Podcasts

Growing up I was a bit of an introvert, a wall flower if you wish.  Jona Lewie could have written 'You'll always find me in the kitchen at parties' about me.  So moving to Sweden has pushed me quite a long way out of my comfort zone, I've had to become, well, a bit more forthright I suppose (except it seems in Swedish classes where I am back to being a wallflower)

I finally have a new phone, with an actual Swedish number and it now supports more app's and stuff (that is an actual technical term) and to my utter joy, I can now listen to podcasts.  Or one podcast.  Simon Mayo's Confessions Podcast to be precise.

I have always been a fan of Confessions on radio 2 (also listened when he did the Breakfast Show on radio 1 back in the day, and it's possible I have one or two to confess myself), so it was with a spring in my step when I downloaded my first podcast to listen to during my 45 minute walk to my Swedish classes.

It's lovely.  It really is.  I walk along the promenade, completely lost in my own world listening to Simon Mayo, so lost in fact that on many, many, many occasions I have laughed out loud.  I mean really loud, a proper belly laugh!  On one occasion I nearly fell over as I was laughing so hard, my legs gave way.  I don't the Swedes are ready for this, as I get a few strange looks and people Walk Around me.

With all this new tangled technology, I've even listened to them via Bluetooth in the car on the drive up to Norway. Fairly sure Norwegians aren't ready to see someone laughing so hard whilst driving either (as an aside I regularly car dance, and it seems it's not a suitable pastime for Scandinanvian drivers, but Scandi driving needs a blogpost all of its own), but given that Norwegian radio is rubbish I have to listen to something to break the monotony, plus the kids are always watching DVD's with headphones on and I can 100% guarantee that within 5 minutes of me taking over driving, Jim will be asleep.

Whilst the podcasts are great, they don't necessarily help me in my quest to learn Swedish, so I have now subscribed to På Minuten, Just A Minute in Swedish. So I don't laugh so much, but I am at least learning and understanding a bit more.  Hopefully one day I'll manage to get the joke.

*its not a photo of me laughing at the podcast, but of my morning walk along the beach.