The Sweden Chronicles

I think my first week had almost as many ups and downs as Edinburgh has! And so it reads a bit like this:

Bad news: By Sunday afternoon, I was still nowhere near my Monday morning deadline of being ready to leave Edinburgh. Still in possession of my work laptop and a long to do list (note this is 3 days after my official last working day!), still with stuff in bookcases rather than suitcases and still yet to do battle with the mop.

Good news: a last minute visit by a friend on Sunday evening morphed into a mission to resolve the house situation at least, resulting in sparkling kitchen and bathroom, a mass exodus of items into the loft and half a chance of actually making my deadline. Slightly unfairly, this saga begins after a handful of other friends came round and did similarly (at an earlier stage in the process), wielding paint brushes, dusters, good advice and moral support. I am blessed with amazing friends who should all be acknowledged!

Bad news: despite the improved state of my house, the list of things to drop off and pick up, people to meet and calls to make meant that by 3pm on Monday I finally gave up on the idea that I would make it to Bristol that day, losing a day with my parents (who I hadn’t seen since Christmas 2019).

Good news: I had one last evening to enjoy my now clean and tidy, and peaceful, house.

Bad news: plans for an early night and early start the following day somehow got swallowed up in 3 more hours of …what? Wiping surfaces? 

Good news: fears of heavy traffic didn’t materialise and the motorways were plain sailing…

Bad news:...until my phone battery died, taking google maps and my ‘in-flight entertainment’ with it

Good news: I remembered at the very last second that blindly following the M6 all the way down was really a bad idea and that the M5 would be my ticket out of this. Made it - phew!

Bad news: My later exit from the M5 was equally indecisive and fraught with last minute lane changes, earning me some honking and unfriendly gesticulation.

Good news: Time in home for tea!

Bad news: Green beans for tea!

Good news: (Wednesday morning) Covid test pod finally found, with the help of the infinitely patient man on the end of the phone wondering bemusedly what on earth I was doing walking round and round a glorified cul de sac from where all road signs, building names and numbers were invisible and large hedges everywhere prevented any walking around to see said signs.

Bad news: informed by man at test pod that result might or might not arrive in time for check in (apparently 24 hours after arrival at the lab rather than actual test time) ☹

Good news: Put this out of my mind and got down to settling my car into its new home on my parents unused second driveway. An interesting venture involving moving and replacing a gate that isn’t a gate (some council related politics there) which must be lifted off instead of swung; and an epic reverse round a narrow corner with shouted directions and stone walls at the front end for added fun. Might not have ‘passed first time’ on this manoeuvre.

Bad news: putting ‘gate’ back into its ‘hinges’ was more epic than the reverse round corner trick. Took 5 people, including my dad who, due to being in a ‘no lifting’ recovery period following some surgery a few weeks ago, was not allowed to help. Sadly, shouting instructions was not prohibited by post op protocol. 

Good news: Gate successfully relocated

Bad news: car now imprisoned – hammering home (literally – my dad’s final statement on the ‘gate’) another thing I am leaving behind.

Good news: Suitcases packed (precisely at weight limit) and ready to go [note the airport scales measured them several kg lighter – not sure if this is good news or bad news – I feel tricked and deprived by my own weighing scales of a few unnecessary items]

Bad news: hand luggage over sized  - full of bike accessories for the bike I don’t yet have in Sweden (which no amount of rearranging seemed to fix). 

Good news: (Thursday) – no delays, caught bus to airport and arrived in good time.

(Very) Bad news: No covid test result yet (required at check in) - phoned to check - expected between 6 and 10pm. (“What?!!”). "No, you can't do anything about it, might come in time, might not". Time to consider changing my flight /route. And ask my friends to pray! 

Good news: Helpful BA rep confirmed alternative options. Phoned a friend in Stockholm who happily (for me, not her) was off sick and therefore answered. Suggested I double check my options for covid proof-ness (antigen tests/vaccine certificate).

More good news: Very long story shortened slightly: Denmark doesn’t actually require any covid test for doubly vaccinated passengers. “Advance to Go – collect £200”. Check-in: all statuses checked – yes, I really did waste £99 on a covid test I didn’t need (actually belongs in ‘bad news’ but overshadowed by relief so barely noticed – I’ll dwell on that later). Whilst in check-in, up pings my covid test result – which won’t let me download the certificate – just as well I didn’t need it. Struck by the hypothetical moral dilemma once I am safely through security and sitting in departures – as I finally manage to login to the covid test website, click download and wait …what if….?

Even more good news: ‘SARS-CoV-2 RNA NOT DETECTED”. Phew!

Bad news: a small bottle of water costs £2. £2!!!!! I buy sparkling – the only justification for drinking water that does not come free out of the tap (I am reminded of my last visit to Stockholm where a water fountain did actually deliver sparkling water – one of the best things since sliced bread – would belong in good news if it wasn’t a memory, and therefore history, not news).

Bad news: flight delayed (but I am still euphoric about catching it in the first place, so who cares about 50 minutes?)

Good news: I am sitting in the very back seat. Interesting not a single window visible from my seat but I have the 2 seats to myself – no sun in my eyes and no encroaching on any personal space. Flight peaceful and uneventful, complementary refreshments, and bags not lost. What more could you ask for? 

Bad news: turns out pre-booking my train ticket to Malmö did not pay off - valid only for a certain train leaving in 90 minutes - while trains go to the same destination every 20 mins

Good news: turns out I paid extra for the option to cancel. So I did. And replacement ticket was cheaper and went straight through to Lund. Win! Absolutely no border checks (despite announcements) and no problem entering Sweden, despite the many weeks of worrying about it. What a waste of worrying (yes, I know worrying is always a waste!).

Bad news: when Lund saw me coming, she burst into tears – and cried her eyes out for the remainder of my journey – the only bit that I actually had to go outside that day. Wondered whether to take it personally. Took an eye wateringly expensive taxi ride to my new temporary home.

Good news: Made it. Phew!

Spent my first day in Lund walking round the city trying to orientate myself a bit. 

Bad news: no mobile data – so once again no google maps with all the usual consequences. Turns out this might...ahem.. have been user error (I might have forgotten to check roaming was on). Some things don't change much, no matter where in the world I am. 

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021

So, if we were still playing 'good news, bad news' this would come under 'VERY bad news'

Within 2 days of arriving in Sweden, my phone lost its voice, went to sleep and refused to wake up again. I had not, of course, backed it up. All my photos, messages, audio files, and connection to the world hung in the balance. I tried talking to it nicely, then sternly. I poked it and threatened it but it didn't care; it ignored my tears. I contacted my phone provider, discussed warranties and insurance and discovered that all usual processes of engineers, collections and deliveries don't extend outwith UK borders. Dialogic circles were etched deeply into the airspace as I explained the situation, with gradually decreasing patience, to staff in one department after another, whose drop down list did not include this particular circumstance. 

Thankfully I do carry an old iphone with me for the sake of one apple app (I have never doubted the wisdom of this but now feel doubly vindicated and can pretend it was a backup plan all along). Anyway, I had access to a phone. Sadly the phone is too old to run most current programmes. Lucky I have good friends in Sweden too - who arrived at my door with another handset (old but not so old as my iphone).

Anyway, O2 agreed to take postal delivery of my phone from my parents' UK address and fix or replace it under warranty. In the meantime, I popped along to the nearest phone repair kiosk, and entrusted them with my beloved but disobedient phone with all its data on it - as a bit of a last ditch attempt before kissing it goodbye and posting it off to the UK (hoping it arrives in one piece...hoping it arrives at all in fact!). 

2 hours later, my phone is alive!!!! 

Now, what was that thing that I leaned about worrying, just a few days ago.....? 

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 14th September 2021

“Where am I?”

A phrase I have muttered to myself more times than should have been necessary since I arrived in Sweden.

I am a little envious of those that have a good internal GPS – that share this extraordinary superhuman trait with the elephants and bees and homing pigeons of the world. People who don’t waste hours of their lives (when in unfamiliar places) going in completely the wrong direction, arriving back at the same spot 20 minutes later and wondering what on earth happened.

For a while (I’m not admitting to how long) I had to allow an hour to make a 15 minute journey across Lund (a fairly small city really) because it could take me 3 attempts and several miles to get it right. If I were a little ant on a paving slab being watched by somebody from above, I would be the one that appears to be going round in circles at super speed with no sense of purpose at all while all the others follow a clear path and don’t cover the same ground twice. I have since moved to Malmö and am now doing the whole process all over again.

Like learning an instrument, or probably anything in fact, it is dangerous to repeat an error too many times, because then it becomes familiar and therefore seems right – and so you repeat it again and again. One day I arrived at what had become a familiar junction – where it was my instinct and habit to either go straight ahead or turn right (I wasn’t quite sure which) and from this point I tended to get lost). I conceded to Google’s opinion on this occasion and turned left, with a much better result. I am reminded of an early scene in ‘Labyrinth’ when Sarah asks for directions to the Goblin King and is warned not to take her chosen route. She runs off in the other direction and we see the goblins reflect that had she gone for plan A, she’d have gone directly to her destination. I expect there’s a reason this scene stands out for me.

Some people seem to be able to combine directional intuition with a bit of map checking here and there. For someone like me, it is really best to throw out intuition entirely until an internal map can be properly learned through painstaking repetition. A bit like prepositions – a linguistically pleasing comparison considering their positional importance 😊

And just as my British sense of which preposition I should be using does not help me much in Swedish, my GPS does nothing but confuse me, making the actual map incomprehensible and leading to some quite strong arguments with Google. Sometimes I have the last word and then I get lost. And Google doesn’t care in the slightest.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 18th September 2021

So having moved to Malmö in a whirl of exciting social and geographical adventures, it is surely time for some commonplace ordinariness. What better than to get stuck into some laundry? Put clothes in washing machine.  Add soap. Choose programme. Press go. Take out clothes. Hang up. A comfortingly familiar routine for anyone (who does not have the luxury of someone willing to do it for them).

However, this was one of the most adrenaline filled laundry adventures I have yet known! My helpful landlord had introduced me personally to the washing and drying rooms the day before (from the outside because there is a booking process – I hadn’t yet booked – so I did - for the next day).

The washing room is in the basement below ground level. Since the main stairs don’t go down that far, it is guarded by the elevator which demands proof of access rights (a key fob) before it will consent to take you there. Special security that none of the other floors are privy to.

Once washing machine instructions roughly translated and washing programme selected, I take the opportunity to explore this impressive underground infrastructure and try to independently find the cycle parking I had also been introduced to. And the back door, which is stair- accessible from the other end of the building. My ‘fire warden angel’ is relieved about this.

The basement contains a lot of inaccessible locked doors and a few that give access to an ongoing maze of corridors and similar doors – belonging to other apartments.  The heavy doors dividing the corridors into sections remind me of certain schools I have worked in where it is very possible to get locked into a closed corridor with no way out at either end. They make me a bit nervous and for the second time in as many weeks, I find myself thinking about “The Labyrinth”. But I survive the adventure and make it back to the washing room (the right one), which also thankfully allows me back in.  

Each bookable laundry slot is 4 hours long and clothes must be washed, dried and removed from the scene within that time. In my experience, clothes take a couple of days to dry (when you live in a flat in Scotland with no dryer or outdoor drying space) so I am sceptical about the optimistic drying time. Until I investigate the drying room with its industrial heating, dehumidifying and air circulating equipment. So, marvelling at the efficiency of it all, I hang up my clothes, turn on the enormous blowers and prepare to leave, hoping that nothing will actually blow up while I am away.

And then I hesitate: to close the door or not? Will it open again? I decide it will surely be more efficient to limit the dehumidifying to a small space, so I close the door. Which of course will not reopen. I imagine my clothes locked indefinitely in the drying room, my landlord having to call some kind of emergency duty janitor…. the usual catastrophic outcome….Until I discover that if I go out and unlock the washing room door again, the drying room door also opens. Phew! It did to my shame take me a couple of attempts to make this association – a bit like one of Skinner’s chickens, it strikes me.

I return upstairs and relay my washing adventures to my landlord who laughs and reminds me that he had told me about the timing of the drying room door. Seems this detail got lost in translation and I might have lost a few marks for Swedish comprehension on the washing room test.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 15th September 2021

So it is now two months since I moved to Sweden and it occurs to me that I have written about my journey, my inability to navigate my surroundings and the various inconveniences of technology and daily life, yet I haven’t even mentioned in passing the reason for my move or what my days largely consist of. But I have been busy.

I arrived in Sweden on a Thursday evening and my Swedish course began the following Monday morning. Perfect - my existence in the country justified, a peer group provided, and my tourist status minimised, even if I did continue to get lost at every corner for a while. It also brought a packed study schedule, regular assignments and deadlines culminating in our level 5 exams just under 4 weeks later! And our level 6 ones a further month on.

Nobody really needs a breakdown of somebody else’s study schedule, but I’ll summarise by way of excuse for my non-writing of any updates recently. Every 4th week is exam week and this so far has consisted of a word test (70 words that must be understood in context – reminding me slightly of the vocab tests I used to do in primary school); an oral presentation – individual or group depending on the level and topic; reading and answering questions on various texts (increasingly long and complicated ones I might add) and a writing exercise. The assignments that are due during the week are, as you’d expect, all preparation for these exams. It’s amazing (and embarrassing) how long it can sometimes take to complete a 70 word assignment!

I should clarify that I am studying swedish language levels 5 to 8 in 4 months(not quite sure what the numbers correlate with to be honest). So, if I had done my sums in advance I wouldn’t have felt so shocked to realise after the first month, that we were already a quarter of the way through and that each level must be packed into 4 weeks, back to back I believe. The resits are scheduled way ahead, which feels a bit ominous. Sadly, they are sat at weekends so I must try to avoid them!

The first two levels were taught partly in the classroom and partly online but now we are back in person (‘på plats’) for all sessions. Hooray. Had I arrived in Sweden in January (my first possible start date), I would never have met any of my colleagues or teachers in person, nor been able to attend any extracurricular social in-person gatherings. It is true that Sweden didn’t lockdown completely as most countries did for a while, but it lived under similar restrictions as the rest of us did thereafter, with most organised things cancelled.

So, most of the events I have been attending have been among the first of their kind since the pandemic began. I felt sad to miss the grand reawakening of my usual activities in Scotland, which looked set to happen just after I left, but I have arrived to a similar scenario in Sweden with restrictions easing and things returning to normal, which is exciting in a different way. Everything that is new to me is apparently new to everyone else too.

I have attended churches, language cafes, theatres (and the odd after theatre party), been able to visit markets, libraries, and cafes and visit friends at home. I have also attended a ‘critical mass’ cycle ‘demonstration’. This deserves a post of its own so I’ll not dwell on it here.

Feeling thankful, and hoping that no more waves of anything more than rain are on their way.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 30th October 2021

I decided not to travel back to the UK for Christmas this year. Because Covid is raging again – Omicron this time – and choosing to travel at the same time as everybody else is travelling seemed unwise; because the prospect of PCR tests and isolation periods is tiring in itself; because all I wanted to do in the few days after my final exams was chill out a bit and I had not taken time to plan ahead; because both the UK and Sweden might at any point change the travel rules and I might have been required to be present in Lund in January for re-sits which can’t be done online; and because my parents were ‘covid-uneasy’ about me visiting anyway so there was certainly no pressure to return. We decided to postpone our Christmas gathering until a safer and easier season.

So I joined my flatmate, Patrik, on Christmas eve in some Christmas celebrations with a couple of his friends. While the location, food and language were different this year, the sitting, eating, talking and film watching were all comfortingly normal Christmas activities and I was privileged to be welcomed and included. Christmas day took us to Trelleborg (south of Malmö, on the coast) to visit some more friends (and the owner of Rosie), eat homemade Christmas pudding, mince pies and cheese and pickle sandwiches. If you live in the UK, the excitement of this might have got lost, but these things are pretty hard to come by in Sweden – at least, if you’re not enthused about making everything from scratch.

Speaking of Christmas puddings, we also endeavoured to make one of our own. Strictly speaking we are still endeavouring to make it since it is sitting, as yet unsteamed, in the fridge. I was pretty sure that a Christmas pudding is not usually something that is made in 5 minutes, and did wonder whether we should reckon on days or even weeks rather than the 12 or so hours we actually had left until said pudding was required. However, since I had never made a Christmas pudding before due to the easy availability of them in the shops back home, and Patrik didn’t know what one was, we had optimistic naivety on our side. Having bought the required ingredients and fallen at the first hurdle (leave fruit to soak for 24 hours) we went with plan B for our contribution to the Christmas meal - a nice simple tea loaf. We are currently trying to solve the problem of how to steam our Christmas pudding in the absence of a suitably sized and pudding-shaped container.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 29th December 2021

I have been out running a few times in the last week or so. This isn’t note-worthy in itself, but on several occasions while merrily (or otherwise) jogging along, I have found myself suddenly jumping out of my skin and almost diving for cover. No, I haven’t developed ticks or found myself in a war zone – it was simply the last week of December and the firework barometer was ticking.

I am reminded of the reverse parking assist in a lot of modern cars – the closer together the beeps, the closer you are to whatever object you are in danger of driving into. So it is with fireworks, which culminated at the turn of the year in a constant ‘beeeeeeeeep’ (or other more realistic sound) around midnight.

Despite the fact that I tend to arm myself with earplugs on bonfire night and dislike the self inflicted neck ache that follows extended periods of gazing up at the sky, I am not particularly firework averse or phobic.  There is something pleasantly trance inducing about being alone in the dark with a fizzling sparkler for example (without other sparklers outwith one’s control being swung precariously close by). And if I can stand on a hill at a safe distance, in good company, and watch a well musically synchronised display (without too many distracting ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’) I can truly enjoy the artistry of fireworks. I like their gunpowdery smell and their colours, and I stand in awe of the creative mastery of explosive chemical reactions whose effect would otherwise be chaotic and random (like any big bang, right?!).

Why does music help so much? I think, apart from making it more fun, because it puts boundaries around the sudden explosions - anticipation, climax and resolution. The structure is reassuring, and the pops and bangs punctuating the intervening silences become more entertaining, like a drum solo.  Clearly I am not an adrenaline seeker – I think everyday life offers quite enough adrenaline.

So, the point is that fireworks launched from random verges, benches and side streets without warning or safety barrier put me on edge and I begin to empathise with dogs all around the country cowering in corners, and imagine the war terrorised triggered painfully by all the loud explosive sounds nearby.  All dislikers of sudden loud noises everywhere in fact. Building sites, car horns and clattering crockery in cafes, and pagers that wake you in the middle of the night making your stomach sink.  I think back to a certain exploding toilet prank I played on somebody once and almost feel remorse. Almost!

I am told there is some sort of ineffective legislation in Malmö that imposes a daily time period in which fireworks can legally be launched, but the only part of this in evidence is its ineffectiveness. So I spent New Years Eve happily indoors with a few friends eating pizza and pudding and playing wordgames, and peering out only briefly when the fireworks shouted so loudly they could no longer be ignored.

I am not expecting 2022 to be a year that simply ticks along peacefully. It is more likely than most to bring changes in location and occupation, new acquaintances and opportunities, exams and interviews and frequent decisions about all of the above. However, if it could contain fewer loud, unexpected and unnecessary bangs from now on, I would be delighted.  

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 8th January 2022

Not that long before I moved to Sweden, I made a sand bag. Not for keeping out potential floods (I hope it will be a bit longer before rising sea levels reach my top floor flat in Edinburgh), nor making indoor sandcastles (maybe fun but messy) or restocking the local beaches (totally a drop in….er…on the beach) nor to anchor my hot air balloon to the ground while parked (although that is getting closer). No, I was convinced to try a weighted cushion as an adjunct to physical grounding techniques, to see if I could occasionally be persuaded to take a holiday from my own head. And I had to admit I liked it. I wished that somebody had responded to my dislike of sitting still as a child with a handy sandbag rather than the slightly judgemental remarks about being a ‘fidget-bottom’. And that I could have used it to help me better focus in various situations in life. Anyway, I was proud of my sandbag, which cost me about £3 in sand and an old pillowcase, as opposed to the £80 charged by companies making such items. ("Ha! No sale until you charge a more competitive and sensible price").

But my sand bag was heavy (the whole point) and bigger than it needed to be really (a learning curve) and therefore not very travel friendly when every square centimetre and few grams in your suitcase counts. So I sadly stripped it of its pillowcase (which did come to Sweden with me) and left it behind in my loft with the intention of making another on my arrival. That was in August and now it is January. I was busy, had enough trouble finding the vegetable aisle in the local supermarket, let alone the sand aisle (supermarkets don’t actually sell sand here it turns out) and I forgot about it.

But now I am on holiday and so I went on a mission to find sand. I did my homework first online and identified a shop about 6km or so away that sells it. Sadly in minimum quantities of 20kg, but I am not a very good estimator of quantities so set out optimistically with Rosie and my trusty bike pannier to buy it. We arrived (soggy – it was raining) and the shop had sold out (clearly I forgot to check the availability) – no they couldn’t tell me when it was coming back in – tyvärr. But then helpfully, "maybe you could try the warehouse next door?". I did and the friendly personnel at the help desk directed me to the drive through section, which I was apparently welcome to cycle through also.  Think I looked a bit odd – most drive through items are significantly too big for transport on a bike - but I came out triumphantly with (only) 15kg of sand. Internally triumphant, that is, since15kg is a bit heavy to dance around with. It’s a bit heavy to carry home too so I cautiously plodded towards the nearest train station instead. It wasn’t the best day to choose: it was wet, now dark since I had procrastinated most of the day before getting around to actually going, and I haven’t been that cold for a long time. Brrrr!

But that is an overly negative way to end this post. I have since acquired some decent plastic and duct tape and my long awaited replacement sand bag is in its pillow case and ready to go. Or more appropriately, to not go anywhere – just sit, and help me do likewise 😊.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 8th January 2022

This post is not news. You can probably skip it in fact. I was writing the following post (on learning languages), got distracted and went off-piste.... But I’d like to include my reminiscing here for the sake of completion. A kind of prelude in the middle….

I met Duo, the green owl, in Harrison park on Easter Monday, 2019. I don’t remember whether it was a true chance encounter but, as with the beginning of many great friendships, there was definitely an unplanned element to it. I wonder if I actually ended up here on a whim! In any case, we got on really well and I spent many hours over the next few months happily spotting patterns and bypassing all the grammatical rules (which still frighten me, to be honest). But eventually I picked up a textbook and applied the grammar in retrospect. I have to confess I have not changed my strategy much since, quite possibly to the chagrin of my various teachers. My first Swedish course was in Uppsala that summer. I christened my beautiful newly acquired Irish passport on my way out and haven’t used the British one since!

Anyway, I had exhausted Duolingo’s Swedish by the end of the year and began looking for other ways to study. Don’t worry, we are still friends – Duo and I have not failed to speak for the past 955 days in fact - he has just been hooting in other languages. However, it turned out there was not an awful lot of demand for Swedish tuition in Edinburgh and the evening course that I booked at Edinburgh university was cancelled for lack of interest. Cactus, a UK based language school ran courses all over England but not in Scotland, and local personal tutors were not plentiful.

But then the pandemic landed in early 2020, forcing education online and opening up a world of Swedish learning opportunity. I suddenly had access to courses based both nationally and internationally, not to mention a global community of Swedish learners and speakers. During lockdown, people in Sweden, (or America, or anywhere else in the world) were about as accessible as my friends living down the road and, what’s more, no longer had anything better to do than sit at home and talk Swedish with me.  

Annoyingly, the pandemic slowed down the renovation of my flat which was the prerequisite step for renting it out during my potential time away. It seemed like the world and his dog decided that 2020 was a good time to renovate – I guess they had nothing better to do either - and therefore there were superlong waiting times for tradesmen. Covid also led to long delays in supply of materials and furnishings: ‘Pay Now Buy Later’ would have been a more accurate slogan than the usual reversed format.  I personally suspect Brexit of also having a hand in this!

The renovation delays, plus the prospect of arriving in Sweden amidst a semi lockdown with education online only, led to a very familiar lack of action on my part…. until it was no longer practically possible to pack up in time. Deferral of study was only allowed in exceptional circumstances (and a global pandemic was not one of them) so I was forced to turn down my place at the university and apply all over again (with accompanying lengthy entry examination) for the following semester. I should add however that my premonitions about distance learning were quite accurate and I don’t regret my hesitation on this occasion.

But 8 months later it was time to actually pack up and actually hand in my notice and actually rent out my flat – which was by this time more beautiful and more difficult to leave. Until the very last moment, as I systematically contemplated all the things I would have to sacrifice to go on this adventure (I don’t recommend this if you’re planning something similar), there was still a real possibility of chickening out. What was not helpful was the inadequate 6 weeks notice (from offer of a place to course start date) that I had to pack up my life and move. As I left Edinburgh, I was still disconcertingly in danger of needing a cardboard box to sleep in on my arrival.

But with that, I’ll stop since the sequel to this drama can be read in the first Sweden post, a few inches further up the page….

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 13th January 2022

The opportunity and challenge to live life in a different language was one of the main attractions of living in Europe. And outside of the UK. The other, well, I’m sure it will come up….. The ultimate goal of course is proficiency but I particularly love the beginning stages where you can go from zero to buying bread and milk in no time at all. The learning curve is steep, the expectations low and failure hasn’t been added to the scale yet. What can go wrong?

Well, the next stage. Because at some point you have to leave beginner-hood behind (if you want to actually speak the language) and work a bit harder for the same rate of progress. This is well compensated for by the reward of being able to expand your diet beyond bread and milk, understand the answer when you ask for directions, and read all about the British government’s flaunting of their own Pandemic restrictions, in the Swedish news. Many people never bother leaving this stage but since it’s kind of an end goal for me, I continue on a road that appears to be getting steeper.

And it is interesting to reflect on why. My own expectations are largely to blame: ‘the longer I stay, the better I should be’ goes my linear and not entirely logical rationale. Maybe it is the exponential increase in the number of sticky situations I find myself in with time: I am actually still procrastinating visiting a hairdresser because it is hard enough to explain what I want in English and I am truly afraid of the ramifications of attempting this in Swedish. Then there are other people’s expectations: you make friends eventually and they forget after a while to make allowances for you and so you experience at full speed how much of what they ‘say’ they don’t bother to pronounce at all. My effort barometer is going the wrong way.

And there is the language itself. It is widely accepted that prepositions are mean, largely un-generalisable between languages, and have to be learned one by one; but more and more I am discovering that synonyms are just as sneaky. The meanings of words overlap where you don’t expect them to and the road runs out in front of them just when you have nowhere else to go. You think you have learned a word, but then can’t trust it to mean the same thing when you meet it next time – or it might substitute its cousin to do a job that you think it should have had no problem with itself. Maybe it was a better word for the job, or maybe just a different one – who knows?

My singing teacher use to say (about the physical production of vocal tone), ‘when you’re very nearly there, it’s harder to fix than when you’re miles off’ or 'the more subtle the discrepancy, the more difficult to correct'. The first 20 kilograms in body weight are much easier to lose than the last one. And maybe so it is with language. I’m currently still far from the final hurdle but definitely feeling the extent of the challenge. A couple of weeks before our final exams, our lecturer advised we all “tar i” which roughly translates to “put your back into it” in the run up. I am not sure that this strategy will work for the final kilogram though, but rather might leave me passed out on a very long home straight.

I quite appreciate the sneakiness of English, but that is only because I am part of the ‘in crowd’ who got it for free in infancy.  I do not have this advantage in Swedish which keeps playing jokes, taking advantage of my naivety and laughing at me! But I laugh back – it turns out that if you pronounce your fabricated logical-sounding words confidently and often enough, the swedes begin to question whether you are right and they did in fact exist all along*. I am in the process of writing an extension to the Swedish dictionary…. and watch out for my future Youtube channel on what the swedes don’t yet know about Swedish!

* please note: early testing indicates this strategy is not suitable for exams or assignments!

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 13th January 2022

If you have followed my earlier posts, you probably know that I commute between Malmö and Lund by train because I am too lazy to cycle the hour or so it would take me, and I take Rosie (my borrowed bike) with me because I am too lazy to walk when I get there. I feel slightly silly sitting in the train with my helmet and gloves on, so I tend to stick them in Rosie’s basket during the journey.

Well on this particular morning, all was going to plan - so far so good. As the train approached Lund, I put my helmet back on and untied Rosie from her post as usual, put on my right glove and ….. wait……how is it possible to lose my other glove? With one gloved and one bare hand, I pull down all the seats to check my left glove hasn’t snuck behind one of them. I am aware of a guy glancing my way but he doesn’t react. I imagine it is obvious after all what I am looking for. The train is now sitting in Lund and I estimate I have about a minute before it heads off again towards Helsingborg. Since I don’t want to go to Helsingborg and it seems my glove has vanished into thin air, I sadly exit without it.

One of the train guards is still standing on the platform as I walk past so I get his attention and ask if there is anywhere lost property can be retrieved in the event it is found (I indicate that I have lost a glove). He says he doesn’t fancy my chances but tells me I can find the lost property department on the Skånetrafiken website. I thank him and head off towards the lift. I would take the stairs if it weren’t for Rosie – I am not that lazy!

I arrive at the lift, catch sight of my reflection in the glass door and am delighted to discover my lost glove flapping away at the front of my helmet, snagged by the Velcro strap holding my helmet light in place. I mentally retrace my steps and watch myself frantically looking for my glove in the train while it dances around on my head and then wonder how the train guard keeps a straight face while I bemoan my loss. And why on earth he bothered frankly, and didn’t say. Is it possible he didn’t see it?

There seems to be a certain stigma associated with laughing at one’s own joke. Of course, if you really are the only one laughing, it might be time to call yourself a cab but, on the whole, if a joke is funny enough to bother retelling, why not laugh at it again? And a joke is genuinely funnier when somebody is already laughing. People have probably made their fortunes from canned laughter.  

But this morning I do seem to be the only one laughing. I laugh quite hard actually - all the way up in the lift - and I have to pretend to be on the phone as I leave its temporary private sanctuary and head out into town. I feel like I could have earned a minute or two on a Mr Bean episode actually – except that even Mr Bean is above laughing at himself.  Time to call the metaphorical cab then… “Come on Rosie!”.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 9th April 2022

I recently had my first encounter with an artichoke. Patrik, my flatmate, sometimes uses an app ‘Too good to go’ to order fruit and vegetables from the local market that would otherwise go to waste. You get quite a lot for your money with a few inbuilt risks: it is not extremely uncommon that some of it has actually gone off and it is a lottery what you end up with.  Occasionally I share the order and take my chances on the outcome but it can present a challenge for someone who is not fond of gastronomical surprises.

Anyway, on one occasion, we acquired an artichoke, or Kronartskocka in Swedish. Neither of us knew what to do with it but I agreed to try and make something edible out of it. If I had been Patrik, I would undoubtedly have asked Google how one cooks an artichoke. Not being Patrik, I did what I usually do with vegetables which is stick them in a saucepan of water and see what happens. Actually, the artichoke didn’t fit my saucepan so I had to pull its leaves off and stick them in separately and it was a short while later, as they were still bubbling away that Patrik came in and informed me that it is not the leaves of an artichoke that one eats.

I duly exchanged the saucepan contents for the supposedly edible heart of the artichoke. Once it was soft enough to approach, and this time with google instructions to hand, we peeled off the outer layer, and then another outer layer and then the next layer until we were left with a bit of flesh about the size of half a small coaster. I felt like I had received a parcel from Amazon.

However, here we were, finally at the heart of the matter and I was underwhelmed. It got eaten because I couldn’t bring myself to waste all the effort but I did begin to wonder whether it was sadly in the category of things that might have gone off. I filed ‘cooking artichoke’ in the box labelled ‘doesn’t need to be done more than once in my life’ and moved on with pride almost intact. There is a reason, after all, that I am not a chef.

A few days later I opened the fridge to find a new artichoke on my shelf! However, this time I was not taken in by the packaging or the promise of the contents. I imagined Patrik’s glee as he smuggled it in and awaited my reaction. It decorated my shelf for a while until I suggested I might have become the victim of a prank, whereupon it disappeared! Hooray 😊

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 27th July 2022

I am not a natural gardener. While my grandmother could pick a bud or shoot of something from anywhere and make it grow into a tree just by looking at it, I do not seem to have inherited this gift. It might be because I treat all things green in much the same way – by putting them in a pot and walking away – whether they are vegetables in a saucepan or plants in a flower pot. So most of my plants have survived (if they survived) by either luck or the ability to live in cramped and drought-like conditions for long stretches. I had to give away my own long-suffering plants when I left Edinburgh and I am sure they are all living better lives now without my input. One of them, I happen to know, received a repotting soon after my departure and is feeling much better already.

My flat mate has much more affinity for plants than I do. The living room has a window sill (and coffee table or two) bursting with well-tended greenery. While I can’t claim too much responsibility for the fact that they are alive, I have been coaxed into taking more interest than usual in soil dwelling things. I even managed to keep the tomato plants alive during a hot week while Patrik was away on holiday.

Only just though. It turns out that tomato plants are actually quite sensitive creatures and they drink like camels. I arrived late for watering time one day and they were practically crying. They were hanging their heads and their leaves were all droopy. I felt so guilty and told them repeatedly how sorry I was as I watered them, hoping they could recover from my neglect. I then spent the rest of the afternoon closely monitoring them as they gradually came back to life. Thankfully, like children, they got better nearly as quickly as they got sick and had sprung back to life by the evening! Astonishing.

Because of my appalling track record with growing things, my expectations when the tomato seeds were first planted were quite low. So I was pretty surprised when a couple of days later they did actually start sprouting (compare with Patrik’s response “well, of course!”). I felt like a small child watching in amazement as they got taller and bigger and grew out of their pots and have to move into new flower houses. “Flower house” was my first clumsy guess at the Swedish word for plant pot when I first arrived, a word I have since grown out of but that refuses to be forgotten.

The tomato plants eventually moved out to the balcony where they could be visited by bees and such. They have taken over and sitting outside on the balcony now requires some skilful manoeuvring of chairs, table and tomatoes. There wasn’t room for all of them outside however and there was a conversation about whether we might try to lure a bee into the house to h elp us obtain some tomatoes from the indoor dwellers. In all the hours I have spent in my life chasing bees, among other flying insects, out of living rooms and kitchens and offices, I had never ever imagined inviting one in before.

Some of the indoor tomatoes got disposed of in my absence one day, since neither bees nor tomatoes had made an appearance in the kitchen. They got usurped by a salad family – and I was quite sad for them. I couldn’t quite bring myself to inspect the compost bag but sent my respects in its direction. I see why Patrik waited until I wasn’t in.

This was not my first emotional attachment to a plant since arriving here. Patrik was given an Aloe Vera by a friend of mine (the owner of Rosie) a few months back. It was beautiful – full of thick, smooth, spotted leaves that offered impressive resistance when they were stroked. It had loads of offshoots, both big and small, which danced and curled around each other in their pot, and I was very pleased with it. And then Patrik re-potted it! I thought he meant he was going to take it out of its pot and put it in a bigger pot but what in fact happened was that all of the shoots got uprooted from the family flower house, separated out from each other and laid out on the worktop ready to be sent out into the world on their own. I joined in the great repotting effort at this point, anxiously hoping that the death rate would be minimal.

We didn’t actually get off to a great start. The Aloe Vera didn’t seem to be enjoying their new homes and a few days later a google search revealed that Aloe Vera prefer dry sandy conditions to the moist soily ones we had offered them. The vast excess of sand from the large bag that I had carted across town in December finally had another use. And the re-re-potting got underway. A few months later, as I write, most of them seem to be doing ok. I “borrowed” a sick looking Aloe Vera one day to put in my room and I haven’t been able to bring myself to give it back yet. I have propped it up with a pencil and it seems to be okay. Maybe a leopard can change its spots after all!

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 30th July 2022

During a weekend in Stockholm in March 2020, I found a Swedish version of Bananagrams. I was delighted and couldn’t wait to incorporate one of my favourite games into my Swedish learning journey. And then of course, I went back to Scotland, home to relatively few Swedish speakers. Quite apart from the fact that lockdown began the following week, forbidding me from playing in-person games with anyone, this wasn’t exactly well planned.

And then I finally moved here to the land of all things Swedish and I left my Swedish Bananagrams behind! D’oh! Finally, a few months ago I went back and collected them and my poor flatmate has been playing Bananagrams, probably much more often than he would have chosen to, ever since! Thankfully it is a game that can be played alone – the instruction leaflet calls this “solobanan”.

Last week Patrik was dog sitting for his sister. The dog, Gimli, is a fairly young Labrador cross who loves chasing balls at least as much as I love Bananagrams. Gimli never tires of playing with his ball and I don’t think I have ever met a bigger optimist, human, canine or otherwise. He will continue to offer you his ball, drop it in front of you, nudge you, or move it slightly if you don’t pick it up straightaway in case you just didn’t see it….for hours at a time. Just because you haven’t thrown his ball for the last 2 hours doesn’t at all reduce the chances of this present moment right now being the one when you finally see it and throw it for him. This is a hypothetical example of course since I’m not actually sure it is possible to resist his exuberant invitation for 2 whole hours.

Now, the opportunity to draw a parallel here was not missed by my long suffering flatmate. I could of course take the hint and play solobanan a bit more often. On the other hand, I could take it as a challenge to measure up to my canine equivalent, ramp up my expression of excited enthusiasm and ability to not notice when my potential playmate is unwilling.  I suspect I might not achieve the same participation success rate as Gimli though and might even find myself looking for somewhere else to live! Bummer.

Copyright Phyllida Alexander  31st July 2022

I do not really like making decisions. In fact I really don’t like making them. Decisions leave me hovering for extended periods somewhere between living in the present with my head in the sand and in the future period of time that my current decision is going to impact – whether within the next hour or the next 5 years. They also invite regular trips back into previous bad decisions that remind me of the high likelihood of getting it wrong.

There are of course decisions that I can make. I can make decisions that are logical and based on objective information that will not have personal significance for me. I can be an impartial sounding board for others’ dilemmas and make clinical and organisational decisions at work without experiencing anywhere near the pathological level of stress as when deciding which sandwich to eat or which car to buy.

It is slightly surprising really that this is my first post on the topic but it is probably because I have been avoiding making any important decisions all year. You see, I came out of 2021 with proper decision fatigue. I had decided to pack up my life, pause or conclude various employments, renovate and rent out my house and move to Sweden. I spent the year deciding what to take and what to leave, how to refurnish my house, what colour to paint the walls, which bathroom or kitchen tiles to buy, which sofa, which bed, how many shelves to install, which joiner or plumber or electrician to employ, which estate agent to use, or how many keys to cut. It was exhausting and I arrived in Sweden with only a 4 month plan – to learn Swedish – and to finally take a break from the constant decision making.

For a few different reasons that would be boring to read about, I should probably have looked for a job from January onwards. The easiest way to solve the problem of what to do next however was to apply to study further – which I did and I ended up studying at 150% because I couldn’t decide whether or not to drop some of the surplus courses I found myself admitted to. I have more often in my life than I want to admit, left a shop with multiples of something that differed only in colour or size while admonishing myself for buying more than I needed. While on the surface I have to agree this looks like greed, I’m going to claim it as a decision avoidance strategy: I promise myself I’ll decide later and return the one(s) I don’t need, Unfortunately my decision paralysis often goes on way beyond the return date, effectively making my decision for me and costing me extra money.

So here I am, at the end of July, not yet decided upon whether I will return to Scotland in September or remain in Sweden for another year. Either way there will be sacrifices to make and whenever my distracting strategies fail to keep me occupied, I find myself mentally placing myself in one (or alternately both) of these scenarios, grieving the relevant losses and trying to work out which option feels less difficult. And to top if off, in my exhausting indecision, I entirely forgot to book myself a holiday! I will need a holiday for sure to recover once my decision has been made (and firmly acted upon – it is never actually made until I no longer have the option to unmake it).

The problem of course is that a personal decision cannot be approached in the same way as a professional one. Logic and objectivity alone do not a personal decision make. It requires to “feel right” and to bring with it a sense of peace and acceptance about the potential consequences. I am hoping this elusive magical feeling might descend on me soon!

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 31st July 2022

Close to where I live begins a stretch of cycle path / walkway that I particularly like. After about 15 minutes walking, one arrives at a small square with a concrete platform in the middle on which, at Christmas time, stood an interesting artificial tree-like structure made of lights. I must have been trying to explain to my flatmate one day roughly where I had been and used this unhelpfully temporary Christmas-related landmark, which he had not seen. There followed a compulsory outing to demonstrate the existence of said tree and it has ever since been known as ‘my tree’, despite its disappearance early in the year along with all the other Christmas decorations. It has become a useful non-existent landmark by which I take my bearings, or directions.

Anyway, this was an early digression from the point of the story. The square isn’t particularly picturesque or worth a visit, but the pathway to reach it is lovely. It crosses lots of small streets and is lined with a combination of trees and flowers and playground apparatus and sandpits, which I am sometimes tempted to walk or sit in where there are no children around. The path is also lined with old fashioned looking street lights - I can easily imagine it as the setting for a film set 100 years ago.

This is still not the point however. The walk to the tree and back happens to be perfect for a late-night, head-clearing stroll, since there isn’t much risk of getting distracted and walking too far. And at this time of day I have quite regularly, though not regularly enough, spotted a Great Dane out on its evening walk. I have slowed down, taken a detour or even changed direction completely in order to watch it for a bit longer (so much for not getting distracted).  I promise I am not a stalker, just a fan of Great Danes: I grew up with Great Danes and it is still a treat to see or meet one. I have been wondering for some time how I might contrive to cross this particular Dane’s path at close enough range that I could request to pat it.

And the moment finally arrived yesterday. I was walking along this same path with my flatmate when we encountered the Great Dane walking right towards us. I delegated the awkward hailing of the owner to Patrik who played his part perfectly and we chatted with her for a few minutes while the Great Dane, whose name I learned is Doppa, leaned on us. I had almost forgotten how much Danes lean. As though it is just too much effort to support their own bodies and stand up on their own, they take every available opportunity not to! I learned a few dog-related Swedish terms while I was there. Doppa is a blue Dane (blå) but I learned that my first Dane, who was brindle, would have been called ’tigrade’ (tiger-coloured in Swedish).

 At the beginning of the summer I was wondering about whether I might do some dog walking, either paid or just in a ’borrow my doggy’ kind of way. However I tended to lose my motivation when at the end of an advertisement, the description said ’small dog(s)’. Maybe Doppa’s owners might want a holiday sometime or find themselves unable to walk her for whatever reason. Maybe they will need a Dane lover that lives close by! Maybe I need to encounter her a bit more often….

Now, what exactly IS the definition of stalking?

Copyright Phyllida Alexander 1st August 2022