The House Husband

I have started wearing gloves when I go shopping. The last few times without them, the fingers on my right hand have almost frozen around the head of my cane while those on the left frozen around the handle of my trolley. I get home and have to pry them open with a big pair of pliers. This is not easy when both hands are frozen. I am forced to use my feet. The subsequent cracking of the ice crystals is awful.

The cold, however, isn’t obvious when the days are so beautifully blue and windless. And today was no exception.

My walk to the ICA was a little darker than last time, but my return was bathed in glorious sunshine and a general lack of cloud.

Back at the house, Mirinda was freezing her toes by walking around on the grass with bare feet. She was doing her exercises and quickly decided that she’d have to either start wearing socks and shoes or workout inside without them. It was a surprise that she had her full complement of toes when she came back inside.

As for my toes, they were lovely and toasty thanks to KSP.

Last winter, KSP knitted me a special pair of unmatching woollen socks, perfect for when the temperature drops below bearing. And today it was time to break them out, slip them on and enjoy the pleasure of toasty toes.

My feet are forever grateful. And warm.

WARNING: The opening paragraph of this post may contain some exaggeration.

I walked into class this morning to find we had a new teacher. Her name is Sara and she is from Södertälje. I know this because the first thing she did was introduce herself with a bit of a presentation. She seemed very nice though I didn’t understand everything she said.

To reciprocate, as each member of the class entered, they had to write “Jag heter [name]” on the white board. I noted that Hureya, the woman who never shuts up, chews gum continuously and is generally very annoying, had written hers right across the middle of the board in letters 30 foot tall. When Sara removed her name, I smiled inside.

But it was a red letter day because Teacher Sara put the annoying woman in her place during class in a show of teacher in charge that was a delight to witness. At the beginning of the class, I wasn’t sure about Sara but this incident alone was enough to change my mind.

Hureya was doing her usual noisy talking while another person in the class was struggling to read something from the textbook. Sara had already put a finger to her lips in an attempt to shut Hureya up. Hureya ignored this. Sara then told Hureya she should have a bit more respect for the rest of the class. It was very disrespectful to talk when a classmate was trying to learn. Hureya managed to shut up.

I felt like cheering. Obviously I didn’t, otherwise I would also have earned the ire of Teacher Sara. And I wouldn’t want to do that. She’s no softie.

Another thing Teacher Sara did was ask each of us various questions about ourselves. She was interested when I said I was Australian. One of her sisters lives in Australia but Sara has never visited because it’s too far away. I agreed.

The class was also told to write down various things about ourselves. One was how many children we had. I wrote that we had two dogs. I was sitting next to Djuma, and he wrote that he had 17 children.

At this time, Teacher Sara came over to see why I was so surprised. She joined me in my surprise when she read what he had written.

When I told Mirinda later, she wondered if he remembered all their names. I think it’s unlikely given he has problems with his own. She also assumed it was with different mothers.

All in all, it was a boisterous and enjoyable class.

But the enjoyable aspect of the day didn’t end there. In the afternoon we popped over to Neighbour Beth’s place for strudel, coffee and chat. It was such a beautiful afternoon, we sat on her small deck outside. It’s funny to think that she’ll be gone next month.

It is days like today, when very little happens, that I begin to wonder why on earth I decided to blog every day. Maybe just to report on the weather (it was beautiful today), on current building works (see below) or just meetings with strangers and the odd things they say. One day, I guess, I’ll just stop. If nothing else, it’ll save me an everyday task.

But, of course, I’m not stopping today.

It was a Wednesday, which, of course, meant a trip to the Systembolget. I filled up my trolley then headed for the Coop. From there, it was a quick latte at Meka before heading home.

On the way, I noticed there’s some building work happening on the detached belfry of Trosa Kyrka. I thought the scaffolding looked quite remarkable.

See what I mean? My normal days can be so dull.

Harald started working on the big shed today. He erected his scaffold and started pulling bits of rotten wood off the building. While he worked away, I was busy trying to learn Swedish, Mirinda was swimming laps then enjoying fika in Gnesta and Jason was packing.

The reason Jason was packing was because today he moved into the co-operative in Stockholm. It marks another stage in his life journey; one that brings him a lot closer to his job. No more returning home on his bike, freezing winds threatening his fingers with hyperthermia.

Not that he had an easy time of it. He had way more luggage than two hands could handle so he left one in the car after Mirinda drove him to Vagnhärad. His bike is also in the stuga so he’s coming back next week.

Jason eventually let us know he’d arrived at the co-operative. He celebrated with meatballs from IKEA. A rainbow painted the sky outside his room.

My class was the usual mix of bad Swedish and laughter. Dina called me smart but I think her Swedish wasn’t that good and she actually meant to call me dumb. Zarah asked me how to say the time in Australian. It was a funny class. I gave the teachers a small box of Turkish delight which Ninni said was delicious.

Ninni asked me if we say Autumn or Fall in Australia. I told her that, when I lived there anyway, we stuck to the more accurate and less descriptive Autumn. But, given the proliferation of US terms I’ve heard over the last few years, they probably say Fall now.

None of it was in Swedish and I think it only confused her. I need to learn to shut up.

Mirinda, following her swim, went to Gnesta to visit the garden centre. She then popped into Meka for a coffee and turkey sandwich.

And all of this while Harald slaved away until lunchtime. He’s coming back next week with Roger to finish the shed.

It’ll be good having an outside storage space that’s weatherproof ahead of winter.

The temperature was -2° when I left the house at 7:15 this morning. This is cold even for me. The time for shorts appears to have passed. So I put on my jeans and an extra long sleeved t-shirt. Apart from my fingers, I was definitely warm enough.

Jason, too, was complaining about frozen digits after his bike ride home from the station last night. And, coincidentally, Harald came round and installed a few radiators today. So, basically, it was all about the sudden shift in temperature.

Something else we wanted Harald to do was to install an opening window in the stuga. We were prepared to buy a new one but then, by some hardware miracle, a perfect window appeared in the shed. I guess Joachim had intended to install it but changed his mind. Or forgot about it. We will never know. What we do know is it saved us a slab of dosh.

Harald was in the shed because that’s the next big job – making the shed useful by fixing the back of it and rendering it once more weatherproof. He spent the afternoon clearing the scrub from around it in preparation for the scaffold.

While all of this was going on, Jason went into Stockholm to parkour a bit with a German woman called Sofia. A female in parkour is quite the rarity. Mirinda called it a daaaaay because it was not quite a date. He had a good time but she’s off back home to Munich tomorrow.

To celebrate various things, including his moving to Stockholm tomorrow, the three of us ate at Ankaret tonight. We had the same guy serving us that we did last year for my birthday. He remembered us.

It was a good night, though maybe not for Ankaret. We were the only customers apart from two guys collecting takeaways.

Mirinda reckons the waiter overheard me talking about my espresso martini because he came over to suggest it probably didn’t have enough coffee in it – there wasn’t. He then said he’d put a splash of Kahlúa in it to compensate. I said that adding more alcohol is always a good solution.

Oh, and Kris Kristofferson died today. He was 88.

I forgot to mention a very important and memorable occurrence yesterday. In a day of not much happening, Jason finally managed to pull a cork out of a bottle of wine without breaking the cork in half. This called for a celebration, obviously, so tomorrow, we’re going to take him to Ankaret for dinner.

Today, though, the celebrations were somewhat muted given it was the final Emils Backe day for this year. Mind you, the weather was a perfect backdrop for our last brunch.

Mirinda had a good old chinwag with the woman in the Chez Charlotte hut. She is off to Italy for a couple of weeks and the guy that does the cooking is off to Scotland to play golf. Over the season, Mirinda has had the opportunity to practice her Swedish with the Charlotte Woman so she’s going to miss that. As for me, I’m going to miss the Croque Dijonnaise.

After a splendid visit which we spent mostly in the sun, we headed over to the Button People who have started selling their produce.

And what a plentiful harvest it has been. They have been worried that they wouldn’t have anything to sell given how long it’s taken them to set up their garden but, if today was anything to go by, I reckon they’ve done exceedingly well. We told Victor as much as he picked more fresh, organic food.

We bought some veg then headed back home. Mirinda then took the girls for a walk while I prepared dinner.

Two things I bought in Istanbul were Iranian saffron threads and Turkish delight. Tonight I made saffron lamb shanks and afterwards, we had some Turkish delight. Both were excellent and worth the price of the airfare.

And it wasn’t just us. Emma thoroughly enjoyed a lamb shank as well.

Freya had the other one, but she chose to eat it out of the public gaze.

As Mirinda drove off to the station, I leant out the glass room door and checked out the thermometer. The time was 8am and the mercury was struggling to hit 6°. My forehead was dry, and I was very, very happy. Okay, I enjoyed Istanbul very much, but not being wet all day because of the heat was something I’d sorely missed. I luxuriated in the cold for most of the day.

To be fair, I didn’t do a whole lot of much at all today. I went shopping, did some washing, watched some telly, backed up the last week of blog posts, that sort of stuff. So, not much. Which, of course, gives me little to write about. Mind you, after a week of very long posts, this is a bit of a relief for my fingers.

Anyway, I can write about what little did happen.

For a start, the weather was a delight. As I walked through the woods, metaphorically whistling a happy tune, the sun was big and bright, the sky was azure blue. And it wasn’t hot. Given my amazing ability to retain heat, I was still dressed in shorts and t-shirt. I got quite a few odd looks from the people wearing a minimum of three layers of clothing.

Mirinda, accompanied by Jason, arrived home at around 6:30 and we sat down to dinner. Jason regaled us with his Oktoberfest exploits. I was rather disappointed that he didn’t smell of bratwurst, and Mirinda wasn’t surprised that he didn’t want a beer.

It was a good first day back home.

As I left the train at Vagnhärad I stepped into spitty spotty rain and almost spread my arms in joy as the temperature hit me. Istanbul was way too hot for me, being back in Sweden I was instantly happier. And what better way to celebrate my return than attending Taco Friday with KSP and Jonas, Carl Frederick and Charlie (eventually), Nicoline, Anna Boom-Boom and Peter and, naturally, the puppies.

Of course, given the distance I had to travel, I was surprised I made it. Mind you, I did better than Charlie, who only came from Göteborg but arrived well after I did.

My trip had been smooth and only a little bit eventful. A highlight was finally getting to see Gayfreddy.

Gayrettepe is a station on the Istanbul Metro system. It’s where you join the newest line, M11, which takes you to the airport. I christened it Gayfreddy when I first worked out how I’d get to my plane home. It only goes to show how childish I am.

I was travelling alone because my plane was leaving a number of hours before the UK bound Weasels. Apart from the obvious adventure, I love travelling alone in foreign cities, particularly when I use public transport. It’s on trains and trams and things that I meet interesting people.

Today I met a young chap who offered to help me with my case. We were standing at the door to the Metro and we chatted while we waited for the train to arrive. He instantly clocked that I was Australian. When I told him he had a rare talent, he shook his head and claimed it was obvious.

He was coming from A&E where he’d been patched up after being punched in the mouth during his shift as a security guard. His face was a bit puffy and he was very sleepy, having not slept. As he left the train a couple of stops before me, I told him to get some sleep but he said he was visiting his mum.

He told me he thought I was brave to wander the world with a suitcase and a stick. He said, if he was as old as I, he would sit at home. I told him that the world was waiting and he shouldn’t miss it.

If I think about it, most people I’ve encountered in Istanbul – I mean real people as opposed to tourists – have been very kind. I’ve been offered seats, arms, sympathy, all sorts of generous gestures. All in all, a big impression I have about Istanbul mostly concerns the kindness of strangers.

I managed to get to Istanbul Airport an hour and a half after leaving the house. This, of course, gave me a lot of waiting time. Which was mostly spent in queues. Istanbul Airport is, apparently, the biggest in the world. I don’t know about volume but it’s bloody long. It’s a hike every time you want to go somewhere. Or a queue. There are a lot of queues.

In fact, the weirdest thing about the airport is you have to go through security as soon as you enter the terminal. Then you check-in, then you go through passport control, and then, as if the first one wasn’t good enough, you go through a second lot of security.

Given all the faff, I was rather pleased I was so early. It meant I wasn’t hanging around for too long, though I may have had a beer and a wrap during the little waiting time I did have.

Overall, the flight was fine. I was sat beside two African ladies whose command of English was non-existent. We had some very short conversations like “Toilet?“, “Hi!” and “No English, sorry.” They both seemed very excited to be visiting Stockholm. Of course, I’m assuming they were just visiting. For all I know they were a couple of refugees escaping some war torn country and were just happy to be somewhere else. I’d love to know what they thought of the drop in temperature.

If the African ladies were delightful, a lot of the other passengers were not. There were constant, random little children wandering all over the place, basically getting in the way and annoying me. It was like some little kids school had arranged for the the class to go to Stockholm on a ‘Let’s Annoy Gary Trip’.

Mind you, none of them were worse than the devil child in seat 23A. This kid would scream and screech and repeat things constantly. He would bash the kid in the seat in front of him (who did fight back) then lean over the back of his chair to annoy the Kiwi in the seat behind.

And loud! I think everyone, staff included, would have happily put him in a box and make him travel in the hold. I exclude his mother in the ‘everyone’ category. She wasn’t bothered at all. She even held his hand while he sat in his seat well and tried to summon all the evil hordes of hell through demonic screeching.

There really needs to be a rule. Like, if your kid is a rotten little shitbag, he should not be allowed in any plane going anywhere.

There was also a bit of a to-do over seats, which saw us leave half an hour later than scheduled. This time was, somehow, made up and exceeded. As we approached Stockholm the plane did a bit of loop around Nynäshamn as indicated by the onboard digital map of our flight.

As it turned out, we landed five minutes early and I was standing in the baggage reclaim quite quickly afterwards. My bag took an age, otherwise, I may just have made an earlier train home. As it was, I had a bit of a wait for the 7:43.

I was in constant communication with Mirinda so she could sort out the logistics for our arrival for dinner with KSP and Jonas.

I was met at the station by two very excited cockerpoos and a not so excited Nicoline. I say that because she wasn’t bouncing around the back seat nearly as much as Emma and Freya.

Happily ensconced around their dining table, I spent a lot of time recounting my adventures. It helped me sort out how I actually felt about Istanbul and the trip as a whole.

I enjoyed it, mostly. I liked the people, but not the traffic. The food was mostly excellent. The heat was awful but the beer, cold and crisp. The opportunity to wear a paper frock in public was pretty high on the enjoyment level. The almost constant up hills put me in mind of a demented Escher city where everything is a climb. Also, there are a lot of mosques in Istanbul. I’m sure god is happy about that.

Generally, I had a wonderful time – there was a lot of wonder. It was, indeed, another successful Weasel outing. Thank you, John, for organising such an excellent trip.

And thank you, Sarah, for the amazing selfie above. The minute she shared it, I knew it had to be my sign-off image. It was in our first mosque and we’d just managed to miss a horrendous storm by being inside. That’s clearly why we look so pleased.