So we arrived in Sweden last night, with one-way tickets, a house to move into and the money from our flat sale winging its way to my account. It was chilly but not cold and Landvetter airport was quite deserted when we landed around 10pm. We collected our rental car (a volvo!) and got ourselves to our new home and a whole collection of surprises that lay within … firstly we had two christmas parcels from NZ which were an unexpected and exciting welcome! And then there was the house … carrying on from all her hard work this summer, L’s mum Kinna had wallpapered our bathroom and put up a new towel hook and toilet roll holder, bought and assembled a new bathroom cabinet, put up christmas lights and curtains, bought us some new towels and a hyacinth and a poinsettia and a subscription to Göteborgs Posten (the local newspaper), stocked the kitchen with some breakfast essentials, AND made our bed! After marvelling at how wonderful it all looked, we had a brief chat with her on the phone before falling into bed. I am so glad we bought a new bed last time we came over here – it feels all new and firm and comfortable and is a whole 20cm wider than the old bed in London, which is quite welcome when I feel like I’m wearing a tiny wiggly whale on my abdomen.

This morning we had a nice lie-in and a cup of tea in our nice new bed before getting ourselves up & about. We had some filmjölk (kindof very thin yoghurt) with hallonsyllt (raspberry jam) and flingor (cornflakes) for breakfast and made up a massive shopping list, which includes things such as “car”, “sofa”, “TV” and “something for the baby to sleep in”. Then we headed out. First stop was at Lollipop, a local convenience store that also serves as a post office and was holding a parcel containing equipment for the broadband connection we ordered before coming. Then we went to Majgården, another slightly larger convenience store that also has an excellent bakery. We picked up an äpple och kanel krans – a big apple and cinnamon bready-cakey-thing with a hole in the middle. We went off to Kinna’s little house and had some cake and tea with her, then paid a quick visit to L’s aunt & uncle as well. It was about 2pm by this time, and despite breakfast being late and having eaten cake, we were a little hungry. So we stopped at a takeaway/sweet shop where I had köttbullar (meatballs) with potatismos (mash), lyngonsyllt (lingon berry jam) and sås (gravy). Linus had an enourmous tunnbröd (thin bread) wrap containing sausage, mash, salad, mayonnaise and gherkins. It was approximately as big as his head.

From there it was more visiting, to L’s grandparents house, where we had further cake and tea and coffee. With no-one left to visit, we went to the local shopping mall, Kungsmässan. As it was getting late in the day, we didn’t intend to knock a great many things off the giant shopping list, but we did manage to buy some slippers (ours are in transit with the shipping company, somewhere between London and Sweden). The house is warm (it’s 11pm and I’m in a top & light cardigan, L has his shirt sleeves rolled up) but slippers are still a necessity in my book. We spoke to someone in the 3 mobile phone store about getting phones, but they said that until we have been living in Sweden for 6 months they would not give us accounts. Later we spoke to a salesman in another electronics shop and it sounds like 3 are the only provider with such a preposterous rule, which is good news.

Our last big chore of the day was some grocery shipping at ICA, the supermarket in Kungsmässan. We stocked up on essential food and made our way home for some dinner. In the vege department I saw a perslijrot – parsley root – ie, the root of a parsley plant. Yeah, it turns out you can eat that. Who knew? I had just seen something about it in one of Kinna’s gardening magazines and decided we should try one, so we had it shaved in a salad with celeriac and a little balsamic dressing. It tastes a lot like carrot. Not particularly exciting, but kindof nice and kindof different.

So now we have an even longer shopping and todo list – we have two small bedrooms to paint and a few curtains to put up, and we have a shopping list to take to Ikea tomorrow. The house is so livable as it is, but we are enjoying doing some nesting, and it is more exciting to be nesting here than it was in the London flat – the difference between tidying a place up just to sell it, and tidying a place up because you’re going to actually live in it. It still feels quite surreal to be here – more like a vacation than an actual move.