....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..........🙄