No word from the lost property people.

In my case, my wallet was not so much ‘lost’ as ‘left’. I know exactly where it was: on the floor in front of my seat on the plane. I’m absolutely convinced it would have been found by now by the plane’s cleaners, and that the finder would hand it in rather than pocket it. I was also hoping the finder would take into account that people who travel on low cost airlines tend not to be millionaires. That they could really, really do with the money back.

Perhaps I’m part of some divine plan, where a cleaner has found themselves in dire need of extra money – the exact amount in my wallet matching the fare to visit their dying relative, say – and this is the way their prayers were answered. Perhaps they’ll see my photo on my card inside the wallet, and think the blond hair means I am a part-time Angel.

In which case, I forgive them. All part of the heavenly service. He said through gritted teeth.

It’s rather hard to shrug ‘heigh ho’ about this one. The best part of £300. All my wages earned on the trip. At a time when I’m barely earning at all. But heigh ho. Heigh ho.

***

So that aside, I had a pretty splendid trip, really.

I did the three sets okay, the musical back-up for Martina Lowden being the main reason I was there. She read a piece in Swedish, telling me it involved a fox, snow, and Love despite everything. I sat to one side and picked out slow, shimmering Robin Guthrie-type melodies in single echoey notes, using digital delay and chorus pedals, trying my best to play under and around her words rather than against her. Though I couldn’t understand her text, I could still use her tone and rhythm to respond in shades of melody.

After I got home, Martina emailed me to say ‘I’m still smiling bigger and brighter than I’ve done for weeks.’ So that made me feel happy.

For my solo set, I played ‘Storytelling Johnny’ and ‘Confused And Proud’, before host Madeleine Grive pulled me back onstage to do a third, ‘Rude Esperanto.’ Just me, my guitar and my laptop. Because the venue was a theatre with fixed seats on a steep incline, and the event a poetry festival, for the first time I could hear my vocals way above the music. Hundreds of people in the audience, and all of them silent and paying attention. Which is rather different to playing rock venues, of course.

A little later, I joined Friday Bridge to sing and play on their song ‘Pigeon’, before ending with Fosca’s ‘It’s Going To End In Tears’. Always interesting to play a dance number in a venue where people can’t stand up to dance. It meant the song became more serene, serious, glacial.

From what I could make out, the audience was a real mixture of literature fans (all ages), and hip festival goers (arty twentysomethings). The nearest London equivalent would be the ICA.

Which reminds me. In Stockholm there’s a chain of supermarkets called ICA. Didn’t go inside one, but I like to think they sell pints of milk rated by Alan Yentob as culturally influential.

The festival was a curious schedule: three separate shows in one day, from 3pm till midnight. I spent much of the Friday recovering from the hangover incurred by the party at the Governor’s palace, but I stuck around afterwards for a drink at the bar. Three parties in three days, including one at the Polish Institute on the Wednesday. Two TV interviews. One morning rehearsal. One sushi dinner with Niklas and Ylva. One meeting with the record company. And lots of being looked after by the kind organisers. Who booked me taxis on account, which I only had to sign for. Who provided backstage catering including little chocolate cubes containing different jelly flavours: orange, mint, Turkish Delight.

Who put me up at the lovely Mornington Hotel with its eat-all-you-like-and-all-you-can-think-of breakfast buffet and its unique ‘library bar’. Thousands of books – some in English – lining the walls while you eat and drink. Not just for show, either: you’re encouraged to borrow them during your stay.

My thanks to Ester, Hanna, Kristina, Anne, Johanna, Hilary, Jessica, and all at 00TAL Magazine whose names I forgot to remember.
***

I wandered about the city for a lot of my stay. Had lunch in a cafe in Stortorget, the ancient square in the Old Town, currently host to a Christmas Market. Lots of sweet-smelling market stalls. I like a town square that smells of sweets. Tried a drink called Glogg, which is a bit like mulled wine, but with a small cup of raisins and almonds on the side. I gathered from the waitress that you’re meant to add the raisins and nuts to the drink and stir it. Very nice, anyway.

I know it’s still too early for Christmas, but Stockholm is a great Christmas destination. They have your actual snow and your actual reindeer. Well, there was snow on the Wednesday.

In the Sweden Bookshop in Slottsbacken, after hours spent wandering a foreign city alone, I bought a Greta Garbo fridge magnet. Seemed like the right thing to do.
***

Popped my groggy (and Gloggy) head into the Nationalmuseum, home to Sweden’s largest art collection (and comparable with the National Gallery in London). Enjoyed an exhibition on Swedish illustrations to Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Which was particulary fitting as I’d brought Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy to read. This is her modern-day take on one of the Ovid myths: the tale of Iphis and Ianthe, a favourite of mine and very probably the first female-to-male transsexual love story.

Girl Meets Boy has a rather excellent opening line:

Let me tell you about when I was a girl, our grandfather says.

When I saw Ms Smith’s book I felt a degree of envy and chagrin, as the Iphis story is the one myth I’d most like to retell myself. But I can still do my version one day.

Set in the world of Inverness bottled water corporations (‘Eau Caledonia’) and drawing on her gift for sisterly relationships (as in The Accidental), Girl Meets Boy has a sweet and dreamy atmosphere, with lots of pop culture references. I’ve complained before how one of the contributors to the Iain Sinclair anthology couldn’t get the title of Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’ right. I was also stunned to read Colm Toibin’s review in the London Review Books of Rupert Everett’s memoirs, where he confesses to never having heard of the actor before:

‘In my head I had him slightly mixed up with Kenny Everett, who was a disc jockey during my youth…’

Ali Smith, on the other hand, gives the impression she does know who Rupert Everett is. Because she peppers Girl Meets Boy with references to Judi Dench in Notes On A Scandal, Johnny Depp in Pirates Of The Caribbean, Daniel Craig coming out of the sea in Casino Royale, and, you guessed it, Facebook. Not in a tokenistic way, but in the way that makes perfect sense when writing about people who live in the real world (and yet don’t quite), and it helps to stop the book taking itself too seriously. If you only write books for people who only read books, you’re in a danger of a kind of literary in-breeding. Authors are meant to have their eyes open to the wider world, not just to the world of books and other authors. Books are meant to be connect, not breed academic ghettos.

Anyway, Girl Meets Boy is also a little thing of gorgeousness to look at: lovely red font for the page headings and embossed title, red endpapers, simple matt white covers with a line drawing and cool Helvetica lettering. For me, this makes all the difference between buying a hardback book (which I rarely do) and borrowing it from the library. That, and it being £2 off in Waterstones.