Mind the Gap
Living in SwedenSo what's been going on? Well since I last posted I have done two of the most stressful life events that can happen to you which does not involve hatching, matching or dispatching of one's self. We have moved to a new apartment in the “city” (achem), and got myself a proper (Swedish employer) job! I'll post about this whole bizarre experience soon, but for me the most important thing for is that this is a major step towards me being properly integrated here.
I have taken the Swedish winter head on, continued cycling into the minus degrees centigrade, won a few games of poker, attended a rather fun Christmas auction, and spent some time investigating the huge diversity of cable channels we now have in our apartment. Which is not as dodgy as it sounds.
My niece has turned three years old, and I am looking forward to seeing her next month in the UK and reinforcing the line: “My! Haven't you grown!”, and seeing how much she has grown. It's weird, kids grow quickly, but when I was one, I didn't notice. My brother and his wife are expecting another addition next year, so that's quite exciting.
The pharmaceutical factory where I worked for nine years, and gave me employment here in Sweden for about 18 months is closing, and this week many departments are closing, including the one where I worked for 5 years. It is all a bit sad, especially for my home town. My family has had several associations with this company over the years (we recently found my late mother's pay slips from the late 60's), and I have that “end of an era” feeling even though I have left it all behind a while ago.
With no reliable internet connection, I am currently “between jobs”, and I hoping to have a calm Christmas, while trying not to over indulge myself with all the usual goodies that tempt you at this time of year.
More soon.
That is all.
LostInTheWoods
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A Religious Experience
Living in SwedenToday I had a religious experience. Well kind of.
I am not a religious person, although I was brought up going to Sunday school, going to church as being part of the duty of being a Scout and our family having a particular pew in church. I guess my mind on this was made up through my experiences in younger life, too many inconsistencies in religion and the fact I was being asked to believe in things that cannot be proved. So I guess what I am saying is that I am an antsiest.
My position is not like some of the people out there, who find themselves being agnostics, or lapsed this or that, through being basically lazy. I have thought about this a lot, for a long time, and I am a non-believer.
OK, this morning I found myself home alone, and the door bell rang. I was expecting one of our friends who sometimes comes around, but as soon as I opened the door I realised who it was..... Jehovah Witnesses. Swedish Jehovah Witnesses. A middle aged lady with her VERY bored, hyperactive son (about 10 years old I would guess). Straight away I played my trump card, no point wasting each others time
[Me in Swedish]: “I am sorry I
don't understand, I cannot read so good, I am English.”
[JW in Swedish]:
“Oh, erm really?”
[Me in Swedish]:
“yes.”
[JW in Swedish]:
“But you are not an Englishman?”
I reckon she
thought I was Swedish and I was pretending.....
[Me in Swedish]:
“Yes I am. I am an Englishman”
Her son said “cool!”, I didn't know what to say, I am guessing the fact that they had found a “engelsman” had made is day. This tells me a lot about how exciting he was finding “spreading the word”.
At this point I thought, “Yes!”, I wouldn't have to discuss my lack of believe, and she would not have to see me as a challenge.
[JW in
Swedish]: “Have you learnt any Swedish?”
[Me in Swedish]:
“Erm, yes I have been to school, swedish for immigrants.”
[JW in Swedish]:
“Oh OK, I think I have got something here you can read....”
She produced a booklet in 42 languages!!! On one page was English, and I scanned it, to me it read:
“blah blah blah... Jesus... blah blah blah...God... blah blah blah... pray...blah blah blah...”
Dang it. So had to explain in Swedish my position. Which according to Jehovah Witnesses means: “Any who are not deemed faithful by God will be destroyed with no hope of resurrection.” So our conversation came to an abrupt end. Hey, I thought God was supposed to be a nice guy?
I have no objection to people believing in what the believe, but I will never knock door to door preaching my beliefs. I have always wondered whether Jehovah Witnesses would be more successful without their house to house preaching? I have no idea. But I do remember my Dad used to invite them in for a good old chat for hours about his church. Never once was he interested in converting, but I guess he saw it as giving as good as he got.
That is all.
LostInTheWoods
Gone Huntin'
Living in SwedenI live very close to two plateaued mountains which are “eco parks” and they also have a population of elk that occasionally pay a visit to my town. Well, October is the month when they should head back deep into the forest, as it is hunting season, and everyone starts to wear bright orange. Well nearly everyone....
Some of my cycling takes me off-road, along horse riding and gravel tracks, and they are often deserted. But the other day, on one of the tracks I use to shorten my route, I saw two guys looking through binoculars at the back of a black classic car (sorry, no more detail on the car..... I was moving at a pace). Didn't think much of it, then further down the track I approached two guys in full hunting gear with what must have been loaded rifles, and the hats with the orange fluorescent bands around them.
I got home and had a worrying conversation with Renee (for it is she) about being out in the woods at this time of year. She said that basically if you are not wearing high visibility gear, you could be mistaken as fast moving 'game'. Jokes about wearing a cycling helmet with antlers didn't go down too well, and I am staying on tarmac until the season is over. I am a complete chicken.
We don't really have much hunting, now foxes are safe, and I come from a highly cultivated cramped part of England, so all this is very foreign to me.
We also recently received the every second year visit from the King of Sweden who comes down here to hunt some elk. This year his party, which included Prince Carl Phillip, got six of them. Elk does make good eatin' (I've only ever had it once), but six is a lot for the freezer.
The King of Sweden
The Royal Hunting Party
That is all.
LostInTheWoods
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Gimme Shelter
Living in SwedenWe currently live in a one bedroom apartment, and I have my 'office' in our main living room. So we are a little cramped. This was meant to be only a short term stop gap for when we first moved here, as it was cheap, and neither of us had gainful employment.
Over two years on, it is time to move. A change is as good as a rest, and we have decided to move to somewhere bigger and a little better located for public transport. In Sweden, rented accommodation is quite reasonably priced, and of a good standard. So we have been looking at a few places, and the viewings are held with everyone who is interested, all turning up at the same time.
Yesterday, there was a flat available, but I had to go alone to view it as Renee had to work. So I got on my bike and cycled the 7 km to the apartment. Upon arrival I met a guy from the company who owns the apartments, but once he twigged Swedish was not my native tongue (it didn't take him too long), he spoke with eyes wide open, and at a very slow speed.
This annoys me a little. The west part of Sweden is where the people talk quickly, sometimes too fast for me, words get merged. So “my name is” becomes “ma-nar-is”, it happens a lot in the English language too. But I don't want to be spoken too like my IQ was equal to my age either. I want somewhere in the middle. It is OK with people who know me, but strangers take on the famous “talk slowly and loud” tactic that so many of my fellow countrymen employ when they go abroad.
Anyway the apartment was OK, and we have applied for it, it will take a couple of days to get a decision. Here are a few of the pictures I took:
We are looking to buy a house sometime in the future, when one of us finds that elusive “steady” job, but for now we just need to move.
That is all.
LostInTheWoods
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Hummer
Living in SwedenAfter a long break, I am fired up for this blog again. No idea why I didn't post, but I think it had something to do with the weather. In Northern Europe this summer, the weather has been awful, hardly any sun and on most days rain. This had a big impact on the usual simmer-time activities, which lead me to not wishing to write about how it is still rainy and grey. Hence the halt. This is the trouble with “user generated content”, it is that sometimes the user requires a break, and needs to get their head together.
Last Friday, we made our occasional visit to Sweden's west coast to visit Renee's (for it is she) mother and her fiancée (Frank). Renee's father came too under his own steam, and we feasted on crayfish, prawns, meatballs and “Jansson's Temptation” (which I need to explain, see below). Just some time to catch up, as we hadn't seen each other for about six weeks, and there was the usual low key family business to take care of (Renee and her Mum exchange clothes, I check their PC is running OK, and this time we received a job lot of redcurrants).
Jansson's Temptation: Normally a Christmas dish, this is basically a gratin made with strips of potato, onion, sprats (the Swedes call them anchovies) and cream. An acquired taste for a foreigner. You can get the recipe here. The “anchovies” you can get from your nearest IKEA.
The next day we went out on the boat (called ”Ida”), which is an old fishing boat, but for the past thirty years has been used for pleasure boating. What was not made clear to me was that we were on a mission.
The previous day Renee's father and Frank had laid down nine lobster pots, and we were going to check them. Lobster is “hummer” in Swedish (like the oversized Jeep), so as you can see, Swedish can be an easy language to remember. Sometimes.
The first one came up, and amazingly there was a lobster inside! We measured it to make sure we didn't have to throw it back (it passed by 1 cm), clamped it's claws shut with elastic bands and put it in a bucket of water. We checked all the other pots, but we found nothing except crabs which were definitely too small to eat.
The catch:
Frank and Renee's father were chuffed to bits, this was their first lobster in the three years they had been trying. We took it back, and got the pot on to cook it. It was cooked, but I was not around to eat it, but maybe next time. But they took a picture for me:
A big part of moving away from where you have spent most of your life is to experience new things. Not in a hundred years would I have experienced a morning like that living in the UK. It seems to me that there are more possibilities here.
That is all.
LostInTheWoods
On My Doorstep
Living in SwedenWe live not too far away from two rather interesting hills, called 'Halleberg' and 'Hunneberg'. They are 110m above ground level and are large plateaus, and their unusual shape was caused by a diabase sheet that covered the plateaus and protected them from weathering and erosion. These hills have the highest density of elk (moose, plural of moose is.... meeses??) in Sweden, and the King comes here in October to bag a few.
A visiting friend of mine and I decided to visit “The Elk Museum” which is situated on Hunneberg (the larger of the two hills) a couple of years ago. We learned as much as is humanly possible about elk. In fact we got elk overload. We learnt about their habitat, their young, behaviour at different times of the year, their eye-sight, insulating properties of their hair ... and on the second floor, how they have been tracked, stalked, killed, gutted, and carried home over the years. Lovely.
At this time of year there are many
foreign visitors to my little part of Sweden, mainly Germans and
Dutch attracted to these hills. They seem to mainly arrive in camper
vans, of amazing proportions and attract a measure of controversy.
Which is, that this kind of visitor will stock up their camper with
all the luxuries of home: food, wine, toilet roll (you know the
essentials) at home and basically spend very little of their money
here in Sweden apart from what they pay in petrol, and the occasional
camp site fee. A lot of what these visitors come for is free. The
nature, the peace and quiet, the elk spotting opportunities and the
fresh air are all free, and they themselves add nothing to the local
economy.
Also, for quite a while these road signs used to go missing from the side of the road, and (allegedly) finding their way to Germany:
Now they occasionally pepper these signs with drill holes to make the signs less appealing.
Yesterday I cycled around the “Ringvägen” (“The Ring Road”) on Hunneberg two times. It is a beautiful ride and was only ruined when I ran out of drinking water. I am very lucky to live near such lovely countryside, with so few people in it. This makes a stark contrast to where I lived in the UK, which is a crowded corner of the island.
The elk count was zero, but I am not too keen on running into one of these massive beasts thank you very much. I nearly did once. To my British eyes, I first thought the elk standing in the middle of the track was a horse. A horse with, er... antlers. So it's not a horse is it? Getting closer now, what do I do, turn and run, or try and blast past it? I decided to cycle past as fast as I could, and do you know what? I don't think the elk could be bothered with me at all. Didn't move an inch. So not a really exciting outcome to the tale, but my heart was really pumping for a while afterwards.
That is all.
LostInTheWoods
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