The House Husband in Sweden

Last night, at Bookbusters, Mårten said he found that the English language had too many synonyms in it. This morning, Mirinda said she felt that Swedish didn’t have enough. It made me wonder whether there is a Swedish Thesaurus and whether it was written by Roget. Or, maybe, Rogetsson.

The thing is, back when I was at school and was taught how to write properly, a main tenet of good writing in English was to not use the same word for things more than once in sentences, either the same one or within the next few collections of words. For example, if I were to write the word ‘sentence’ in one, then wish to refer to it again, I could write ‘passage’ instead.

(Having just written the above paragraph, I get the uncanny feeling that I’ve actually written about it before. I guess, after in excess of three million words, I may easily have done so.)

Of course, I wasn’t taught how to ramble on, endlessly, with metaphors to the fore and my thesaurus on hand, winding a sentence around my little finger and back again like some verbal spiralizer attacking a word courgette. No, that I did all by myself. And it is probably quite annoying. I enjoy it, though it may limit my readership when my sentences wander all over the place before coming back to whatever I’m writing about.

Nicoline said she just speeds on ahead and ignores a lot of the words. Fair enough, I say. There are enough to ignore.

Speaking of Bookbusters, I had a little play with ChatGPT today, and it came up with this:

It made me laugh.

I also laughed at a Whatsapp post from Lindy. She suggested we might want drinks coasters at our meetings which read “My wine club keeps talking about books!” which made Mirinda laugh out loud. Literally. (Don’t you find that people who constantly write ‘lol’ after everything couldn’t possibly keep laughing out loud as often as they claim. They’d be doing it all the time. I mean, how would they eat?)

Book group aside, today my gout finally felt like it was on the out. I could almost manage to walk around the house without a stick today and, late in the day when Mirinda drove me to the ICA, I found it a lot easier navigating the aisles and hordes.

I had to shop because I’d run out of fresh food.

Anyway, all went fine and Mirinda, who was waiting in the car (she hates food shopping) exclaimed that I was very quick. We were both well pleased that I appeared to be heading down the road to recovery. Maybe tomorrow, I can hang some Christmas lights around the house to join the lonely advent lights.

Having shopped and returned home, and following Reading Hour, I headed into the kitchen and whipped up a chicken stir fry. I thought it tasted pretty damn good.

I do love a meal that takes half an hour from start to finish.

What an exciting day I had! Okay, the gout still has me in its grip and walking is still a bit difficult but, nevertheless, the world welcomed me back into its warm embrace. I felt like I had rejoined the human race, albeit briefly.

I’d spent most of the day creating a timeline of our days spent in Sweden. I was chained to my chair, scrolling through this blog, noting where we were, and why, since first arriving in Trelleborg back in October 2020. It was a delightful journey down Memory Lane.

Of course, I regularly flip back over the posts made ‘around this date’ and fix typos that I regularly find, but I don’t go day-by-day on a journey of geographic discovery. Call me a simple soul but it was fun.

Something else I did was send Charles (head engineer at the Talking Newspaper) a report on my new podcast mic. He was so impressed with the quality of my Letter from Sweden recording this month, that he said the mic was going to be his Christmas present this year.

But, enough of the reflective travels and onto the real one.

I needed some ingredients for dinner (tonight and tomorrow) and, rather than order online again, I asked Mirinda if she would give me a lift to the ICA if I could manage to get a shoe on my gouty foot. She hesitantly agreed. She wasn’t sure that I was being 100% honest about the improvement to my walking ability.

So, came my Cinderella moment and, the shoe fit! Just. I managed to lift myself off the chair and, aided by my trusty walking stick, I strode confidently, if somewhat slowly, and carefully, to the car for the short trip to the supermarket.

It was a bit of a struggle getting into the shop, but I managed. The shopping trolley helped as a sort of wheelie walker.

Finally, I found myself among the living. It was late in the afternoon and the place was crowded. As Sara said, as I stood at the check-out, “The afternoons are always really busy, particularly on a Tuesday.” I looked around and realised everyone was definitely a senior and smiled. “All of us oldies know what Tuesday means! Old doesn’t mean stupid!“

I wheeled myself back out to the car and we went home. And my adventure ended. About half an hour after it started. Phew!

Mirinda then headed off for Friskis&Svettis while I made dinner with the ingredients I’d successfully procured from the ICA.

It was almost as if I’d caught the fish, cured the chorizo and grown the veg myself. It felt like quite the achievement.

I spent the day at home. What a surprise. While the pain in my leg subsides, the desire to leave the house grows stronger. It’s not like I go anywhere very special, but going outside is starting to feel like an unattainable nirvana.

Mirinda, of course, was at uni today. The university habit of changing days and times on a regular basis (the only regular thing about the timetable, in fact) continues unabated. Last week it was Tuesday and Thursday from 15:00 to 17:00, while this week it’s Monday and Wednesday from 13:00 to 15:00. Being someone who loves a bit of order in my life, this would drive me mad.

Anyway, she had a good day learning stuff while I sat at home waiting for the day I can leave the house.

Actually, I did do something constructive today. Being the first of the month, today was time to record my latest Letter from Sweden.

Last month sounded like I was recording in a bucket. I think it was the old microphone I’ve been using for the last five years, given I hadn’t changed the location of recording. And so I bought myself a podcast mic. I think the results are much better.

Here, listen for yourself:

I also had a bit of a chuckle during Reading Hour.

One of the books I’m currently reading is A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women by the amazing Emma Southon. I love her writing style; educational yet funny, modern while dealing with the ancient.

I was reading the chapter about Cartimandua and Boudicca and the Romans in Britain when I came across a very apt analogy.

Most Brits would understand the ‘£350 million a year to the NHS’ quote. For anyone who doesn’t, it refers to a lie that Boris Johnson had painted on the side of a bus when he wanted the UK to vote for Brexit and leave the EU.

And, speaking of lying and incompetent ‘politicians’ who use big numbers to stupefy the electorate…

What stupid thing did Donald Trump say today?

From Twitter this morning:

🚨BREAKING: President Trump just announced drug prices will be coming down 500-700 PERCENT thanks to his impressive leadership.

"The biggest thing to happen to medicine in the last 100 years."

Follow: @BoLoudon
pic.twitter.com/6RHUVc91px

— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) November 30, 2025

I’m not very good at maths, but surely this means that Americans will get paid quite a lot to take drugs. An excellent incentive and, I guess, it explains why the Trump administration is so keen to stop the illegal stuff coming into the country.

Though I don’t imagine that the Kings of Big Pharma and Lords of Insurance will be very happy.

On a more serious side, I shouldn’t be, but I’m amazed that, apparently, everything great that happens in America is about money. Surely “the biggest thing to happen to medicine in the last 100 years” would be curing something that was killing Americans rather than about cash.

Earlier this year, we had an unexpected visit from a man selling frozen fish from Göteborg, door to door. He was a very pleasant fellow who successfully sold me a load of delicious fish. We still have some in the freezer, which I will occasionally dip into. When he came before, he said he’d return some time later. And today, he fulfilled that promise.

It was an odd coincidence that, when I saw his head bob by the lounge room windows, I was watching an episode of Bon Appétit, Your Majesty and one of the cooks was preparing fresh fish in a typical Joseon way.

Anyway, he knocked lightly at the back (front) door and I greeted him from the kitchen doors. He came over, all smiles, calling me by name and speaking English. As I said, he is very pleasant as well as being a smart salesman. The interesting thing is that Emma didn’t bark.

Emma also went to him when he called her. She let him stroke her, rub her ears and speak to her in Swedish. Freya didn’t come near him at all, which is odd.

The fish man explained that he had just got a German shepherd puppy and Emma could maybe smell him. Given Emma’s distaste for German shepherds, I think that unlikely. I just think it’s one of Emma’s weird personality quirks. Maybe she thought the fish man was a fish woman. Emma only knows.

The fish man then flicked through his phone photo gallery to excitedly show me photos of his new puppy. And he was very big. There was a photo of them wrestling, and I said he needs to be careful because in a short while the dog will be bigger than him and win easily.

The fish man said that he’d recently owned a small dog who had, sadly, passed away (of old age) and the shepherd helped with the loss. I commiserated, saying that our two had served the same purpose.

Suffice it to say, after all that, I bought some lovely looking fish and the fish man promised to return in February.

My gouty left leg was feeling better so, given it was Advent Sunday, I collected together our advent candle lamps and put them in the appropriate windows to show the street that we know the right time to light up for Christmas. I think I’ve mentioned before that quite a few houses have jumped the gun.

And the kitchen looked particularly festive as I washed up before bed.

Sadly, my leg wasn’t good enough to take me down to the Trosa Christmas Market, which was today. I think it’s the first one I’ve missed since we’ve been here. Mind you, it was raining, which wouldn’t have been particularly pleasant.

Also, Mirinda wasn’t feeling too well this afternoon and was having a nap. She heard nothing of the fish man, let alone head down to the market.

I have had gout for the last week. It has left me immobilised for most of the time. The pain in my left foot is second only to the tophi on my right. I think it’s time for a change in my life. In the past I gave up drugs, I gave up the theatre, I gave up smoking. Now it is time to give up drinking. Nothing, nada, no alcohol.

Alcohol is the worst thing for gout. Or the best thing if you think about it from the gout’s perspective. In the past, from my first attack back in around 2006, I have figured that the brief bit of pain and inconvenience was enough to endure in order to maintain my drinking. But no more. Now the attacks come more often. Now I’m getting too old to put up with it.

The pain and the inability to walk have both contributed to a very unhappy Gary. I feel like I’m stuck in a box, waiting for things to return to some sort of normal. This morning I even ordered a delivery from ICA because of the parlous state of the fridge and pantry. In fact, today, Mirinda had to get something to eat for dinner after uni rather than come home to a proper meal. That isn’t good.

Anyway, I realise this isn’t an easy time of the year to give up alcohol but, then again, it’s an invitation to gout to return in double short time. I don’t want that any more. I know it will be difficult but only for a short while. My memory is so bad that I’ll forget that I enjoyed it, before too long.

Nicktor and I used to wear our gout like badges of honour. Other people thought it was incredibly funny. Most people think gout was something that happened to grumpy old men in the distant past following a big meal of venison and port. Okay, it still happens to grumpy old men but in the here and now.

Mostly, though, I’m just sick of the pain. And I want my, admittedly limited anyway, mobility back.

Today I finished reading The Uncommon Knowledge of Elinor Ostrom by Erik Nordman. Elinor won The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (incorrectly known as the Nobel Prize for Economics) in 2009, the first woman to do so. The book is excellent. It paints a picture of both the woman and her research. She was someone who believed in people to work out problems without using governments or proscribed rules, preferring, instead, common sense.

When she was awarded the Riksbank Prize, she showed great humility. She was surprised. Delighted, yes, but also surprised. She shared the award with the staff at her Workshop, saying they deserved it as much as she did for their hard work and belief.

Earlier this year, Donald Trump was annoyed that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize. He felt he deserved it. He told the world that he had solved heaps of wars, some that never even happened, and should be honoured for his efforts. Obviously, the MAGAs also praised him, saying he was the President of Peace.

He made an effort to sway the judges but it didn’t work. Mainly because this year’s recipient had already been chosen and Trump had no idea how the process worked. I think he believes all he has to do is say he wants something, then he gets it. If he doesn’t, he blames someone else and punishes them.

(Interestingly, another book I’m currently reading is a new biography of Stalin, and he had a habit of blaming and permanently punishing people for his own mistakes. He often had no idea how things worked.)

Of course, the main reason Trump wants a Nobel Prize, is because Barack Obama was awarded it in 2009, coincidentally, the same year as Elinor. Obama won it for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples“, things that are anathema to Donald Trump.

Of course, if there was a Nobel Prize for Bullying, Lying and Being Surrounded by Yes Men, then Trump would win it hands down.

If Donald Trump were to win the Nobel Peace Prize, it would demean both the prize and the memory of Alfred Nobel. If it ever happened, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if other prize winners returned theirs. I mean, seriously, who would want to be included on any list that Donald Trump was part of?

He has no humility. He is just loathsome.

Today I learned about Hector the Convector. Hector is, unexpectedly, a storm cloud. He hangs around an island group off the Australian coast. The islands, which I’d also never heard of, are called Tiwi and they have the most predictable weather.

From September to March each year, every afternoon at round 3pm, there is a thunderstorm as Hector forms and rumbles in. Hector was named by Second World War pilots who would use the big cloud as a navigational aid. For reasons hidden in the mists of time, they named the cloud Hector.

I found out about Hector from Magne, who told The Beavers about it in their group chat. I had to check it out because it sounded like something that Douglas Adams would have come up with rather than real. But, yes, Hector is real and has nothing to do with Arthur Dent.

The storm cloud forms because of various natural phenomena which meet over the Tiwi Islands, creating the ideal concatenation of events required to make thunder, lightning and rain.

I managed to find a time-lapse video of Hector forming.

What an astounding thing Hector is. When I see things like Hector, I am always amazed that most humans want to destroy nature. Mind you, I’m not sure how they would stop a thunderstorm from happened every day, like clockwork.

Speaking of strange names, we accidentally called Freya, Fruit Tray the other day. (Don’t ask me why because I can’t remember.) It’s a delightfully nonsensical name with the added benefit of starting with the letter ‘F’.

When we started calling her Fruit Tray, she ignored us by turning away and staring into space as if we didn’t exist. Now she’s a little more used to it. Plus, I guess that Tray sounds like Frey, to which we often shorten her name.

Anyway, I think she’s forgiven me.

And while on the subject of the dogs, they both finished their seasons today! Yay. No more nappies.