This morning I headed down to Ekerö Centrum for our shopping, first visiting the Ica then slowly scrunching my way around to the Systembaloget. I was in two minds about having a latte in the café but, after a metaphorical dice roll in my head, I decided to order one and have a five minute break before catching the bus back. It turned out to be quite a long five minutes.
I’d sat down and my latte had arrived when a chap who had come in after me, approached my table and asked if I’d like someone to chat to. I explained that I was only there for five minutes but, when he asked what part of Australia I was from, saying he was from Sydney, it was inevitable we’d be chatting.
His name was Phil and he has lived in Sweden for a while. His Swedish is very good, to the extent that he sometimes has to ask his wife (Lisle) what words are in English, because he’s forgotten. When he told me this, it occurred to me that, perhaps, he wanted to practice his native language with a native speaker.
Obviously, we both share a knowledge of Sydney which we could exchange, the good and the bad – for instance, he agreed with me about the Swedish reaction to the pandemic as opposed to the Australian one. It didn’t take very long before my accent became very Australian.
We had a jolly good chat covering all bases including why we were both in Sweden, for how long and why we liked it so much. Then Lisle walked in, having been to see the physio across the way. She’s Swedish but had spent some years in Australia and likes Australians very much. It was where she met Phil and they married. She also liked my laugh, for which I apologized for it being so loud, something she waved away.
I think they were about ten years younger than me, but we all shared the same knowledge (and love) of Australian music. There was a lot of band name-dropping.
Eventually, I left and texted Mirinda why I was late. I don’t think she’d noticed until she read my text. She was pleased I’d made some friends.
We also met our ‘landlord’, Anders. He came round to make sure everything was okay and to shovel the snow away from the drive and back patio. He also explained why there was no kettle or ‘water boiler’ as he called it.
We then went for an evening walk, ostensibly so I could show Mirinda where she had to catch the bus to her Swedish class tomorrow but also so she could show me the neighbourhood.
It was rather chilly tonight, so we had a big, blazing fire to celebrate.
