Snow!

(I was going to put some pictures with this, but I've packed the cable already so can't, sorry.
Yes, winter has finally arrived here. It started snowing on Sunday night and continued for about 24 hours until there was around 20-30cm. Today has been lovely and sunny with blue skies, but this evening the temperature has gone down to -5C and it's started again. (Not ideal when we're supposed to be setting off at 6am tomorrow, but hopefully it won't keep going all night and there will be less the further south we go.)
Then I was looking on the bbc website yesterday to find that the Met Office were issuing a severe weather warning for England because of an expected 10-20cm of snow, and people were being advised not to travel unless absolutely necessary. Which also reminded me of last winter - when we were still in the UK - and all the schools were closed because of the snow.
Here, nothing much has changed. There are perhaps a few less cars on the roads, and certainly not as many pedestrians, but the buses are still running, nothing's closed, and life is carrying on pretty much as normal. At dagis they're not playing out for quite as long as usual, but they still bundle them up in their snowsuits and send them outside.
This is summed up perfectly by the Scandinavian saying: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing". And this doesn't just apply literally to clothes, but local authority organisation as well - here, by Monday lunchtime there were little tractors zipping everywhere; snow plough on the front, box of grit on the back; clearing roads, pavements and car parks. They carried on all day yesterday and today and will no doubt be back on duty tomorrow. Of course the mandatory winter tyres from December 1st also help matters greatly, people do take it a bit easier, but don't have to drive everywhere at 2mph.
All of which begs the question - why do people (and more so the authorities) in the UK constantly seem to be surprised by the snow which happens every year? I've been as guilty as anyone of it in the past, but having now seen first-hand that the world doesn't have to grind to a halt because of some crystallised water falling from the sky, I find it even more incomprehensible.
So I'm not particularly looking forward to coming back to UK snow this week; but at least we will be able to drive safely on our snow tyres past those people crawling along at snail's pace, whilst waving smugly at them. Yes ok, actually probably blowing raspberries and laughing.

Christmas in England

So the first trip back to England for me and the girls is going to be an extended 3 week visit for Christmas and New Year! Lots of things planned, many people to see (and we're not going to have chance to see everyone we'd like to), places to go, and quite a long shopping list to fulfill. I have to say, people aside, I haven't actually missed all that much about the place. I am looking forward to going clothes shopping for me and the girls though, as we are quite limited for options on that score here in Södertälje.

I wrote a little blogpost on posterous about the things I'm looking forward to. And yes, it is all food.

So I guess it can't be all that bad here, or we'd be more homesick surely?

As we'll need a car whilst we're there, we've decided to travel overnight on the ferry from Esbjerg (in Denmark) to Harwich. We did consider driving the whole way, but the thought of spending 2 full days in the car with the girls was not particularly appealing. And being on the ferry, in a cabin, feels like it will be something of an adventure - I'm sure it will be to the girls anyway.

I confess I initially wasn't that bothered about going back, but I am looking forward to seeing everyone, and it will be nice to have a break from being in the apartment. And now that it's nearly time to set off, I am getting a little bit excited!

So don't expect any more updates for a few weeks (as if you were anyway!) - I'll see you when we get back to Sverige.

God jul och gott nytt år!

Language lessons

D and I started our language lessons a couple of months ago and are both finding it pretty tough. We have 2 hours of one-to-one tuition a week, plus usually a good sized chunk of homework. Although sometimes it does feel like we're not getting anywhere, I know that we must be as I can understand more Swedish, both spoken and written. However my ability to string a sentence together (and confidence to actually speak it) is still pretty rubbish! Next year though, I am going to be joining a conversation class with 3 or 4 other women who have also come to Sweden with their husbands, and I'm hoping that this will help as I would really like to be able to communicate easier with people out and about, and not rely on them speaking English all the time. Although I know most can, and rarely mind, it just somehow feels a bit rude to not be speaking to them in their native language.
Hopefully in time, it will come. Other people have managed it, so I don't see why we shouldn't be able to as well!

There's a list on this blog of some of the words that are common to both Swedish and English, but with very different meanings. Very amusing, but confusing some of them could have pretty serious consequences!

House hunting

House hunting has been an ongoing process since we got here. The sale system is rather different to that in the uk - you don't ring up the estate agent to arrange a viewing; about 2 or 3 weeks after the house goes on the market, there will be an 'open house' - basically a set period of time from half an hour to an hour, where you can just turn up and have a look round. Then the day after, the agent will ring round everyone who viewed to see if they want to bid. It's also an open bidding process which surprised us somewhat the first time we went to look at somewhere.
We've been round quite a few of these open houses which has been really interesting in seeing the variety of property styles that there is. Some have not been in areas that we liked, some have been too small, some too dilapidated (we have little confidence in our DIY skills), but there have been a couple that we've really liked. Up until now though, we hadn't made any arrangements regarding a mortgage (or even found out whether we could get one!) so couldn't put a bid in on them. We got verbal confirmation of our mortgage offer in principal (or the equivalent here), so when we get back from our Christmas trip after New Year we can start looking in earnest. More so now that we know exactly how much we can spend!
Fingers crossed that we find something soon, I think we'd all like to be out of this apartment sooner rather than later. And hopefully it will help us feel more settled. The nosy side of me does enjoy going round and looking at other people's houses though!

School

R has settled into her new school really well. She is fortunate enough to have an English/Swedish teacher, which has been really helpful in easing her into Swedish education. Children here don't start 'proper' school until they're 7 (although they can go into grundskola at 6) but because she's already had 3 years of English education, she's gone straight into grade 3 even though it means the kids in her class are a year or so older than her. It doesn't seem to have caused any difficulties, and she's made plenty of friends. One of her friends lives just across the road from us, and R has already been over there for a sleepover! That friend is Polish, but also speaks both Swedish and English very well so communication is no problem for them.
The kommun also offers all children who have a non-Swedish language spoken at home (even if they were born and bred in Sweden), weekly lessons in their mödersmal (mother-tongue) so R has extra English for an hour every Wednesday which is more to her level than the English lessons the Swedish children in her class have. I went to a hemspråk parents' meeting a couple of months ago, and was amazed at the number of different languages that were supported - well over 20, including Spanish, Russian, Somalian, Romanian and Kurdish. Basically, if there are 4 children or more with a particular language requirement, the kommun will hold a class for it. For children aged 3-5 in dagis (daycare) the teacher will go in for that hour a week and give the child one-to-one attention. I think it's an amazing thing that they do. It also alleviates our concerns about certainly the youngest 2 'losing' their English.
F goes to dagis for 15 hours a week, spread over 3 days. She has been a little trickier to settle in - although we did expect it - but is making friends and picking up Swedish at an incredible rate. Unfortunately she doesn't think that she knows any Swedish, but the problem is actually that she understands and speaks it without thinking or realising! We do have tears in a morning, but they don't last long and she has a great time. They play outside for at least a couple of hours every day, regardless of the weather, so she has waterproof trousers and wellies for rainy days, salopettes and fleecy boots for cold days, a change of clothes for when she inevitably gets wet and has an absolutely fantastic time! They're really allowed to just be children and run around and get dirty, and it's a great environment for her to be in.
She will be old enough to start grundskola in August, but because she's already done a year of school, it may be possible for her to skip that and go straight into first grade, which would also mean she could have the same teacher that R has had this year.
As for G, well she's still at home with me. Because I'm not working, the kommun won't let her go to dagis until she's 4 (when she can have the same 15 hours a week that F gets now). We've put her name down for a place at the same dagis as F so are hoping that one will become available in January. It will be good for her to get out and about and make some of her own friends, but as she's never been away from me before, I think it's going to be a shock for both of us!

Sunshine (or the lack thereof)

When we arrived here in August, there was a heatwave going on, and you couldn't have asked for better weather. And then November arrived. It is well known for being the most miserable and depressing month of the year in Sweden and having lived through one I can now understand why. This November was apparently worse than usual - Stockholm had a total of 17.5 hours of sunshine in the whole month, which equals just 35 minutes per day. And when you consider that there were a couple of sunny mornings with more than their fair share, you can imagine how many days went by without any sunshine at all.
Add the grey clouds to the rapidly shortening days, and it does sometimes feel like the day never really got light at all.
Happily we are only a couple of weeks off the shortest day and then perhaps things will start to improve. Today, sunrise was at 8.33am and sunset at 2.48pm and there's only another 15 minutes of daylight to be lost before the turn around, so I feel like we've almost made it through the worst! Plus, by the time we get back from our trip to the uk we'll be 12 minutes up on where we are right now.
Roll on Spring....

We are still here!

Sorry for the long delay in updates (once again); I shall make it my New Year's resolution to post more frequently, honest!
As you can imagine, we've been very busy over the last few months settling in. There's been so much to get used to - the different supermarkets, school and dagis for R and F, not to mention the language! We're still living in the apartment which is ok, but I think we're all starting to suffer a little from being in such close quarters all the time.
Up till a couple of weeks ago, I still had my car from England over here, but as we were reaching the point where it would need to be re-registered with the Swedish Vägverket (which would involve a sizeable cost with the alterations that would be required), we decided to send it back to be sold. It's not too bad at the moment as everywhere important is within walking distance. There's even a bus stop right outside for if I wanted to go into town, but I haven't plucked up the courage to try catching the bus yet. *blush*
Anyway, as there are so many things to write about, I've decided to break it down into more manageable chunks which I will be posting over the next day or two.

Back to England

Well D went back to England this morning to pack up the rest of the house and put it into storage, leaving me here with the 3 girls. I'm not jealous of him being in the UK, but I am VERY jealous at the thought that he's going to be having proper bacon butties!

iPhone again

As I mentioned previously, one of the things I was looking forward to about moving to Sweden was that I was promised an iPhone when we got here. Decided to wait till the end of July when the new 3GS was released, but of course when I went on the day they had nowhere near enough stock in and I had to order one. They told me that it would be about a month, so you can imagine my delight when I got a phone call last night to say it had arrived already!
So off I trotted this morning down to the store in much excitement, only to find (after the shiny box was tantalisingly placed on the counter in front of me and we'd determined which tariff was appropriate) that actually I'm not allowed to have a contract phone until I've either been in the country for 8 months, or we have bought a house.
A very sad me left the Telia shop and wandered over to Carphone Warehouse to get a pay as you go sim card to put in my UK phone. Looks like I am doomed to only have basic phone functions for a while longer.

Trosa

We made our third visit to Trosa today and finally got to see it in the sun! Picnic, wander round the shops, ride on the little blue train and an icecream - what could be better?
Photos are here.

Taxinge Slott

Had a day out at Taxinge Slott today - better known as the 'Cake Castle' for reasons that are fairly obvious:


Don't know if it's just the novelty of living somewhere new, or the fact that there's so much right on our doorstep, but we do seem to be going out places a lot more since we came here than we ever did in England...
More photos can be found on flickr.

House sale latest

Just realised that I hadn't mentioned anything about the house sale since we accepted the offer - everything seems to be going through fine; D goes back to the UK next week to empty out the rest of the cupboards and the garage and put it all into storage. And of course go to the solicitors to do the last odds and ends of paperwork. So barring any last minute hiccups we should be completing either the 21st or 28th of this month.
All of which means that we can then seriously start looking for somewhere more permanent to live over here. But that's another post all of its own.

ID card application FAIL

Well after all the excitement of getting the personnummers through at the end of last week, today has been particularly frustrating.
When we first went to the Skatteverket, we were told that I had to go for my ID card first as D's passport was too old for them to accept it as identification (he hasn't got one with a chip in it), and then I would be able to verify his identity once I received my official Swedish ID card.
So last week we made the payment into the bank for the cards which has to be done in advance, and today I duly trotted back down to the office with my payment receipt, personnummer and passport, only to be told that my passport was also too old. For whatever reason, the cutoff date for passports being valid ID is September 06 and mine is just a couple of months older than that. I got a little bit snippy at this point.
All of which means we have to go and pay for D's card at the bank, wait a couple of days then go through the hassle of getting a Swedish person from D's company to go down to the office with him and verify his identity. And then once his ID card arrives, he can take me down there and verify my identity.
Either that or fork out a load of money to renew our passports. Bah.

Personnummers

Very excited today as our personnummers have finally arrived! For those who don't know, these are the identification numbers that everyone in Sweden has (sort of similar to National Insurance numbers in the UK). Basically there's not much you can do without one - you need them to get a job, open a bank account, for a store card, to get a contract mobile phone - pretty much everything. We've been quite lucky in being able to do some of these things without having them, but things should be easier now. It means we can also apply for our Swedish ID cards which will save us having to carry our passports round in case we need id for anything (like going to the bank or getting prescriptions from the chemist).
So a pretty pleasing day really :))

The Apartment

We visited this particular apartment on our trip here in February and it was a very pleasant surprise when we arrived to find that it was actually larger than I remembered. Basically we have 3 bedrooms - 1 double, 1 small single and one large single with bunkbeds; a good size lounge; a kitchen-diner; a big bathroom (which also has a small washing machine in) and thankfully a second WC. Of course as we're on the 4th floor there's no garden but we do have a reasonable sized balcony. Fortunately there are also plenty of cupboards and places to put all our stuff (not that we brought a huge amount), as well as a little storage cage down on the ground floor for things like suitcases and boxes.
The local area is ok, we are on a fairly busy road which can be quite noisy - especially when the teenage boys ride their mopeds up and down late at night. There's a small supermarket open 8am till 10pm directly across the road which is great if you run out of milk or bread, or get the nibbles in an evening! D can walk to work if he needs to which is handy at the moment as we only have 1 car. The main downside is that there is no playground within a reasonable walking distance - the good one that is closest too us would be possibly be ok to walk to, but the return is up a very steep hill and a bit too far for small legs.
Laundry is a bit of a pain - there are 2 slots available each day, 7.30-2 and 2.30-7.30pm and you have to pre-book on a little board whenever you want to use it. Fortunately not all of the apartments are occupied, or not everyone wants to use it, as there are 20 apartments in the block, and of course only 14 sessions available a week. I'm managing to get in on a Tuesday morning at the moment but it's a bit of a nuisance having to go up and down to the laundry room several times - those girls create a lot of washing! The little machine in the apartment is useful though just to do the odd emergency load if we're starting to run out of anything. It's just drying things that's a problem; we have a clothes horse which is great to put on the balcony if it's a sunny day, but takes up half the bathroom if not. I'll certainly be glad when I have unlimited access to my own washing machine and drying facilities!
All in all, it's not really all that bad. Of course it's very different to where we were before but we're gradually getting used to it, and after all it is only temporary.
Photos will follow when I get round to changing the batteries in my camera...

3 weeks already

So we've been here 3 weeks now and it must be time for a little update. I know there are people out there who are wondering if we've actually dropped off the face of the earth, but I can assure you we haven't! Problems getting the internet connection sorted and the girls hogging the computer all conspired against me. Having bought a 2nd computer (an Asus Eee 1000HE netbook in case you're interested), things are improving so here I am. And I think we'll start with... the apartment.

House sold?

Still here, still finding our feet, but for now just a quick update on the house - we're very excited to have accepted an offer on our place back in England! The people want to move in by the end of August so fingers crossed everything goes smoothly...

We're here!

Yes, we've finally all made it to the apartment! Everyone (and everything) appears to have arrived in one piece. Most of the unpacking is done, just a bit of furniture rearranging needed now to get everything to suit us.
Still a little bit in culture shock at everything being different (not least living on the 4th floor by a busy main road) but I'm sure we'll get used to things in a couple of weeks.
That's all for now - will write more when I can get back on my own computer rather than D's horrible laptop...

Long overdue update

Ok, I know this has been a long time coming and I am probably one of the worst bloggers ever, but things have been moving on apace and my brain has stopped working to the extent that writing anything over 140 characters is a strain...

So here's where we are now:
House is still not sold;
D's car has been sold;
Half the house is in storage;
Most of what's left has been packed into cardboard boxes;
The girls have had a going away disco for their friends;
We've been and visited most of our family, and had our leaving party for our friends;
D and R set off on Monday in my car with all the clothes and bits & pieces we'll need for the first few months;
Me, F and G fly out on Wednesday.

Yes, leaving date is finally almost upon us! Buying one way tickets was such a strange feeling, and the first step towards it actually seeming real. Now that we are less than a week away, a slight sense of panic is beginning to set in, with all the accompanying doubts and second thoughts. However it's too late for all that now, and all I can do is carry on sorting things out and putting them into cardboard boxes - a chore that I'm fast tiring of.

I'm also struggling with the fact that I have to relinquish my computer on Sunday for 4 days... thank goodness for my Blackberry which will at least give me the illusion of still being connected to the wider world ;)
Monday and Tuesday will be an interesting couple of days, as I will be car-less with a 3 year old and 4 year old in a house that contains no toys, no tv and no computer. Hoping for some good weather so we can play out in the garden and perhaps catch the bus somewhere. Fortunately I have lovely friends and invitations to dinner on each day so that's one less thing to worry about.

Although the whole thing still doesn't really seem real, right now the emotions I'm feeling are panic, stress, nerves and excitement in roughly equal measures. And speaking of those, I ought to get on with my jobs.

Most likely the next entry here will be made from Sweden. When that will be, I don't know; it depends mostly whether the promised internet access really exists and works.

Hej så länge!

People are stupid

Fairly good start to the house selling at the weekend - it officially went on the market on Saturday morning, and we had 1 viewing on Saturday and 2 on Sunday.
However, just had the feedback from the first viewing.
Now please bear in mind that the details for our house clearly state that it is open-plan downstairs, but the people who came round on Saturday decided that it was 'too open'. Well what did they expect? Walls? (Obviously there are walls around the outside - it's not that open.) The clue is in the description.
Numpties.

Things moving on....

Apologies for the delay in updates, but as you can guess we've been busy!
So here's where we are at the moment:
House is decluttered - over 40 boxes and a couple of pieces of large furniture have gone into storage. Unfortunately there's still quite a lot of stuff left but less packing to do when the time comes.
And we're sort of on the market; the estate agent has taken his photos and measurements, the details have been approved, and we're just waiting for the HIP to be finished. The energy assessor has been so hopefully that won't take too much longer.
School place is booked and confirmed for the eldest, just need to make some decisions on daycare/kindergarten for the other two and then we can get ourselves on the (4 month) waiting list.
Actual moving date is really dependant on selling the house. D will definitely be going out there at the beginning of July to settle into his new office and the apartment, but not sure about the rest of us. He's going to do a first run at some point with a car load of stuff that we want to have when we first arrive, and the rest of the stuff will be shipped over when we find a house.
We've mostly cleared out the garage and successfully got rid of some things on freecycle - that was an experience in itself!
Now it's just a case of waiting and trying to sell the house. There are various trips we need to make to visit people before we go, but the hard work is temporarily finished. Phew!
I'm not desperately looking forward to living in a 4th floor apartment with 3 girls, so hoping that we'll be able to find the house that we want soon after we arrive. I do keep looking on the Swedish version of Rightmove though and keep being disappointed that we're not ready to buy now! It's not a big worry though, as it will be better to let the girls learn Swedish (mostly so they can translate for me of course) before we move them again.
I think that's all for now....

Quick update

Busy busy packing...

Contract has been signed - official start date is July 1st, which gives us 3 months to pack up and sell the house. Hmm.

Speaking to the estate agent today, just hope he's a miracle worker!

Back to my boxes, more later.

Need more boxes

Packed up all our videos too today (not doing too much as it's our wedding anniversary), but have come to a dead end temporarily after running out of boxes. Have sent Mr.B to get some more.

How many books?

We've spent most of the afternoon cataloguing and packing up books, and the grand total is a little over 700!
The worst thing is that we seem to have barely scratched the surface of packing up the spare room. So much left to do... back to it tomorrow!

Bathrooms finished!

Gosh this is exciting isn't it? No, you're right, it's not.
Anyway, all the bathrooms are now decorated and back to normal usage. It's probably more exciting for us than it is for you.

Bathroom decorating

Another job that's nearly ready to cross off the list - Mr.B is busily spending his evenings this week decorating our ensuite and the downstairs cloakroom.
Unfortunately it means that the radiators have been taken off the wall so having a shower in the morning is very chilly *brrr*

Packing

Feeling mighty pleased with myself this evening - got a piece of software called Delicious Library that lets you scan in the barcodes of your books or cds etc and catalogues them all for you. So today I have managed to scan and pack all our cds (useful to know exactly what is in each box). I've also scanned in 5 boxes of books that were packed up a few months ago when we reorganised the girls' bedrooms, and am all ready now to begin packing up the rest of them. Minor problem in that I kept coming across books I haven't read in such a long time, but I managed to restrain myself! At least I now know where they all are if I want them though.
Mr.B has also made a start today on decorating the 2 small bathrooms, so it feels like we're making progress. Which is good.

Garage clearance

Today we've made a start on clearing the garage, and the first carload has gone to the tip! We also have a huge long list of things to sell/freecycle/give away but I'm not entirely sure I can be bothered to deal with ebay so will be mostly given away I suspect.
Feeling much better as that was a job I wasn't looking forward to, but it didn't take anywhere near as long as I expected, and now that it's done we can start packing other stuff up now and clearing the house out down to the minimum ready to put it on the market.

Firebombings

Not really what you want to be reading about somewhere you're going to move to, but hopefully it's a one off!
http://www.stockholmnews.com/more.aspx?NID=2763

Departure date

For all those asking, don't worry we're not going just yet! The ideal time that we'd like to go is July/August so that RP can start at the beginning of the new school year, but whether or not that will happen depends on whether we're ready and if we can sell the house (not too easy of course in the current climate). If by some miracle the house does get sold quickly then we will go earlier, but at the moment it's not going to be till the summer.

Work has started...

Before we can do anything about selling the house, we need to clear out and decorate and make it look attractive. First step towards this was taken at the weekend. For the first time in the 4 years that we've lived here, we actually have a kitchen blind! Granted, it took me 3.5 years to find one that I liked that wasn't custom made and hugely expensive, but that's by the by!
Lots more to do though, and I see something else every time I go round a corner....

The trip - day 4

Saturday
No breakfast in the hotel till 9am so a bit of a lie-in and time to pack up first. I tried to take some photos of the hotel but my camera decided that it would not work when it was cold. Then we drove up to Stockholm to show RP the palace and do a bit of souvenir shopping for the little ones back at home.
On the way down to the airport we stopped off at a town called Gnesta which has also made it onto our list of possibilities, although it would be a longer drive for D to get to work every day.
After a late breakfast we'd only had a snack for lunch so decided to have a hot meal in the airport as it would be late by the time we got back and we had to collect the youngest 2 from grandparents before we could go home. This turned out not to be such a good idea as the meatballs that we all had turned out not to be very pleasant as well as being lukewarm. So we ended up going through the McDrive at Stansted anyway!

The trip - day 3

Friday
We started the day with a drive down to a smaller town south of Södertälje called Järna where we had seen a few houses we like the look of. There was one in particular with a round tower that I had fallen in love with. Sadly, when we got there we discovered that it was right next to the train station. But the rest of the town seemed nice, and it's definitely somewhere that we will consider making our long-term home.
Back up the motorway again to meet D's colleagues and ex-boss for lunch. They took us to an Indian restaurant that looked very drab and dingy on the outside but was stunningly modern on the inside. The food was pretty good too, and really cheap, so it's somewhere we'll be going back to.
Another visit to a supermarket, this time a big ICA which reminded us of Asda or Tesco and will probably be where we do our main grocery shopping. We've been very relieved to see the number of familiar brands so we can introduce the girls to Swedish food gradually. Not sure how I'm going to work out which is the right flour to make bread with though.
We'd heard of a small town called Trosa which was supposed to be beautiful so decided to go have a look. At lunch we were told that it was also known as 'the end of the world' and driving down there we could see why! It was absolutely gorgeous though but we decided it was too cold to get out and have a walk round (really need to buy some better winter clothes). There was a house there that we had a look at as well, which would be a fantastic place to live, so hopefully there will be something similar available by the time we are ready to buy.
Having explored to the south it seemed like a good idea to have a look to the north as well, nearer Stockholm, so we paid a visit to Huddinge. Almost straight away I could tell that it was not my cup of tea at all (don't ask me why) so we're going to stick with places south of Södertälje.
After a big lunch, no-one had much of an appetite so it was back to the ICA for some snacks and then an evening in the hotel playing cards and watching snooker.

The trip - day 2

Thursday
Today started with a 9am meeting with the HR lady who is looking after our move to Sweden. She was really helpful and answered a lot of our questions about all the things we need to do, as well as giving us a fistful of forms to fill in. Still need to go through all those, but we can't do them until we arrive anyway, and fortunately I'm fairly sure we won't be on our own.
Then we had a 10am meeting at a nearby school. It was very different to here, for a start they have no school uniforms, and it also seems to be less structured than we are used to. Can't be a bad thing though as the Swedish education system has such a good reputation. The class that RP will be joining will be a normal class with Swedish children, but the teacher is actually English and is accustomed to teaching international students. She was really nice and set our minds at rest over several issues. As they don't start school till 7 over there, RP will be joining a grade 2 class with children a year or 2 older than she is so she won't have to start right back at the beginning but should still be able to cope with the schoolwork at the same time as learning the language. I'm hoping she learns it fast too so she can help me out! We are going to be having language and culture lessons, but I don't have much faith in my ability to pick it up anywhere near as fast as the girls!
Then we nipped down to McDonalds for lunch (much posher than the ones here, and with a lovely view down the river, although the food was the same) before heading back to the office to meet the lady who was going to show us round the apartment. This is a company apartment that is fully furnished and we can have for as long as we need it (until we find somewhere of our own to buy). An apartment wouldn't be our first choice to live in but this will be just fine on a temporary basis and has enough rooms for us all which is a bonus!
Then we went to have a look at some houses we'd seen on hemnet.se just to get an idea of what was available in our price range, and what the neighbourhoods were like, followed by a visit to some supermarkets (very important). D had a meeting with his new boss at 5pm so dropped RP and I back at the hotel. Unfortunately I was hit with a migraine so had to go to bed whilst D and RP went to look at a house that had been offered to us for rent by a colleague. They said it was lovely, and whilst we would prefer to live in a house, I think we've decided to stick with the apartment as the house is only available till Christmas and we don't want to put any pressure on ourselves to find somewhere else. I'd much rather take my time and find the right house in the right location.
After checking on me, they went off to a little pizzeria for tea where RP was most impressed by 'Swedish' pizza and said it was much nicer than the pizza we have here.

The trip - day 1

Wednesday
Arrived at Skavsta airport mid-afternoon and then drove up to Södertälje and checked into our hotel - a lovely little pensionnat by a lake (it was also by the train station and motorway but you wouldn't have known!).

Having missed lunch, by this time we were starving so headed off into the town centre to find something to eat. It was too cold to walk around for long (-5ºC) so we went to the first place that looked vaguely open and appealing - a Texan steak house. Unfortunately the steaks were hugely expensive so we settled for some beef fajitas, chicken nachos and no bean chilli. Food was good but still on the expensive side. But I was so hungry by that point I didn't care!
Quick stop off at a shop for some coca-lite and Marabou chocolate and then back to the hotel to get settled in, and finalise plans for the next day.

Systembolaget

Something I had always found a little worrying about moving to Sweden was the restriction on the sale of alcohol to special government shops, but now that I know you can still buy beer in the supermarket (just not wine or spirits) I feel much better. 

Home again

Got home late last night, after a very productive visit. Still too tired and befuddled to make sense of it all so will update properly tomorrow.

Off we go!

All packed and ready to set off on our recce trip. Think I'm actually quite excited!
Spent some time last night looking at houses on hemnet.se and wrote a few down so that we could look at the kind of areas there in and get a feel for what's around in our price range. Planning on making a visit to some estate agents too although it's probably going to be another year before we're ready to buy anywhere.
Also had a look at where exactly the school we're going for a look at is, and discovered that it appears to be in the middle of nowhere. So not very sure about that one. I'm sure we'll be able to find a suitable one somewhere though. It is, however the bit that I'm looking forward to the least as it's such an important decision to make.
Lots to do over the next 3 days, but hopefully we'll have some fun while we're there too.
Sweden here we come!

Lists, lists and more lists

Have started making lists of things we need to do and find out before we go. And as Mr.B is always taking the mickey out of my list making habit, I've even created a master list of lists... and it's interactive! 
Barely started with the things to do though, and they're already quite sizeable, which doesn't exactly fill me with joy :(

Trip itinerary

So far we have a visit to 2 schools and a nursery booked, plus a visit to the apartment that may well be our home for the first few months that we're there, and a morning with the 'moving to Sweden' department. Getting a little bit excited now!

iPhone

Oh yes, the negotiations definitely paid off - the man has decided that I can have my iPhone when we get to Sweden (if I still want one *duh*) yay!!
And no, I didn't threaten to hurt him :P

Recce trip planning

Not long to go now until the recce trip, and still trying to work out our itinerary. Visit to the office/HR and to a potential school are a must, as will be a drive round some residential areas to see if we fancy living in any of them. That for me is the exciting bit! Also going to pay a visit to a supermarket to see how much cooking I'm going to have to relearn (not that I have particularly extensive cheffery skills at the moment!).
Mr.B keeps telling me that I'm not going to like the place we're going to visit (and potentially live) and he's worried that I'll change my mind about going, so I'm just hoping that it's not as bad as he makes out. Mind you, I did grow up in the 'grim north' as opposed to him in the 'soft south' so our opinions of what makes a place nice or not don't always match!

On the plus side

I am currently negotiating with my lovely husband (in case he decides to read this!) that some of our relocation money should be spent on an iPhone for me when we move there - it'll be a necessity don't ya know?!

And whilst I'm on the subject....

.... need to have a moan about Ryanair (so feel free to skip this post as it will likely be deeply uninteresting and completely irrelevant).
They go on and on and on about how they're cheaper than other airlines, but really they're not. Oh yes, first glance - fare out = £0.00; return £74.99pp -> bargain! But then there's the taxes, fees etc. - £146.49; £19 to check in a bag; and then £9.50 each for airport check in - they won't let one person check in at the airport with the bag and the others check in online for free, oh no, you have to all check in at the airport and put more money into their greedy little paws.
The one that really gets up my nose though is the so-called 'payment handling fee' for paying by card - £4.75 per person per flight so another £28.50. What I don't understand is how they have the bare-faced cheek to charge us 6 handling fees for a payment we're only making once.
Grand total £447.46. 
If the service was good and the planes actually comfortable then I wouldn't mind so much, but it's just not worth that kind of money.
Had we been able to book this trip a couple of weeks ago we could have gone BA for the same price. Unfortunately all their flights that suited us have now sold out and we are left with no choice.
Last time I flew Ryanair I swore that I would rather swim than get on another one of their planes. Unfortunately Mr.B won't travel that way. I just feel sorry for #1 that her first trip on a plane (that she'll remember) is going to be in a yellow peril :(
Sorry. Rant over. Thankyou for your patience.

Sweden here we come!

Well it's official - the man from Normanton said "No" so it's pretty certain now that we will be making the big move to colder climes! (There are rumblings about something else possibly being around but I'm not holding my breath - that would be silly anyway).
Thus we've just booked our flights for the recce trip in a couple of weeks time. Taking #1 with us and leaving the other two here under grandparental supervision. We figured that she's the one most likely to be affected by the change, and hopefully the others are young enough to adapt fairly easily.
The plan is to have a look at the residential areas around and about the town that the office is in and see if any of them appeal to us. We're also going to try and book a visit to the school that #1 would potentially be going to - both for her and our sakes!
Then there's the visit to the office to meet Mr.B's boss' boss; dinner with his ex-boss and family; plus we want to go into Stockholm (as I loved it last time I was there) - in fact, not entirely sure how we're going to fit everything into the short time we're there!

Given up on the North

Well still no news, and I think we've basically come to the conclusion that Yorkshire is going to be a no, so looks like we're off to Sweden!! Being talking/looking at stuff this evening, but tired now, so more on that tomorrow.

Still waiting :(

Ok, getting bored with waiting now - the man from Leeds is still trying to decide between Mr.B and another bloke.. he's promised an answer by the end of the week but I just wish he'd hurry up!

News tomorrow

Apparently we will find out tomorrow about up North - just want to get it over and done with!! Then we can start making that tricky decision (if we need to)... in the meantime am going to start looking for somewhere to live in Stockholm....

No news yet...

Himself off work today (still a bit poorly) so no chance for phone calls. Roll on tomorrow!

The story so far....

Well, the contract for Sweden arrived this week, but we're still waiting to find out about the job up north - Mr.B and the man in Leeds were playing answerphone tag Thursday and Friday, so hopefully we'll find out tomorrow whether he's got that one or not. We know he was #1 or #2 on the list, so it could go either way.
In a way, it would be easier if he doesn't get it as then we don't need to make the decision of where to go, we know that we'll be going to Sweden. And decisions aren't something we're particularly good at!
I would probably prefer to go back to Yorkshire - the move itself would be easier, I have family up there, and of course things would be a little less strange for the girls to get used to. But then Sweden is the better career move for him and at the end of the day this is what pays our bills and puts food on the table! So we'll wait and see what tomorrow brings.
The intention was to look at all the paperwork and discuss things this weekend but after unscheduled trips to the hospital yesterday and today we haven't been able to. Fingers crossed that all that resolves itself in the next couple of months and we can concentrate on packing up and sorting out.