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!