The House Husband in Sweden

Rather than persistent fog, the first blue sky day since our return from Portugal bathed Trosa in sunshine today. We almost decided to move the deck furniture back outside. In fact, while Mirinda took the girls for a walk and I cooked a number of meals for her to have while I’m in Copenhagen, I opened doors to air the house. I’d call that a red letter day.

Of course, we popped out for brunch at Tre Små Rum, along with thousands of other people and their dogs, for some delicious eggs.

It’s really important to arrive at Tre Små Rum just after 11am otherwise you are hard-pressed to find a table. Of course, as the weather warms up, the outside becomes an option but, currently, in the wind, it’s still too cold. Even for me.

So, we arrive and take our chances. Like today, our chances were rewarded with our usual table and we settled down for the perfect brunch.

At a table next to us, a woman and her child were with, what appeared to be, a small horse. I think it was actually a Borzoi but I’m not 100% certain. Whatever breed it was, it was big enough to wear a saddle and a small jockey.

Not that our two were bothered. In fact, they barely recognised it as a dog. Freya, with great powers of self-preservation, tends to regard anything bigger than Emma as non-existent.

Speaking of large animals in unexpected places, I spotted a couple of deer in the ICA today where we went after brunch. I was a bit shocked though the woman in the photo wasn’t too bothered.

All a bit strange. Though it was a bit smaller than the dog in Tre Små Rum.

Mirinda and I want to eat more sustainably and be more concerned with animal welfare. To this end, Mirinda has been suggesting we shop more locally so today we headed out to Wappersta gård. Late last year KSP took Mirinda to the farm shop there when she was getting a Christmas ham and wanted to show Mirinda the amazing shop where all the meat is free-range and most of it is organic.

And what a great shop it was. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting.

And there wasn’t just meat. Eggs, cheese, sauces of all kinds, soap, and local honey (the best kind) were also for sale.

The woman (the farmer?) who served us took us through how the farm worked and, in particular, the life journey of the pork; from a local farmer who breeds them to the meat in the fridge. It was fascinating. We stocked up enough meat to last us for yonks.

Mirinda then wanted to head into Gnesta for some bird food so we stopped off on the way at another farm shop, this one with goat products. There were only cheese and eggs in the small shop. We bought three hard cheeses, all goat. The one we tried when we got home was delicious.

That’s the little shop at Sörbro Gård. We’ll have to return when they have more produce.

Back at home, and after a late lunch, Mirinda took the girls for a walk while I recorded my latest Letter from Sweden. You can listen to it here:

Much later, Mirinda chatted to Amanda while I prepared for Taco night, which we devoured in front of the telly because, of course, it was Mello tonight. The final final before the big final next week.

And what great fun it was. We picked the winners for this week though neither of them were as good as Bara bada bastu by Kaj. That’s our favourite for Eurovision. We were a bit sad that Ella Tiritello didn’t get in with Bara du är där.

I think we’ve (KSP and I) convinced Mirinda that Mello is wonderful and she should never miss another one. Ever.

So, the death of Gene Hackman, his wife, Betsy Arakawa and their dog continues to mystify. It seems they had been dead for around ten days, as indicated by the level of decomposition. Hackman was in a ‘mudroom’, whatever that is, and may have fallen. While Arakawa’s body was in a bathroom, with scattered pills and the still as yet unnamed dog was in a bathroom closet.

They had three dogs, all German shepherds. The other two were still alive and could come and go in and out of the house via a pet door. The local police are still investigating. There was no sign of foul play or death by noxious fumes. It sounds like an episode of CSI.

More shocking American news, though, was the meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Vance and Zelenskyy where Trump and Vance, like a couple of schoolyard bullies, showed the world that it was now dealing with a backward country that has no idea how to behave on the world stage.

I find it fascinating that the Republican Party appears to now support Putin and the war. I guess, Trump will soon be giving military support to Russia because Zelenskyy was rude by not wearing a suit to their meeting. The US government becomes more childish by the day.

Anyway, enough of the world of the juvenile…here, in Trosa, nothing much happened. With me, at any rate. Though, obviously, I went shopping first thing.

I did manage to research another few soldiers for the Surrey History Centre, knowing that it will stop very soon. And I wrote a first draft for this month’s Letter from Sweden which I’ll record over the weekend.

Oh, and I woke up to a text message from KSP which featured four bags of crisps. They are in preparation for March 8, the Melo final.

‘Melo’ is how the kids say Melodifestivalen. Nicoline told us the other day, and I proved it is so. While chatting to one of the ICA staff this morning, and asked what I was doing on the weekend, I firstly replied not a lot then suddenly remembered and said “Melo!” to which she said “Of course!“

Mirinda, on the other hand, was very busy. This semester, she has to write up each week of study on Fridays. She was working on that for most of the day.

When we first started looking at places to buy in Trosa, we booked in to see a property on Smäckbrogatan (which we call Smack Bottom because we’re puerile). The property seemed perfect on paper. It was falu red, had a guest house and a big old boulder in the front garden. We did a walk by before meeting the real estate agent. The traffic put us off, so we cancelled the visit.

Next door there was a church building which I didn’t know was a church building before I went on the SFI tour of historic Trosa and ended up there for fika. Well, not any more. While we’ve been away, it has been removed.

It was quite a shock when I walked passed this morning on my way to the System. The thing is, right next door, to the left of the photo, is the house we didn’t visit. So, while the traffic would have been bad, this and the subsequent building project ‘coming soon’ would have been awful. Especially considering it’s not expected to be finished until 2026.

Incidentally, the church is going to build something they call a ‘climate-smart parish hall’ in place of the old one, which was completed in 1972. I don’t know what that entails but I do know it’ll be a noisy construction zone for over a year.

Other changes in Trosa I noticed this morning include a new Thai/sushi place called Sawaddee. It’s where Trosa Bistro and Bar was. Then there’s the rest of the walkway along the river. I have mentioned the bit they’ve been working on from the centrum to the bridge at Bryggargränd and this new section goes from the bridge to Smack Bottom.

It’s currently a big trench.

However, the biggest and best change is Villa Tjugosju which is going into Visthuset. Villa Tjugosju, according to a sign placed in the window, will be a boutique and bistro and is due to open sometime before this summer. The insides of the building are currently being renovated. I’m just hoping they will serve coffee as good as Visthuset.

In electrical news…Lukas came round this afternoon to check out why the power in the stuga vanished. It appears that there is some sort of short in the cable that goes from the main house. He says they will need to run a cable direct from the distribution box at the front of the property. This will mean a trench being dug beside the drive. Hopefully, this will be fixed by next Tuesday.

In a move that has surprised us both, Tom has moved to Gibraltar. Mirinda Skyped Sophie this afternoon and was told that he has settled in to a Youth Hostel and has even managed to get a waiting job in a restaurant. He has threatened to go away for years and, it’s good to see, he finally got up and went. His independence is starting.

Of course, like any mother, Sophie has been clucking around him, making sure he’ll be okay, shoving money in his backpack, booking Easter accommodation to visit him, etc but, I think, she’s proud of him for going his own way.

Long gone is the young boy who took great delight in climbing all over me while we watched animated movies together. Oh, how I remember the number of times we watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Here’s one from 2011.

Mind you, I’d always miss bits because of the wrestling. And, of course, there were the many Jedi lightsabre fights we had in our back garden at Farnham.

I have doubted whether he’d actually leave home and here he is, flying his own route. Well done, Tom.

We left home today and flew over to Nicoline’s for fika. We had a lovely chat, coffee and cake. (That sounds like a trendy bakery – “Meet your besties at Chat, Coffee and Cake, you won’t be disappointed.” The icon could be some variation of three C’s.)

Anyway, we caught up with the last month, describing various aspects of Portugal, not always in the most glowing terms. We also discovered that, while in Angola, Nicoline only had bacalhau to eat and she hated it. She said it made a potato look good. Mirinda, obviously, agreed.

Here’s the one I had at The Fonz:

It was a variation on the traditional bacalhau-a-bras in that it was the same ingredients but in a different configuration. It also had some delicious string beans.

Back at home, for dinner, we had roasted cod which, while the same fish, is nothing like bacalhau. Which was a good thing as far as Mirinda was concerned.

Before we left for Portugal, I cleared my desk of all manner of stuff. The main things to go into a sort of mini storage were the three external drives I use for digital storage. These are, usually, backed up continuously. Naturally, I wasn’t taking them with us so they were disconnected and safely stored. This has meant that, every day, I receive a report from the backup software I use saying it couldn’t find the drives. It’s good to know it’s working.

Today, I reconnected them and it was like a new calm had taken over my laptop as lights flickered and motors whirred. Actually, there wasn’t a lot of whirring, I just thought it made the sentence sound better.

Another return to normal was my early morning trip to the ICA for shopping. It was excellent walking through the woods, wheeling my trolley and equally good seeing and chatting to people I sort of know. Including the young woman who I regularly speak Swenglish to. In fact, she was on the check-out this morning.

As we chatted about Portugal, she held up a turnip and asked me what it was. I pointed to the label and said, “Majrova.” Having run into this problem before, I always try and get one with a label. Anyway, she turned it round and laughed, entering it onto the register.

“In English, it’s a turnip,” I explained.

“I didn’t know that in either language,” She replied.

I so wanted to say, “Well, that’s a turnip for the books!” but didn’t think she’d get it.

Back at home, though, I told Mirinda and she laughed. Even though she doesn’t like puns much.

Another return to normal was Mirinda throwing the ball for Emma. Though, it seems that Emma has been spoiled by Jarne, the Belgian house sitter, who, it seems, threw it for hours. Emma stared at us as if to say how much she was missing him.

She then went and sulked in the rocking chair like the spoiled little princess she is.

Another return to normal is the fact that this post is quite dull.