Sweden II

My Dear Swedish Pal had a mission while we were in Sweden: to renovate a recently acquired 1940s timber cottage as a summer house. For that reason, she spent a lot of time at the house stripping 1970s wallpaper off walls, and painting and sanding and so-on.







The Hausfrau was compelled to busy herself with various cameras as the place was idyllic, set amongst copses of shimmering leaves with apples quite literally falling off trees. DS and her Dear Medium-sized Swedish Pal spent hours collecting autumnal delights like flowers and chestnuts and apples, and converted the old shed into a club house.


I'm not going to pretend it was warm: it wasn't. We had a run of stormy days with icy winds, but when the days were clear they went on for miles. The land is so flat, compared to Switzerland. The sun sat low and cast a gentle light through the leaves all day, and the Hausfrau was happy to be in low density housing again, where you can hear the rain and wind and have light coming from all directions into the house. Very different from apartment living, which sometimes feels like its own sealed biosphere.

It was really too late to see native orchids flowering, as they tend to flower in the summer months, but I saw in my travels a good number of flowers I didn't recognise. I also spent a fair bit of time poring over our Dear Hostess's book of Swedish flora, especially the pages of 'orcidus', as I was in the company of at least 20 plants in her house.

On one of the Hausfrau's side road trips we visited the university town of Växjö, where we spent some time walking around the old town, visited the beautiful old Viking church, which was rebuilt in the twelfth century (inside which I spotted no less than four organs - later additions, one presumes!), and - in lieu of Swedish meatballs - ate some rather good Thai food. (Ah, the globalised life!)

Another excursion led us to the town of Boda (near Kosta... near Orrefors...), and the word which springs to mind here is 'lucky', as we arrived at the Kosta Boda glass warehouse on a rare sunny day and, because of that luck with the weather, got to see some cool light-effects through aisles and aisles of coloured glass. Let's face it, glass without sunlight can seem a bit pointless.

I'd have loved to see the workshop in action, but perhaps it was for the best, as DD and DS seemed to be having some difficulty staying still. For example, DD spent an enormous amount of time compulsively cartwheeling: not an ideal thing to be doing in a glass workshop.

As the holiday progressed, DS's bedtime became later and later, and our conversations became more and more 'interesting'. Par example, this little gem at 11pm:

DS: Do you know how flies taste, Mum, by the way?
Me: Um, can't say I do. Probably a bit crunchy?
DS: With their mouth of course. Yeah, because you taste with your mouth, not with your nose. I can only taste when I put something in my mouth.

(I guess you can see the implication there...)

And, now that we are back in Switzerland, I must say that we are having a little trouble adjusting to being back at school, despite the end of daylight savings where we allegedly gain an hour. The only morning that the kids leapt out of bed at lightning speed was last week, when we awoke to a white world.

Yep, snow in October!

PS Naturally, it would be a mistake to think we could visit Sweden without a trip to IKEA, especially when DSP was renovating. So picture DS in his red ear muffs driving an IKEA trolley up and down aisles with the sole aim of going as fast as he can, while the Hausfrau and DSP load five beds onto trolleys and then into the trailer in teeming rain. (Luckily we'd fortified ourselves with Swedish meatballs and cranberry sauce prior to this.)

Sweden I

Having viewed more than one mystery drama in which the catalysts for gruesome murders were rare and beautiful orchids, it was with slight trepidation that I walked into our Dear Swedish Hosts' spare bedroom, where I was to stay with the children: On a window ledge above my bed sat no less than ten different orchid plants, some in flower, some with silver roots creeping across the sill.

I needn't have worried, as our DSHs were the most warm and welcoming hosts we could have wished for. I enjoyed several outings with our hostess, who took me to see history-laden Laholm, and a nearby beach (beautiful, of course, but very windy and cold).

She was also extremely willing to explain to me the finer details of Swedish cuisine, the result of which is that I returned to Switzerland with a few new recipes to try, plus some supplies such as oft-missed salt-flakes, brown sugar and a jar of pine berries which can be incorporated into a delicious cream sauce.

The Hausfrau was pleased to be asked if she would like to cook some meals, and firstly presented an Aussie-style lamb roast to her hosts, which I believe was well-received. We even managed to find ingredients for the mint sauce, though that possibly didn't appeal to all palates. I continue to find it amazing just how many different kinds of foods there are in the world, and how integral food is to people's happiness. Case in point: the smile on the DD's and DS's faces when they saw a lamb roast appear on the table. Or the smile on the Hausfrau's face when she tasted pickled herring and fresh, baked salmon.

As the first week progressed the Aussie Hausfrau slipped deeper under the spell of a head-cold, resulting in her grip on reality becoming more and more tenuous. Was she really in the northern hemisphere, in Sweden? Was her son really speaking Swiss-German to Dear Little Swedish Pal? Was DLSP really speaking Swedish with a Swiss accent back to him? Did neither of them notice or mind the fact that the Hausfrau was speaking English to them? Apparently not. It was really rather funny; and more so when we passed through Germany and we all tried our hand at Hoch Deutsch. You can imagine that at times there was more hysterical laughter than sense being made.

So, for the Hausfrau, laughter, photographs and drawing (and a certain amount of opera singing as we rocketed along the Autobahn) became the lingua franca, as the kids and I managed to fit in lots of drawing, and clocked up over 1,000 photographs over the two weeks... and that's not including the deleted ones. (Stand by: must get them from DSP's laptop.)

And, speaking of deleted ones, I awoke with a start in the middle of the night when an orchid flower landed on my forehead. Now, I ask you, how many people have lived to tell a tale such as this? Not many in the detective stories, I can tell you that.

Needless to say, DD and DS found it hilarious that I had flowers in my bed.

But to the Hausfrau that wasn't nearly as hilarious as her son, who went to sleep nearly every night carrying a small hammer with bejewelled handle (from here on known as 'The Disco Hammer') and wearing fluffy red ear-muffs.

La Traviata

This week was starting to look a bit frantic with the impending trip to Scandinavia and the departure of DH to the Mother Ship in Calfornia again. Five loads of washing later, and the Hausfrau received an email telling her that La Traviata was to be performed in the Hauptbahnhof - main train station - in Zürich that night.

What else was there to do but reach for the mobile and text (or 'sms' as people here long-windedly refer to it) and call for the Dear Local Queen of Babysitters?

The only point of this post is to say that it's really not often that you get to stand in a train station with full orchestra in one ear and opera singers in the other, and I enjoyed every surreal minute.

But the most amusing part about it was that the hundreds of people who turned up were clearly so happy to be there, and in fact many of them were casually singing or humming along as though at a sort of operatic rock concert. (Never mind the tragic story being sung...)

On that note (sorry, obvious pun), bags must be packed and iPod and camera charged for the next adventure.