Meeting new friends

We arrived to Hemavan around 2 pm, picked up the car and our skis and headed east along E12 towards Slussfors. 

 After about 5 minutes of driving we saw our first moose! This guy came up from the snowy bank and crossed the road right in front of us, then made his way up the hill on the other side. Unfortunately I was on the phone with Dave at the time and couldn't scramble for my camera in enough time to catch him and his big moosey antlers and long legs passing right in front of us, and by the time I did he was very well camouflaged by the trees.

 We drove for about an hour before we reached "the clinic" where Dave and Annette live (sort of) and work and saw 5 more moose along the way! None of them were as dramatic as the first one, but they were definitely moose just standing on the side of the road looking around.  When we got to the clinic, we briefly got out of the car in order to finally meet Dave in person, and then we got back in and followed him by car to the cabin where we would be staying for the next 4 days which was about 15 minutes drive away.

After dropping our bags and briefly surveying the supplies and furnishings in the cabin, we got back in the car and drove back to the clinic for dinner ("a lump of moose").  Now we were greeted by Graham (owner of the North Wales clothing company called 'Brenig') and his friend Simon, who were also over visiting Dave at the same time. A bunch of dogs also came out to sniff us - Wanda, Wilma and a couple more whose names I didn't catch. Tryfan was quick to say hello and nuzzle with them on the floor.

And thus began our winter adventure in Sweden!
Dave was introduced via email to Rhodri by Graham, so it was somehow fitting that this mutual friend is also here in Sweden at the same time we are. It is hard to summarize Dave in a sentence - we joked that he must be about 170 years old based on all the things he has done and hats he has worn. What a unique person! One main focus of his life is dog mushing, and he lived in Alaska for 12 years doing this as well as guiding kayak trips to all corners of that state. He also lived in Colorado but was raised in Afghanistan, Iran and India although he is Scottish.  His wife Annette is equally as interesting, being a full time veterinarian with her own clinic and coming originally from Germany. We learned that she competed last summer in the Mongol Derby, which is a 1000 km horse race across Mongolia! They are both a little bit crazy. Together they have 45 dogs, 4 horses and a cat, and are often nursing sick animals as well at the clinic. They also have 2 yachts which are anchored in Mo i Rana, Norway, where they take people on kayak, climbing, and other kinds of expeditions.

They live part time in the clinic and part time up at a cabin near the cabin where we were staying. Here is a little map showing where all these places are. We are pretty much in the middle of nowhere..

We did end up having that lump of moose for dinner, and it was sooooo delicious. Then we drove back to our cabin and settled into our bunks for the night.

Migrating north

Today was kind of epic, in that we left our hotel this morning after breakfast and took the 10:00 am train to Arlanda to catch our 12:00 flight to Hemavan.  Here we are in the lobby of Nordic Light Hotel, ready to venture north.

However, there was not much at all in Terminal 3 where this flight was leaving from, so we explored as much of the airport as we could.

Finally it was time to board and fly 2 hours north to Hemavan

Ice Bar

This morning as we set out on our adventure, we saw a postcard flyer for the Ice Bar which looked really cool, though we wrote it off as probably gimmicky and overpriced. But then it turned out that this Ice Bar was actually located directly across the street from our hotel!

We decided to go for it, just to have a celebratory beverage. It was a pretty fun place to go, especially to drink out of an ice glass!

After this bit of fun, we did rent one of the scooters and take turns going up and down the stretch in front of the hotel. Then we let Tryfan scoot along the sidewalk as we searched for a place to have dinner.

We found decent food at the Flying Dog Bar, then went back to our hotel room and watched telly until bed time.

Stockholm adventure

We had a full day today, starting with a most delicious breakfast at the hotel.

 Here is an overview of the route that we traveled today. We mostly walked, and then we took a boat for part of it. Today was a gorgeous day - we were so lucky to have this weather on our one day here!

We made our way to the Vasa museum along the waterfront. 

 Some of the boats that were docked along the front just looked so awesome - some had hot tubs built in, some had cozy little hanging candles and picnic tables.

The Vasa museum was amazing. Just the scale of this boat which was salvaged from the harbour after 300+ years of sitting on the seafloor was incredible to stand next to, and the exhibit itself was interesting and very well done. 

We spent awhile here, then ventured back outside to find some lunch which we ended up taking inside the Viking Museum. They served good food and we found a table to eat at, and it was all fabulous. Then we continued walking along the waterfront and found a commuter ferry type boat that was about to leave the dock, so we hopped on that and it took us exactly where we wanted to get to over at Gamla Stan (the old part of the city).

From Gamla Stan, we walked back in the direction of the hotel, but deviated so we could get to one particular outdoor shop that Rhodri wanted to go to. The kids were desperate to find some scooters that we could all rent and zoom around like we saw many other people doing. We saw loads of them in the morning but by late afternoon we couldn't find more than 1 or 2 at a time. Tryfan especially was moping around by this time, but too bad! We made it back to the hotel around 5 and relaxed for a little bit before our next adventure...

Sweden at last!

We have been waiting so long for this day to come.
Finally we are off to Sweden for half term holiday! Originally we were supposed to fly on Sunday morning, but then then connecting airline changed their schedule and moved the onward flight 2 hours earlier. This meant that we would miss our connection in Stockholm so instead we decided at the last minute to leave on Friday afternoon and just spend 2 nights in Stockholm before our flight up north on Sunday afternoon. 

After some careful searching and deliberation, we decided to stay at the Nordic Light Hotel which is right next to the train station in downtown Stockholm. There were 3 reasons for this: 1) It is located only ~150 feet from the exit of the train station, which meant that we could walk with our big bags and not deal with taxi or car; 2) Sounded a lot like Rhodri's company name Nordic Life; and 3) Although it was not cheap to stay here, I found that they had a 'weekend shopping' offer on via their own website which made it come out cheaper than other offers for less nice looking hotels. Anyway, we were Super Stoked with this choice.

In fact the whole travel experience today was great. What we especially loved was collecting our luggage in Stockholm, following the signs for 'Arlanda Express' (the train which would take us downtown in 20 minutes), and then piling into an elevator straight from the arrival area of the airport and emerging on the actual platform for the train! Just as we came out of the elevator, a train arrived and so we got on it and after 20 minutes we got off again and walked the 150 feet to the hotel. Magic. We were stoked with our room that had the sofa already turned into a bed for the kids. After dropping our bags in the room we headed back downstairs to the restaurant/ bar and ordered a strange but delicious meal from dear waitress Jessica, who had slightly dodgy eyes but was ever so nice to us on her very first day on the job.

A little work trip to France

This week I was in Melun (an hour's drive south of Paris) from Sunday afternoon through Saturday evening and it was great. I managed to jump through several corporate red-tapey hoops in order to get my Siberian, Palestinian, Spanish, Cameroonian, French and American colleagues all together to do some work stuff at the company Learning Center. It was kind of a boondoggle idea of mine and I was super stoked that it worked!

Here is where we stayed at the Residence Chateau du Mee, which is now open to the public as well.. https://www.rcdm.fr/ 

 

 On Saturday morning, the 3 of us that were left went for a lovely walk into the village and had lunch before flying back to our respective homes this afternoon.

A tiny bit of snow

.. but not enough to have a snow day or for even school to have a late start!
These two were pretty disappointed when they found out, but that was a good couple of hours after they had been up and out playing in the white stuff in their jammies.  Winnie liked the snow too.

Good thing we will hopefully have a solid dose of snow when we go to Sweden at half term in a couple of weeks!

Sunday afternoon crafting

We had our annual girls vision board session today with Lou, Leigh and Aggie coming over for a couple of lovely hours in the afternoon. Sometimes it is just very nice to sit on the ground and look through magazines while listening to good music and chatting with old friends.

A real football match

Tryfan got to cash in his birthday present yesterday and go to an actual live British football match in Brighton today. Rhodri got to go too, and apparently it was a great game of Brighton vs Wolverhampton that ended in a 0-0 draw.

Football cafe season begins

First we went grocery shopping after school on Thursday.


Then they had a sleepover at our house on Friday and got up really early to start cooking bacon on Saturday morning.

Then I drove them to the club and they started selling tea, coffee, bacon sandwiches, and a few other items.

They brought in £133 on their first day and were able to pay me off for the £97 of groceries, pay the £22 kitty off and then pay themselves each £7.25. Off to a good start!

Unusual Monday

Today after school Rhodri brought the kids to Crawley Mall to go shopping for the gaps in their outdoor clothing collection (after our kit check last night). I met them straight from work and we all then went out to dinner together. On a Monday night! Its nice to do unusual things from time to time. Here is a little video of Tryfan doing a magic trick...

Kit check

We got out all of our warm outdoor clothes and laid them all out on the floor so we could try them on systematically. Rhodri took notes of where the gaps were so he could help source the right kit ahead of our upcoming trip to Sweden.

We are planning to go to central Sweden in February half term and it is probably going to be pretty cold!

Winter walk

Today we picked up Iris's dog Audrey and took her and Winnie on a walk in an unfamiliar part of the forest. It was a typical winter day - overcast, muddy, and fresh.

A new venture

There is an opportunity for some new owners of the concession stand at the Forest Row football club on Saturdays. Rhodri found out about it and Rhiannon decided to go for it along with Sophie.

Tonight they started working on a spreadsheet to figure out how much supplies they needed to buy. We will see what happens next, but its an exciting new venture that might be a great experience.

Burning stuff

Finally we got to burn stuff this weekend.
We hired a skip (dumpster) and it was delivered on Friday, so Rhods and I spent yesterday afternoon loading the wheelbarrows up with stuff and filling the skip while burning old documents and wood that has been piled up at the back of the property.

It felt good to do this finally!

New Years Eve and Day

We could have gone to the Macleod's house up the road to join our friends and neighbors at a private party but we didn't. I personally wanted to have a big bonfire and burn stuff in the backyard, but when the time came to get it started, the rest of the family was glued to the couch and refused to get off! So I gave in and we watched movies, played charades and had a little boogie while watching Jools Holland and the Hootenanny New Year's Eve party. It was a fun, easy, mellow New Year's Eve in our household with just us 4.



Today, however, was another story. After the dreary oppressive gray of yesterday, today dawned clear and optimistic - just how it should be on a New Year's Day! We went for a walk along the cliffs near the Seven Sisters.

 It was a gorgeous outing, and just as we were getting in the car we saw the Mills family. They recommended a nearby pub, the Sussex Ox, to us so we headed there next, and later in the afternoon they joined us at the same pub.

 A great way to kick off this year!