Another year goes by

I've been toying with the idea for a long time now, what to do with this blog, now terribly neglected, when an idea struck me today as I came home in a white-out.

I am, it seems, forever fascinated by the seasons in Sweden, despite over 15  years of living here. Perhaps it is due to growing up in Australia where the seasons are not as dramatically different from one and other, as they are in a land that is covered in ice and snow in the winter. There is so much that fascinates me here - from the snow that piles up as the tractors plow the streets, the icy footpaths of recent days, and the spring flowers that pop up when everything else looks barren after a long winter to the glorious summer days and the magnificent colours of autumn. But even if I love all the seasons I think it is winter that fascinates me most of all.

So, what is my idea and why? I've been inspired by my dear friend Michelle to do a photo diary - she seems to always have a photo project on the go and I thought I'd follow her lead - one photo every day for the next year. That photo will signify my day, or reflect the season.

I can hardly wait!! But I have decided to wait until Monday - just because. Although I am tempted to go out and take a photo tonight of the 20cm of fresh snow we've just received, or the huge snow pile at the end of the street... Having a great camera in my phone will make this easy - I just need to acquaint myself with loading the photos up straight away so it does happen every day.

You will find my continued ramblings about life in Sweden at www.liveinsweden.se, if I manage to produce any that is. You will undoubtedly find some of these photos on there too. I have a couple of more creative writing projects on the go so my writing energy is going into them at the moment. More about them in another 10 years or so!!

While I'm at it I decided to change the blog address - have wanted to do that for a very long time and now seems as good a time as any - a new start so to speak. So what was NicsNewest is now NicInSweden and I'm very happy about that change!

Well, if you are still reading - thank you!!
And I hope you enjoy the photos in the coming year.

Our Halloween celebrations

Not being from a Halloween celebrating country and not living in a Halloween celebrating country, the celebration of Halloween is new to me but it is a tradition we have made our own. And I love any celebration of the seasons, and any excuse to brighten up the darkness, so it fits into life quite nicely.The kids have been excited for days, weeks. The concept of running around knocking on doors and being given candy is about as thrilling as they can imagine. It was like Christmas eve here yesterday, the waiting and waiting went on longer than they thought possible.

It's the third year in a row we have celebrated with a dinner with friends and it has become a combined Thanksgiving-Halloween celebration with a turkey and pumpkin pie. Luckily the 31st falls in the school holidays here so a mid-week celebration has not yet posed a problem. And as with any celebration the preparation is as much a part of the fun as the event itself, especially Halloween preparation.This year the magic started with a birthday box arriving from Australia from Mormor (mother's mother for the non-Swedes amongst us). Knowing it contained costumes they were allowed to open it early while talking to Mormor on the phone. Two very happy little chickadees decided to wear their new costumes for Halloween, the boy even wanted to sleep in his!

Now that we had costumes there was the turkey, the pumpkin pie and the pumpkins to prepare. Turkeys were once hard to come by in Sweden, but are now readily available in most of the big grocery stores and I knew just where to go to get both a turkey and pumpkins at a reasonable price. Gone are the days of paying exorbitant prices for pumpkins at Hötorget, the fruit and veggie market in town! But saying that you can never be too sure and I was relieved once we had actually made our purchases.

Pumpkin carving is usually a big deal for the Canadian amongst us and designs are usually carefully considered according to pumpkin size, shape and over-all difficulty. He and the kids scoured the internet until they found the right designs and carving was soon underway.Once everything was prepared, including the roasting of the pumpkin seeds, it was time to bake Halloween cookies. With the aroma of freshly baked cookies lingering the guests arrived and it was time to play, talk, put the turkey in the oven and paint faces. The table was set, the wine corked and a delicious dinner was enjoyed by the adults at least. The kids were too excited and too eager to get outside and go door-knocking.
Finally the time had come. A few final adjustments were made and the candy bags were gathered.

They were ready, the were prepared. They were scary. Or not. The were definitely excited!

And the neighbors were all well-prepared and expecting our arrival - I had warned them and handed out candy earlier in the day to make sure!

And we weren't the only ones having a dress-up party! We brightened up a few peoples' day - who can resist this cute little bunch? The neighbors love it when the kids come knocking!

These little trick-or-treaters were thrilled with their adventure - each coming back with a bag filled with candy (or lollies as we say in my part of the world) and a few other goodies from the 10 neighboring apartments. They then settled down in front of a movie and chomped away while the adults got a chance to relax and talk.

Whether our neighbors were celebrating Halloween or not, it was sure hard to miss its presence in our street!

Halloween is a fun, crazy, silly tradition. It is about kids, seasons and doing things out of the ordinary. It spices up life as we head into the coldest, darkest part of the year.

Hope your Halloween was as great as ours!

A Golden Stockholm

We live in a golden world at the moment. If I stand in the middle of our apartment I see golden leaves everywhere I look.

Out our bedroom window.

Off the balcony.
Out the loungeroom window.
And out the kids' bedroom window.

We need to appreciate this golden colour while we have it.

This is what it looked like just a week or two ago.

Autumn! I love the colours of autumn.

VAB, swine flu and the Swedish medical system

I have a sick boy. He lay on the couch for two days with a temperature, dozing on and off, watching tv and hardly eating a morsel. Monday, day 1, he was a bit sniffly and complained every now and again of a sore throat and sore ears, only later to announce when questioned that No, they didn't hurt. His main symtoms have been tiredness and a fever.

Then on Wednesday he fell asleep under the kitchen table just after 5pm and slept through to the next morning. Thursday he slept for almost 3 hours during the day and was still tired. So today, Friday I decided that perhaps I'd better ring the doctor and get him checked out - perhaps it isn't just a virus but something more serious.

To get a doctor's appointment on the day you need to ring the nurse at the local clinic and she calls you back - which they did after almost an hour. I outlined his symtoms and she asked what it was I was wanting(!) Of course I was wanting to make an appointment for him to be checked out. She then went through a questionnaire that she had in front of her and clearly it was a "swine flu screening questionnaire". They don't want anyone in there who has shown swine flu syptoms in the last 7 days, she informed me. She would leave a message for the doctor to ring me back sometime today.

Sweden is reaching the peak for the outbreak of Swine Flu, according to an article today in The Local, and the government hope to vaccinate some 90% of the population. Ever since it was announced that the vaccine would be freely available to all I've been pondering this attempt to thwart a local pandemic and I can only put it down to the cost of VAB and sickness benefits.

VAB stands for Vård Av Barn - or child care - the type of caring for a child when they are sick, the type of caring I've been doing this week. You see the government pays me 80% of my salary up to a certain amount when I am "vabbing" or caring for my sick child. They pay it every day I am at home with my child and there is no need for a doctor's certificate unless they are off for longer than a week. Their only demand is an explanation and a signed document from school or daycare saying that the child has been away. And there is no limit to how many days a year a child can be off sick. It must cost the state an absolute fortune. Compare that to a system where the parent gets nothing for staying home with a sick child - how sick must a kid be then to justify a day without pay??

Adults also get sickness benefits. The first day off is without benefits but after that they receive 80% of their salary. A doctor's certificate is needed after a week and again there is no limit on the number of sick days a person can have off in a year, although questions do get asked after a while.

We have a long winter in this country and for six months of the year viruses run rampant and both kids and adults are regularly at home with colds, coughs and flus. If the swine flu hits Sweden like they are anticipating it will it will without doubt lead to a serious budget blow-out. Add that to the already high unemployment levels (also get 80% of salary with exceptions) and the Swedish economy is going to take quite a beating!

No wonder the Swedish government is both willing and hoping to vaccinate 90% of the population - I just wonder how anyone will get a doctor's certificate when the doctors clearly don't want anything to do with those of us who are sick!

More information available in English from Försäkringskassan http://www.forsakringskassan.se/sprak/eng

Reproduced from the Live In Sweden Blog!

Summer in Sweden

If I had a dollar for every time a Swede said that Sweden is beautiful in the summer I would be a rich woman. But it is true enough, it is a fantastic place to be on a summer's day.

We got an SMS at about 9.45 this morning - meet us at the beach - so we jumped out of bed and on to our bikes and headed to the water.

The Beach - Swedish style. Trees and grass all the way down (except for the odd sandy section) to the fresh water - I like it! Today was our first real hang-out-at-the-beach-for-hours day this summer and the kids, although still very tired from their jet-lag, loved it.


The boys (the big ones) hung out in the shade and talked. The girls and the kids swam and lapped up the sun. I don't feel like it is summer unless I get to swim and today I got my chance.
The littlest of the girls just hung between naps with whoever would hold her and was very content doing so.
Then we rode home again - we rode a total of 17.77km - that is 11 miles for the Canadians!! Not bad for a six year old.
It was all made possible by our latest contraption - a tow-bar which hooks our bikes together, lifts her front wheel and locks in her steering. It took us hours to put the thing on yesterday (literally) so we were thrilled to get out and use it today. She loved being big enough to ride with us, to be able to keep up with us and yet rest and enjoy the ride when she needed to. It is fun to see what a buzz she gets from being so independent (yet not) - no more sitting on the back for her and we can go for real bike rides with her in tow!! Yippee!!

Let's hope summer hangs around for another few weeks yet.

June is for the students

Those of us from places far away, or at least from the other side of the Swedish border are generally amazed by the truckloads of graduation high school students driving around the streets singing, shouting and honking their pleasure. With music blasting from speakers, champagne, wine and beer flowing and birch branches decorating the truck, these youth embrace their coming of age, the boys in their suits and the girls in their skimpy white dresses.


June is much like the November I remember as a student - a mixture of final exams and papers to be submitted, interwoven with sunshine, parties, outings and celebration. A cruel kind of mix - especially after a long Swedish winter. Who can sit inside and study when the sun is shining so warmly? Still, they manage to get through it with the end of school looming in the distance, the carrot is the summer holidays that await.

For those in the younger years June is so much more than classes and I found that many of the classes I should have been teaching were cancelled to make way for the school play, swimming lessons and school trips.

From the end of May until the second week of June we see a string of student graduations and school-breakups, starting with the year 12s. By the second week of June school is officially out and everyone is done with their break-up parties, concerts and speeches, just in time for Midsommar. This year as they days and truck-loads of students rolled down I couldn't help but feel for them as they rain poured down on them, day after day.

Even our own day-care break-up was drenched in rain requiring the execution of plan B - the inside picnic. The plan and the history is that the 6 year olds lead the procession from daycare, through the park to where the parents await with a big picnic. Four days of rain put an end to that and the last minute plan meant that the procession went from one end of daycare to the other where the parents awaited,
all crammed into a couple of tiny rooms.
An anti-climax but what can you do? Summer in Sweden!! The kids didn't seem too perturbed by it, even if it meant they couldn't run around on the grass like they usually do.My own graduation girl had her last day of daycare, school and Grade 1 await in August and she can hardly wait.

Den blomstertid nu kommer or The summer days of beauty are here.

www.liveinsweden.se

Apologies for my quietness..... www.liveinsweden.se is my focus and I am trying to fill it with content just as fast as I can, so I can open it to the public by the end of the month, or so....

Juggling that and my work that actually brings in the pennies leaves me with nothing but thoughts of what I could be writing about.

My writing will be very sporadic, so until my next post, enjoy the blossom, the lime green of the new leaves and all the other joys of spring.

On the weekend my darling children did just that - they played in this forest under our balcony for a couple of hours until the rain finally brought them in. They sat on a big bolder talking and fishing into an imaginary lake, with a roof of blossom and new growth over their heads.

Hope you too are enjoying all the simple pleasures in life, the seasons, the long days, the sun and the rain. It is spring - a time of beginnings.

Our Walpurgis Night

For those not familiar with our long weekend it was Walpurgis Night on Thursday night - as always on the 30th of April. As with most festivities in this country it is a pre-Christian tradition celebrated by many around the country and beyond. Walpurgis night is bonfire night!For Swedes of today it signals spring in all its glory. And you only know what that really means after having been here all winter and truely experiencing spring in all its glory. Valborg as we affectionately refer to it is practical almost as much as it is symbolic, as it offers a chance to burn the garden waste after the spring clean-up and pruning of the bushes and trees. It is also a opportunity to bring people together, for local organisations to sell lotto tickets and raise some money and to celebrate the approaching good weather - approaching I say because it is rarely good weather on Valborg. This year was an exception and although it was typically colder on Thursday night it was much milder and clearer than I have ever known it.

Unfortunately Valborg is also a big drinking night for teens and there are usually many incidences of alcohol related problems thanks to others buying alcohol for the under-aged youth.

We had a lovely evening with friends, eating dinner outside(!) with 3 other families before walking to the local fire. As you can see it was a big one and there were a lot of people there. Countless were streaming out and heading home as we approached. Music was playing courtesy of a 3-man band on the stage, people were selling lottery tickets as well as tea, coffee & cake in the little booths. Kids were running about, there were prams, bikes and dogs everywhere.
We hung back for a while before we ventured closer to take a look at the mighty bonfire - each family separating in groups to get as close as possible. After warming up we headed back to find the others and then everything changed. It only took a few seconds. I turned back to say something to Ty and in the meantime Kieran took off and headed back to the fire with the sticks he wanted to throw into it. I was standing at the yellow booths when he disappeared into the crowd. I didn't see him go, I didn't see which direction he went. He just disappeared.

We ran around like mad things looking for him. He was nowhere to be seen. Makaila was beside herself and told me she just wanted to stop and cry - but we had to keep looking. I saw one of the dads we were with and alerted him to get the others to help look and then headed straight for the stage - everything you can imagine flashed before my eyes - it makes me ill to think too much about it even now. They made an announcement and Makaila and I stood and waited, and waited. It seemed like an eternity. It was an entire song. I was just about to tell them to announce again when I saw my friend coming towards me with my son in her arms. Such relief. Makaila grabbed her brother, hugged him and burst into tears. We found Ty who was running about all over the place. We were all so relieved - except Kieran who didn't really understand what all the fuss was about!!

Neither of my kids have been the types to take off so we had never experienced losing them - now we have. It is a dreadful, dreadful feeling and I think it is all these terrible stories in the media that made it as bad as it was...... You automatically go off the deep end and think worse case scenario.We recovered and took Kieran back to the fire, to where he had been mesmerized standing with his dad, and where my friend found him. And he threw his sticks in to burn with all the others. A little later there were fireworks followed by a cold walk back to the house, warm drinks and apple crumble. All is well that ends well.

My advice after this little adventure? Apart from the obvious - don't take your eyes off your kids in a crowd, warm clothes (always advisable in this country) - and bright hats - just in case you do take your eyes off them, even for a split second. Yellow is a great colour for a hat don't you think?

Frog Season is upon us in Sweden

Spring is here in all its glory, and so are the frogs. A warning was just released from Stockholm City Council that it is now that frogs, toads and salamanders are in the process of migrating, especially on warm, damp nights and that we need to watch out for them while driving.

At this time of year there are countless amphibians on the move from their winter hibernation in forests and gardens, to their summer residences in lakes, ponds and streams. They are particularly vulnerable crossing roads where they fall victim to traffic, bicycles, pedestrians and even curbs that are too high to climb.

In greater Stockholm there is plenty of water for our amphibian friends and they can easily be spotted crossing the road, especially around Spångavägen in Bromma, around the Kyrksjön (lake) and Kyrksjölöten (nature reserve), as well as around Gubbkärrsvägen near lake Judarn and on the roads around Långsjön on the border between Stockholm and Huddinge in the south. Other vulnerable areas include Järvafältet, Isbladskärret on Southern Djurgården and the forrested area of Solbergaskogen.

Want to help? You can join FrogFriends by donating either time or money. It is one of the many frog groups around the country.

And if you see a friend on the road - gently pick it up and carry it to the side, or better still, down to the water. You should be very gently with these delicate creatures, have gloves on (for their sake not yours) and/or put them in a bucket to transport them. That's just what we did with this sleepy little guy we found over Easter.


And last of all, take photos and report your observations to Stockholm's species catalogue.

Spring is finally here for the start of the school holidays

No parent loves that time between winter and spring, real spring.

The snow melts and creates puddles everywhere (that the kids love to play in - along with damp sandpits), they come in with wet, muddy boots leaving a trail of dirt, water and sand behind them. Their outside clothes need to be hung somewhere to dry (great if you live in an apartment!!) and inevitably the sand from daycare and the gravel from the paths manages to find its way into your home, which then needs to be vacumed or at least swept everyday to stop it from being spread around the entire home.
Swedish kids are pretty well decked out when it comes to wet-weather clothes, that's because they tend to be outside everyday, rain, hail or shine. And they love it - kids love playing in the rain and the puddles if they are allowed, and Swedish kids are allowed. If they weren't there's a chance they wouldn't go out for weeks on end......
But it sure is nice when things dry out a bit and the roads and paths are swept of gravel, it is suddenly so much easier to keep the place clean.Yippppeeeee!! Spring is finally here, for now. And its a good thing too, as the school holidays, or the spring break starts today. I think we can safely put the snow gear away, even if not the wet weather gear.

Spring Depression affects many

I looked at the clock tonight at 7pm and thought Wow, things change quickly! Its not just because we changed to summer time, or daylight savings a few days ago but because the days are now quickly becoming longer and longer - we're gaining 5 minutes a day, that is 35 minutes a week! You sure do notice that from one week to the next.

While you would think that we would be thrilled to have the light back after a looooonnnnngggg winter (winter in Sweden is always long) it seems the light sets off winter depression in something like 3-5% of the population. As many as one in five feel mild symptoms of spring depression or at least spring tiredness.

Depression is a word that gets thrown around a lot in this country and I'm not sure if it is because there is good reason for it, or if the whole things becomes a bit exaggerated and self-fulfilling. A friend of mine has always talked about her spring depression and it is only as I write this I begin to think about my own reaction. Most years I have managed to escape to Australia during the winter but I have noticed that the years I don't go, I have run out of energy come February. I have felt flat, tired and well, worn out. Spring depression perhaps?

A recent article in SvD suggests that the best way to cure, or at least ward off spring depression, is not through medication but through light. While daily exercise is generally considered the best cure for mild depression, daily light is best in the spring and I know a combination of the two has cured my friend. Once upon a time we would have withdrawn in the darker part of the year and not been our or performed as much. While that is no longer the case we still need to allow our body clocks some time to make the change, and accept that feeling a little flat or down is all part of our cyclical rhythms.

So if you too are feeling like your battery has completely run out of juice the advice is - eat well, sleep well, exercise and spend 30 minutes a day outside in the light.
How about you? Are you suffering as the days get longer or loving every minute of it?