Sunday.
We need to get to a certain state of packedness before Aunty M and family turn up in the morning to help shift all the boxes of unused junk in the cellar over to the new place, and we're not far off.
Last time we moved, it was country to country. Everything went from our fifth floor ex-council flat into a van, then on to a boat, then over the North Sea, then into an already furnished and fairly full single bedroomed place. I remember boxes, mostly. There were a lot of boxes. Lots of boxes and lots of nowhere to put them.
We somehow managed to stuff them all into the underground storage cage that comes free with your Swedish flat. If you took everyone's abandoned summer furniture and old college photos out of it, it would have the same warmth and charm as a battery farm for attack dogs. Heavy double bunker doors reinforce that 'Top Men' secret warehouse feel. It also has a lighting system on a timer that always cuts out just as you finally found what you were trying to dig out.
A joy to work with, basically. I started rolling my mental sleeves for the torture of dealing with this weeks ago.
F is happily playing with cousins A and L upstairs, and V and her sister are helping them. Uncles K, J and I get stuck into the boxes. (That last one is me, not a new Uncle I you've never seen before. Just to clarify.)
And it's fine. All perfectly fine. Three short car trips later, everything is stashed temporarily in what will be F's new room. Nothing broke, nothing fell on anyone. The lighting didn't even manage an inconvenient blackout. Great! Also: Unusual!
In what feels like no time, we're all eating celebratory pizza in the old flat. F tries very hard to join in. She's been getting on very well with her older cousin A, who has specified he is to be called Big Brother A now that he's got a little sister. But F has intimidated him into a certain level of caution after he's tried to take toys off her to show them how they work. I've been taught the same lesson, I know how he feels. She'll learn in her own time, thanks, and god help your eardrums if you try and get ahead of that schedule.
The removal men are coming around 0800 tomorrow. Despite this good day of work, we're still not ready. For the rest of the day, V and I work in exhausted shifts, one playing with F, one frantically stuffing alternate handfuls of old underwear and crockery into moving boxes.
By 2200, we're worn out, lying on the sofa and not packing anything any more. Our usual affectionate bickering is increasingly snappy. We both badly need sleep.
We're still not ready.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Moving - 1/3
Autumn!
With punctual Swedish efficiency, the leaves drop from the trees in a pack, like jaundiced commuters. The sun gives a final, satisfied nod at a summer well done, then heads behind the rocky hills, leaving iron grey skies and a chilly promise of rain behind.
Properly demarcated seasons over here. None of that Indian Summer nonsense that the UK favours, where October might or might not be warm, try and guess whether to unpack your sweaters.
It's Friday lunchtime. We're off to Haga to pick up the keys for the new place.
This is F's second time in the flat. She saw it with us when we first looked round, although she was pretty sleepy then. She's a bit on edge, this week. All the boxes and fuss are getting to her a bit. Not much, to be fair, she's a very calm person. A little more clingy than usual, and her sleep patterns are a little off.
Doing better than V or me, though. Two days left and there's nothing at home but unpacked clothes and frustrated discussions about where things will go. Only one of us at a time can pack, the other tends F.
Her first reaction to the new place is to squeal with glee and do an excited assisted toddle down the hall and into the big, empty living room. The squeal echoes, which is a new and funny thing that needs to be investigated. Not before the second reaction, though, which is to squat, grunt and produce a massive great poop.
Other, more experience, parents frequently told me in the first few months that when she gets on to solid food, her nappies will get way more unpleasant. In my naivety, I thought I knew what to expect. Basically adult shit, right? In all its variegated wonders. In no way classifiable as anything other than rank, but generally nothing spectacular.
Oh, how wrong. How wrong and foolish! No, this is a spectrum of stomach turning reeks I never could have predicated. Queasy turned-vanilla stinks. Fish-like aromas, in the most Lovecraftian sense of fish-like. Spoiled meat seems a quaint nosegay in comparison. This is spoilage on a Veruca Saltine scale. Gag. Bleh.
I suppose that having your nappy changed in your new, if featureless, room is a good first impression, really. A nice normal start, if a little more humming than humdrum.
Now we just need to put all the furniture in without going mad with stress, and everything will be hunkydory.
With punctual Swedish efficiency, the leaves drop from the trees in a pack, like jaundiced commuters. The sun gives a final, satisfied nod at a summer well done, then heads behind the rocky hills, leaving iron grey skies and a chilly promise of rain behind.
Properly demarcated seasons over here. None of that Indian Summer nonsense that the UK favours, where October might or might not be warm, try and guess whether to unpack your sweaters.
It's Friday lunchtime. We're off to Haga to pick up the keys for the new place.
This is F's second time in the flat. She saw it with us when we first looked round, although she was pretty sleepy then. She's a bit on edge, this week. All the boxes and fuss are getting to her a bit. Not much, to be fair, she's a very calm person. A little more clingy than usual, and her sleep patterns are a little off.
Doing better than V or me, though. Two days left and there's nothing at home but unpacked clothes and frustrated discussions about where things will go. Only one of us at a time can pack, the other tends F.
Her first reaction to the new place is to squeal with glee and do an excited assisted toddle down the hall and into the big, empty living room. The squeal echoes, which is a new and funny thing that needs to be investigated. Not before the second reaction, though, which is to squat, grunt and produce a massive great poop.
Other, more experience, parents frequently told me in the first few months that when she gets on to solid food, her nappies will get way more unpleasant. In my naivety, I thought I knew what to expect. Basically adult shit, right? In all its variegated wonders. In no way classifiable as anything other than rank, but generally nothing spectacular.
Oh, how wrong. How wrong and foolish! No, this is a spectrum of stomach turning reeks I never could have predicated. Queasy turned-vanilla stinks. Fish-like aromas, in the most Lovecraftian sense of fish-like. Spoiled meat seems a quaint nosegay in comparison. This is spoilage on a Veruca Saltine scale. Gag. Bleh.
I suppose that having your nappy changed in your new, if featureless, room is a good first impression, really. A nice normal start, if a little more humming than humdrum.
Now we just need to put all the furniture in without going mad with stress, and everything will be hunkydory.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Talking Dog
Someone asked me directions in the street again the other day. I get this fairly often. I either look helpful or locally streetwise, some combination of the two perhaps. Deceptive, whichever, I'm usually neither over here.
Swedish streets are numbered with odds down one side, evens on the other, as is standard practice in the UK also. This seems to confuse people quite a lot. Several times in Göteborg I've been asked where (e.g.) number 6 is by a puzzled wanderer staring up at numbers 5 and 7 with their messily ended wits in full view. This occasion was one such.
- Where's number 8, she asked.
- I'm not sure, but I think it's down there, I said, pointing to the relevant end of the (clearly labelled, you muppet) street.
She gave me a funny look, hopefully not because she'd smelt the deadpan sarcasm.
- You're not Swedish, she said.
- No, I'm English, I said, displaying the tremendous wit and sharp turn of phrase for which I am doubtless fabled.
- But you're speaking Swedish, she said, with another funny look.
- Yes, a bit, I said. She gave me a final funny look and left.
This, in my experience, is the only thing we're famous for abroad, we English. Not inventing cricket, not that we used to have an Empire, nor that we're hilariously sarcastic, two-faced, sanctimonious workaholics obsessed with politeness and tea, true and observed though all these things are. No, the stand-alone achievement of the English is that we can't speak other languages and have to be helped along, like lost children, if we're going to accomplish anything.
Judging by the funny looks the lost woman was giving me, my talking Swedish made her feel like she'd stumbled into Narnia. Maybe she found number 8, maybe she just went home to have a long lie-down, I'll never know.
Swedish streets are numbered with odds down one side, evens on the other, as is standard practice in the UK also. This seems to confuse people quite a lot. Several times in Göteborg I've been asked where (e.g.) number 6 is by a puzzled wanderer staring up at numbers 5 and 7 with their messily ended wits in full view. This occasion was one such.
- Where's number 8, she asked.
- I'm not sure, but I think it's down there, I said, pointing to the relevant end of the (clearly labelled, you muppet) street.
She gave me a funny look, hopefully not because she'd smelt the deadpan sarcasm.
- You're not Swedish, she said.
- No, I'm English, I said, displaying the tremendous wit and sharp turn of phrase for which I am doubtless fabled.
- But you're speaking Swedish, she said, with another funny look.
- Yes, a bit, I said. She gave me a final funny look and left.
This, in my experience, is the only thing we're famous for abroad, we English. Not inventing cricket, not that we used to have an Empire, nor that we're hilariously sarcastic, two-faced, sanctimonious workaholics obsessed with politeness and tea, true and observed though all these things are. No, the stand-alone achievement of the English is that we can't speak other languages and have to be helped along, like lost children, if we're going to accomplish anything.
Judging by the funny looks the lost woman was giving me, my talking Swedish made her feel like she'd stumbled into Narnia. Maybe she found number 8, maybe she just went home to have a long lie-down, I'll never know.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Bump
I'd been expecting it for a while, but F's first actual banged head was still a fairly traumatic experience.
For both of us, obviously. And her more than me - she didn't see it coming. She's getting better and better at walking now, although she needs support. This is either from me holding her hands or from whatever furniture is nearby, she's not that fussy.
I know she'd rather walk away from me towards an open room or other interesting vista than walk towards me, she makes that very clear. Not that she doesn't like me, but my face has been well visited by her exploring hands. Whereas other, lesser-used parts of the flat like the kitchen or bathroom still hold mysteries.
Anyway, a few days back she was pottering round the bedroom, using the side bars of her crib as a vertical ladder to progress. I hovered nearby behind her, ready to catch her when she overbalanced. She did, obviously, tripping on her own feet. And then that turned into a game, where I'd count to three and go 'wheee!' and she'd let go and fall into my lap.
When she tried playing that game without me, we got to the bumped head part.
In classic parenting style, I'd barely looked away for a minute. I was moving the laptop out of her loving clutches. It took three seconds, no more, I swear.
I looked back in time to see her topple backwards, lumbered-tree style, full-length on to the floor. It's a terrible noise, the hollow knock of skull on parquet. I think now, several weeks later, I can still feel it echoing round my spine and chest.
Lots of howling and tears, obviously, as well as a terrible wounded look which to my mortified mind read as 'I thought you'd be there to catch me'. But lots of hugs later, completely forgotten, and back to staggering round the coffee table perfectly happy.
Concussive amnesia is my diagnosis. It clearly works wonders.
For both of us, obviously. And her more than me - she didn't see it coming. She's getting better and better at walking now, although she needs support. This is either from me holding her hands or from whatever furniture is nearby, she's not that fussy.
I know she'd rather walk away from me towards an open room or other interesting vista than walk towards me, she makes that very clear. Not that she doesn't like me, but my face has been well visited by her exploring hands. Whereas other, lesser-used parts of the flat like the kitchen or bathroom still hold mysteries.
Anyway, a few days back she was pottering round the bedroom, using the side bars of her crib as a vertical ladder to progress. I hovered nearby behind her, ready to catch her when she overbalanced. She did, obviously, tripping on her own feet. And then that turned into a game, where I'd count to three and go 'wheee!' and she'd let go and fall into my lap.
When she tried playing that game without me, we got to the bumped head part.
In classic parenting style, I'd barely looked away for a minute. I was moving the laptop out of her loving clutches. It took three seconds, no more, I swear.
I looked back in time to see her topple backwards, lumbered-tree style, full-length on to the floor. It's a terrible noise, the hollow knock of skull on parquet. I think now, several weeks later, I can still feel it echoing round my spine and chest.
Lots of howling and tears, obviously, as well as a terrible wounded look which to my mortified mind read as 'I thought you'd be there to catch me'. But lots of hugs later, completely forgotten, and back to staggering round the coffee table perfectly happy.
Concussive amnesia is my diagnosis. It clearly works wonders.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Safety Begins At Home
Ah, the toddling age.
We're on the brink, now. F toddles round the flat, bourne aloft on the trembling wings of a giggling Pappa. More and more she shakes me off, rather preemptorily. Then she falls over.
It's not nice to say 'I told you so' to a 9-month-old baby. By which I mean it's not a very kind thing to do, being able to say 'I told you so' to anyone is always kind of fun. Gather your little pleasures in life where you will, say I.
As we're about to move house, everything is sort of half-boxed at the moment. V was firmly restating our avowed intent to make sure the new place is properly childproofed. For the sake of making this a better story, I shall claim that as we were having this conversation, we were interrupted by a cry of childish glee (I think it actually happened during an attempt to clean the breakfast things up or something far less apt). Looking round, we saw F had discovered how to open the kitchen drawers, and was wielding something bright and bladed as though about to grant herself sight beyond sight.
This is a most unfair tendency of babies. Well, our baby, I shouldn't generalise. She learns stuff on the side and then suddenly presents you with a fait accompli. Trying to stay a step ahead of her is like playing a game of chess with someone who's very abruptly decided you're actually having a kung-fu match and counters your rusty Sicilian Defence with a well-swung guan dao.
The bladed implement turned out to be something fairly blunt and innocuous, honed to a razor edge merely by our imaginations. The kitchen drawers clearly needed something slotted through them to keep them closed. I was thinking broom handle, but V got a glint in her eye and went rummaging round in one our cupboards.
It is indicative of the kind of household we run that our child-proof lock is a medieval broadsword. In its scabbard, of course, we're not monsters.
Breaking Spoon Developments - F can now use a smurf as a spoon. Not an actual spoon, of course, just smurfs. Slow progress is still progress.
We're on the brink, now. F toddles round the flat, bourne aloft on the trembling wings of a giggling Pappa. More and more she shakes me off, rather preemptorily. Then she falls over.
It's not nice to say 'I told you so' to a 9-month-old baby. By which I mean it's not a very kind thing to do, being able to say 'I told you so' to anyone is always kind of fun. Gather your little pleasures in life where you will, say I.
As we're about to move house, everything is sort of half-boxed at the moment. V was firmly restating our avowed intent to make sure the new place is properly childproofed. For the sake of making this a better story, I shall claim that as we were having this conversation, we were interrupted by a cry of childish glee (I think it actually happened during an attempt to clean the breakfast things up or something far less apt). Looking round, we saw F had discovered how to open the kitchen drawers, and was wielding something bright and bladed as though about to grant herself sight beyond sight.
This is a most unfair tendency of babies. Well, our baby, I shouldn't generalise. She learns stuff on the side and then suddenly presents you with a fait accompli. Trying to stay a step ahead of her is like playing a game of chess with someone who's very abruptly decided you're actually having a kung-fu match and counters your rusty Sicilian Defence with a well-swung guan dao.
The bladed implement turned out to be something fairly blunt and innocuous, honed to a razor edge merely by our imaginations. The kitchen drawers clearly needed something slotted through them to keep them closed. I was thinking broom handle, but V got a glint in her eye and went rummaging round in one our cupboards.
It is indicative of the kind of household we run that our child-proof lock is a medieval broadsword. In its scabbard, of course, we're not monsters.
Breaking Spoon Developments - F can now use a smurf as a spoon. Not an actual spoon, of course, just smurfs. Slow progress is still progress.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Vi Simmar
First big family outing in a while, this. Mormor, Uncle D, cousins A and V and the three of us all went to the local pool.
One of the things I like most about Sweden is their Viking history. It filters down into society on a national level in the cheery, quiet way Swedes do so well. Our local pool is called Valhalla. For a myth/legend/fantasy roleplaying nerd like me, being able to say 'I went swimming in Valhalla last weekend' is completely awesome.
Like the bus route that travels to nearby Bifrost (one of Göteborg's suburbs), however, the reality is less of a heavy metal album cover than I dreamed. True, the woman at the front desk did recognise Freja. Only because her pram has a customised nameplate, though, not because she recognised a returning goddess. Nor is it pulled by cats, however cool V and I may be. As valkyries went, she was kind of... I don't know, Librarian-y? Tortoiseshell glasses, jumper and nametag. No chainmail anywhere. I suppose it wouldn't help much in a swimming pool, but still disappointing.
F loved swimming. She loved the warm shower beforehand. She loved the noise and shrieking. She loved hanging out with her cousins and kept trying to run after them in the paddling pool. She loved being carried about by comparatively naked parents. I kept hearing the ghosts of the midwives muttering 'skin to skin' in the background.
The heated pool wasn't open, we were just swimming at room temperature, but F stayed happily enthralled for about an hour and a half before getting tired. Even then, I couldn't in all honesty say if she got tired and shouty because she was cold or because she'd tried to bite through a metal sprinkler casing and failed. Cousin A lasted the longest of us all, sternly denying he was cold as he watched older kids jump off the high diving board and shivered madly.
I hadn't enjoyed swimming so much in years. Public baths get reallly dull when you're older. Endless lengths, either stuck behind some doddering pensioner doing a functional breaststroke or being mown down by sneering professionals crawling like an outboard motor. Getting out with grey, chlorine-bleached skin that makes you look like an elderly prune. Where's the joy in that? Running around in the shallow end with your little nephew on a foam surfboard, pretending he's a motorboat driver - that is exercise I can get behind.
We went to McDonalds afterwards, which slightly spoiled all the health I guess. Worth it for the looks as I spoonfed F her spaghetti and sauce from a milkshake cup, though. The guys behind the till wouldn't risk untrademarked tupperware in their microwave, against the manufacturer's recommendations or something. There were whole tables of parents staring at me with concentrated hatred in their eyes. A little hypocritical seeing as their own (older) sprogs were knee-deep in nuggets, of course, but there you go.
F loved the restaurant, of course, more noise and lights and things to stare at. Part of her contentment turned out to be that she'd swiped a rattle from the kids' pool by way of a momento, the crafty devil, and was rattling it gladly under cover of her sheepskin. Plus watching mamma and pappa eating food with their fingers was a novelty to her, she liked that.
A really good day out, all in all. I'm looking forward to going again, after suddenly remembering how much fun swimming used to be as a kid. Takes kids to remind you of that, I guess.
Breaking Spoon Eating Developments - There have been no new spoon eating developments.
One of the things I like most about Sweden is their Viking history. It filters down into society on a national level in the cheery, quiet way Swedes do so well. Our local pool is called Valhalla. For a myth/legend/fantasy roleplaying nerd like me, being able to say 'I went swimming in Valhalla last weekend' is completely awesome.
Like the bus route that travels to nearby Bifrost (one of Göteborg's suburbs), however, the reality is less of a heavy metal album cover than I dreamed. True, the woman at the front desk did recognise Freja. Only because her pram has a customised nameplate, though, not because she recognised a returning goddess. Nor is it pulled by cats, however cool V and I may be. As valkyries went, she was kind of... I don't know, Librarian-y? Tortoiseshell glasses, jumper and nametag. No chainmail anywhere. I suppose it wouldn't help much in a swimming pool, but still disappointing.
F loved swimming. She loved the warm shower beforehand. She loved the noise and shrieking. She loved hanging out with her cousins and kept trying to run after them in the paddling pool. She loved being carried about by comparatively naked parents. I kept hearing the ghosts of the midwives muttering 'skin to skin' in the background.
The heated pool wasn't open, we were just swimming at room temperature, but F stayed happily enthralled for about an hour and a half before getting tired. Even then, I couldn't in all honesty say if she got tired and shouty because she was cold or because she'd tried to bite through a metal sprinkler casing and failed. Cousin A lasted the longest of us all, sternly denying he was cold as he watched older kids jump off the high diving board and shivered madly.
I hadn't enjoyed swimming so much in years. Public baths get reallly dull when you're older. Endless lengths, either stuck behind some doddering pensioner doing a functional breaststroke or being mown down by sneering professionals crawling like an outboard motor. Getting out with grey, chlorine-bleached skin that makes you look like an elderly prune. Where's the joy in that? Running around in the shallow end with your little nephew on a foam surfboard, pretending he's a motorboat driver - that is exercise I can get behind.
We went to McDonalds afterwards, which slightly spoiled all the health I guess. Worth it for the looks as I spoonfed F her spaghetti and sauce from a milkshake cup, though. The guys behind the till wouldn't risk untrademarked tupperware in their microwave, against the manufacturer's recommendations or something. There were whole tables of parents staring at me with concentrated hatred in their eyes. A little hypocritical seeing as their own (older) sprogs were knee-deep in nuggets, of course, but there you go.
F loved the restaurant, of course, more noise and lights and things to stare at. Part of her contentment turned out to be that she'd swiped a rattle from the kids' pool by way of a momento, the crafty devil, and was rattling it gladly under cover of her sheepskin. Plus watching mamma and pappa eating food with their fingers was a novelty to her, she liked that.
A really good day out, all in all. I'm looking forward to going again, after suddenly remembering how much fun swimming used to be as a kid. Takes kids to remind you of that, I guess.
Breaking Spoon Eating Developments - There have been no new spoon eating developments.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Hometime
I was briefly back in the UK last Sunday, meeting with the project organisers who are commissioning me to do some writing on psychosis. Nothing like a late night flight into Stanstead to make you feel psychotic, it really did the trick in terms of stoking my creative engines. My passport is almost out of date, so the photo is ten years old. I got a very searching look at border control, and had to produce additional proof of identity. It's true, beard growth corresponds to terrorist tendencies.
Being back in London is an increasingly odd experience. Stuff carries on changing after you leave, of course, so new buildings mushroom up from concrete sites and shops get replaced with new shops selling the same thing in different colours. This is usual and to be expected, if jarring all the same. What makes it even odder is when I find myself speaking instinctive Swedish to the people I bump into on the tube.
"Are you queueing for the ticket machine?" asked someone.
-Nej nej nej, I reassured her hurriedly. It sounds pretty medieval to the modern Brit (not that she was one, I think she was an Italian tourist). Coincidentally I'm trying to learn how to pronounce Anglo-Saxon at the moment for a voice over job. Anglo-Saxon isn't totally dissimilar to Modern Swedish, it turns out, same Germanic roots. My Swedish probably sounds a bit medieval at the moment too. If this was one and a half thousand years ago, I'd probably fit right in. Or be executed in both countries as a spy. Either works.
Even weirder is that V has recently started apologising in English to her collidees in the street. And in the proper London idiom, too, a startled 'Sorry' without eye contact before briskly moving away so they can't hear you muttering how it was their fault anyway. She's very annoyed about this, she doesn't want to have English mannerisms. They don't come across well in Swedish, apparently. Her employees asked her to stop being so polite when making stage calls the other week. It seems 'Can Mr. So-and-so come to the stage please, thank-you!' can make you sound patronising, i.e. English, and is to be avoided.
The worst thing about the visit was just how much of a wrench it was being away from F. I'm pathetic. Two hours and I was already in emotional turmoil. What if she walks when I'm gone? Or what if she misses me so much she's upset? Or what if there's, I don't know, a landmine! Sweden is very prone to landmines! I must go home at once.
F did notice I was gone, long enough to look round and ask 'ba pa?' of V once. That was as missed as I got, which is A Good Thing (if somewhat wounding to my pride). She was asleep by the time I got home, so I had to stay awake until three o' clock in order to pick her up, smell her hair and reset my spiralling blood pressure. Keswick is going to be a sore test, I fear.
In Other News
- V took F to the baby group last week. She knew about the same number of children's songs as I did, which was immensely comforting. To me, at least. Not her.
- Spoon Progress: on being offered a filled spoon, F will take it in both hands and stick it firmly into her mouth, then turn it upside down so she can lick it clean. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It already has porridge on it.
Being back in London is an increasingly odd experience. Stuff carries on changing after you leave, of course, so new buildings mushroom up from concrete sites and shops get replaced with new shops selling the same thing in different colours. This is usual and to be expected, if jarring all the same. What makes it even odder is when I find myself speaking instinctive Swedish to the people I bump into on the tube.
"Are you queueing for the ticket machine?" asked someone.
-Nej nej nej, I reassured her hurriedly. It sounds pretty medieval to the modern Brit (not that she was one, I think she was an Italian tourist). Coincidentally I'm trying to learn how to pronounce Anglo-Saxon at the moment for a voice over job. Anglo-Saxon isn't totally dissimilar to Modern Swedish, it turns out, same Germanic roots. My Swedish probably sounds a bit medieval at the moment too. If this was one and a half thousand years ago, I'd probably fit right in. Or be executed in both countries as a spy. Either works.
Even weirder is that V has recently started apologising in English to her collidees in the street. And in the proper London idiom, too, a startled 'Sorry' without eye contact before briskly moving away so they can't hear you muttering how it was their fault anyway. She's very annoyed about this, she doesn't want to have English mannerisms. They don't come across well in Swedish, apparently. Her employees asked her to stop being so polite when making stage calls the other week. It seems 'Can Mr. So-and-so come to the stage please, thank-you!' can make you sound patronising, i.e. English, and is to be avoided.
The worst thing about the visit was just how much of a wrench it was being away from F. I'm pathetic. Two hours and I was already in emotional turmoil. What if she walks when I'm gone? Or what if she misses me so much she's upset? Or what if there's, I don't know, a landmine! Sweden is very prone to landmines! I must go home at once.
F did notice I was gone, long enough to look round and ask 'ba pa?' of V once. That was as missed as I got, which is A Good Thing (if somewhat wounding to my pride). She was asleep by the time I got home, so I had to stay awake until three o' clock in order to pick her up, smell her hair and reset my spiralling blood pressure. Keswick is going to be a sore test, I fear.
In Other News
- V took F to the baby group last week. She knew about the same number of children's songs as I did, which was immensely comforting. To me, at least. Not her.
- Spoon Progress: on being offered a filled spoon, F will take it in both hands and stick it firmly into her mouth, then turn it upside down so she can lick it clean. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It already has porridge on it.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Mobilis in mobile
Time to move house again.
We've been looking for three or four months. There's only so many times you can tread barefoot on a Smurf at three in the morning before deciding your daughter needs her own room. I can't quite decide which is my favourite. The Pirate Smurf's cutlass is quite bendy, although not quite bendy enough. Not as bad as the drones on the Scottish Smurf's bagpipes. Not, of course, that putting her in her own room will make any difference. Smurfs are probably fairly invasive, like lice.
Sweden has all kinds of helpful laws for people who rent houses, as we do. Veronica has been renting from the same company for seventeen years or so, and it's a first-hand contract. Whatever that means, I'm a little vague about the legal ramifications, but it's clearly a good thing. People arch their eyebrows and emit low whistles when she says we have one.
One of the things it means is that you can swap your existing flat for another one in the same company. The longer you've been with them, the higher up the waiting list you go. V had her heart set on the Haga district, a very calm and family-friendly part of the centre of town. It used to be a warehouse district, and was almost pulled down in the eighties to make room for something with more glass, steel and potential profit for business in it. Luckily forward-thinking hippies occupied it and got the demolitions cancelled. Now it's full of cobbles, antique shops and vegetarian coffee houses.
And, from November, us.
We've got a place at the foot of the hill with Skansen Kronen on it, an old artillery fort. Our balcony looks straight out on its foresty flanks. I can already see F running up and down them, skinning her knees and discovering nettles. And I can already see me struggling to keep up whilst attempting to pluck Smurfs out of my soles.
There's a mild downside, of course, which is that we have to move in under a month. On a day where V is closing one show and opening another the day after. And the day before I go back to the UK for three months, to work on a Christmas play in Keswick. V is already champing at the bit to throw everything into moving boxes immediately. I'm trying to resign myself quietly to not knowing where anything is when I get back, as well as steeling myself for three months of not being at home.
Time to stay changeable within a changing element, to borrow Captain Nemo's motto. Although he generally seemed to find things like moving house and spending time away from family fairly easy to bear. Perhaps I should invest in an incredible submarine, it could solve a lot of problems. Although there's no parking at the new place, so perhaps I shouldn't.
We've been looking for three or four months. There's only so many times you can tread barefoot on a Smurf at three in the morning before deciding your daughter needs her own room. I can't quite decide which is my favourite. The Pirate Smurf's cutlass is quite bendy, although not quite bendy enough. Not as bad as the drones on the Scottish Smurf's bagpipes. Not, of course, that putting her in her own room will make any difference. Smurfs are probably fairly invasive, like lice.
Sweden has all kinds of helpful laws for people who rent houses, as we do. Veronica has been renting from the same company for seventeen years or so, and it's a first-hand contract. Whatever that means, I'm a little vague about the legal ramifications, but it's clearly a good thing. People arch their eyebrows and emit low whistles when she says we have one.
One of the things it means is that you can swap your existing flat for another one in the same company. The longer you've been with them, the higher up the waiting list you go. V had her heart set on the Haga district, a very calm and family-friendly part of the centre of town. It used to be a warehouse district, and was almost pulled down in the eighties to make room for something with more glass, steel and potential profit for business in it. Luckily forward-thinking hippies occupied it and got the demolitions cancelled. Now it's full of cobbles, antique shops and vegetarian coffee houses.
And, from November, us.
We've got a place at the foot of the hill with Skansen Kronen on it, an old artillery fort. Our balcony looks straight out on its foresty flanks. I can already see F running up and down them, skinning her knees and discovering nettles. And I can already see me struggling to keep up whilst attempting to pluck Smurfs out of my soles.
There's a mild downside, of course, which is that we have to move in under a month. On a day where V is closing one show and opening another the day after. And the day before I go back to the UK for three months, to work on a Christmas play in Keswick. V is already champing at the bit to throw everything into moving boxes immediately. I'm trying to resign myself quietly to not knowing where anything is when I get back, as well as steeling myself for three months of not being at home.
Time to stay changeable within a changing element, to borrow Captain Nemo's motto. Although he generally seemed to find things like moving house and spending time away from family fairly easy to bear. Perhaps I should invest in an incredible submarine, it could solve a lot of problems. Although there's no parking at the new place, so perhaps I shouldn't.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
White Lamb 2: The Reckoning
Lately, I met a crocodile who drives around in a car. He was pretty big and fat, and he blows a trumpet. The car was too short and his tail was too long, so it had to go on a little trailer at the back.
Okay, not really. This is a nursery rhyme. I told you I was going to learn them all before going back to the toddlers' group, and I meant it. All the classics. Krokodilen i Bilen (The Crododile in the Car) - tick. Bockarna Bruse (The Billy Goats Gruff)- tick (although a bit dubious on the last verse). Här Dansar herr Gurka (Mr Cucumber is Dancing Here) - tick plus. Var bor du lilla råtta (Where Do You Live, Little Rat?*) - about eighty percent. That's it for now, sadly, and that's only taken me less than a week because I half knew them already from F's CD. And Lille Katt, obviously, but I can sing that in my sleep now. I probably do.
F decided that my practice was a good idea, so she did some too. She woke up at three in the morning before the group and sang for about two hours. If I thought I might have a better chance at looking like I knew what was happening, I was wrong. I looked like I'd been on a month-long bender instead, right down to the flame-grilled eyes and the head full of hoover fur.
All the same, it was much more positive this week. I found a stroller for F, who whooped with joy and started trying to run over some of the crawling babies with great glee. She must be really frustrated that she can't crawl yet, I had no idea her envy ran so deep.
Ready to show off my newfound prowess in the singing circle, they surprised me by flinging out an English one. Possibly just for me, I'm not sure - I think some of the older kids have been learning it at their dagis as well. But we sang 'I like the Flowers', which I haven't sung since doing drama warm-ups back in my student player days at King's on the Strand. Turns out the Swedish for Boom-de-a-da is something like 'oo-de-lalli'. Probably not a strict translation, but it suffices.
*To which the answer is 'In Your Hat'. Hooray for nursery rhymes.
Okay, not really. This is a nursery rhyme. I told you I was going to learn them all before going back to the toddlers' group, and I meant it. All the classics. Krokodilen i Bilen (The Crododile in the Car) - tick. Bockarna Bruse (The Billy Goats Gruff)- tick (although a bit dubious on the last verse). Här Dansar herr Gurka (Mr Cucumber is Dancing Here) - tick plus. Var bor du lilla råtta (Where Do You Live, Little Rat?*) - about eighty percent. That's it for now, sadly, and that's only taken me less than a week because I half knew them already from F's CD. And Lille Katt, obviously, but I can sing that in my sleep now. I probably do.
F decided that my practice was a good idea, so she did some too. She woke up at three in the morning before the group and sang for about two hours. If I thought I might have a better chance at looking like I knew what was happening, I was wrong. I looked like I'd been on a month-long bender instead, right down to the flame-grilled eyes and the head full of hoover fur.
All the same, it was much more positive this week. I found a stroller for F, who whooped with joy and started trying to run over some of the crawling babies with great glee. She must be really frustrated that she can't crawl yet, I had no idea her envy ran so deep.
Ready to show off my newfound prowess in the singing circle, they surprised me by flinging out an English one. Possibly just for me, I'm not sure - I think some of the older kids have been learning it at their dagis as well. But we sang 'I like the Flowers', which I haven't sung since doing drama warm-ups back in my student player days at King's on the Strand. Turns out the Swedish for Boom-de-a-da is something like 'oo-de-lalli'. Probably not a strict translation, but it suffices.
*To which the answer is 'In Your Hat'. Hooray for nursery rhymes.
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