In the spring of 2001 Lisa's father drove us to the principality of Nemis in Ladonia,
which had declared its independence from Sweden only six years
earlier. The
drive from Lisa's home town of Malmö to Ladonia,
also situated in Sweden's Southern Skåne province, took a few hours.
Lisa's father was a very enthusiastic, highly knowledgeable man with
something of a short temper. I wish that I had had a chance to talk with
him more.
Nemis was approached from the nearest road by foot, a hike over a steep, woodland hill. It is a sculpture made from drift wood which the artist Lars Vilks had begun to construct in 1980 and is evolving still to this day. Consisting of huge towers connected by walkways, it was quite an adventure clambering up them. Afterwards we swam in the ocean before we realised that lots jelly fish had the same idea.
This is one of the few occasions that I met with Lisa's father. He and Lisa's mother were no longer together and only this once did a visit to Sweden for both Lisa and myself involve meeting up with him. The first time that I did so was shortly before Lisa and I had our first show with the band Miss Mend in the Hope and Anchor pub in Islington but I was too nervous to speak with him or anyone else. Another occasion was our trip to Nemis and the last time we met he visited us at our flat near Liverpool Street.
Neither Lisa nor I liked cannabis but, I think because someone had forgotten it, a huge lump of the stuff had been hanging around the flat and Lisa's dad fancied trying it out again after many, many years. We got very stoned and I gave him a bowler hat which I had bought years before in Cambridge and which he wore for his journey home to his hotel at the end of the evening.
The next time that I saw him he was no longer living and so it was a very sad occasion. He had ignored indigestion for many years but it turned out to be the symptom of a problem far more serious than he could ever have anticipated. Lisa had been visiting him at the hospital in Lund for some weeks and he died of inoperable cancer the very morning I had arrived to visit him myself.
Nemis was approached from the nearest road by foot, a hike over a steep, woodland hill. It is a sculpture made from drift wood which the artist Lars Vilks had begun to construct in 1980 and is evolving still to this day. Consisting of huge towers connected by walkways, it was quite an adventure clambering up them. Afterwards we swam in the ocean before we realised that lots jelly fish had the same idea.
This is one of the few occasions that I met with Lisa's father. He and Lisa's mother were no longer together and only this once did a visit to Sweden for both Lisa and myself involve meeting up with him. The first time that I did so was shortly before Lisa and I had our first show with the band Miss Mend in the Hope and Anchor pub in Islington but I was too nervous to speak with him or anyone else. Another occasion was our trip to Nemis and the last time we met he visited us at our flat near Liverpool Street.
Neither Lisa nor I liked cannabis but, I think because someone had forgotten it, a huge lump of the stuff had been hanging around the flat and Lisa's dad fancied trying it out again after many, many years. We got very stoned and I gave him a bowler hat which I had bought years before in Cambridge and which he wore for his journey home to his hotel at the end of the evening.
The next time that I saw him he was no longer living and so it was a very sad occasion. He had ignored indigestion for many years but it turned out to be the symptom of a problem far more serious than he could ever have anticipated. Lisa had been visiting him at the hospital in Lund for some weeks and he died of inoperable cancer the very morning I had arrived to visit him myself.
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