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Written by Stephen Baines
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Monday, 04 December 2006 |
This week has had some bad news. Tazio, our 16 year+ moggie died last Thursday. The diagnosis was kindey failure. The fact he'd been on "mature cat" food for years gave him such a long life, but in the end time caught up with him. He's missed by us, and by the dog who seems to acutely miss being able to tell us when the cat is misbehaving....
The ongoing struggle to get the English car onto Swedish plates continues. My insurance company has given us a three-month "traffic insurance" for the car without a registration plate. Hurrah! The papers were filled in for the Swedish VV, but we only get temporary plates for three months. The first "registration inspection" date they can give us is at the end of March, 4 months away. So, we can drive the car for three months, then we can't drive it to the inspection a month later. Nice. The car is the one thing that is driving me stark raving bonkers.
The Swedish car has been for it's equivalent of the MOT test and needed a little work on the spiderlegs, apparently. A garage local to home has done the job and I hope we've found ourselves a mechanic we can deal with. His English was very good, and he did the job quickly and cheaply. Whilst there the car was switched onto "winter tyres". On December 1st all Swedish registered cars have to be on winter tyres. The difficulty was knowing which winter tyres to use, as we had no experience. The office said we'd need studded tyres as we live in the country. The mechanic said there was no need, we just needed heavy tread tyres as we live by a main road, and I drive on the motorway to work, so studs were a waste of money. I heeded his advice, and saved us a few kronor in the process. The car will be back in for it's re-test at Bilprovningen sometime this week, hopefully.
One of the nicer things about Sweden is that Christmas still isn't too commercialised. 'Twas the end of November and still very little of Christmas had hit the shops. Last week the Christmas Coffee hit the stores, and Christmas started! It's still not overpowering. There are some decorations in the shops, but nothing too heavy. There are christmas treats, but nothing too horrific. And a real christmas tree can be yours for about 100 kronor (about £7.50).
One of the Christmas traditions that survives here is the Julbock . The Julbock until comparatively recently brought the presents to the children at Christmas time, and the Julbock is seen in windows all over made of straw. Some places take it to extremes... But the Fennoscandians are keen on their traditions at Christmas, and it is lovely to see the preperations for a non-commercialised Christmas compared to the horrors of the UK in recent years. Whilst the Swedes prepare for the julbock, the Finns prepare for the Joulupukki, whilst the Icelandic people await the Yule Cat .
Traditions are fun. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 13 September 2007 )
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