Language Barriers

We were both concerned about the kids before we moved here, settling in at school and making friends despite the obvious language barriers.


We reasoned that as Maisie's age group would already be learning rudimentary English in school, it might be easier for her as there would be at least, a little common language.  In fact when she spent the morning with her class before starting, we were given an envelope containing letters from her new class mates all in English detailing a little bit about themselves (including her teacher!) - it was such a thoughtful thing to do, as well as helping the other kids with their English.
Maisie has 2 extra Swedish classes a week in school time, and learns English with the rest of the kids (I think when the teacher leaves, the other kids all ask Maisie for help, which is perfectly sensible!)  In fact her Swedish skills are the best in the family; her accent is really good and she's been correcting my pronunciation too.

With Ned, we thought that with him still being quite young and getting to grips with reading and writing as we were leaving the UK, he would be fine too.  He'd sort of pick it up as he went along.  And he is picking it up, but he doesn't always like it when we speak Swedish to him at home (mostly days of the week); I think he has lots to take in at school and Has Had Enough when we get home.  However I have noticed that when his teachers talk to him in Swedish he understands them, he answers them in English!🤦

Play dates are quite fun; Maisie and her friends don't worry about me not speaking much Swedish, they manage and if all else fails, there's always good old google translate!
Ned's though are a bit different, so usually there's a Swedish parent on hand for translation duties.  However for the most recent date, it was just me.  One of Maisie's friends, handily happens to have a brother who is friends with Ned, so they both came to play (their mum did ask me if I really wanted have both of them, but in for a penny in for a pound!)
It was an informative afternoon; I learnt a new word - Sluta!  Which apparently when shouted at small boys, means Stop it! We all survived my lack of Swedish; the 2 girls can communicate well enough and with the boys, I think the tone of voice used got more results than the language I spoke!

Maisie despairs of me a little bit.  There is proper eye rolling when I say something wrong.  I have trouble saying the word seven; sju.  Apparently it's pronounced whoo (it's difficult to write phonetically, but you sort of say the w sound), not hoo and as for 77 - sjuttiosju it's not hootie hoo, but whootay who.  And it's not kanske (maybe), but kaawhoo.

Honestly I'm sure I sound like the Swedish Chef!

Winter Is Coming

At the risk of sounding like a Game of Thrones character, winter is coming to Skåne.  My suspicions were confirmed when the Helsingborg Stads Facebook page posted an article on how to empty your swimming pool correctly for the approaching change in season!

For me it started a couple of weeks or so ago. I was up at 6.30am to let the dogs out; the sun's heat was a little bit weaker as it peeped over the neighbourhood houses, the breeze picked up and I shivered just a little bit.  It made me think of late September days in Devon, where it might be a little chilly in the morning, but you know the day is going to end being gloriously warm.  Indeed, it got much warmer, and we ended our day with a pre dinner dip in the sea.

However the water temperature has got noticeably cooler now; long gone are the heady days of 19 degrees, the water is about 11 degrees, although the thermometer is showing 32c - I have a feeling it might be broken......., and I no longer take part in the family evening dips, it's far too cold, but Jim and Maisie are still, bravely, going as often as possible whilst Ned and I watch from the side cackling with laughter and little sympathy! Dry Robes for Christmas I think.

I was once nicknamed 'Single Vein' by one of Jim's uni mates due to my tendency to feel the cold, and perpetual cold hands, I am often wrapped up in layers, hat, scarf and gloves.  So it has come as a bit of a surprise that I am still hatless (mostly), gloveless and still have my jeans rolled up!

Tanned ankles!

We're still trying to work out the seasons here.  It sort of feels like the UK, but not quite.  Spring and summer are a bit later and shorter, so I'm guessing that autumn and winter will be earlier and longer! We're not quite in sync with it all yet either. It still feels warm enough to not wear a coat, but during the school run one morning, in jeans (still rolled up!) and a jumper, I noticed that, whilst my kids are not wearing coats, a lot of the other kids seem to be wearing their autumnal wardrobes - thicker coats, hats and one girl was wearing earmuffs..... indeed Ned is still wearing shorts!

The evenings have got darker a lot earlier too, and so we're embracing the concept the Scandinavian concept of 'hygge' and cosying up under blankets, candles everywhere and the occasional open fire.  By 7.30pm the lamps are on, and once the kids are in bed, we sit and watch the skies change and are  stilling treated to some amazing sunsets.

Sunset over Denmark

And although I was hopeful to extend my summer wardrobe a bit longer, my single vein has noticed the dip in temperature and I have now taken to wearing my hat a little bit, mostly for evening strolls (plus the occasional bad hair moment!), but I am resolutely still Not Wearing my Gloves.

Maisie and me

Am hoping to make it to October before that happens!

....and so it gets real(er)

Swedish officialdom is tricky to negotiate when one does not speak the language.  We're lucky.  When we first arrived, we had the relocation agency who helped us register for our personnummers, doctors, etc and we live in an area where there are a huge number of multi-national businesses whose working language is English, therefore lots of people speak English. And if all that fails, there's always good old google translate.

The government offers immigrants 300 hours of free Swedish lessons in immigrants. SFI, Swedish For Immigrants, lessons are provided via your local kommun, you have to register (when you have your personnummer), decide on a school, hours etc.
Whilst Ned wasn't at school, he provided me with the perfect excuse not to register for classes - I can't take him with me, and I can't do classes in the evening when Jim is away as I have no one to look after the kids, and although Sweden is a fairly laid back nation, I think leaving your children unattended for 4 hours in the early evening might be frowned upon, and I could find myself in a spot of bother 😳.

With school starting, my alibi has disintegrated, so I took the plunge and registered. (We did try to register earlier in the summer, but the waiting list was only 3 weeks and given that we were just about to embark on 9 weeks of school holidays, the lady advised us to come back.)

Whilst our arbortive attempt had been quite easy, this time it appeared my luck had run off. The old office was really central, easy to find and convenient.  However SFI moved locations over the summer.

Jim was flying to London, so he came with me to help find the new office before getting the train.  We drove around and found the right street, but couldn't see anything that looked likely, so I went to park whilst Jim headed off to the station.

I walked along the street looking for the place, couldn't find it, although I did see lots of people walking with purpose towards one building, but I couldn't see where they went and I wasn't going to turn around and look lost! Dear god, I nearly cried with frustration trying to find the bloody place.  It's all well and good having an address that states the street number, in this case 10, but when there is 10D, 10C, 10B and 10A HOW DO YOU KNOW WHICH ONE YOU NEED?!! 

So in a sulk I walked back to the car, found a wifi spot and started looking again.

Second time I had more luck and even though I wandered into a building site first off, I eventually found the right door.  Went in and had one of those quite awful conversations, where my Swedish isn't good enough, and the receptionists English wasn't that great, but we got it sorted in the end and I was given a number and shown where to sit.

The building is being renovated, and it was in complete chaos.  No-one seemed to know where to go, or what to do, so thankfully I wasn't the only one who looked slightly shell shocked (including the staff!).  Anyway I got called into an office, and was asked if I wanted to speak in Swedish or English..... Ummmm let me think about that, I'm here to register for Swedish language lessons.......?  We had a chat about me and what level of education I have & if I can speak any other languages and if I knew what school I wanted to study at. There are a lot of schools in Helsingborg that offer SFI, but only 2 meet my criteria (9am start and distance learning), and the advisor couldn't advise me which one might be better - they are both good and that was it!  Still I am now registered. Google translate can be retired (well maybe in about 5 years) and I can now start to fully integrate....... Just let me finish my cup of tea and marmite on toast first.....

Ned needs a hammer...........?

After nearly 9 weeks summer holiday, we're 2 weeks into the new school term already.

As Ned was starting school I went to a pre start induction meeting at his Förskola (first school, sort of like reception year), which was all in Swedish....obviously.
I got the gist of most from the various speakers (Hi, my name is...., I live in.....I have children/grandchildren/dogs),  but a lady had been talking for a while and people were laughing and I was stumped.  Then she said 'nittar' and people started scratching their heads. I suddenly realised that she is the school nurse discussing nits!  I swear I nearly shouted it out, just to prove I could understand.

There was a lot of paperwork, and included was a list of required stuff:

• a rucksack
• plastic water bottle
• an a4 folder
• a hammer
• a box for extra clothes
• extra clothes
• rainwear

We had most of the required items, just needed to get extra rain clothes and the hammer.  Wait, what? A hammer?  It appeared google translate didn't quite work, and I'm still not entirely sure what the correct word should have been. Unless he was to dress up as Thor?

First day arrived, and I decided to be brave, and I didn't need Jim to hold my hand, I took the kids to school myself.  As with most things involving schools here, we had no idea where Maisie was going - which classroom, or even who her teacher is.  Having dropped her off (not actually seeing where she went, as she ran off with friends), I took Ned over to his class which is in a different building.

So we found his locker, put all his things away, registered him and got his name sticker.  We then all trooped into class where the kids found their name cards and sat on the mat.

The teachers started taking to the kids, and Ned sat their looking all little and alone, the teacher then asked him (in English), if he understood Swedish to which he replied, with a little quiver in voice, 'Um not much', 3 things happened.

1. The teacher said, 'well we'll help you with that'
2. The other parents all went 'ahh'
3. I cried.

Completely useful thing to do, I know!

Now in the UK, if a parent had done that I'd offered some support, but not in Sweden. Oh no.  I was left alone, a veritable social pariah. 🙄 Anyway after a bit, parents started to filter out, so I said bye to Ned, who was happy to let me go, and went and did the food shopping.

I was to collect Ned at 12, and Maisie would finish at her usual time of 13.20.  So imagine my surprise and heart stopping realisation when 2 of Maisie's friends walked into Ned's playground to meet their mum's and I realised that she was finishing at 12 too!  

Ned came running out with a big smile on his face, and when we went over to collect Maisie, he was so happy he ran over and gave her a hug!  Maisie, is transpires, had come over to Ned's building but not seeing the car (parked elsewhere) she went back to school to wait for us. Sensible girl.

Tuesday started well - both kids were happy to go to school, but I forgot Ned's snack and he was not happy with me, so when we got home he refused to get out of the car. Maisie on the other hand, was going to come home on the bus.  So we'd checked the bus timetable and told her if she missed the 13.31 but, there was another at 14.01.  The bus takes 10 minutes and is 2 minutes walk from the house.  So when she wasn't home at 14.25 I knew something had gone wrong - I was so worried I couldn't drink the cup of tea I'd made to distract me, so that I wouldn't worry!

I put Ned back in the car, unsurprisingly he didn't want to get in it, even though earlier he didn't want to get out, and drove to school trying to ignore the gleeful cackles from Ned about Maisie being missing!  There she was waiting at the bus stop, she hopped in, and again I burst into tears for the second day in a row.  Bless her, she looked really worried for me!  She explained that school hadn't finished at 13.20, but at 14.00!

We made it home through a haze of tears and mascara (mine) and after a few reassuring hugs (Maisie to me!) we checked her schedule, sure enough every day except Wednesdays Maisie finishes at 13.30.

Back at school in Braunton every morning the kids did 'Wake Up, Shake Up!'.  Maisie in particular loved in, and was at the front pretty much every day. Jim and I rocked it too, quite often the first parent onto the floor!  Thankfully the kids hadn't learnt to be embarrassed by us yet.  Anyway, Im listening to Sara Cox on the radio 2 breakfast show and she's playing the Cha Cha Slide that the kids danced too, and I might try to convince school to do the same thing - heck I'll even lead............😜💃

We're now at the end of the second week, it has all gone well - I've even stopped crying!

A brief recap!

As we've been a bit slack, I thought I'd just briefly round up what has happened in the last couple of months!

- we came back from Norway (after the wardrobe fiasco), and the something went wrong with the van. We drove the last 2 hours in limp mode.

- after an eye wateringly expensive quote from the VW garage, we bought a new car. The van is waiting for a new engine (Jim works with someone who can help us!)

- we are now the proud owners of a Volvo. Complete with roof top box.

- Maisie broke up from school for 8 1/2 weeks.

- my mum visited and we finally went to Helsingør on the ferry to see Elsinore Castle (Shakespeare based Hamlet here).

- mum bought marmite. And cheese.

- Jim's dad visited, and then came to Norway with us for a week. We went stand up paddle boarding, walking, did some DIY, spent a lovely, slightly drunken evening with our friends and saw a reindeer who thought it was a sheep. I even went finishing!

- we decided to drive home through Sweden instead of driving down through Norway, then Sweden. It was very beautiful. But it was also a journey that took 3 hours longer, and almost ended in divorce.

- our last visitors of the summer holidays came. And it rained. Lots. We were caught in a thunder and lightening storm. The kids (4 in total) went through so many clothes, the laundry room resembled an actual laundry and the dehumidifier was working overtime!

We went swimming a couple of times, managed to eat outdoors and took them to Nimis. It was lovely.

- they also bought marmite. And cheese. And tea bags. They are invited to come again. 

- we went to Copenhagen for the day, which is ridiculously easy from here. And the 4 of us had a very lovely time.

- and then school started.

The wardrobe....

Apologies. We've been a bit slack again on the blogging front (lots of visitors). Here's one I wrote in June.

I thought May was a good time to be in the UK - 2 bank holidays, Eurovision Song Contest and my birthday! Turns out Sweden kinda nails it with a bank holiday in early June too, as well as Midsommar.

The first bank holiday was a Thursday and we visited the Skåne Djurpark (animal park with native animals - think bears, wolves, wild cats). 

The following Friday was the start of our 2nd long weekend in as many weeks. So having loaded up the van with wardrobes (more of that another later), bunk beds, kids and dogs we set off at 3.30pm to Norway. 

It was always going to be a long drive - I think we've said before, it's about 11/12 hours. 

We stopped once for food and to swap over driving - Jim drives the first and last leg's - I get the difficult middle bit over lots of high bridges (which frighten the heck out of me - although I no longer close my eyes!) through the Norwegian border and then around Oslo.

We swapped over again and started the last stretch feeling very tired. We know when we reach the big silver moose it is 2 hours away from the house.  So at 12.15am it was a very welcome site!

We arrived home and the sky was still very light, a bit weird really, completely confused our body clocks. It was 2am and yet the sky made you think it was 9pm.

After breakfast and copious amounts of tea to get going, we emptied the van. We made pretty good progress until we got to the Wardrobe.

I should explain a little bit about the wardrobe. It's family. It belonged to Jim's great grandmother, and is it 1 of 3 pieces which make up a set (a dressing table and a bed being the other 2 pieces). Jim's mum used it when she was younger, and it was passed to us. The set has moved a couple of times with us, and it's always been treated with respect. 

Now, I'm not very tall, or strong so trying to get the wardrobe up the stairs was always going to be a bit tricky. We started off with good intentions, and Jim barely said 'pivot' at all (Friends episode where Ross and Rachel are trying to move a sofa into Ross' apartment and he just keeps saying pivot. It's very funny.) 

Then it got wedged. 

We'd already taken off the doors, and removed the drawer, but it still didn't get any further.  Jim then sawed off part of the base and we tried again.

It still wouldn't go up.

We sawed a bit more off the bottom. Tried another, slightly different tack, but it was well and truly stuck.

Eventually through tears of frustration (mine) Jim made the decision (of course I'd suggested it earlier on!) he went and asked our very lovely neighbour to come and help.

Rolf is not actually any taller than Jim, but is much stronger than me. So the 2 of them shoved from the bottom; Jim held it - I pretended to hold it at the top and Rolf raced up the stairs, lent over and just pulled the wardrobe up - I swear it was one handed.

It's now resting in Ned's room. Where it shall stay.

Cruising

Our Swedish house is just behind a beach, overlooking the Öresund Straights, which separate Sweden and Denmark.  Denmark is about 6 kilometres across, so on a good day, we can see it quite clearly.  We also use as it a weather gage - if we can't see Denmark, then it's not a great day!

The Straights are a way for ships to get to ports in Denmark, Germany, Poland, Sweden and other Baltic States so it's quite busy.  We've seen lots, and lots, and lots of container ships, car transporters, merchant fishing vessels, tugs and twice a day we see the DFDS ferry which travels between Copenhagen and Oslo.  We've even seen an Icebreaker and a couple of boats from the Polish Navy, not to mention a navy boat from somewhere that wasn't on our boat finder app........🤔

After extensive boat watching, we've now got a reasonable idea of how fast a ship is travelling and Ned is particularly proud of his cargo ship spotting abilities! We also like it when one boat overtakes another, it reminds me of a scene from the Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, and the boat finder app shows them as being on top of each other, which of course, amuses the kids.

Since the weather has got better we've seen the local sailing boats out and about which is a lovely site, and if my grandad were still alive to visit, he'd be down at the harbour like a shot to try and get a place in a boat, if not 'borrow' one.

However, what has really captured our attention are the Cruise Liners.  According to the Visit Helsingborg website (Helsingborg being the biggest town to us and our kommun), May is the start of Cruise Season.   

So most days we watch as at least 2 cruise liners sail past the house on their way to exotic locations like Copenhagen, Helsinki, St Petersburg or Talinn. We then quickly find them on our boat finder app, and then we have to find them on other sites as the kids ask so many questions - what's it's name, where's it going next, where's it coming from, how many people does it take.  I think the largest one held about 3,800 passengers. To be honest, I think this is the only type of cruising we'll be doing!

Two months in.

We left our home in North Devon a month ago (more like 8 weeks now - apologies for being  bit slack!)

It's been eventful, scary and tiring.  There's been good times, bad times, illness and a whole lot of weather!

We arrived in early April, to a beautiful warm day - blue skies and sunshine, and since then we've had pretty much everything!  Rain, hail, snow, high winds, fog so thick we couldn't see the end of the garden, let alone Denmark!  The Danish coast is about 5/6 km away, so we use it as a measure of how bad the weather is if we can't see it!  And today as I write, it's an odd sort of weather - warm, windy and overcast!

We're starting to recognise people in the village, but let's be honest there aren't that many (read none) people walking huskies or women screaming calling 'Ned', given that in Swedish, as in Norwegian, it means 'down'.

We've been brave too.
Ned and I visited his preschool twice now, and have another visit in a week or so. I wasn't quite sure how he'd feel, but he's said that he wishes he could start now, and not in August (the Swedish school holidays start in July).
I've had comedic phone calls with Swedes - texts I can cope with as I cheat and use google translate, but actual people.......!
Jim and Maisie have both survived their first weeks a their various new establishments, and Maisie has started coming home on the bus by herself.

After being in Sweden for a week, we drove to Norway for the Easter holidays.  It took 11 hours of driving, and actually most of it was okay.  We used just one motorway from here all the way past Oslo (about 8 hours away), and then we picked up a local road.  I won't say much about it, as I feel it'll probably make a blog entry all by itself one day.
However we did discover an enormous moose!

Easter in Norway was lovely, very sociable, snowy and we had our dogs with us for the first time!  They absolutely loved the snow - it was lovely to watch them bouncing around in it, and eating it!  And thanks to them we were able to show Ned why you must not eat yellow snow.
We did a little bit of skiing, Jim went cross country skiing with a friend and took the dogs, and there was lots of sledging.

We've settled into our new routine; up at 6.30am, Jim leaves at 7.20 to catch the bus to go to work, whilst I leave at 7.57 - not a minute later! to take Maisie to school (until she catches the bus!)  Ned and I then get home at 8.15 and begin our day.  Mostly it consists of watching ships going past and then looking up on the very wonderful boat finding app we have!

It's 'Cruise Season' so every couple of days there will a MASSIVE boat going past, which results in a flurry of activity to find out what it's called, where it's going, how many passengers and where else is it going!

But Ned and I have something new to do every day now.  About a 5 minute cycle ride along the coast is a little rocky outcrop, usually home to lots of cormorants, herons, swans and various other seabirds whose names I don't know yet.  There's a telescope, and this being Scandinavia you don't have to pay to use it, and today we saw the seals that come here every May/June to breed.  Its very exciting, although Ned gets bored after about 2 minutes and wants to go and play on the rope swing in the woods, but still - seals!

Personnumers

These are ID numbers. Sort of like national insurance numbers.

As a newcomer to Sweden you have to apply for one of these numbers (and the kids). 

Without a personnumer you can't do important things like open a bank account, register with a doctor, join a gym (let's be honest that's not really like to happen anyway!) Nor, as I discovered this evening, can you set up an online account to top up your jojo card - Helsingborgs equivalent of the Oyster card.

These are great, and we're still discovering how they work exactly. Maisie gets one for travelling to school for free, as will Ned when he reaches 7. I think we've probably overspent a bit on bus journeys, by not fully understanding, but Jim did find a helpful driver who explained things a bit more. 

We also can't apply for loyalty cards without the wretched numbers, so I haven't been able to a Coop store card and my Norwegian one won't work in Sweden (don't understand why, when my IKEA family card works here 😉).

However today they have arrived. Hurrah! There is nothing to stop me now.....or there won't be when I get my ID card..........🙄

Difficult day

Ned was poorly just before Easter. It appears he bought a vomiting bug with him from North Devon. 

Sunday was a day spent mostly at home with a poorly boy, and when we eventually attempted a walk up the coast path, it became apparent that Ned's tummy wasn't as settled as we hoped, so we cut our losses, came home and crossed our fingers that all would be well for Monday's visit to register at the tax office, but more importantly Tuesday's Even More Epic Drive to Norway for Easter. 

I think we were feeling fairly confident that Ned would be okay, until 5am on Monday morning when he came into our room looking for some water.  Quick bedding and pj change, which Maisie slept through, and he was back asleep.  

We decided the best course of action was to let Ned sleep whilst we pottered about, and about 2pm, leaving lots of time before meeting our relocation lady who would be assisting us at the tax office, Ned threw up again, this time all over himself, Jim, the wooden floor, door and glass tv stand.

A frantic 30 minutes of tidying, cleaning, washing on and clothing changes and we were off. I think it's fair to say that Jim and I were a little bit fraught by this point; we needed to go to the tax office, our previous visit had been called off due to incompetence (not ours you'll be pleased to know), and in order to be able to get a bank account we have to be registered, so for every day we're delayed it means we have to keep using our UK bank accounts. Ned was clearly poorly and should we even be taking him?  I will point out that we had quite a lot of stuff with us just in case he was ill again.

So this is the part where it all went a little bit wrong 😖

We found a car park, I got a ticket. I put the ticket in the van, only the passenger door was also open thus causing a through draft which sucked the parking ticket down between the dashboard and the windscreen, trapping it with no way of reaching said ticket (well only if you remove the windscreen and that seemed a little extreme!). So with various angry shouty words from Jim ringing in my ears, I went back to get another ticket, handed it to Jim.  

And the van locked itself.

With the keys inside.

And my keys were at home. 

Not in my bag. 

But at home, in the locked house to which we had no way of gaining entry.

I can laugh now, and indeed there is a little smile playing on my lips as I write this, but you can imagine there wasn't much laughter going on at the time. 

The kids and I left Jim shouting at the van and trying desperately to see if the window would unwind, whilst thinking it was probably a good job I'd 2 hours of parking rather than 1, but it seemed prudent to keep that comment to myself 😉

We headed off to the tax office in stony silence, each of us, I think, trying to be grown up and not get all shouty. 

The only logical solution was to call the breakdown people and see if they could come and sort us, but before we could do this, the lady from the relocation agency arrived, and after a flurry of 'hello, how nice to meet you's', Jim explained that we weren't really having the best of days, but at least we were here.

Once we'd explained what was going in, her response was perfect.  We had an actual responsible grown up adult with us, who said, oh I'll just call your landlady she'll have left a spare key with someone. 

Now why the hell hadn't we thought of that? 🤔

Whilst we completed various bits of paperwork, she called the owner, found out who had the spare key, yes they were home and expecting us, she would take Maisie and I home to collect the keys, then bring us back to rejoin Ned and Jim with the van.  

It's clearly quite simple, but we just couldn't see it at the time

So once our applications were in, she did indeed drive Maisie and I home to collect the keys and drive us back again.

My keys now live in my bag. Like they're supposed too.

Here we go!

I am writing this post from our new sitting room in Sweden! We did it!

Don't mention the swedish chef ;) ps he's our new van mascot

So after a couple of hectic days cleaning the house around the removal guys, Friday dawned reasonably sunny.  Jim headed off to work, and the kids were taken out for a walk by Grampa so I could finish packing and repacking our bags that were to accompany us on, what has become known as, our Epic Drive Across Europe.

After a few chores, including collecting the dogs from our very lovely friends and leaving them my car, we started the drive in earnest.

Last few times we've driven to Gatwick, the channel tunnel is in the same direction, we've had nightmare journeys, so given that Friday was the last day of term for most schools we were expecting the worst. Imagine our surprise when we made it to our hotel in Ashford without mishap or mayhem! Frankly most of that is due to the purchase of an in car DVD Player for the kids, and their love of Star Wars!

Darth Vader, the dark lord and saviour of long car journeys

After an incredibly grumpy start (me and the stupid woman at the hotel), we rocked up to the euro tunnel terminal in a state of extreme excitement - well the kids did, I think Jim and I were too knackered, and or grumpy in my case!

Still bacon baps and a cuppa tea soon worked their magic, and we boarded our train in high spirits.

Ned couldn't quite understand how we managed to end up in France when we got off the train, but was soon ensconced in Star Wars and only really paying attention to Europe when we passed into the Nederlands - which apparently is Ned's own country (according to him)!

Ned's homeland

The drive to Germany seemed to pass in a blur, but Germany was the biggest single country stretch we had to make. It was slightly fraught around the autobahns of Duisberg and Essen, where it seems there are soooooooooo many roads in every single direction, but we made it without a) getting lost; b) going wrong and c) not shouting at each other or the kids.

Tiredness eventually took over Jim, so I took over the driving.  Now our van is a VW T5 long wheel base. I'm used to driving a very compact Audi A2. So after a few nervous minutes whilst I adjusted to the van we were off. Jim and the kids all fast asleep, leaving me to exclaim to the dogs 'Ooh look there are some deers!', but of course with them being in back, they couldn't see them, even if they knew what I was talking about.

Driving on the autobahns, is, as one friend commented, like being in an episode of Top Gear. The Germans really do drive fast! At one point I was doing 140kph - I'm metric now (@90 mph), and was overtaken as if I was standing still!  Mind you the roads are amazing to drive along; wide, smooth and empty, so it was quite fun.

A quick pit stop to cook pasta and pesto for tea and walk the dogs, and we started our last stretch from close to Hamburg to Travemünde where we would catch the ferry.

We arrived in Travemünde without mishap and found the ferry port.  I must warn you, that should you decide to follow in our Epic Drive, the ferry port is not like Brittany Ferries! It's a proper truckers port.  Hundreds of lorries waiting to board ferries to Malmo, Helsinki or even St Petersburg.  The possibility of ending up on the wrong ferry was actually quite high (actually it wasn't but I'll explain more later).

We were booked onto the ferry at 1am, with boarding due to start around midnight, so when we rocked up at 8.15pm, we thought we'd ask if we could catch the earlier ferry which left at 10pm. A very short chat with the man in the ticket office proved fruitless, so we settled down for a bit of wait.  

As the loading for the Helsinki ferry began (the cars were queued next to us) our attention was drawn to a little white van with flashing yellow lights.  It became apparent that, when it was your turn, you would follow said little white van to the correct ferry, thereby ruling out the possibility of ending up on the wrong boat.  If, however, you were in a lorry, it seemed that you were allowed to follow the correct signs and board without following the man in the little white van with the flashing lights!  Although it didn't stop several lorry drivers having to reverse as they'd gone wrong, but that may have had something to do with all the duty free beer that was being drunk (which might not have been the truckers!). The ferry terminal building was basically a beer supermarket with slightly overweight rusky truckers carrying trays and trays of beer to their lorries!

Midnight came and went, the kids were beside themselves, they'd been so good, but the last 30 minutes was just a bit too much for them. So when the little white van pulled up in front of us and then took the other queue out first, Maisie actually cried at this point. 

There were only 12 passenger vehicles on our whole
 ferry, all the rest were lorries

Anyway we joined the queue of about 12 passenger vehicles and followed the van. Now our next conundrum was that we needed the loader to leave space behind the van so we could open the boot and let our the dogs, so, in a very daring and brave moment, I hopped out the van, Whilst It Was Still Moving! So it was about 2 mph, but still! Jim had already told the chap we had to open the boot, but I did open it so he could see how much room we needed.

Our cabin

The ferry ticket was rather cheap compared to Brittany Ferries, and as we were travelling with the dogs, we'd booked a pet cabin - a cabin where you can take your pets (a maximum of 2, consisting of either dogs, cats or ferrets which for the life of me I can't quite understand why you would take your ferret on holiday!?) - so we were expecting something similar to the crappy Travelodge hotel we'd had at Ashford, but it was more like a cruise state room! Even the shower was better!

Apart from the dogs tap dancing in the night - their claws on the hard plastic bottom of their crate, we all got some much deserved sleep, and woke up about an hour before we passed under the Bridge!

I think it was at that moment it all became properly real, and just a bit more scary!