On the way to a merry time

I can't believe just how stressed I am about the coming holiday season. A time to remember to best happening in the world, meet friends and family, revive family feuds that were in danger of fizzling out and keeping other fine traditions. I do't know whether it's just lacknof practice, but just the trip over is giving me spots. All we are doing is taking the 5:24 train to Göteborg, staying in a hotel over night and leaving at 5.20 am to go to the airport. I suspect that the logistics of trying to see everyone we want to, which we haven't managed to do, was too much for me. Especially as Christmas is not really the best time to meet up, what with everyone travelling too. And the cat! Would she come back from her morning prowl? Arggghhhh.
Poor, poor Graham. He ended up getting quite stressed too.

I know I've already forgotten my leather gloves and only have my warm mittens.

Still, after a day getting ready for a heart attack, we're sitting in the hotel room watching Jul med Ernst (thoroughly recommended) and chilling, waiting for the flight tomorrow morning and the bigger city at a much warmer temperature.

Snow, snow, snow

The swing under the apple tree

 Some pictures from the recent snow.  It's gone up to +2 for the last couple of days, but not all the snow has melted and it's going below zero again, so there are hopes for a white Christmas.

Hang the washing out?

Driving through the forest

The Road into Bet

Our house with the Advent lights.

A Goal to Aim for

One of my dreams is that when I grow up I'll be organised, disciplined and good at something I can make money out of. I have got one out of three, but am slightly despairing of reaching the Meatloaf ideal of 2 out of 3 not being bad. I haven't even finished The Purpose Driven Life! Though it is rather good and I would recommend it, only if it makes you face stuff you'd really rather not.

When I was young I wanted to be the CEO of the World Health Organisation. When I was a little older I thought that CEO of a hospital would be fine. Now it's the Mad Woman in the Forest I'm aiming for. I have the one cat, but must admit that the bourgeoise husband is a bit of a handicap. I'm also at a bit of a loss on how to make a living, ideally something that involves no sense of discipline or personal responsibility at all.  I suppose hippydom would be OK, but I'm not really keen on a scraggy beard, wearing purple and 50 children and again, the husband is not keen on the concept of a yurt.

Accordingly, having read several (american, so it must be right) web sites, I am announcing my goal to the world. Well, at least to the approx 3 people who read this blog. (does that count?) This apparantly makes me more accountable and more likely to have drive and self belief. I do believe that I exist and I know who I am, but this is No Enough! Whatever...

Anyway- I announce that I will be (ed- should read am!) an artist and will hold my first exhibition the week after Easter 2013.

Driving through the Snow...

There are things my driving instructor, though marvellous, didn't tell me. Here is a short list:

1). When it's very cold and snowy, bits of the car's bottom can stick to the ground.  When you drive away,you will leave them behind. Don't worry though, the engine hasn't dropped out after 40km, yet.

2). In the cold 50 tonne blocks of ice will fall off lorrries into the middle of the road. I have no idea what to do when faced with one of these.  Swerve and possibly go off the road or into on coming traffic? Drive over? Hit? It appears they disappear rather than avoid a face off... So far....

3). The doors can freeze fast shut. With you in. Driving. I have developed good hip flexibility and thank God for my all ready powerful thighs.

4). Mad locals are mad locals whatever the weather. Salt stops working at around -10, but hey! Why let that stop a good fast drive down the middle of the road.

5) if it snows and is below -5C the windscreen doesn't freeze. Result! No scrapping the windows in the morning or wrapping up large sheets of plastic.

6) you will come to love seat warmers and steering wheel warmers with a deep and abiding passion. Our car has neither.

7). Don't park using your brakes. Don't lock the car.  
This means completely relearning everything I was taught about parking, however, brakes freeze as do locks. They sell lock antifreeze in handbag/pocket size, presumably for town use. I couldn't imagine not locking the car in towns. It's the sequence of events needed to park and unpark the car that is staving off dementia at the moment.

Entering the Dark Side

I’d always know that the Swedes didn’t like show-offs, but I thought that they’d always pursued excellence, being a very practical people.  However, I hadn’t realised the full extent to which the society had been warped by austerity and the ruling classes and that it was encapsulated in the term Jantelagen.  We read an extract from a novel written in the 1930s in my Swedish class. The book was set in a small town and describes a boy growing up and his attempted escape.  Of course, it was based on real life and caused somewhat of a sensation at the time. 

The author described the 10 commandments that were more real to the lives of the townsfolk than the real 10 commandments.  They go a long way to explain why Scandinavia has such a high alcoholic and suicide rate, why people hate the church, and the behaviour of various relatives, but why the church took these and ran with them I don’t know, though can guess.   I was totally horrified by them, so here they are, and here are some of the things the Bible has to say about them.  Add your own!

1.    You're not to think you are anything special.
Ephesians 1:4, 1 Peter 2:9, John 15:19, John 3:16.

2.    You're not to think you are as good as us.
1 Corinthians 12:26

3.    You're not to think you are smarter than us.
1 Corinthians 12:26

4.    You're not to convince yourself that you are better than us.
1 Corinthians 12:26, Romans 12:10, Romans 14:1

5.    You're not to think you know more than us.
Matthew 13:11, Romans 15:14, 1Corinthians 8:1

6.    You're not to think you are more important than us.
Romans 12:10

7.    You're not to think you are good at anything.
1 Corinthians 12:7, James 5:17, I Corinthians 10:31

8.    You're not to laugh at us.
Proverbs 14:9, Psalm 52:6, Romans 12:15.

9.    You're not to think anyone cares about you.
John 21:16, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Philippians 4:10-16, Matthew 25:35-40, James 1:27,  

10. You're not to think you can teach us anything.
Romans 12:7, Luke 11:52

Of course it’s wrong to boast, be prideful, to discriminate, to mock and think you are better than everyone else, and there are a gazillion verses about that, there is a balance.  However, it’s when we look for the best in others, encouraging that, that the best comes out in us. “Accepting one another”.  My Bible hero is Barnabas, because I always wish that I had had encouragement and so much want others to have the encouragement I can give them.  Fail too many times of course, but at least I try and have Jesus to thank for that!

I should also say that society is recognising things and trying to change positively. It'll be a while before we turn into America.....

Life of Leisure?

Graham has decreed that I need to get a job. Therefore, being a dutiful wife and also wondering why I keep going over budget, I duly went to the Arbetsförmedling office in Mullsjö.  M is smaller than Jönköping, so I thought there would be less hanging around.

After hanging around for a bit (and with 3 people coming in after me - worrying or what!), I got called into the office and we looked at each other. "errh, I haven't got a job and would like one?" I said, "I assume that's the right question?".  He looked at me and smiled. "If we had a box of jobs, you would get one straightaway".  Bless 'im.  He showed me how the website worked, told me to fill in the bits, was well impressed I'd got my CV already (???what??? how can that be impressive???)

Anyway, went home and filled in the website pages, in between baking for the Sewing Mafia's annual auction.  It was quite easy, though there was a bit for "what skills do you have that you don't use for your normal job" that was difficult. You had to choose from a drop down list as well and they didn't have 'playing Zelda', which was probably just as well as I'm not really that good at it.  I put down embroidery and gardening on the grounds that one of the ladies in our knitting group got a job at Volvo because they figured that her sewing skills meant that she was good at assembling small bits and working out what to put where when things went wrong. Good call!
It was also a bit like Twitter cos you have to do a job description in 220 characters. I hope the employers deduce that conciseness is a skill that totally belongs to me, notwithstanding a liking for sentences that could be out of Dickens or the Puritans.

If I'm totally marvellous, and there are zillions of jobs for my admittedly somewhat esoteric skill set, someone could call me this minute, but the Man At Mullsjö said to come on Friday and he'd talk me through the next bit.  I've even got his card and an officially signed bit of paper.  

The Breath of Life

Well, what a summer!  I was wondering why I was so tired and put it down to a combination of lots of visitors, viruses and de-stressing (I cannot believe how much I had been affected by the NHS changes).  However, I sat in my chair one day and just didn’t get up until bedtime.  I had to make myself get up to go to the loo.  Didn’t feel ill, didn’t hurt, didn’t ache, didn’t feel anything, and didn’t want to do anything.  I could make myself do something if the necessity was enough, but I was very slow doing it and puffed and panted like I was running a marathon (not that I’ve ever run a marathon, but...).  This, for me, is frankly weird, so I phoned the doctor.

As soon as I spoke to the triage nurse, she said “have you got asthma?”. I had completely forgotten my asthma and I’m not quite sure that she thought I was all there.  When I was diagnosed the first time, I had the most terrible whooping cough that had caused all the registrars to come from their room to gather around my convulsing body and hum to each other. Bless, they were cancer docs so basically didn’t have a clue, but it was very amusing.  Not a hint of a cough this time! Anyway, I trotted down and got some inhalers, sold what remained of my body to pay for them and now have to spent the rest of my life and those of my niece and nephew down the mines to pay for the inhalers.

When I went to see the asthma nurse, she said that it would take months to get back to normal, due to the fact that my tubes were almost closed and it had been going on for some years.  Oooh er....

So I’m hoovering every day, (central vacuum system, marvellous for this type of thing) and trying to go for a walk or cycle every day. After 6 weeks, I can now do 4 things a day, (hurrah) unless I forget to hoover, like over this weekend,  when it all goes rapidly downhill.  It’s incredible how much we are dependent on getting enough oxygen and how easily things can sneak up on one.

There is also the fraught question of what to do with the cat.  Should one get rid of a living creature, who is really very attached to us (yes, you sceptics, it is us, not the territory) and to whom we are also much attached just because I can’t breathe? Ah, I’ll just have to see.

The thing that really worries me at the moment is that I promised Graham that I’d go to the Labour Exchange/Job Centre and I’m not going to be able to hold down a job at the moment. Oh well, just suck it and see, as it were....

The Causes of Ructions

Major, and I mean major, cultural differences do tend to crop up in the most surprising areas.  Take for example

1) the place of moss on a roof - Swede: Arggghhhhh, wash it off NOW!
                                                 Brit: Oooooh, how lovely
2) the place of plaits on a woman - Swede: Oooh, how lovely
                                                      Brit: Arghhhhh, cut them off NOW!
3) the place of bananas on a pizza - Swede: Ooooh, how tasty
                                                      Brit: Argggghh, take them off NOW and I'm washing my mouth out!

and these sorts of things cause wars.....

Hamming it up in Autumn

Autumn is definitely in full swing and I'm keeping a close eye on the elderberry tree next door. I really must buy the wine making bucket and airlock in the paint shop (??? I don't know why there either, but hey).

With the chill in the air and the heating on, thought turn (natch) to comforting, warm, lovely food. It's great how easy it is here to get ham hocks/jointed gammon and I picked one up the other day on special offer from the local supermarket as I had some orange juice and needed to use it up.
The recipe was honey and marmalade gammon.  When I got home, I realised there was a slight technical hitch in that whilst I had the orange juice, I didn't have honey, marmalade, whole cloves or ginger.  So I had to adapt and the result got the thumbs up from both Graham and the cat (who will turn somersaults for it).  I've tried to make the receipe work internationally..

Red berry Ham

Put your ham into as small a saucepan as can be.  Cover with orange juice and water mix.  Put in an onion studded with cloves (I used an onion and put in some ground cloves). Boil for 2-3 hours depending on the weight of the ham.

Take out and keep the stock for dried pea soup. Discard the skin.

Mix lingon jam (or cranberries or another tart berry depending on what country you're in) with a Dijon style mustard according to taste. (approx 5tbsp jam to 2 tsp mustard, but hey).  Smear all over the ham and bake for about 35-45 minutes.

Eat.

A patch of my own

I was very worried that I would miss the lingon season (aren’t we all!), but, fortunately the doc found out that the not being able to breathe and being extremely tired was due to resurgence in my asthma.  Quite why it’s chosen to come back now is anyone’s guess, but nevertheless ... probably all this clean air. (Anders, it’s your sawmill!! J)  So I decided to celebrate the beginning of my resurgence by trying to find the lingon patches I’d noticed up an old track in the hills to the north.  After cycling up the hill, well, I say cycling, I mean – after cycling on the flat bits and the slight slope, I get off, try and start breathing again, check which pocket the phone is in case I collapse on the right side and need to ring the emergency services, walk the rest of the hill. After that, what I failed to notice previously was that the first lingon patch is over a ditch, which is filled with that moss stuff, which grows in water and is about 6m long. Humm, I didn’t bring my wellies, which is a big mistake in a forest (yet another thing they don’t show in adventure films!). Oh well, try a bit further on and there it was. Behold - A large rock with trees growing on top of it surrounded by a glowing mass of lingon and no ditch!  As rocks tend to have a severe lack of water, I knew I’d be safe with my trainers and so I was.  It was marvellous, piles of the things, I picked 2.5kg in an hour, give or take a few minutes spent breathing.  All the other patches of lingon in the area have been completely picked clean by ravening locals or ravening town dwellers that come out in fine weather, park in sidings and pick berries/mushrooms/anything else that is lying around. So it’s my very own local lingon patch, known only to me and several ruminants. Hurrah.

I suppose I should say that the English for lingon is cowberry. It’s much nicer than cranberry having a richer taste and is slightly tarter. Cranberries are, in fact, lingon lite.

Party On

Last Saturday we gave our first party in Sweden.  I mention this not because it was particularly funny, strange or abnormal that we should have a party, (although only one in a whole year...), but because of the gifts.

Having said that, I should qualify it by saying it wasn’t particularly funny, strange or abnormal for us, however, as my 104yr old grandmother said “it wasn’t Swedish at all (pause), I had a good time though” (bless,  It must have been a good party. This from the woman who thought it a shame that bananas couldn’t grow in Sweden as they would taste better.).  Incidentally, she bought a gift of home baked biscuits.

It was a combined housewarming/1 year in Sweden anniversary/oooh look, we’ve just had summer/hey, what the hell party, so we were expecting a certain amount of flowers, which is the traditional housewarming gift and this is the traditional country.  Naturally the people we invited were all totally lovely, so we thought the standard of flowers would be quite good. Well, what can I say and there were others too!

1)      Flowers:  Horsenden Hill Allotment and Garden Association eat your heart out.  The dahlias and other assorted garden flowers would have walked the first prizes at the shows, no worries. 

2)      Book (oh yes....) “things to do in Sweden” book – inspired, given the number of visitors we have got (booking for next year opening in January)

3)      Home- made squashes – these have to be tasted to be believed. A home-made squash is truly awesome and I have estimated that I need 10 hectares of berry bushes to keep me in squash for the year. One of the bottles contains a blackcurrant concoction that is made to the receipt devised by my great-great cousin – get that!!! The tea jar can come under here as I may appropriate it for biscuits. It makes sense honestly!

4)      Home-made/local produce jams – including a blueberry jam where the berries had been picked that morning and was still warm. And lime curd from England!

5)      A huge chunk of moose meat – from the local forest.  Can’t wait to cook it and have the red wine (see no 10) with it.

6)      Several orchids and other houseplants, including several chrysanths with a bowl to pot up for the porch. 

7)      Home-made crisp bread – I can’t make crispbread until the maker of these dies, cos I just can’t compete.

8)       Cakes – oh the cakes..... I will give the red currant cake receipt in a future blog. It is really rather nice. Haven’t eaten the chocolate or coconut one yet, but I will, oh yes, I will. (oh and Graham might get some too)

9)      Cash – someone gave us something to get something for the home, which was incredibly sensible as they would have had no idea of our taste and it turns out to be totally different.

10)   Wine – this was the second main difference with London parties.  We got 2 bottles of wine.  Yes, that’s right, two. Whereas normally you’d have more than you started with (approx 40 for a party of 3 people), here there are rather a lot of rabid teetotallers, so we had to discreet with the wine and people who did drink were very restrained. We did have one English chap to the party and he drank, so that was OK. (no national stereotypes there then).

11)   Choccies – what can I say?  The drug of choice.

 12)   Eggs  - the most gorgeous colours to the shells, subtle pastel shades from happy, contented local hens that I’ve seen.

So, great neighbours, lovely people, great food.  What more could you ask?  Another party!!!!! yeahhhh

Still, Mustn't Grumble

It’s the Olympics and everyone (rephrase: everyone in the media) is getting terribly excited about the World’s Greatest Sporting Event and, let’s face it, one of the world’s biggest events.  Just to remind you that it happens once every four years and was last in London way, way before my lifetime and probably won’t be there again whilst I’m alive.

Again, the world’s biggest and greatest sporting event is starting in London and it’s on for 3 weeks.  The person interviewed on the news this morning was just totally typical of the soul destroying, dust grinding, jaw clenching, constant, oh so constant irritations of the UK health and social system.  I say HSS because the person interviewed afterwards didn’t work in that milieu and was cheery and positive. Oh this woman moaned....

Reminder -  GREATEST EVENT for THREE WEEKS ONCE A LIFETIME! 

She worked in Newham as a Mental Health Worker and lived in Brixton, she cycled to work so had no travel disruption. The reason that she was totally fed up with the Olympics and wished London had never got it was....... some meetings had been postponed until after the Olympics, and some clients had difficulty getting in. I’m not even going to go into locality of clients (for those who don’t know, Newham is not large) and the mental health benefits of walking. Errh, which bit of GREATEST EVENT EVER!!!! aren't you getting?? And to think I had to put up with the constant mental rubbing of this sort of attitude every day.

Oh the marvellousness of living in a culture that encourages positivity. We had a whole lot from Proverbs last night and this just shows – ‘A cheerful look brings joy to the heart’. ‘Pleasant words are a honeycomb,  sweet to the soul and healing to the bones’, and ‘A cheerful heart is good medicine,’

Still, mustn’t grumble.

I think there's something happening out there

About 8 years ago, I was walking from my flat in Shepherd’s Bush to work and realised that it was late May and I hadn’t notice Spring. 3 years ago I walked in the bit of Epping Forest near work and there were about 3 species of grass, daisies, dandelions and 2 other flowers, in 2 miles. Oh a few trees, about 5 species.  Even Horsenden Hill hasn't that much diversity, though Perivale Wood is better.

One of the best things about holidaying in the summer house here was the smell.  You just have to be here, but the upper notes of the pines in the sunshine, the earth and the damp vegetation with the occasional doft of the wild flowers and fruits. It’s just unbelievable and I could have spent all my time just breathing... (Ed – errrh, is there something you should be telling us?  Alien lifeform perhaps??).

London dulls things: you train yourself not to see, not to smell, not to notice anything but where the best restaurants and bars are, who is the next celebrity. You forget that in the winter, the only colours are black, gray and white, with splashes of diamond, gold and burgundy.  There is no smell or sound in the forest when the temperature is  -15C.   Here, you are cut off, bundled up and turn in to yourself and your home, where the family and noise of the house make cooking smells the best and the colour comes from the lights in the windows, the curtains, the pictures and the people.

The wait for spring is palpable. As the snow melts, the landscape turns amber, brown, chestnut, russet, chocolate and tan. There are elusive wafts of damp earth and musk.  Then a film of green. Suddenly the grass is out and the stars have fallen under the trees.  The wood anemones dapple the ground under the deciduous trees and are everywhere.  As the temperature rises the smell comes back, gradually, not to scare us and the birds start singing.

Then the full scale assault of late spring and early summer starts.  Quite frankly, you need ear plugs for the bird song. The sun comes down in all the meadows as great drifts of dandelions fill the countryside.  There is barely time to draw breath before the lupins start.  A Monet painting is as nothing, a pale shadow of colour. Every one is a different colour and are framed by the Queen Anne’s Lace frothing all over the place.   As for going for a walk! Every step is filled with pleasure, “oh look there’s some Lily of the Valley, and some blue things, and some more blue things and some other pink stuff.” How many grasses are there, for goodness sake! Not to mention sedges and other straggly things.   Fields of sorrels turning every shade of red.

After that, things settle down in high summer.  There are many more types of flower, but they are more restrained, less “look at me”, just so many of them and then again you can spend more time eating than walking. Blueberries, wild strawberries, wild raspberries and then the lingon (cowberry), though the last can only be eaten in jam stuff, to be fair. And the smell!  Just totally and utterly gorgeous.  The feeling of lying on a little beach with the whisper of the breeze in the birches, the scent of the pines and the lapping of the water, with a few birds chirping away and the sun on your skin –ahhhhh.

Then autumn.  Mushrooms, earth, the smell of the burning wood, the feel of wool against the skin, the hunt and the golds and brunettes of the woods and fields bring you down the the glistening, soft whiteness of the first snow and shutdown.

Anyway, it’s not that you’re not going to notice! No chance of missing that lot.  In fact, sometimes, because I hadn’t had any time away from London and work for about 2 years, I had to come in and bury my head under a quilt because it all was a bit too much for my poor senses.

To quote my friend BA “why do you want to come here, it’s just a load of trees”.....

The proving of the bil

Oscar, my first car, was due his MOT, so I dutifully booked him in via the internet, as I’m terribly modern. We duly made our way 20km away , down the motorway, downer the big long hill into Jönköping and downest into the factory/warehouse region that housed the MOT centre.  After booking into the automachine in the somewhat scruffy unmanned office on the side, I waited with an old lady in the shade.  We exchanged a few ‘lovely weather’ comments and the registration plate number came up on the large board outside.  I, with it has to be said, with much trepidation, drove into the large garage area, got out and went to the coffee machine.  Oscar was hooked up to tubes, wires and general gubbins and the mechanics set to.  About 7 minutes later, much in the manner of a doctor coming to tell someone they had only a week to live, the mechanic came into the waiting area and said that the brake cables were gone and they were going to have to fail Oscar and I wouldn’t be allowed to drive away.  Well!  I was a bit taken aback to say the least.  However, common sense prevailed and sanity returned.

The little old lady gave me a lift to the station, bless her and I caught the bus 2 hours later back to Bottnaryd, where I happened to meet a neighbour  and cadged a lift back.  The marvellous BA and his family came to the rescue, despite going to a festival that evening and Graham and Jacob went to tow the car back to the garage at Bottnaryd last night.  I mused on the wisdom of going somewhere in flipflops and driving shoes that were no good for walking and mismatched clothes that were unsuitable for walking or display in town.  I will always now present a suitable image, no matter where I go and also be prepared to walk several miles.

Graham and I went there this afternoon to see what we could get sorted and found the garage was shut for July.  Hummmm, we’ve only got 4 weeks to get it sorted.  This could be fun.

(bilprovening = MOT)

Annual Outing - Part II

Midday came and went as we wended our way through the countryside, passed the crane’s lake, some barrows that could have housed trolls and wights, but didn’t.  Just as well really as they make a terrible mess.  In the middle of rolling countryside was a house, a soldier’s humble house, painted red and lonely on the side of the mountain.  It was surrounded by landscaped gardens and enormous barn and extensions housing a theatre, museum, baked goods shop and several banqueting halls.   I do believe that there was also a family house somewhere there as well.  We sat down and looked at each other, then at the hair of the hostess and sat in rapt admiration of the colour and set, which combined with the heels and organisational skills was absolutely awesome. Jet black beehive flick – fabulous.  It just set us up for lunch of salads and mixed fish gratin.  And then.....

Another groups of mostly women came in, some bearing knitting needles.  Well! Sorry, but there’s only room for one handcraft group in this hall.  There was muttering, there was murmuring, there was rummaging in bags. I was just about to whip out my 0.15 crochet hook when proof came that there was a God of peace.  Lo, a family group came in with the teenage daughter wearing a waistcoat of such 1970’s crochet spectacularness that we all laid down our needles in homage.  Oh, it was lurid, it was clashing and masterly in its execution.  We had our cake and left in silence, musing on the way that life could have gone.

So we rolled on.

I was convinced that this would now be our last stop. After all, how much more excitement could a body take? We turned up at a such cute house with a huge, huge extension.  It was the home of an artist with an extremely long suffering wife.  He collects. Everything. I mean, everything. He’d also just bought up an old grocery shop – everything in the shop, everything! It was fascinating how much stuff could be fitted into one extension, and as he was a TV personality too, E had arranged for him to speak to us as a special treat.  Little did I know what horrors awaited.  We went into a room as requested and stood waiting for him. I knew something was amiss when he positioned himself in a chair in the doorway. My gaze gradually took in the contents of the shelves around the room, my eyes grew wider and wilder. The chap himself then took my gaze. Yes, there were the sandals; and the socks; and the jumper; and the beard and........ the accordion.  I was in a room with millions of accordions and someone was about to play! Now I know why he sat in the door, it was to cut off our escape route – Arghhhhhh. 

As he played and anecdoted, my horrified gaze rested on the rest of the audience, but there was no rest to be had.  They were smiling, and nodding to the ‘music’. He was a master of the instrument, but we all know what price there is to pay for such a thing.

I applauded with the rest of the poor lost souls, just because it was damn good manners to do so, then escaped past the watercolours  and tottered into the sunshine to be revived by the sight of a chestnut horse being ridden under the wild cherry trees with marshmarigolds lining the  green lane.

Off we rolled down a little valley, with the cutest houses complete with sheep and random hanging fox corpses. We stopped for coffee when the valley broadened out into the graves.  There were literally millennia of them.  Thousands from various stages of history, it was so the place to be buried. Unless you were modern and died either in the last few hundred years or are intending to die. Why it’s gone out of fashion after thousands of years is beyond my understanding. I blame the young people of today, no sense of history, humph.

And on we rolled!  Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a woman in a little town who decided to collect embroidered wall hangings. Absolutely everyone in the entire country had at least one and of course, there were popular motifs and verses.  It was absolutely the best when something original come up.  Folk art at its best in my opinion.  Then someone made the mistake of asking the person in charge of the exhibition questions.  Once again I was left reflecting on the graciousness, manners and kindness of these sewing women. The teenager ‘in charge’ didn’t have a clue about anything, personally I doubt she would have been able to give her full name, and I would have ripped her to shreds, but everyone listened to her read (badly) the sheet she found in a drawer and thanked her for her time.  I am sooooo bad and she is now no doubt a better person.

After all the excitements  and as it was getting really quite late (translation for Londoners – late afternoon), we agreed that it was now time to wend our way homewards, replete with cheeses, cakes and coffee, images of cherries and primroses.  And I won a breadbasket in the bus ticket lottery. Result. Roll on next year!

Musings

How is it possible to go for a nap with a cold on Monday and get up on Thursday feeling that you've gone through a mangle?

How is it possible that in 3 days, the weeds grow at least 10m, whilst the other plants just die a bit more?

How can the ironing pile grow without having done any washing?

Where do dust bunnies come from? 

Is summer over yet?

just liked this.

Annual Outing - Part I

Goodness, when the Bet Sewing Mafia do their annual outing, they don’t cut corners or do anything by halves.  It’s such good value for money that this account has to be cut in two or it’ll be an epic saga in it’s own right. 

Part I

It was a cold and gray day in mid May. My loins were girded, my faithful enchanted travel bag (Cath Kidson carrier) held firmly in one hand, emptied of all but cash and a few useful items, axe, dragon eggs and so on.  And so I waited at 8 of the clock at the gate of entry to the forest.  The intrepid E, he of the uber-Swedeness, was driving our plucky, yet strangely comfortable for a saga, carriage which in the dim light was seen to be packed with sewing heroines from all necks of the local woods.  Naught but the dauntless leaders knew where we were going (and E of course), so the excitement and ferment were fermenting.

Dauntless we rallied forth to the first adventure, which was a dairy outside Fälkoping.  Twas the stuff trendy London dreams were made of, peradventure the weather was pants.  The rain slew near, the wind howled about the heads of the Valkyries as they gathered sedately under the apple trees.  There was no gainsaying the cheese sampling and and our souls were purchased as we recklessly streamed to the shop and were enchanted into having seconds. 

Forthwith, the gallant E braved the highways and byways, strewn with wild cherries, cowslips and ostrich homesteads. (yeah, ostrichs! And!!) and henceforth the bold Valkyries entered the Alphem Aboretum. After slaying the dragons at the entrance, we had coffee and cake as our just reward.  Mead, though the stuff of legends, is filled with devilish poison and saps the strength of the brave, so is not to be borne by the true warrior. (they’re like teetotal, whatever, dude).  And so, after gazing with raptness at the beauty created from the blasted heath (and the like, totally cute small house thing), we pondered the lesson that although you can teach yourself to read and drag yourself up from a backwoods small holding to be one of the world’s experts in tree growing, you too will die. That and when on an adventure, t’is best to have warm and sturdy foot coverings.

And so the noon sun rolled out and twas with upfilled hearts that the valiant band wended its way towards the midday meal and our next battle...... to be continued...

Settling down??

What a month!  I'm so sorry for having been away, but we've moved.  Internet is non-existent at our new place, so we've had to come up to the summerhouse to get connected.  how many hours do you spend on the internet? Well.... !!! no wonder I never get anything done.
Yes we've moved, Graham has made the decision and I've gone "errhh, yes, OK".  There's nothing like a firm decision to bring on homesickness.  Probably the sensory overload of all this nature as well.  You don't get anything like that in London!  We've moved to a little hamlet and have a 5 room house that you have to duck through the doorways.  It's hired, but the rent isn't that much.  Graham has sheds and a workshop, so is  a happy bunny.
He's started work again after the accident and is just finishing his first week of 2hrs/day. He'll be half time next week.
Next step - find a job for me.  The good news is that I really want one now.  The bad news is that there is a lots of reporting of joblessness etc - It's the 80s all over again!  I really am starting a new life, albeit with suspicious echoing of the past...

Peaceful Days, Restful nights

When one takes a year off, one thinks that all hassle and rush will be over.  Life will consist of swanning around with cocktails and long walks in the forest, preferable also with cocktails. Pah, and again I say, pah! After 7 months of recovering from the NHS, gazing at the walls and gibbering ,with occasional long walks on a therapeutic basis, one returns to normal energy levels, looks around at said walls and thinks, hum, they need redecoration, and that curtain isn’t straight and I’d quite like to get out now please.

Of course, what we’ve done in the last few days would have been the work of but a few hours back in the old days, but, in mitigation, we are slightly out of practice.

Last week, I got a nasty, but short lived virus, so after being sofa bound (back to the ole comforting walls) for a few days, we went to my grandmother’s on Friday afternoon and met up with my uncle and his family including a dog and a four year old.  After a few hours of that we went to help out at a local youth group.  I’ve never played on one of those dance mat things before.  Apart from the “I’ve so got to have one of these” factor, they are jolly tiring.  I randomly threw my feet around more or less willy-nilly and quite, quite astoundingly, they landed on some of the circles at the right time!  Amazing what they will come up with nowadays... Perhaps they should market a Tant Dance.  Ooh how will that translate? let’s see...... Mad Aunt Dance!  The Youth (we have youth here, not yut) were pleased to inform me that my pigtails were hyper fashionable and not too young for me – RESULT!

 After several hours of hangin’ (oh it took me back!) we all trooped upstairs for a gig with a chap playing a guitar and his dad talking about Forgotten Children. At 11pm we trooped downstairs again.  I thought that everyone here went to bed at 9.30!!  What happens? Does everyone suddenly get a sensiblesness transplant when they reach 21? There’s probably some sort of government department with regulations and own bureaucracy.

AND THEN the next day we trotted off to view a house, went to the local market for plants and got some tickets for a concert that evening!  What??? What were we doing?? Still he did very well for a white boy from Norway singing jazz soul.  In fact, the bass player was almost as good as Ben Reed, but not quite, obviously! And it was the first time I’d danced since coming here (yesterday could not be described as dancing, I’ll have you know).  Just as well I’ve reached the age where I don’t care what I look like; such a relief.

The Sunday service next day made me wonder how such a musical people can come up with and stay with such crap for their worship songs. So that was something to talk about with God as I sat on the sofa and downed tonnes of painkillers for the muscle induced headache (too much flinging, it would seem).

And as a grand finale, we had the Beth Sewing Mafia with Added Grandmother around here on Monday evening.  So that entailed a complete redecoration of the house and relandscaping whilst cooking a pavlova and slicing fruit, veg, meat, cheese, bread, random cats and anything else that strayed across the worksurface.  (the cat won’t do that again!).

I tell you, when I got my glasses muddled up and downed a pint of wine as I sat and breathed again, I said Never Again...... quothe the raven...........

The Perfect Home...?

We’ve been here 7 months now and I’m quite sure that I’m not yet a captain of industry because of the inordinate amount of time that housework seems to take up.  There’s the sweeping, rug shaking, dusting, composting, washing sinking as well as hovering and scrubbing.  I’m sure I never did this much in London, well, I didn’t cos I had a cleaner. But it took me about 25 years to realise that the skies would not fall in, volcanoes wouldn’t explode in the street and the entire Western civilisation would not collapse in a smouldering ruin if I didn’t wash the bathroom at least 3 times a week.  This is because ‘doing housework’ is genetically programmed into Swedes and the houses are generally immaculate and incredibly neat, if a little, errh, frou-frou (depending on the class).  Back in the 50s, my mother was learning how to clean a house properly, in sixth form college, in between her astrophysics and eugenic gene manipulation classes.  (Incidentally, if you do a lot of housework properly, quantum does begin to make sense).

The average Swedish woman (ASW) would love Martha Stewart’s website, if they could get over the complete insulting patronising implications of the word “homemaker”. Most houses I’ve been in in London would be used as a practice house for the ASW as a ‘before’ example.  They are what my grandmother’s was like when she couldn’t see and had her heart complaint.  My house is cleaner than most in London, but I feel hopelessly inadequate here.

I can’t help but feel that this obsession with ‘house-work’ is self-inflicted by women. When they weren’t allowed to work, the state of the home was the only way they had to display their marvellousness, together with handiwork and cooking.  My grandmother tells of a woman who was forgiven for only shaking her rugs once a week because her lace was so wonderful.  Forgiven? Forgiven by whom?  It was the women of course, who bought into the myth given them by men that it was the only thing they could do and so had to do it incredibly well to justify their existence.  Implied in this myth is that the family or the Man needs to have the house ‘looking good’.  Pah!  The average man wouldn’t know if something hadn’t been dusted for a day or a year.  And what of today, where we do have other things to do, like full time employment?  It comes down, of course, to doing what is comfortable for yourself, which also means not noticing what others do in their homes (oooh not so much fun there!). 

Here, I keep the dust bunnies from getting above adolescence and shake the rugs a couple of times a week, but I haven’t yet got back into the once a week major clean, which includes the attic or the twice a year wall washing etc or the daily dust.  So I have been corrupted by the UK, where the standards of housework are, quite frankly, slovenly, but there is so much more interesting stuff to do than dusting!

Just don’t get me started on the word “House wife”....

Driving

I hadn’t realised that my driving style was genetically determined, but I realised how much viability this theory had two years ago when I got to a town in the time the Swedish guy told me it would take (this was 3/4hr faster than Graham thought).  I think that driving style has evolved to bounce off elks, before Volvo was invented (and will now be revived now that they have been compromised by foreign buy-outs). Ironically, just before the crash I was driving within the guidelines (rules, whatever).  Such is life. 

There is one thing that I have absorbed from the UK and that’s braking distances.  Marvellous things, but if you thought people don’t keep to them in the UK, they don’t exist at all here.  So when a great big, galumping lorry is parked up your backside at 100km/hr, they are not being aggressive, really!   I say 100km, the speed limit is viewed as being a guideline, as are the road markings, indicators and other bits and pieces someone insists on. 

Of course, I shouldn’t make generalisations.  The rest of the country consists of little old ladies or chaps, and now, me.  We drive at 30km below the speed limit and towards the middle of the road.  We also hold the steering wheel at the correct position very, very hard, but, unlike the UK, we don’t hunch over the wheel, we sit very upright and posturally correct.  After all, there is no need to relax standards, is there!

There is something that makes you realise that you are in an alien place and that is the behaviour of the drivers in the towns.  The first time, we were on the kerb looking to cross the road (main, mark you) and the cars stopped.  We looked up the street and down the street, for little green flashing men, for prone zebras, for some other sort of road sign or flashing light from the sky, but nothing, absolutely nothing. We looked at the driver, he looked at us, we looked at the driver, he looked at us.  After about half an hour of this, we crossed the road and he continued on his way.  In the interest of scientific enquiry, we tried crossing the next road.  The same thing happened with slightly less bemusement, this time with a Merc!!!!  Gosh.....  So I have been forced to take a more Graham approach to things (when he had a white van, he used to let people out.  It’s well worth doing for the look on their face alone!). 

Swedish drivers don’t get so het up about things.  I haven’t heard one horn honked since we’ve been here, which is no mean feat, given the number of times I've forgotten I don't need to drive London-stylee and dive out into a 2cm gap.

Lower your blood pressure and drive in Sweden!

Things to do that don’t get done in Perivale.

1.       Get the wood in. From the Wood Shed – I’m still waiting to see something traumatic in the woodshed, but maybe I’m too old, or maybe too influenced by Stella Gibbons.  Disappointingly, all that is in the woodshed is wood and a few plant pots left by my parents, which are slightly traumatising in their own little way as there is a perfectly good potting shed just around the corner.

      The wood comes from Edgar, who is a lovely chap of few words.  He has reached the pinnacle of Swedish Manhood and owns his own sawmill.

2.       Light the fire and keep it going.  A log or two has to be put on every 40 min or so.  If not the fire will go out and we will have to use the eco air con. And it makes a noise. Whilst being eco, it uses electricity, the pollution of which you have to pay evil corporations for, unlike the wood, which is not as expensive, but more local (and Edgar gets the money - much better) and smells nicer. 

I also have an ash pail! An ash pail!! – they had those in the 1950s and we aren’t even in New Zealand/Tasmania. I have to say that it’s so much easier to use the ash pail on the veranda than to go to the ash pile every morning in your dressing gown when it’s -19C – long live ash pails :-) (lovely yellow from IKEA, I think it was originally intended as brewing equipment, oh well.)

3.       Change the cat litter.  This isn’t strictly so different, BUT,  here, so far, the cat comes in from the outside to go to the loo inside....???  Once, when I was very depressed, (probably brought on by the lack of relentless pressure and having to find my own direction, always a test of character) Graham told me I had to stay alive because I could change the cat litter. The fact that it was the first thing he thought of was, erhh, interesting  and shows interesting stuff about the male brain...

4.       Sweep.  It’s very nice having lots of trees around, but they drop things; constantly, incessantly and relentlessly.  As do the clouds. If the snow is swept up before trodden down, you don’t get those slippy ice bits on the steps, and not slipping is almost always good (cross-reference skiing).  There is also the perfect housewife thing.  Swedish women manage to have families, jobs and keep their houses immaculate. How, how, how????  My one contribution to decent and upright womanhood is sweeping the steps and the wooden floors as often as is feasible to my poor pathetic excuse for humanity.

5.       Take the recycling to the dump: this has to happen once a week at least, or the kitchen gets overrun by plastic and tetrapak and we get replaced by the life forms growing in the aforementioned.  We only pay council tax if we use council services, so my Mother (whose house this is) doesn’t pay for rubbish collection.  Fortunately, almost everything is recyclable.  We have a bucket for “other” and that hasn’t been full enough to empty in the six months we’ve been here and, I sorry to say, has mainly British rubbish in.

6.       Stop and stare: “what is this life, if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare”.

A Swedish Car Crash

Note to self, which will also work as a Word of Warning – never think that you can do what a Volvo can do if you’re not driving one.  Such as, for example, overtaking a lorry going up a hill when it was begun to snow and the road hasn’t been salted for a while.  Sliding headlong into an on-coming lorry is not a particularly good life move, though I am quite proud that I did manage the skid so I didn’t go into the lorry on our side.  When in Sweden, managing skids is very, very important.  Being only half Swedish, I only did half a skid, but I’ll work on it!

With typical Swedish practicality, there were people on the scene immediately, including a tow truck crew.  Lovely chap called Patrick, who called the emergency services.  All of whom turned up with amazing promptness, given that we had completely blocked the road – whoops... and remove the roof and doors, talk soothingly etc, etc. Think on how long it takes for roads to reopen in the UK after an accident. Here, within 1 hour of the accident, you would never have known that anything had happened on that spot. We had often remarked on it and it certainly makes it easier passing the spot later.

I think that the Swedish health system requires a whole blog of its very own, but it works far, far better than ours, and all the “buts” aren’t actually that applicable, so nah! The sign above my head as I was wheeled, shivering, and somewhat confused, cheered me up and the UK hospitals should follow suit – Katastrophvård.  Mind you, maybe most people would instead be rather upset, which wouldn’t be particularly helpful, such a missed opportunity.

The tow-truck man, phoned me up a few days later to find out how I was and to tell me where he’d taken the car – bless him!  Ooooh, going to see the car was fun.  Various people had been in and out, picking up crow-bars, tax discs, rucksacks. You know, the normal sort of stuff you keep in a car, but I thought that I’d better empty the car myself, especially as the insurance company had asked.  The man in charge of the yard was terribly impressed that I had been in the car and pointed out various items of interest just in case I missed them, like the radio being pushed out by the engine, how the door wouldn’t close etc and then gave me the first aid box, which was untouched.  I’m sure he was just being helpful.

Graham and I, being reliant on the Swedish system, are now home and attempting to find another car.  Emma and Simon, being reliant on the British system, are still in hospital trying to get home. And yes, they had all the right insurances.