  “The light!” we chorused in response.  Always the light.  

It’s a curious place, this swathe of submissive granite that’s been smoothed and softened into a collection of gently rising and falling marshmallows by the elements.  At the edge, hovering right over the sea sits this equally unusual building.  Yes it is a lighthouse and definitely “not a beach hut” as Steve loudly complained at my gaffe when I was making a video message to send to Ali later.  One lighthouse among many more of them stretching across the vista in front of us, protecting straying seafarers from doom out on those lonely skerries.  It’s the sort of view that says “it doesn’t matter what language you speak - just come and stand here, watch the sea and enjoy the moment.”  

Although of course everyone knows that the Swedish word for "lighthouse" sounds a lot like “beach hut.”  No need to look that up.  Just go with me on this one if you will.

Taken in: Sweden / Västra Götaland / Rinkenäs (show map)

Taken on: September 13, 2025

Tags:

lysekil

Lighthouse

Sweden

Sverige

Cloud

clouds

sky

seascape

Sea

skagerrak

north

North Sea

ocean

water

sunset

golden hour

Nikon

Europe

Scandinavia

travel

landscape

landscape photography

glow

Coast

coastal

Stångehuvuds

Stångehuvud

Bohuslän

Cumulonimbus « less

Sets appears in: • Scandinavia 2025 • Sweden

Groups appears in: • Sweden • Lighthouses of the World more » • Scandinavian Delight • "SEASCAPE" • Flickr Social Club • Flickr Social « less

Camera: Nikon Z 7_2, f/10.0, 1/6 sec, 28mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 7_2
Lens:	NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR
Aperture:	f/10.0
Exposure Time:	0.167 sec (1/6)
Focal Length:	28mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	+1/3 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 14.5.1 (Macintosh)
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