In Sweden all week

[ailbhe]

We've been in Sweden all week. Today is Alles Hjartes Dag (modulo spelling) and Rob bought flowers for myself and Mormor. We arrived exhausted on Saturday and were driven from the airport by Rune, accompanied by Frans, who looks very different - he had his head shaved last time we met, and now he has shoulder length hair. We had fika in Rune's first, and met Birgit and Helena and her children, Freja and Ebba. I was too tired to eat. Mormor kept confusing people - she even thought that Frans was Hilda, possibly due to the hair.

The rest of the week, we ate, went out to the shop every day to buy milk and so on, lookd at photographs - I did my first assignment for my new Open University course - and met Mormor's helper; a social worker comes in to help her shower, ever since she fell over in the shower one day and had to use her emergency button.

On Monday we went sledging with Erik. I got snow up my trouser legs because I forgot to tuck my them into my socks. Lotta made us hot chocolate to take with us in a flask and we drank it sitting in the snow. I've never seen real snow before, and here it's everywhere. It crunches underfoot and Rob was able to make Calvinesque dinosaur prints. I tried to make a snow angel but it was a bit too deep and my arms couldn't push it aside properly.

This evening we went sledging on a much smaller, less exciting hill, by moonlight, with Rob's uncle. It stopped being less exciting when we hung on to each other's sleds and went down three at a time. I didn't close my eyes, but I did let go and skid off to the right at the very end. Then there was the time I lost control and Rob ran to avoid me - he ended up running right in front of me and I had to fall out as he jumped over me to avoid a collision.

We learned to play Svart Maia and Rob trmmed my hair; all the dead split bits are in the bin. Also, I finally read White Teeth and liked it very much.