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!

Winter Is Coming

At the risk of sounding like a Game of Thrones character, winter is coming to Skåne.  My suspicions were confirmed when the Helsingborg Stads Facebook page posted an article on how to empty your swimming pool correctly for the approaching change in season!

For me it started a couple of weeks or so ago. I was up at 6.30am to let the dogs out; the sun's heat was a little bit weaker as it peeped over the neighbourhood houses, the breeze picked up and I shivered just a little bit.  It made me think of late September days in Devon, where it might be a little chilly in the morning, but you know the day is going to end being gloriously warm.  Indeed, it got much warmer, and we ended our day with a pre dinner dip in the sea.

However the water temperature has got noticeably cooler now; long gone are the heady days of 19 degrees, the water is about 11 degrees, although the thermometer is showing 32c - I have a feeling it might be broken......., and I no longer take part in the family evening dips, it's far too cold, but Jim and Maisie are still, bravely, going as often as possible whilst Ned and I watch from the side cackling with laughter and little sympathy! Dry Robes for Christmas I think.

I was once nicknamed 'Single Vein' by one of Jim's uni mates due to my tendency to feel the cold, and perpetual cold hands, I am often wrapped up in layers, hat, scarf and gloves.  So it has come as a bit of a surprise that I am still hatless (mostly), gloveless and still have my jeans rolled up!

Tanned ankles!

We're still trying to work out the seasons here.  It sort of feels like the UK, but not quite.  Spring and summer are a bit later and shorter, so I'm guessing that autumn and winter will be earlier and longer! We're not quite in sync with it all yet either. It still feels warm enough to not wear a coat, but during the school run one morning, in jeans (still rolled up!) and a jumper, I noticed that, whilst my kids are not wearing coats, a lot of the other kids seem to be wearing their autumnal wardrobes - thicker coats, hats and one girl was wearing earmuffs..... indeed Ned is still wearing shorts!

The evenings have got darker a lot earlier too, and so we're embracing the concept the Scandinavian concept of 'hygge' and cosying up under blankets, candles everywhere and the occasional open fire.  By 7.30pm the lamps are on, and once the kids are in bed, we sit and watch the skies change and are  stilling treated to some amazing sunsets.

Sunset over Denmark

And although I was hopeful to extend my summer wardrobe a bit longer, my single vein has noticed the dip in temperature and I have now taken to wearing my hat a little bit, mostly for evening strolls (plus the occasional bad hair moment!), but I am resolutely still Not Wearing my Gloves.

Maisie and me

Am hoping to make it to October before that happens!

....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.