A cure for Christmas stress in Sweden

We’ve all been there, I’m sure. You work your pan off to get everything done in time. You count down the days until you can break out of the madhouse of pre-Christmas London. Then you’re brought down by the dreaded lurgy.

I was all for cancelling our travel plans and spending Christmas under the duvet. But the Swedish Engineer was having none of it: she’d been promised Christmas in her homeland and it was a promise I was going to keep, even if I had to be med-evaced there.

I don’t really remember arriving in Stockholm. Too much Lemsip, Jameson’s and nasal spray can cloud the memory. But our fellow passengers, all pictures of Swedish health when we boarded at Heathrow, were now engaged in a mass cough-and-splutter at the carousel. I slunk off, trying not to look guilty.

I feared I might be turned away from our hotel as a health risk.