Holidays! Finally. Dagis finishes up by sending F home with a fresh set of heavy colds, and the cheery Jul announcement that we may all have lice by now.
As my school term finished with a national test, the relentlessly depressing grey of the Gothenburg winter suddenly bloomed into festive market season. Glittering stars everywhere, musical neon windmills and whalesong tree decorations in Brunsparken, Santa hats for all. Tomte hats, sorry. Although tomtarna are also the elfish helpers here, which I find confusing even if they do wear the same hats.
"Is Santa coming to visit you at Christmas, F?"
"Yeah."
"What's he going to do?"
"Bing pents. Feya vill ha en car." F's Swinglish is more and more fluent. I can't tell if she's trying to say the Swedish - jag vill ha (I want to have) or the rather more oracular English "I will have", but the end result is likely the same.
-
We have tickets for the Opera's Luciatorget. Well, I'm getting in because I'm performing. F and V have seats as a result. Let's say tickets, it's easier.
I'm reading a translation of a classic Swedish Jul poem, Tomten. Not technically Santa or any of his elves in this context, but an older sprite rather like a house elf. The one Coke stole the whole Santa look from, in fact. We don't have them in the UK, so there's no equivalent. This has made the translation difficult. So difficult in fact that the original translator has basically given up in places, and abandoned niceties like rhyme or actual meaning. I spent four hours trying to improve on it the previous night.
While I stand in the wings, theatre staff dancing round me in polar bear costumes, V is dancing an entirely different dance in the auditorium. F is high on gingerbread, handed out free in the lobby beforehand, and sits still for about three minutes before wanting to run all round the theatre shouting excitedly. When I see them after the show, F is still doing this (although it rapidly degenerates into crying because the queue for the saffron buns is too long) and V looks like she's run a marathon.
I get my chance the following day, during Hagakyrkans Lucia concert. Actual tickets this time, courtesy of Mormor, who won them in a lotto at the christmas market where we accidentally stole the wheel of cheese. Long story, obviously.
Haga is the church we were married in, it's got a lovely old-fashioned wooden interior. The pews have little doors at the ends. F likes little doors. You can say "bye bye!" to pappa and close them behind you, then shout "hej hej!" when you come back in. A breezy church lady whisks past us smiling and stops, as though incidentally, to mention that there's a fully loaded creche room just off the nave where you can take restless children. I'm sure it's coincidence. I'm sure F didn't open the pew door into her shin.
When the lights dim and the candles come up, and the ethereal choir of white-gowned children float down the aisle singing Santa Lucia, F stills and points, and silently bobs about to get a good view of the Lucia Train as it passes. I am an embodiment of glowing paternal pride. Fifteen seconds later she's screaming in the face of a toddler in the pew behind her, who has dropped his toy cow next to her and has the temerity to want it back. We spend the rest of the concert driving wooden cars up and down the wheelchair access ramp out back.
-
V has booked us an overnight boat trip to Denmark to mark the beginning of her holidays! It's the middle of the week, the ferry is nearly empty, and F has the rule of the play area.
Although the plastic slide and Harry Potter Lego display are big favourites, the main attraction is the skiing arcade game in the middle of the games room. F stands on the skis, slapping the flashing buttons and saying Oo. Until mummy pays for her to have a go, then she skidaddles dismissively. V dutifully attempts the race in her stead and comes 5th. Out of five.
The ferry marks F's most conscious introduction to restaurant eating yet. She is very impressed with the buffet. You can see her thinking 'I get to choose what I want? And I don't have to eat the rest?' Mainly salad with a token sausage, followed by a large tub of Mr Whippy from the ice cream station, then.
After the ferry comes the swimming. The hotel in Frederikshamn has a huge pirate-themed water park, complete with tropical thunder storms, an outdoor whirlpool and a giant waterslide you ride inflatable rafts down. Also, because luck is fickle, two coachloads of teenagers trying to pull each other in the bubble spa.
F plays very happily for two hours in the kids area, which features a spurting whale fountain that looks cute until you realise it's hopelessly beached and not going to live long. We try her in the shallows of the wave pool, but by then she's tired, and an ill-timed thunderous wave storm puts her off.
She shares our hotel room very happily. Also all of mummy's chips in the restaurant. We were worried she'd be restless, but she's all played out after the water park and ferry trip. This does mean we have to go to bed at 1900 too. It's been a while since I did that; after an hour of sleep, I get up and go and read downstairs in the lobby (Brian Aldiss, Greybeard, very good) until I'm tired enough to sleep properly.
The morning after she eschews more swimming for lying in the cot between our beds, watching Cars on the iPad and eating cashews from a can. Between that, the breakfast buffet and the Julbord on the ferry home, she settles into a hotel lifestyle pretty fast.
Two days later, I'm kicked off the computer. "Pappa go kitchen. Cook! Feya hungy," she tells me. This is mostly a ruse so she can play on my spinning office chair, but she follows it up by standing in the kitchen door and setting out the menu.
"Ish ingers! Peas! Vill ha glass a milk." Sweets to follow, easy on the going easy. Have it sent up to the penthouse, put it on my bill.
-
Currently, with the official Swedish Christmas now three and a half hours away, we are sprawled on the floor after a day of cleaning. Well, V is. I'm helpfully writing about it instead. F's main present is being assembled, and the screws don't fit properly. Glue bottles, assorted ratchets and impatience are accumulating around us, under the fixed stares of a half-dozen painted tomtar. The pastry crust on my mince pie is as ragged as our tempers, there are two kilos of meatballs to fry tomorrow morning before the family arrives and there's nowhere left to hang any washing.
Ho ho ho.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Eat Your Heart Out, Peter Pan
Slowly, we sink into the depths of winter.
Around half four on a cold, if not bitterly so, saturday, F and I are playing at Plikta, the big playpark in Slottskogen. The light is gone, so the park is floodlit and increasinly deserted. Occasional joggers go by, helicopters sometimes rush overhead on the way to the nearby hospital (which F loves) and the usual muffled city noises fill the night.
But the park itself feels somwhat chill. Too much blackness and not enough children running about playing - a playpark can be sinister in such conditions. F is not done with the swings yet, however, so I hold on a little longer.
She won't wear her gloves, although her hands are pink and cold. It's not below freezing, quite a mild night compared to the rest of the week in fact, even if the rising night makes it seem colder. We are, however, the last people there.
Playgroup is a mixed blessing, I have been thinking. F has breakfast and dinner with us during the week, but little more than that. She is tired by the end of a week of dagis. Midweek she's pretty happy to arrive there, reciting the names of her teachers and friends. She waved me off before I had a chance to last week, rushing off to push a toy pram about without a lookback.
But by Thursday or Friday, the smiles are faded, replaced with the blank look of someone who knows she can't do much to change the day ahead and will have to suffer through it. Saturday and Sunday are good, we can catch up and play. Then on Monday she looks mournful when we leave her again. She tried to climb the bars of the sandpit the other morning, in fact, giving us a desperate sad smile as she asked us to come and play with her this time.
Oh, wee lady, you just wait until school starts. Or a job. I often hear my fellow European immigrants complaining that Swedish schools don't get children ready fast enough, that they let them play for too long. Bloody Protestant work ethic, it makes me think. Why not just get them to stitch shoes if you're so hell-bent on getting them industrious? Let them play. Plenty of time to work later, and having nine-to-five daycare away from the family is quite work enough when you aren't even two.
Anyway - this is why I've stayed longer than I meant to at Plikta, and why we're the last ones at the roundabout in the gathered dusk.
Good old parental guilt, it's a highly horsepowered engine. F at this moment is eschewing the various equipment of the park and has settled on a good old-fashioned slope, which she is practising running up and down. But as she turns her back on the floodlight pole at the top of the slope, she becomes first dismayed, then angry.
"Pappa! Pappa! No! NoaaAA!"
"What is it, lovely? What's the matter?"
"Feya vill noha sadow!" she wails dramatically, pointing and hopping from foot to foot. "Pappa tah bot!"
She's doing this because stretched out in front of her, stark and deep, is her shadow. And she wants none of it, and because she can't shake it off, she'd like me to take it away. At least she's given up on the moon for the moment, not that this is an easier ask.
Much as I'd like to remove them, life is full of shadows. I settle for getting her to turn back to the light, so at least the apparent pit at her feet is not distressing her, and then we go home and have pasta.
Around half four on a cold, if not bitterly so, saturday, F and I are playing at Plikta, the big playpark in Slottskogen. The light is gone, so the park is floodlit and increasinly deserted. Occasional joggers go by, helicopters sometimes rush overhead on the way to the nearby hospital (which F loves) and the usual muffled city noises fill the night.
But the park itself feels somwhat chill. Too much blackness and not enough children running about playing - a playpark can be sinister in such conditions. F is not done with the swings yet, however, so I hold on a little longer.
She won't wear her gloves, although her hands are pink and cold. It's not below freezing, quite a mild night compared to the rest of the week in fact, even if the rising night makes it seem colder. We are, however, the last people there.
Playgroup is a mixed blessing, I have been thinking. F has breakfast and dinner with us during the week, but little more than that. She is tired by the end of a week of dagis. Midweek she's pretty happy to arrive there, reciting the names of her teachers and friends. She waved me off before I had a chance to last week, rushing off to push a toy pram about without a lookback.
But by Thursday or Friday, the smiles are faded, replaced with the blank look of someone who knows she can't do much to change the day ahead and will have to suffer through it. Saturday and Sunday are good, we can catch up and play. Then on Monday she looks mournful when we leave her again. She tried to climb the bars of the sandpit the other morning, in fact, giving us a desperate sad smile as she asked us to come and play with her this time.
Oh, wee lady, you just wait until school starts. Or a job. I often hear my fellow European immigrants complaining that Swedish schools don't get children ready fast enough, that they let them play for too long. Bloody Protestant work ethic, it makes me think. Why not just get them to stitch shoes if you're so hell-bent on getting them industrious? Let them play. Plenty of time to work later, and having nine-to-five daycare away from the family is quite work enough when you aren't even two.
Anyway - this is why I've stayed longer than I meant to at Plikta, and why we're the last ones at the roundabout in the gathered dusk.
Good old parental guilt, it's a highly horsepowered engine. F at this moment is eschewing the various equipment of the park and has settled on a good old-fashioned slope, which she is practising running up and down. But as she turns her back on the floodlight pole at the top of the slope, she becomes first dismayed, then angry.
"Pappa! Pappa! No! NoaaAA!"
"What is it, lovely? What's the matter?"
"Feya vill noha sadow!" she wails dramatically, pointing and hopping from foot to foot. "Pappa tah bot!"
She's doing this because stretched out in front of her, stark and deep, is her shadow. And she wants none of it, and because she can't shake it off, she'd like me to take it away. At least she's given up on the moon for the moment, not that this is an easier ask.
Much as I'd like to remove them, life is full of shadows. I settle for getting her to turn back to the light, so at least the apparent pit at her feet is not distressing her, and then we go home and have pasta.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Det är Årstiden
Christmas is coming.
Glowing stars hang in the windows. Red candles and tableclothes adorn the kitchen. Two large crates of faux pine branches, Viennese baubles and tomte-themed placemats lurk in the corners of the room, ready to take pride of place towards the other end of advent. I have Pa Rupapum Pum repeating on me like an auditory turkey curry.
Several years back, V bought me a musical stocking. It has a jingle-belled Rudolph, who wiggles and sings 'Merry Christmas' when you press the button in his arm. Not the 'Merry Christmas' you and I know and love, a version that goes to the tune of Lulu's 'Shout'. It has lyrics like 'Don't forget the milk and cookies, don't forget to bring all the presents to my house now', truly capturing the modern spirit of Christmas yours for only £7.99, order now for an free mince pie themed coaster set.
F knows how to turn it on. Shout? I certainly tried. Still can't drown the bloody thing out.
Advent calendars are far too boring and normal for Sweden. We've nailed a doll to the wall. It's got lots of pockets and loops on it, one for every day of Advent, which can be filled with appropriate goodies. It's a great thing, a new Christmas tradition for the family. V and I were very over-excited as we filled it and hung it up.
F is also very excited, although also quite cross.
"Car!" she said, spotting a nice red plastic racing car tied to pocket number one with green ribbon. "Tack Nissa!" and then she ran about playing with it very cheerfully.
She came back within five minutes. "Plane!" she said, spotting a nice plastic biplane. V and I chuckled indulgently to each other at her avarice, and then explained Advent again.
"No, you only get one pocket a day. The plane is for another time."
Good old 'another time'. With 'not right now' and 'maybe later', the principle hours of the Neverland Clock. F was appropriately appalled at this chronological invention and had a suitable tantrum at being balked, only soothed when she got to run the racing car over Daddy's face for a bit.
The doll is called Nissa. Later on, after the fifteen minutes of low winter sun gave way to icy darkness, we began to realise that it's all very well having snug and cozy lights through the flat. But the flickering candles also give Nissa a sinister cast. like a vaguely Yuleish Slender Man. Twice I've caught myself checking she isn't getting taller.
Or nearer. Uh-oh ho ho.
Glowing stars hang in the windows. Red candles and tableclothes adorn the kitchen. Two large crates of faux pine branches, Viennese baubles and tomte-themed placemats lurk in the corners of the room, ready to take pride of place towards the other end of advent. I have Pa Rupapum Pum repeating on me like an auditory turkey curry.
Several years back, V bought me a musical stocking. It has a jingle-belled Rudolph, who wiggles and sings 'Merry Christmas' when you press the button in his arm. Not the 'Merry Christmas' you and I know and love, a version that goes to the tune of Lulu's 'Shout'. It has lyrics like 'Don't forget the milk and cookies, don't forget to bring all the presents to my house now', truly capturing the modern spirit of Christmas yours for only £7.99, order now for an free mince pie themed coaster set.
F knows how to turn it on. Shout? I certainly tried. Still can't drown the bloody thing out.
Advent calendars are far too boring and normal for Sweden. We've nailed a doll to the wall. It's got lots of pockets and loops on it, one for every day of Advent, which can be filled with appropriate goodies. It's a great thing, a new Christmas tradition for the family. V and I were very over-excited as we filled it and hung it up.
F is also very excited, although also quite cross.
"Car!" she said, spotting a nice red plastic racing car tied to pocket number one with green ribbon. "Tack Nissa!" and then she ran about playing with it very cheerfully.
She came back within five minutes. "Plane!" she said, spotting a nice plastic biplane. V and I chuckled indulgently to each other at her avarice, and then explained Advent again.
"No, you only get one pocket a day. The plane is for another time."
Good old 'another time'. With 'not right now' and 'maybe later', the principle hours of the Neverland Clock. F was appropriately appalled at this chronological invention and had a suitable tantrum at being balked, only soothed when she got to run the racing car over Daddy's face for a bit.
The doll is called Nissa. Later on, after the fifteen minutes of low winter sun gave way to icy darkness, we began to realise that it's all very well having snug and cozy lights through the flat. But the flickering candles also give Nissa a sinister cast. like a vaguely Yuleish Slender Man. Twice I've caught myself checking she isn't getting taller.
Or nearer. Uh-oh ho ho.
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