2020-08 Our First Real Bed in Sweden!

This month we were still setting up for the first time in Sweden and slowly making the empty house into a home.

Bed Order

One of our first concerns to sort was the lack of a bed. The house had been over our budget and so we could not take the previous owner up on their offer of bidding on the furniture and fixings, so the house was empty when we arrived. We’d planned for this and had sleeping bags but a bed was a priority. Ordering anything was difficult due to disruptions around covid, and we didn’t have a car to pick things up, nor were we sure it would be a good idea if we did.

We were able to order a bed we liked from a company we used for the narrowboat bed in the UK. This was possible as Brexit had not happened yet which would later cause a lot of UK companies to become unavailable. Bedding had to come from within the country due to restrictions and so we used IKEA. There wasn’t much choice for a mattress other than what was in stock and we could get delivered.

Bed Arrival

After fixing a problem around UK versus EU bed sizes, we placed online orders. After about six weeks a bed and then a mattress arrived. I was so excited to sleep on an actual bed after six weeks of sleeping on the hard floor. As soon as the mattress was on the bed I jumped on it to try it out. We discovered that the new mattress we had waited for was rock hard and my girlfriend could see I was disappointed. I just wanted a good comfortable sleep.

We were able to get a thick mattress protector on top and it felt more normal. We could have a normal mattress and pillows and finally, put the sleeping bags away. Using sleeping bags in summer had become uncomfortable pretty quickly.

Aircraft!

I worked in the garage to add a wood racking system and repainted the windows. I was working inside the garage when I heard a loud engine. It sounded like perhaps a farmer in some kind of car in the nearby field and I went to look outside. Instead, a light aircraft took off about 50-100 meters away! It was exciting. I had no idea light aircraft taking off from fields was a normal thing in Sweden. When the plane came into land I was able to get a photograph. I kept a camera near the door for the rest of the summer.

Winter Preparation

When putting aside funds for problems, I was trying to address direct physical problems first. We weren’t sure what problems to expect for our first Swedish winter. We also didn’t know how reliable the heating system would be, or if it would cope with the winter (it turned out ok). A local friend helped put up a snow barrier on the roof above the garage door. In hindsight, we were being over-cautious.

I was worried about budgeting or money each month, so I got stressed by some of the purchases, like when my partner got a large rug in the bedroom. But the first time I got out of bed in the morning and onto the rug I realised I was wrong. It was comfy and was a nice start to each day. My girlfriend worked hard to make the house feel like a home.

Language

Although I’d practised Swedish for roughly 8-9 months become coming over, I was shy speaking Swedish. When a person is shy and doesn’t speak loudly and clearly, it makes their speech harder for people to understand. I got a bit demoralised that noone could understand me.

All the paperwork and websites are in Swedish of course so completing the necessary council (kommune) and government tasks was tricky, like it is in English, but also the translation raised the difficulty level.

In hindsight, I don’t think we could have done things differently, as I started learning Swedish as soon as we considered it as an emigration destination. But I’d totally recommend getting to a language level of CEFR B1 level before coming over if you have the time and money to dedicate to it.