New additions

We are going to be having two new additions to our family in a couple of weeks time - of the feline variety that is!

Meet Findus:

and Falafel:

They are both around a year old, coming from the local cats' home, and the girls are very excited! As am I; D not so much. We just have to have a home visit next Friday and then they're ours to collect.
Which brings me on to the latest news, we will be getting the keys to the house on Tuesday and our furniture and other possessions are due to arrive from England a week later. We have the apartment for a further week after that which gives us the opportunity to get everything in order before we move in - a rare treat.
Almost there...

House!

Yes, that's right - we have a house! And a very yellow one it is too...

It's been a long and sometimes frustrating wait, but it has definitely been worth it. Everything is moving very quickly now though!

We first went to view it a few weeks ago. I was already very taken with the pictures on the web, but was worried about the lack of bedroom space - lots of sitting rooms, but not enough bedrooms. However, we decided that we'd go and have a look anyway, in case we could see an easy solution to create another bedroom. There was a lovely warm and homely feeling to the place as soon as you walked in and by the time we'd got to the lounge on the middle floor I knew that it was the house I wanted. Unfortunately, once we'd seen all the rooms that were there, I also knew that it just wasn't going to happen - with only two bedrooms on the top floor, and a third possible one on the bottom floor there was no way we could manage to live there with the 5 of us and I eventually found myself stood back in the lounge fighting tears of disappointment.

When the estate agent telephoned the next day we explained the situation, and it was apparent that we weren't the only people who had been put off by the lack of bedroom space. As a result, the vendors had decided to create another bedroom and then put it back on the market. It seemed most likely that they were going to convert the (open-plan) dining room which for me would ruin the whole feel of the middle floor, so we put it out of our minds and carried on with the search.

Then 2 weeks ago, up popped the house with a 3rd bedroom on the top floor and still at the same price. The new viewing time clashed with some visitors we were expecting, so we crossed our fingers and asked for an early preview which he arranged for Sunday April 18th. Walking into the house gave us all the same feelings as the first time round, the middle floor had been left untouched, so it was with hope and trepidation that we went up to the very top to see how the new room looked. To our delighted surprise, they'd done a great job and managed to create a decent sized room where we had thought there wasn't the space for one.

Now came the hard part. The bidding system over here is much different to back in the UK, so we asked Per (the agent) about the expectations on price so that we could make our bid accordingly. We were rather downhearted to learn that the absolute lowest price they were willing to accept was also the highest price we would be able to bid. After sleeping on it, we came to the decision to bid what we could regardless - nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. So when Per telephoned on the Monday morning, we put our bid in, assuming that they would want to carry on with the open viewing the following weekend to see who else was interested and would offer them more money.

Incredibly, just a couple of hours later we received a phone call to say that they had accepted our offer! The next day Per emailed over the contracts and arranged a meeting for late afternoon between us and the vendors so that we could sign them and agree on a moving date. So by Tuesday night the contracts were signed and the house was officially to be ours! There was a minor hold-up as our bank contact had gone on holiday and got stuck out there with the volcano, but it didn't cause too much trouble and Friday was a trip to the bank to sign the papers there and pay the deposit and that was it, all done. Compare those 5 days with the 2+ months of back and forwards between solicitors and banks that it took when we sold our house in England.

Now we're just waiting impatiently for June 1st to come round! Minor other detail of getting all our possessions over from storage in MK, but right now that's a secondary consideration to the fact that we FINALLY HAVE A HOME!

Links

I've posted a couple of Swedish related things on one of my other blogs, you can find them here and here.

In other news, it was lovely to go back to England and see everybody, but we were all really glad to get back to Sweden, which is a good thing! I was slightly concerned that there would be someone who went over there and didn't want to come back, but happily not.

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!