Sandhamn - boat people's paradise in the Swedish archipelago

Fred's mom turned 60 a month ago and she wished for a day with the family. Fred's sister, Sofie, arranged for us to go to Sandhamn, a little islet in the outer Stockholm archipelago. It's quite a happening place in summer but I can imagine it's dead quiet in winter... don't even want to think about what it's like in winter out there!

Elle's in her new wellies, hot but she just loves

them.

Trying their fishing luck.

The archipelago is a beautiful place, I just love the sea. And when the weather is beautiful it's almost magic. We arrived around midday, had some light lunch, walked around on the island, admiring the enormous boats in the harbour, sat down for drinks and Elle swam in the pool we found at the hotel. We also bought a fishing net for Elle and she caught the tiniest little fish. We finished off with a great dinner - fish of course!

We came home around eight, all tired and a little bit sunburnt. Elle loved being with her family. She fell asleep happy and tired. And for all our SA friends we just want to offer you a little taste of Swedish summer at its best!

Little Emilia 1,5 months old.

Sunburnt, it looks worse than it feels.

Time to go home.

A day at Gröna Lund

Entering Gröna Lund

After a week of sorting out the flat, i e packing up, getting rid of junk and painting, we decided to have a fun day for Elle. She wanted to spend the Friday at Gröna Lund which is an amusement park in central Stockholm.

It's not the cheapest place in town but lots of fun for those who like rides! Since Elle now have reached 120 cm (in fact 121) she's allowed to go on most rides and we did quite a few. Vilda Musen (Wild Mouse) was her favourite and I think it's ours too. All in all we had a great day with beautiful weather and I managed to shoot a few nice pictures of Stockholm for all our South African friends.

We're settling in quite good in Sweden again, but not without a few SA-relapses per day... Most of all we miss all our great friends terrible, I hope we meet again really soon!

Central Stockholm from the waterside

Södermalm

We rode the bus home... yes, that's what you do in Sweden

Elle on Valhalla street near our block

@home

Movers just arrived...

Ok, moving back home was not easy. We had a few hectic days before the big departure, making sure to make time for everybody. Arriving in Sweden on a cloudy Saturday morning, we picked up a car from Fred's work and drove to Fred's parent's house. Meeting the family felt really good and we've seen almost all the closest ones. This weekend we got our old cat back, our family is almost complete.

Grandparent's cottage

Just had had a country breakfast

The flat looked a bit rough, we decided to put fresh paint on the walls. That work will be completed soon, we hope, but also need to make time to see friends and family as much as possible. Fred and I start working on the 15th of August and school starts for Elle on the 22nd. We will put some photos for you on the blog later.

Elle really misses her friends in SA and DSG. She has many good memories from her life in SA and we can see she is a little bit nervous, but excited about going to a new school. She wears her uniform some days and she says it because it comfortable but we suspect she still want to be a part of her friends' lives still...

So, after a week back in our old life it still feels strange and we are trying to adjust but some things are just hard to get used to:

1) prices... gives me a heart attack every day

2) Swedish people reluctance to greet you, we just don't seem to like the polite phrases if not REALLY needed. We love the "Howzit" you hear everywhere in SA.

What about the weather? Well, the summer is quite what we expected, sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy... but we didn't expect it to be so humid though, coming from the dry winter in Gauteng. It's almost tropical! Skin feels great.

We miss you all so much.

Mom and Elle out on town.

Elle in front of our house

The entrance to the complex

Johannesburg, Joburg, Jozi

Hillbrow Tower seen from CBD

Commissioner Street in down-town Joburg

Rooftop bar!

It's a marvellous, strange, dodgy, fantastic city! The city centre is very much in need of a make over. Buildings that don't look too old when you quickly look around from a distance are actually heavily dilapidated when you come close. You just wonder what it would be like if business and people would come back into the city, just like any other greater city in a first world country. We are much hoping it will, then I will definitely come back and walk the streets of Johannesburg CBD.

Our friend Per and his teenage daughter Rita, took us on a tour through Joburg. They took us to a market/expo place in central Joburg called Arts on Main. We found some bits and bobs and tasted delicate honey roasted nuts. Later on we went to Park Town North, 4th Street and had a great meal at an Italian eatery. What I do like about big cities is the little gems that you find, here and there, where you find the arty farty people shop and hang out. We thank Per and Rita for the fine company and the fabulous tour of Joburg. We'll see you soon in Sthlm!

Black Swans

We had a really great time on Thursday. All the Wincent family members had a haircut. Now, my hairdresser is not any hairdresser, she is also a very good friend of mine. While I'm getting my hair done, I also get a very nice conversation. Sometimes the other friends pop in and we have our own tea ladies. This Thursday we also made lunch, so I got a nice hair cut and some pizza. The whole family got nice hair for the price of R340. I had to compare to my hairdresser in Stockholm where you have to pay 650 for just the cut. Here I also got my hair dyed... It's going to take a serious rehabilitation to get into the Swedish prices again.

The afternoon was spent on the Irene Dairy Farm. I've driving past there a lot lately and seen the black swans swimming around in their little pond. I've never seen wild black swans before. They are beautiful but as scary as the white ones.

We've spent a great deal of time with our Irene friends this weekend. It's been very relaxed.

The Move

Fair Ways Guesthouse - our new home for

the time left in SA.

The time has come to move out of the house. We almost filled a 6 feet container with our stuff, two ex-pat families sharing! It's mostly arts and crafts and Elle's toys. It was really sad to see the house emptied. On Tuesday, last week, our stuff was out, on Wednesday and Thursday we had to let in the cleaners and the handymen. After Friday we were completely out of the house.

On Tuesday night we arrived to guest house and had pizza. But no need to worry, we have plenty of friends feeding us and make sure we're not locked in here. Thursday we went to the De Wet's, Friday at the Freel's, Saturday was a frenzy at Böhmer/Sterling Residence and the Mattysen's had us over for coffee/tea on Sunday.

This week is a school holiday, Elle and I have some activities planned but mostly it feels like we're waiting for leaving SA. We've ended all the accounts, phone, electricity, garden service etc. Fred's dad had an inspection of our flat in Stockholm, we rented it out and we're glad to know it's still in good condition. We will move in on the 18th already. "Quick sticks", to quote Elle's swimming teacher.

Commotion in the Kruger Park and foul language!

Sunrise in the Kruger, maybe our best spotting

this weekend!

Our favourites - a snuggly moment.

For the long weekend we went to the Kruger Park, for the last time. We might come back. Seringa Lodge in Whiteriver with its lovely surroundings, lush garden with big avocado and banana trees is definitely worth going back to. Cecilia is a marvellous chef and her husband Roger a brilliant guide. We really enjoyed ourselves. We had awesome sightings, got to see a pride of lions in action, hunting impalas. Unfortunately for the lions the attack was not a success. That would have been something. We saw all the animals except for the leopard, we're saving that for another time.

The hunt we witnessed. This girl was not

prepared when the commotion broke loose.

The impalas slipped trough her paws!

This guy spends a lot of his time flexing his muscles!

I know you guys with kids will probably understand me when I tell you about our daughter. I know that children go through different phases, and I really hope this is a phase. She has developped this sense of language and attitude. The newest thing is the use of "duh". You know when something is very clear and obvious for her and she just wants to emphasise it. We don't really have that in the Swedish language and I don't think she understands how very ugly it sounds. I'm telling myself: "It's just a phase, my dear, it'll pass..." I'm not convinced but very much hoping so. "Duh"

We came pretty close to this guy. He also had

a serious attitude problem!