.... but it didn't quite go like that. We had hoped to be on our way home in time for the Easter hol's but magnetising is always a bit of an open-ended contract; you never know when you're going to start - until it starts - and it ends when it ends.

We continued our appreciation of the local culture but were fast running out of things to see and places to go - we were reduced to looking for shapes and colours to keep ourselves amused.

A glass museum in Växjö sounded promising (we stopped to take a snap of one of the many lakes on the way) but, despite following all the signs, no evidence of the attraction could be found. The only museum building at the end of our trail didn't mention glass and was, in any case, shut.

I don't know if I'm completely bananas or there's something odd about the way I see things, but in defence of my comments vis-à-vis Frank Hornby, there's without doubt a surreal, model-like quality to the image of this siding in Växjö.

Likewise this station vignette, if reproduced in a model railway magazine (you might have to add bases to the people's feet) might pass easily for an example of the modeller's art. When I was first sent to boarding school, in my trunk my father had packed a copy of Railway Modeller - I'm not sure why; aeroplanes were more our thing but, I can recall as if yesterday the comfort derived by the escape from my new and completely alien circumstances into the miniature world created by the master modellers of the day. Every night, in the 15 minutes reading time before 'lights out', I would immerse myself in the pages of that issue - the only issue I ever had; where would I get another from? - and whatever I took from them then, remains with me to this day.

Passing a building down by the docks, I saw this very encouraging poster but a phone call was to disappoint. Out of season, parties booked in advance only were admitted. That's quite a nice drophead Volvo on the right - I've not seen one of those before.

So it seemed that the Marine Museum was the only show in town. I'd been there before and marvelled at the 17th and 18th Century models but the Submarine Hall had been closed.

This time it was open and the submarine 'Neptune', decommissioned in the late 90's was on display. It was a very difficult thing to photograph both inside and out but careful examination revealed the periscope going up through the roof of the building. I was able to see if there was anything going on at the cable factory across the bay - there wasn't; not anything that would involve us anyway.

On the walk back to the hotel I noticed an old friend from my last visits to Karlskrona - the Topaz Installer. I think she's in for some planned maintenance.