It seems not.

It wasn't the best week to travel what with all the commotion at Calais coupled with the start of the school holidays but, a magnetising job came up in Sweden and the only way to get there at short notice was to drive. As it turned out, the run down to Dover was less fraught than expected and I and a fellow Magneteer boarded an early morning ferry after a night's stop-over at big sister's near Ashford.

We made good progress through Northern France, Belgium, Holland, Germany (where we stayed for the night in Lubeck) then Denmark and finally Sweden where the rain at last stopped and the skies turned into a scene from the North Norfolk coast.

Countries with a lot of water around them and made up of islands need a lot of bridges and tunnels. The Danes and the Swedes are naturally very good at these sorts of structures and there was some fabulous ironwork along our route. Most notable was the combination of tunnel and bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo. It wasn't there the last time I was in Sweden and it made the crossing very much easier. There was a ferry from Puttgarden in Germany to Rodby in Denmark and as the wind was blowing a good 30 knots plus, we looked forward to an exciting trip. I can't believe I said that; as a child, one look at a boat turned me green and there wasn't a single trooping flight in a 1-11 or Britannia that didn't see me sick as a dog. I fought air-sickness to learn to fly and now it seems I'm fine (but aero's I would still approach with caution).

As we queued for the Puttgarden ferry, several of these kit cars poled up. I don't know what they were but on their bonnets was written Noordkaap 2015. At a guess I'd have said they were on their way to the Arctic Circle in which case chap in the blue and orange job's going to need a hat.

The tunnel through to Sweden combined with the Oresund bridge...

... was a spectacular piece of engineering. Difficult to get a good picture of the whole span from ground level but it's clearer when enlarged. We were heading for Karlskrona - an island on the East side of Sweden - and the high voltage cable manufacturer, ABB. Once there, we were to hook up with the Topaz Installer ..

... and set up the magnetising gear ready for an early start on Monday morning. It was my turn to do the night-shift which in this quiet little spot wouldn't be a problem...

... until I noticed that the main road was blocked through the town and a lot of marquees began to appear outside the hotel. It transpires that the 'Skargardfest' is on this week so while decent hard-working people are trying to get some shut-eye, there's going to be a lot of disgraceful behaviour and popular music going on outside my window.

And we know where that leads to.