Christmas ......?

This weekend it seems most of neighbours decided to start decorating their houses for Christmas. I'm entirely sure why, there's probably some ancient Swedish by-law that we've missed. 

Growing up we didn't even think about decorating the house until after December 2nd, as that's my mums birthday and birthdays are all about you.

When we first moved into together, Jim and I, decorated the house and tree quite late (in fact we left it so late the first year we were in our own flat that we couldn't even buy any tree lights!), and usually after the kids are in bed. And presents only appear on Christmas Eve.

We obviously knew that Scandinavia celebrate Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day, what I didn't realize is that the radio station I (sometimes) listen to is now playing '100% Jul musik'.

I've heard some corkers too - I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus' in Swedish with a samba beat no less.  I like Christmas, but come on - it's still only November!

I think my twitchy eye is back......

Gingerbread

The darker nights, mounds of tea lights and candles for sale everywhere heralds the arrival of all things gingerbread! It might actually herald Christmas really.

After several months devoid of pepparkakor (thin ginger biscuits), they are for sale everywhere. Which is great as we love them, especially with a cuppa - dunking is optional, but it must be a quick dunk or else they don't stay firm and will plop into your tea, which is not nice.

It's not just gingerbread cookies, but there are ginger crisp bread, ginger chewy sweets and even our beloved cinnamon buns now come in a gingerbread flavour!

It's about now that I start thinking about baking my own ginger based goodies. Jim bought me a lovely baking book all about gingerbread, so it will be fetched down off the bookcase and I will sit and pour over it wondering if this will be the year that I make my epic gingerbread house (without the help of structural supports); or hanging decorations without the dogs eating them (not a chance); or a beautifully sticky gingerbread cake with lemon icing from Nigella Lawson.

Right now though, the ginger goodies will have to wait, as for the first time the kids and I are making a Christmas Cake. 

The Wee Bottle

The cry of 'I need a wee!' whilst on a long journey strikes fear into the heart of me!  It is usually announced 30 minutes after the last stop, or 30 minutes before the next one.

We were driving to Norway last spring & were just past the hell that is driving around Gothenburg (they have been building roads and bridges ever since we moved here & it is also chaos), and we were stuck in more roadworks.
With still quite a way to go till our regular scheduled stop, Ned reached breaking point - 'I really, really need a wee! I can't hold it in anymore!' came the wail from the backseat.
We couldn't pull over to the hard shoulder as there was a filter lane on our inside and nowhere else to pullover.

'He'll have to use his water bottle,' said Jim.
WTF? I thought.

So I emptied Ned's water bottle out of the window (we were completely stationary), handed it to Ned, and with a bit of seatbelt loosening and Maisie holding the bottle, he sorted himself out.

That particular bottle now lives in the car and has the words PEE ONLY written on it, you know just in case we forget!

Which brings me to our last trip.  This next bit is from a message I sent my mum whilst we were driving home.

So we're on our way home & it's been quite eventful!

1. We nearly collided with a herd of reindeers who were licking the salt off the road.

2. Jim skidded on a massive patch of black ice and we nearly finished up in the ditch.

3. We still had to dodge NATO troops on exercise.

4. Driving in thick fog.

5. When stopped for wee break / changing drivers, Jim, during a contretemps with Ned, split the entire contents of a water bottle all over the passenger seat which he then had to sit on for the next 4 hours, and we decided not to put on the heated seat in case the electrics went!

6.  There was, as usual, roadworks at one of the tunnels in Oslo. We were stuck in the tunnel for AN HOUR!!  The tunnel is only 3km long

7. Due to the extra journey time, Ned was literally bursting by the time we reached our schedules stop.
He made it.

8.  However his second emergency wee required the emergency pee bottle.
Which he missed.  He did not, however, miss me, Maisie, his leg and the floor of the car.

9. Jim is now quite cross.

10. We are still well over an hour away from home.

Thankfully we made it home without further ado.

Soup day

Thursday is soup day in Sweden. Apparently.

Our lovely neighbours invited me out for lunch; partly to help me with my Swedish conversation skills, but also as I think they worry a little if they don't see me (but I'm a stealth ninja!)

They collected me, and off we walked.  The conversation was a little bit stilted, but eventually we got into the groove, and chatted about my studying and how the kids are doing at school.

We arrived at Hemgården, which is sort of a community center type place, but has been run by a team of volunteers for the last 50 years, and given that some of the board members are over 90 yrs old, possibly they are the same volunteers.

They only do lunch on thursdays and the menu doesn't change. Yellow split pea soup with pork, followed by pancakes with strawberry jam and coffee.

 

*mine didn't look quite like this.

My neighbours explained that this is the most Swedish meal you can have. And then in corroboration, Ned's friend's mum explained that Thursday is soup day, and when you have soup, you have pancakes.

Even the Swedish army have soup and pancakes on Thursday's.

School

The schools in Sweden allow parents of the younger kids to stay in school for the day, to see what goes on.  Today I stayed with Ned.  He was quite pleased.

School starts at 8.10, and today we had maths.  Given that the Swedish kids don't start formal school until they are 7, they spent some time learning to write the numbers.  Today it was 3.
After maths, we should have had music, but the music teacher was off sick, so we walked to the woods in pairs to collect mushrooms.  Svamp in Swedish if you were wondering.

It was back to school for fruit and then 30 minutes break. It was at the this point one of Ned's teachers gave me a much needed cup of coffee - she is now my favourite!

Back to school for more maths, this time using an app on the iPads that seemed to be teaching them about fractions.

At 10.50 we stopped for lunch - me included.  All the Swedish schools provide a hot meal at lunchtime FREE OF CHARGE!  It's a balanced meal, and the kids help themselves.

There is always sweetcorn, grated carrot, and at least one other vegetable, as well as coleslaw.  Today we had korv stroganoff med ris - sausage casserole with rice; and it was good!  Each child sits with the same kids and the teachers place a 5 minute egg timer on the table, so the kids have to be quiet for 5 minutes whilst they eat.  There is only water or milk to drink, and if they eat all their main meal, they are then allowed to have knäckerbröd (crisp bread) with butter for pudding.  After they've eaten they take their dirty plates etc and stack them and then one child per table is 'veckans värder' - essentially the person who wipes to table after everyone has finished.  It changes weekly, and my 2 are very excited when it's their turn.......but only at school!

After lunch it was back into class for art.  I don't mind admitting that I am a control freak, and don't do craft, so I was interested to see what art entailed.  Essentially it was 20 minutes of the kids getting new pencil crayons in different colours (they all took great delight in receiving gold and silver pencils) all delivered by me!  They then coloured in a bear.  As they finished a bit early, it was back outside for another 10 minutes of playtime, before back inside for NO - which I always think is Norwegian, before remembering that no this is Sweden!  NO turns out to be nature/geography related, and today it was looking at the mushrooms the kids had picked and then learning all about them, with a picture related quiz at the end, before finishing at 13.30 and then home for pancakes as we were hungry!

Both of the kids have 3 different teachers, plus extra ones for sport and music, so the kids are split into 3 groups and move around the teachers for their lessons, plus one will be their mentor and they will have these teachers for 3 years, which I think is actually pretty cool.

I wish that English schools did this - maybe they do, and I just missed it, but it was really lovely to see Ned interacting with his friends and teachers, and understanding a bit more about how schooling works here.

Whatever they're doing, the kids love it and are thriving.

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.

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!