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!