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.