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