Every house has its story. What's yours?

Our new house, a large, rambling, u-shaped one-floor dream house (at least for us), neatly tucked away on an island in the Stockholm archipelago, came equipped with an unexpected pleasure (or curse, depending on how you care to look at it): in particular, a swimming pool. While a swimming pool carries with it all the expected pleasures of a swimming pool - being able to float on your back and stare at the clouds, dimly visible behind the larger shadow of your beer can; having the need to spend a peaceful, meditative hour or two scooping out birch tree offal with a long glorified fishnet on a stick while your wife attends to and feeds cranky children; and much, much else.

The only problem, really, is that the pool must be emptied at some point before winter's chill converts it into a cracked, crumbling, leaky ruin, like old Uncle Albert, wherever he may be.

Luckily, the former owners of the house have vowed to appear this weekend to help us get the pool in order for the winter before any such dire eventuality occurs. Photo-essay plus a description of what we did and how to come next week...