In June 2007, hubby flew to Sweden, with our youngest son, with details of a house we 'liked the look of...' downloaded from Swedbanks website. He duly bought it! BUT without me having layed eyes on it...
Our Little Red Swedish House, in the middle of the forest, 1.5km from our nearest neighbour...
JOURNAL EXTRACT
Thursday 26th July 2007 - 29th July 2007
Travelling along in the Hertz hire car, we had to make a quick decision which route to take. Did we go via Falun to the house or head straight to the hotel in Bollnas. I was so excited and Jon so apprehensive (that I may not like it). We decided to head straight for the house...
After all these weeks thinking and dreaming about our Swedish House and looking over and over again at the estate agents details I was finally going to realise our dream, for our children and in the future, our children's children.
After some two and half hours travelling from Stockholm Vasteras Airport, we finally reached ******* with it's DINARENA (home to the world famous bandy team). [Bandy is a type of outdoor ice-hockey ]. J was driving to the house from memory. Don't forget he had only been to view once prior , with our youngest son Joseph. We passed through ******* and carried on further, driving on empty open roads, cutting through expansive pine forests (Skog) on either side and the roadside swept with lines of free growing mauve, pink and yellow flowers - the names of which I have yet to learn in English let alone in Swedish!
This road numbered, simply, ??? - lead us to ????? where we turned right into a forest track road, over a little bridge we went. I observed, a large house to our left belonging to our nearest neigbour and then to our right a typical Swedish red barn, with a millpond. As we turned the bend on the incline, another red house to the left, above O***'s white house.
My thoughts and feelings as we continued up this forest track ranged from ooh dear it's IN the forest it really is IN the forest, not on the outside, not on the edge. We drove further on and my heart was beating really fast, I was very excited but very apprehensive and I was beginning to feel frightened, actually quite panicky. I realised that this track road was longer than J had described, longer than I had envisaged, longer much longer than I had expected. Any minute now, I thought we would stop and J would say 'Here it is' BUT he didn't, he just kept on bloody driving - I was getting REALLY scared now, thoughts, irrational thoughts, were racing higgledy piggiledy in my mind, about all the wild animals. I WOULD NOT stay here on my own, I couldn't let my children be alone etc, etc. Jon had told me no lie. He had quite clearly stated the house was 1.5km from the road and from the nearest neighbours. When you are driving up a winding, forest track that distance is never ending, and it can be quite disorientating as you have no land marks just trees and trees and trees and MORE trees!
J is not the worlds best communicator - a man of few words - he said NOTHING!
He just kept on looking at me, TRYING to observe my body language, my reactions.
J stopped at a wooden sign which said ? There were already two other cars parked. You have to understand that, at that moment in time, that was soo soo reassuring, to me.
We got out the car, J directed me to another small track
opposite where w
e had parked (see photo).
He took my hand and together we walked up this track some 250 metres, leading to our Swedish home. As we approached the top of the incline the red porch of the house had just come into view, as well as the rear of a white parked car, obviously belonging to the present owners. We had anticipated that they may or may not be at the house. Excited and giggly with nerves, and like a couple of child delinquents, playing knock down ginger, we hesitated, we had been lead to understand that they did not speak English, our Swedish at that stage was miniscule, 'Shall we knock at the door?' J knocked to be greeted by the owners 18 year old youngest son Daniel, followed by Birgitta herself. Torsten, her husband, was sitting in the lounge, sadly disabled by a stroke, and hence one of there main reasons to sell. Self introductions were made, Birgitta spoke perfect English and Daniel too, much to our amazement and relief.
Birgitta smiled at me in a typical knowing way and chuckled to herself, when she realised that I too had never seen the house. It transpired that Torsten, before ill health, had worked as a taxi driver in Stockholm, he had picked up a fare and got chatting...as you do...one thing led to another... and he bought this house off the gentleman who rode in his taxi...without any hesitation. AND Brigitta had never seen the house either!
Without prompting she immediately began to give me a guided tour of the ground floor of our soon to be, Little Red Swedish House, (pinch, pinch) talking and explaining fluently about this and that and answering our questions. Brigitta invited me to go on ahead. upstairs to look, accompanied by her son Daniel. The house was now clear of all furniture apart from the camp beds in the lounge which the present owners would be sleeping on tonight and a solitary white wardrobe in the smaller of the two bedrooms... which would become our bedroom.
The house felt welcoming. I felt very at ease inside. I listened to Birgitta tell of the many happy times they had spent here with their family, especially at Midsommer when it never gets dark and how they had 18/19 people all sleeping upstairs. That is easy to imagine because the bedroom with the high ceiling is HUGE!. I visualised them all in rows with their sleeping bags on the wooden floors, making music, entertaining one another, singing, laughing and joking, story telling, both young and old alike. This gave me a warm cosy feeling - as these are the rich threads that are woven into the fabric of our families making them unique and special. In my minds eye I fast forwarded AND saw our family and friends doing the same in the days ahead and years to come...
Daniel and Birgitta accompanied us to the stretch of square lawned area and showed us the many blackcurrant and red currant bushes growing. (The Swedes love to berry and mushroom pick, its a great traditional, national pastime and very much part of there culture, along with the great outdoors.)
' The Swedish spirit is fully aware of the relationship between the enormity of nature and the smallness of human beings'. They are at one with nature and this is documented by an ancient traditional law the Allenmanstratten, a law that guarantees everyone free access to nature without seeking the landowners position. Similarly berries, mushrooms and flowers that are not protected under conservation laws may be picked almost anywhere you choose. Many families make the most of this and go on annual summer foraging expeditions to collect berries and mushrooms in the forests. The best places where wild strawberries grow are kept strictly secret and one generation will pass its knowlege on to the next... ooh'There's nothing quite like the great outdoors...'
Daniel gave us a guided tour of the perimeter of the garden i.e. the visible lawned area to the side of the house. The whole plot encompassess almost 1 3/4 acres I think...best ask J.
From the house we walked together back down the track from whence we came from to *********. This is real Huckleberry Finn stuff. When Little J saw it, J said he thought he had died and gone to heaven! Sonshine our eldest just hankers over the photo's and will not get to experience the REAL THING until May when we go together with the boys for the first time. This is boys and their toys (young and old) real adventure, pioneering territory. Who needs Bear Grill or Ray Mears!!!! (Althou
gh we do love watching and learning from their programmes). ******* is a camp area, free and open to all. Canoeist's canoe from ?????? up the Grycken to this sheltered spot and camp for the night. A family were already settling for the night they were sat around the campfire by the stream, playing cards having canoed upstream earlier in the afternoon.
This is known as 'CAMP ********'' - see photos. Climbing up the naturally made steps, leads to the wind shelter and another place to light a contained camp fire, an area to erect tents and toilet facilities. We also saw 2 men upstream, knee-deep fly fishing. We also noticed what looked like the makings of a beaver dam next to the camp area. (And a couple of days later, speaking with the family who had camped alongside the river they confirmed that it was indeed a beaver dam and that later in the evening the beavers appeared and they just silently sat and watched...)
As we walked, we talked to Daniel about THE WILDLIFE things to do and see and places to fish and swim. Daniel said he always looked around him for BEARS!!! He was now making me VERY NERVOUS and scared, J let out a nervous heehee and I looked at him like daggers as if to say SEEE!! But in all honesty, I think Daniel sensed and picked up on this and as 18 year old young men do, I think he was exaggerating - spinning a yarn - Well I hope he was!
Daniel also spoke about the BIG and I mean BIG black ants, and how everytime they have to put this ant powder chemical around the edge of the house. It was a REVELATION to us that they actually eat through wood! So within a very short space of time we already had SOMETHING to worry about- FORGET about Bears, we might not have a house left standing considering apart from it's tin roof, it's completely made of wood !!!!
We said our goodbyes until we would meet tomorrow at the Swedbank office in Bollnas.
Walking down the track, back to the car, my mind was spinning and my thoughts racing trying to assimilate all that we had seen and spoke about. I NOW felt even more worried about bears, and especially the distance to our nearest neighbour. There were men, Swedish men fishing and a young family camping alone on the rivers, were they bothered??? Why I am bothered? I'M NOT BOTHERED! I questioned whether I was actually being rational. Sweden is a country 3 times the size of England with a total population of approx. 10 million. Therefore you have so much more open space, houses are scattered all around, far and wide. I told myself, this not unusual to be this distance from a neighbour, this is rural Sweden, not downtown ???????. But it takes some getting used to for a girl about town from London.
On the drive back to the hotel J asked what I thought. I told him that I LOVED the house and the setting , but the isolation and remoteness, I didn't know how I would or if I could cope with it. I only had my parent's rural property in France to compare it with and that was positioned in a small hamlet by a lake, with country lanes and neighbours very nearby All through the car journey, I conversed with myself in my head. Did we not want this? to be a get away and be away from it all? To be with nature, stress free? The boys to be able to fish/ swim/ cycle/canoe/ski? H-R our sweet sixteen year old daughter, to do the same and have the freedom to paint and draw and be creative in peace and solitude in her own little studio? The answer was YES to all these questions. my heart understood but my head just was not getting round it. Too many WHAT IF THIS? AND WHAT IF THAT? But I am a born worrier. 'Cool as a Cucumber' on the outside though. Unless you know me, really reallyknow me... you wouldn't know that, LOL! but I've just told you now...
My head couldn't be sure we were doing the right thing, but in my heart I knew it felt right, SO that is all that matters. Sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind, something I am not very good at all. Far too sensible, even as a child. But since I turned Forty WHooPEE! almost 42 now I have been trying to practice this - trying very hard throwing caution to the wind~~~~~~And you know what I could get used to this, it's not soo hard when you do, AND what is the worst thing that can happen? I GET EATEN BY A BEAR!!!! AND What is the probability of that????? *
* It wont never happen! xx Theres 100,000 more chances of getting run over or shot in London. It's our Little Red & White house & no one can take it away. Our stress free zone to be with each other and nature & enjoy life as it should be...(Added by HUBBY to my journal entry)
