The House Husband – Sweden

The dining chairs have done for me! Today, obviously spending far too long in one, my back complained to the point where I had to lie down for a bit. They really are very uncomfortable. Consequently, I’m writing this sat at Mirinda’s desk, on her ergonomic chair. It’s decidedly comfortable.

I’m not sure why I spent so much time sitting down today. Perhaps it’s cumulative and I’ll need to spend a few days avoiding the dining chairs. I’m very tempted to buy a comfortable dining chair just for my back.

I did get out of the chair long enough to go for a walk just before sunset.

Mirinda had already taken the girls to the forest early on. The morning was so beautiful that she didn’t want to miss it. She took a different track and spent a good hour and a half wandering around the deserted woods, singing to herself.

She told her hairdresser that she often wandered around the woods singing to herself. The hairdresser said if she came across someone singing loudly to herself in the woods she’d make a real effort to avoid them. I suggested that the reason why Mirinda didn’t see anyone this morning was because she was singing loudly to herself.

Our walk, late on, was not an occasion for joyful singing. Not because we weren’t joyful but because it was along the roads to the lake and beside the river where the multitude of ducks provided a raucous chorus of quackery.

Mirinda asked me if I knew the collective noun for ducks. I didn’t, off-hand, but have since discovered that it’s a flock. That’s incredibly dull. Given the propensity of these ducks for wandering all over the road and into people’s front gardens and plus the way they quickly run away when approached by a cockerpoo, I’ve decided that the collective noun should be a waddle. A waddle of ducks. Much better than flock.

I note that the burnt out building that I reported on the other day has almost completely disappeared. Today a grader was getting rid of the last bits and pieces of concrete behind the safety of Heras fencing.

I don’t know why the sizeable pile of logs remains in place. Maybe there’s going to be a big Christmas pyre.

Back at home we had an unexpected surprise.

At some point, our landlady (I assume) had strung up some Christmas lights in the hedge just outside the small terrace off the kitchen. It was very festive.

A little later, we also discovered that the Welcome sign outside had, what appeared to be, a candle in it and was beaming out a warm and cheerful golden glow.

Most of the houses in our street are already festooned with fairy lights. I realise it’s a bit earlier than we’re used to but, with the sun going down so early, it’s quite a bit nicer than the dark.

The 840 bus into Tyresö Centrum takes 15 minutes. It takes me about ten minutes to walk to the bus stop. The bus stops underneath the Centrum overpass and about two minutes from the entrance. It’s all very simple. I did it today.

Mirinda needed a headset so she could “walk and talk” as she calls it. She’s been using my set that I use for the Talking Newspaper but, because they are a studio set, they have a long cable which is a bit unwieldy. I said I’d go and get her a pair.

There’s an electronics shop in the Centrum and I thought this would be a good place to start. And, as it turned out, a good place to end as well. I bought a set of gaming headphones with microphone which turned out to work perfectly.

We see a lot of people walking around, talking on their phones, but they are using ear buds that depend on saturating their heads with EMF radiation. Neither of us particularly like the cancer risk so a cable is essential. There is also the benefit of the much lower price.

With headset in my hand, I decided I had more than enough time to grab a latte at Espresso House. I had to have vanilla syrup but, otherwise, it was lovely.

It was then just a matter of catching the 840 bus back. All within 75 minutes – that’s how long the bus ticket lasts.

Mirinda was pleased. I was pleased. The girls had to make do with a walk around the streets while Mirinda made a phone call.

Not satisfied with a long day of meetings, Mirinda had a guitar class tonight. This meant an early dinner, followed by a quick episode of Swedish Dicks and a quick set up for her class. I was impressed that we managed it all in time.

The kitchen/dining room is the brightest room in the house so it’s the best for Mirinda to play in. I had a WFA webinar tonight, so I was at the other end of the dining table.

Tonight’s webinar was about women spies in the Great War. It was given by Dr Viv Newman and was excellent. It makes such a change, not only having a woman presenting but also having a lecture that features both sides.

From Mata Hari to Régina Diana, from Edith Cavell to Elisabeth Schragmüller, it was a story of bravery and ingenuity. All amazing women, regardless of the side they were on.

Ignoring the part that Germany played, with regards to spying, would be like only reading every second page of a novel: you’d get the sense of the story but not enough to satisfy. Dr Newman gave a very well balanced talk which I enjoyed very, very much.

Most amazing was, possibly, the story of Belgian Marthe Cnockaert who was decorated by four countries: an iron cross from Germany then honours from France, Belgium and the UK. An incredible woman who, having survived WWI and being arrested, avoiding the firing squad in lieu of her iron cross, then released, was placed in the Nazi’s Black Book as someone to be taken out when they invaded Britain.

I then went and bought Dr Newman’s book about Régina Diana. The story of her postcards from Marseille was extraordinary as well as her description as a ‘discrete prostitute and operetta singer’.

For more information, Dr Newman’s website is here.

Uppsätra is a croft in the Tyresö Nature reserve. Or, more accurately, it was a croft. Today there’s only a few blocks of hewn stone left to show where it was. Back in 1674, a farmhand who worked at a gunpowder factory, built a house and a barn. Around the same time there were 15 other crofts built in the area.

These days, there’s no buildings in the reserve. Apart from small, mysterious wooden structures with chimneys and wood stores. There are, however, miles and miles of well laid paths that once were roads through the woods, used and maintained by the crofters.

The part of the reserve we visited today is not far from the house, as the crow flies but, because of all the intervening lakes, is about a 15 minutes drive. Not that that matters. The first view of the lake was worth the drive.

Speaking of the lake, a man who lived at the croft in the 1920’s said that in order for him to go to school as a seven year old, he would have to row across two of them. And, when it snowed, his mother would have to make a path for him to walk along.

Apart from the fact that a seven year old would row a boat to school, it’s amazing to think that people were still living in such a seemingly wild place. Though, the woods have taken it all back given that all remains are blocks of stone.

The day was beautiful; perfect for a walk in the woods. And we were not alone in thinking it. A lot of people were also taking the air, jogging, walking, exercising the dogs. It was glorious.

Mirinda had a day off today. It’s part of her having a long weekend every week up till Christmas. This has come as a result of having no holidays all year and having to use them or lose them. It works out very well at this end of the year.

Today, having visited a new walking place, we followed it up with a visit to Tyresö Centrum where Mirinda had an appointment with an optician and I had a lovely chat with a woman in a bookshop.

I’d managed to find an Alice (in Swedish, obviously) and we got to talking about how she’d had a drink in the same pub as Lewis Carroll. She learned English in Oxford. I told her about seeing the secret garden when we were there. She then ordered a copy of the republished Tove Jansson Alice for me.

I sat and waited for Mirinda by a newly installed Christmas tree which she failed to notice. I guess that’s why she needed to go to the optician. It’s not exactly a small tree.

The other, very important, thing we did today was get a price for changing Max’s tyres to winter ones. It’s the law here in Sweden. From December 1, all cars need to have winter tyres. There’s a tyre changing place at Trollbäcken Centrum so up we drove.

We had a jolly good laugh with the guys in the office then a jolly good shock at the price. We said we’d get back to them. Camila suggested we park the car in a garage and get taxis everywhere.

It’s fair to say that I’ve missed having hazelnut syrup in my coffee then, today, after the tyre place visit, we went to Mirinda’s second favourite café. I asked for syrup and noticed they had hazelnut. This is the first time since leaving the UK that I’ve seen hazelnut. Obviously I had to have it in my latte. It tasted perfect.

But at what cost?

I read today that hazelnut production in Italy is dominating the countryside and making it into a massive great monoculture. Life is deserting great swathes of land as the ground turns sour and volcanic lakes fill with carcinogenic dust. Well done Italian agri-business.

So it seems it’s up to us to choose. Death by Covid-19, rising sea levels or Nutella.

Clearly I’m going to have to give up my hazelnut lattes.

Imagine a woodland, trees not too close together and dotted among the trunks, gravestones. Small plots of ground in front of the memorials, indicate where ashes may have been scattered. Some inscriptions are for individuals but the vast majority are for families. Families that still visit while past generations are left to spend eternity in a Swedish forest.

Today we went to Skogskyrkogården. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The place is beautiful. Lots of headstones, littered through a woodland setting. Acres and acres of pleasant looking surroundings. It should have been amazing. A handy brochure I found being blown about atop Almhöjden or the meditation grove, states that “The city’s cemeteries are resting places for the dead and places of peace and tranquillity for the living.“

And, looking at the photo above of Almhöjden, it does indeed look lovely. Sadly the place was neither peaceful or tranquil. In fact, Skogskyrkogården is easily our least favourite World Heritage Site.

There are two problems from my point of view.

Firstly the noise is constant from a large motorway not far away. I have often mentioned the Surrey Roar in our back garden in Farnham but this is ten times worse. It cannot be ignored. There’s no way I’d want my ashes spread there. Not nice at all.

Obviously back in 1917 when they started building it, there was probably just bird song and the occasional lost soul to contend with but things have changed a lot in the land of the living. It’s a good thing that the Resurrection is not going to happen because there’s a lot of dead people in Skogskyrkogården who will take one look at the modern world and just want to go back into the ground.

The second problem with Skogskyrkogården is the fact that it has roads through it. Lots of roads. And lots of roads equals lots of cars. And not just cars. There’s even a regular bus service that goes right through the cemetery.

There were lots of other people, many with dogs, taking in the noisy tranquillity, including a couple of kids rolling down some seriously steep hills that ended in a road. I guess they were in the right place for it.

It was a pity that none of the chapels were open. Looking at the photographs on the website, they look quite amazing inside. They are currently shut because of the pandemic which has halted the regular tours. And you can only see inside on a tour. Or if you are accompanying a funeral.

One of the chapels, the Woodland Chapel designed by Gunnar Asplund and opened in 1920, has a rather scary looking gold angel on the roof. She is called Angel of Death and was made by Carl Milles. I would have thought the Angel of Death would be a friendly, welcoming kind of creature given she’s there to take you to heaven. But maybe this one is working for the other side. I don’t know.

Noise and traffic aside, we spent a lovely couple of hours wandering about, trying to enjoy it. The weather, at least, was beautiful, a far cry from yesterday.

We’d started the day dropping the girls off with the Perfect Swedish Family before heading to Notholmen Café for coffee and pancakes. That, at least, was peaceful. There’s no traffic on the tiny island. The ducks can be a bit loud, and sometimes the kids can be less than quiet but it’s a far nicer aural landscape than Skogskyrkogården.

We then rounded off the day with a lovely Italian early dinner in Tyresö Centrum. The restaurant (Toscanini) serves very Italian meals in a typically Italian atmosphere. Our waiter apologised that he didn’t have a menu in English. The meals were in Italian so that was fine.

Mirinda asked the waiter if he was Italian. He said no, he was Turkish. We laughed. As Mirinda said we were a couple of Australians, eating in an Italian restaurant, served and cooked by Turks, in Sweden. A real multi-national meal.

All in all, ignoring the noise, it was a lovely day spent sucking up plenty of vitamin D.

In passing, I spotted this gravestone as we wandered among the Lidstroms and Skoglunds.

I’ve tried to find out who the Loveable Rogue, Michael Anthony Beasley was and why he is remembered in Stockholm. All I’ve discovered is that he was born in Romford in 1947, married Vivienne in Maidenhead in 1968 and died in Bergerac in 2008. I guess he was looking for that elusive pot of gold. I hope he found it.

Today it rained. And rained. Wild, squally rain. Lashing, wet and cold. Sitting at the dining table, the noise on the side window didn’t stop all day. I’d say it was easily the most unpleasant day so far.

It didn’t stop Mirinda taking the girls around the block during a couple of lulls but I stayed in the house, preferring the dry. And, for both of us, the day, rather than spent visiting something in Stockholm, was essentially spent on our respective laptops.

Coincidentally, the Perfect Swedish Family couldn’t have the girls today – they were visiting parents – so we’d planned for them to have them tomorrow. And it was as if the weather knew. Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be glorious. Today, a trip into Stockholm (or anywhere) would have been awful; tomorrow it will be perfect.

Of course, not everyone was bothered by the weather today. I assume this lot enjoyed it.

Today marks my first ‘Letter from Sweden’ for the Talking Newspaper. It was an idea put forward by Tim and Nina following the last FATN recording. I wrote my first letter and today I read it. I think it went down well. We’ll see if there’s any kind of backlash, otherwise I’ll keep writing and recording.

Today was almost all about recording this week’s edition. Which was a shame because it was such a beautiful day today. Mirinda managed to enjoy some of it by going to a café in the morning while I had to wait until around 2:30pm to get a glimpse of what had been.

We walked down to the lake as the sun was starting to set. It made a massive change to the usual grey background.

I had to finish cutting and pasting the FATN edition in the morning. I didn’t get a chance yesterday because of various technical and social reasons.

Then, this morning, sitting at the dining table working on my laptop, I kept getting distracted by Mirinda’s much more interesting work meeting. I had to resort to headphones and loud music to drown out the interesting in favour of the mundane.

Mundane may be a little harsh but editing pieces in the local paper down to 90 second stories can often be a bit mind numbingly dull.

Eventually, I headed upstairs to my make shift recording studio (more commonly called the second bedroom) and chatted with Mike while we waited for Nina to join us. It’s the first time Mike has engineered with me since we arrived in Sweden, so he was asking all the usual questions.

He said we were very brave to make such a huge change. I countered, saying he was very brave staying in the UK given the socio-political situation brewing and bubbling away.

The recording went very well – my connection only misbehaved once with my voice dropping out – with only a few mistakes. And, as I said, I included my first Letter from Sweden. I also had to do some live cutting of stories as our chitter chatter started extending the recording a little longer than desired.

Eventually, it was all wrapped up and I accompanied Mirinda and the girls on our walk.

Our street looks so lovely when the sky is clear.

The stars, late at night, are also very bright when the sky is clear. It almost reminds us of home in the Blue Mountains. Though nowhere near as amazing as the Milky Way seen from Angledool.

At least, the stars would be bright, if not for the two construction sites next door to us. For some reason they are lit up brighter than Cape Canaveral on launch day. All night. By looking out of the window in the bedroom you get a hint of the brightness. Going outside, on the other side of the house, is better.

It was such a perfect day that I was even granted a short concert before dinner.

And speaking of the weather, the temperature is going down very quickly. This afternoon it dropped to 1.

After a windy, windy night during which the windows rattled and the trees bent and swayed, we woke to a couple of chaps in earnest discussion outside the house. Mirinda met them when she took the girls to the forest for a muddy walk.

They were mostly concerned with Max who, they felt, was in danger of being squished. They suggested moving him a bit to the right. When asked why, they pointed to a tree which had been blown over and was leaning against the surrounding trees, defying gravity and saving the car.

Mirinda left while I worked on creating the Talking Newspaper clipped edition for tomorrow’s recording. I also kept an eye on what was happening with the tree.

There’s a lot of trees around here and, as you’d expect, there’s a lot of tree felling expertise floating around them. The two chaps took their time; double the time it took to actually fell the tree. They were very deliberate.

First up was a small digger.

It was placed alongside the house, a wide canvas strap wrapped around the bucket at the front. The end of the canvas strap was then wrapped around the angled tree. The digger moved back very slowly until the strap was taut.

There was another period of deliberation before the chap who appeared to be in charge, started up his chainsaw and gradually and carefully cut a wedge out of the base of the tree.

The weather wasn’t pleasant as they worked. The wind had died down but there was intermittent rain squalls and a bit of light snow. It wasn’t what you’d call ideal.

The wedge was kicked out of the base of the tree. I was concerned that it would kick back and take the guy’s head off but, being a man of great tree felling skill, the tree remained where it was until it was told differently.

Using the surrounding upright trees surrounding it as leverage and support, the fallen tree was then dragged backwards by the digger. There was a great wrenching sound as it came loose from its now tentative hold on the ground. The digger kept moving back until the tree, finally, fell to the ground.

The tree now rested across the road. Both men ran out and the chainsaw chap quickly cut it into manageable chunks while the digger chap hauled the chunks away. The road was very quickly cleared. They then reduced the rest of the tree to neat fireplace faggots.

It was all very dramatic. I found it difficult concentrating on my editing as they worked away. Mind you, I did manage to finish in good time.

When Mirinda returned from the forest, she parked Max across the road, outside Camilla’s place. Camilla suggested it, saying there was a second tree which might fall on him.

It was quite the exciting morning. But then work intervened (for us both) and the tree was forgotten for a while.

A little later, and as a break from all the excitement, we headed up to Norrbys Trädgåd Café for a late lunch of fish soup.

I read on the BBC News site today that there’s a continuing furore over the Fairy Tale of New York lyrics. The song that is pplayed every Christmas and loved by millions, despised by some.

Last year, radio DJ Alex Dyke reportedly said he was no longer happy about playing it. There’s been other people criticising it and saying it should be banned. The BBC has decided to use a version that has replaced a word with another word, one that makes little sense. It’s the usual hypocritical, jump on the bandwagon, guilt ridden, nonsense from Alex and general compliance from the BBC.

As usual with these things, the story talks about the numbers who argue that something is wrong. They do not count the far greater majority who either don’t care or don’t find anything wrong with the song.

Obviously, Alex Dyke has every right to say that he finds the word ‘faggot’ offensive. As am I in saying that I find his use of the surname ‘Dyke’ as equally offensive. I think he should choose something else.

We’ve been waiting for the arrival of an ergonomic chair for Mirinda to work at. The dining chairs here are awfully uncomfortable. And the other chairs are, frankly, inadequate. We ordered a new chair (and desk and lap tray) on Amazon. And waited.

The desk and the lap tray both arrived last week but of the chair, there was no sign. The delivery was expected to be between November 16 and 24. Of course, as I have written before, you can’t complain until the final date has been reached.

I managed to find the DPD International tracking site, which allowed me to follow the chairs progress. Having been made in China it was loaded in Germany, spent a little time in Denmark then made it’s slow but inexorable journey across Sweden.

Today, I was sitting at the dining table, researching dead soldiers, when there came a tap-tap-tapping at the window. It was a woman in a DPD uniform, holding an electronic device. She had just delivered the chair.

I then spent the next half an hour putting it together. Until, at last, Mirinda had her office nook under the window in the living room.

She declared it very comfortable as she resumed work.

Because of the unknown date or time of the chair delivery, I haven’t been out of the house much this week. Of course, while Mirinda enjoyed herself at a nearby café, I took the girls out the back to chase a stick around.

Well, to be fair, Emma chased a stick around. Freya just went for a bit of an explore then came back and sat in my lap. She really prefers the Great Indoors.

Then, as the last rays of daylight kept it light enough to see (at about 3pm) we went for a walk to our local lake. For me, it was a sort of reward for all the waiting in for the chair. For Mirinda, it was the fourth or fifth journey outside for today.

Speaking of exercise…I started an exercise regime upstairs, in the spare room that I use for FATN recording. I think it went well though, of course, I don’t have a bike. Still as they say, something is better than nothing. I’ll quickly get into a routine.

Back at the lake, things were a bit grey and gloomy but it still looked lovely. We even saw a couple of fisherfolk, sitting in collapsible chairs, rods dangling in the water, hoping to catch dinner. We bade them “Hej! Hej!” before continuing along beside the river.

As we turned back towards home, we spotted a big machine pulling down the burnt out remains of a small factory. I don’t know when the fire was. It could have been before or during our stay.

It was pretty devastating. I took a photo a while back because it looked quite atmospheric. Like an old building in some American B horror movie.

I’ll have to keep an eye on any changes as they pull it down and rebuild it.

Incidentally, by the time we went to bed, I still hadn’t heard from Amazon about the chair. Then, when I looked on the DPD International tracking site, the information had gone a bit wacko declaring that I’d ordered the chair on 20 November 2017 and that it had been packed in Germany on 20 November 2018. It then left for Denmark last week.

What the chair was doing in Germany for two years, I don’t know.