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.)