Which is Better, to Regret After Doing Something or About Not Doing It?

I met my wife and Julia in front of the cinema at four o’clock. Both were wearing blue helmets and pushing red bicycles. It was obvious what they had been doing. My wife said they had been cycling on bicycles that they had rented from the hotel. The bicycles had no changeable gears and they did not look very convenient to ride in hilly Stockholm. I asked the both ladies whether they had enjoyed cycling.

‘It was a bit difficult to ride through the crowded streets in the city centre, but it was nice and fresh to ride alongside the canals outside the city,’ said Julia.

My wife asked me whether I had enjoyed the Vallander film.

‘Not really.’ I answered.

‘The film was totally different from the original and I cannot understand why they changed such an interesting story so much. It was unnecessary. I regret watching the film.’

‘If you had not watched the film, you would regret about not doing so. Anyway, I think it is much better for you to regret after doing something than to regret about not doing it,’ she said.

I was admired by her prompt comment for my current situation.

I asked Julia, the bookworm, whether she had heard the name of the Nick Hornby book which the man in the café had recommended me.

‘Yes, I have read the book before. It was quite interesting, although not all of Hornby’s books are interesting.’

Her comment was exactly the same as the one made by the man in the café. The book seemed worth reading.

We returned the bicycles at the hotel and went out to the shopping street, Drottninggatan (for how many times? I did not know any more.) We wanted to buy some souvenir for my son, Wataru and youngest daughter, Monika. We discussed about what to buy for them and decided to buy T-shirts with a typical Swedish design. We could see a lot of T-shirts in yellow and light blue in the shop windows. Of course this colour combination came from the Swedish national flag which was made by a yellow cross on a light blue background. Needless to say, all the uniforms of Swedish national teams, such as ice hockey or football, have the same colour combination. I had no intention to buy anything for myself, but after being surrounded by yellow and blue, I bought a light blue jumper.

After buying T-shirts for her brother and sister, Julia bought a banner of ‘Led Zeppelin’ for herself. I could not understand how it could be a souvenir of Sweden, but the important thing was that she liked it and satisfied with it.

While we were shopping, we found it was a bit difficult to judge whether a price in Swedish Krona was cheap or expensive. 14 Krona is equivalent to 1 British Pound. So, we have to divide the price in Krona by 14 to know its value in Pound.

‘Umm…180 divided by 14 comes…’

While my wife and I were calculating in head, Julia always found the correct answer. She could beat the abacus teacher and computer programmer in mental arithmetic!

We went into a Spanish Tapas Bar after finishing our shopping. In the bar, we ordered various small Tapas dishes. We enjoyed our last meal in Stockholm eating a lot of different kinds of foods. On the big screen in the bar, a football match was being shown. It was the play-off for the third place of the Confederation Cup in Germany.