The House Husband in Sweden

Today, while Mirinda and Fi had fun in Stockholm, I was having a bit of the opposite. Poor Emma was having even less fun. Halfway through our walk around Trosa Mountain, she was suddenly struck with constipation.

There’d been no indication that anything was wrong until she went into the familiar pooing pose and didn’t come out of it, as nothing had been evacuated. Her face was a mask of confusion as she maintained the pose, trying to push things out. To no avail.

Eventually, and it did take a while, I helped her by trying to extricate a big lump of something from her rear end, using a poo bag. Occasionally, Emma would try and scrape it free by dragging her butt across the gravel path. It was not pleasant. For either of us.

Once we’d managed to squat and stagger home, I put Emma in the bath and proceeded to pressure wash her free of whatever was causing the blockage.

Freya, of course, ignored the entire ordeal. Until we got to the bathroom. She sat in the doorway, looking plaintively at us, dreading the fact that she might be next.

While it was only a small part of my day, it was definitely the nastiest.

Mind you, moving four great concrete slabs from behind the stuga to near the letterbox wasn’t that much fun either. They weigh far more than they have a right to. I needed four to act as the base of a little house for the wheelie bin. Slipping and sliding on leaves didn’t help. Still, eventually I’d completed the change of location.

A far more pleasurable task was the first stage of my fruit mince preparation.

Mirinda returned home with a few things I couldn’t find in the ICA. She located them in the market in Stockholm. It didn’t take long before I’d mixed the fruit, nuts and suet and laid it to rest up ahead of tomorrow’s light roasting.

In the meanwhilst, Mirinda had a good class at uni and Fi spent an enjoyable day with Jason.

And Freya wondered where all the snow had come from.

Last year it was my sister Denise and this year, Fi helped with the ritual loading of the tree with the thousands of Christmas decorations carefully stored away in the Buster Room. Like last year, I made shortbread to bribe our guest into helping. I did it while they took the dogs for a walk. Of course, the first batch was suitably rough looking, but they tasted perfect.

Taking the dogs for a walk wasn’t Fi’s only outing today. Following the setting of the sun, she decided it would be a good idea to walk into Trosa and test her nighttime navigation skills. She wanted to buy an extra something at one of the many shops she visited yesterday.

And she made it. She said the woods were a bit scary, and she was concerned about the wolves leaping out at her but, basically, she made it unscathed. She did, of course, buy stuff, including Christmas bauble earrings for herself and Mirinda. Obviously, I was devastated.

“Where’s mine?” I wailed. “There’ll be no shortbread for you!“

“Do you have holes?” She replied. “I didn’t know you had holes.“

Mirinda appeased me by giving me one of hers.

While I made dinner, there was a lot of noise and laughter coming from the living room as decoration after decoration was extracted and added. There was a break while we ate but, basically, the work took ages to complete. However, the end result justified the work.

Tubby 25 was finally dressed and ready to face the world…or at the very least, my camera.

Mirinda and Fi roamed the streets of Trosa twice today. Once in order to visit as many local shops as possible and once to see the Christmas lights, not just on the streets but also peeking out from people’s houses. Fortunately, we had the dogs with us for the shop tour which meant I could avoid the shops. I also avoided the street wandering, given I needed to write and record my December Letter from Sweden.

Actually, this was the second letter I’d composed for this month. The first was a rambling and mostly mundane chat about Christmas markets. I think the version I rewrote today was far superior.

It gets harder each month to come up with new topics. I do wonder how Alistair Cook managed to create over 900 Letters from America. He finally stopped when he was 95. Then he died. That could be a warning not to stop, I suppose.

Anyway, that was late in the day. In the morning, and being a Sunday, saw us taking brunch at Tre Små Rum. The three of us had the wonderfully creamy scrambled eggs. They really are fantastic. Mirinda and Fi may have also had a cinnamon bun each, the special ones with the icing. Apparently these a pretty fantastic as well.

Then, as I said, they decided to visit all the shops.

Fi was surprised that I hadn’t been in most of them. I don’t know why she was surprised. I’ve never seen the point of aimlessly wandering around shops. It’s certainly not my idea of Sunday fun.

Today, we had a fourth on our walk into Trosa. The girls were thrilled to have someone a little less wobbly to hold their lead. And it made a change for me, having a human to talk to rather than yabbering at the dogs. Okay, the weather could have been a bit nicer but, even so, Fi made an excellent walking companion.

There were quite a few people out and about in town, and we exchanged multiple greetings. Even Visthuset was doing a roaring trade, rather than just the one old man and his dogs.

In continuing Trosa works, the river path near the centre of town is nearing completion, the new decking at the front of La Aduana looks completed and the wooden walkway down near the harbour has been started.

On our walk, Fi noticed a few Swedish pennants fluttering on flagpoles and asked me about the “anorexic flags.” I thought that would make an excellent title for today’s post. Later, while I was making us a frittata and having seen how bright the eggs are here, she said she was “tripping on the white eggs,” which definitely won title of the day.

As well as the frittata, I also made my turkey stuffing, ahead of Christmas Day. I took this photo before I put my hands in and squelched it all together. Such a satisfying ritual.

Then it went straight into the freezer. Hopefully, it’s fruit mince next.

We were sitting having lunch in Tre Små Rum. This came about because I threatened to make a frittata for lunch. As we know, my frittatas are generally avoided. I was originally making soup for lunch, but it suddenly occurred to me that we were down to have fish soup at Lagnö Bo tonight. While it wouldn’t bother me, having soup two meals in a row, Mirinda wasn’t that keen.

I had a marvellous räksallad because I’ve not had one for ages. Fi and Jason had soup…

While we sat and ate, a group of 8 – 12-year-olds entered and sat near us, all looking at their phones. They then went and bought some sugary treats. I think the smallest member of the group, a girl of around 8, was a major Trosa Influencer and the rest were her hangers on.

Anyway, as I said, we were sitting having lunch in Tre Små Rum when Jason declared that he had a doppelgänger. I was sceptical, so he sent me a photo of this mysterious, unrelated twin who lives in the same building as him.

The fellow does, indeed, bear an uncanny resemblance to Jason.

Of course, Jason’s (left) hair is actually very black, but this is the best photo on my phone so you’ll have to imagine it.

Jason wasn’t with us for dinner at Lagnö as he had some sort of piss-up in Stockholm so it was Mirinda, Fi and me. When we arrived, the place was unusually empty: no-one in the kitchen, let alone the dining room. We were frantically looking through our WhatsApp posts, checking to see if the times had been changed.

Then the three cooks entered from the Winter Garden and explained that everyone was celebrating the completion of the works with a little ceremony. We were invited to join and were inundated with questions about the article in the paper. It seems our local celebrity is assured. Well, until the next edition of the paper thrusts us back into obscurity.

As it turned out, we didn’t have soup at Lagnö Bo tonight because Bjorn bought the wrong fish. We had the fish, just not in a soup. The smoked mackerel was delicious, but it would have been weird in a soup.

As usual we had a lovely time with the residents. And Mirinda impressed with her Swedish. She was very happy that they all understood her. I was justifiably impressed because she’s my wife.

I had an unexpected busy morning today. My plans went a bit awry following the discovery yesterday that the Coop didn’t have any pistachios. That might seem a bit mundane. However, Mirinda had ordered lamb and pistachio rissoles for dinner which is a bit lacking without them.

Of course, that meant an unscheduled trip to the ICA. As the snow fell.

That sounds more dramatic than it actually was. The snowfall was very small and was hardly an inconvenience. Actually, I rather like walking while snow is falling.

It was just before the cemetery, on the way home, that I received a desperate message. Mirinda had misplaced her lovely and warm, rabbit fur hat. It was a desperate call to arms. She wanted me to head over to the station and see if it was in the car. She was in Stockholm for uni.

After arriving home and placating the girls, I turned around and headed back out into the wintry world. I caught a bus to Vagnhärad, found the hat, messaged Mirinda of my success then caught the same bus back.

As we approached Trosa, the radio in the bus started playing White Christmas which sent the driver into a hearty rendition of his own. He really was a very happy bus driver. He was so happy, and so full of the Christmas spirit, that he dropped me and the only other passenger on the bus, outside the ICA rather than the timber yard.

Disaster averted, I walked into the house for a second round of excited puppies. I then set to work in the kitchen. And the stuga. It had to be ready for Fi, who arrived today.

Finally, we all sat down to dinner – Mirinda, Fi, Jason and I – and spent most of the night drinking various alcoholic delights in front of a beautifully blazing fire.

It was a far cry from my earlier mercy dash.

And I mustn’t forget to mention the fact that, following yesterday’s piece in the paper, I was recognised on the way home. A neighbour said he now knew all about me. He didn’t mention the ice floors and common monkeys.