…can be a familiar topic of discussion to many of us in the world. Especially after the recent economic depression and new predictions being made for another upcoming economic problem… not to mention the upcoming outcome of Swedish elections.

But, in northern Sweden, retirement insurance brings about a whole new concept. With sub-zero temperatures banging on doors during the long frigid winter months above the Arctic Circle, fear of living in a cold house at an old age can be bone chilling. Some can still remember stories of older people, unable to move out of the warmth and protection of thickly piled bed covers, living in a cold house and not having fuel to burn. Or, for that matter, not having the strength to gather fuel for winter.

Older people’s fear of freezing to death, all alone, can be real!

Photo: Stacked firewood waiting to warm a house

So, just as we finished laboring with some 11 cubic meters of birch firewood and neatly stacked this supply under roof, we considered the economic warnings, politics and our age and decided to invest in some “good old retirement insurance” in the northern Swedish tradition. This last week came still another truck load of birch to our doorstep. This, too, will be cut, split and stacked as time draws on.

Photos: From the truck…
…ready to be cut, split and stacked

Admittedly, our retirement insurance feels pretty good. Even better when the stuff is stacked drying and ready to use should we for some unlucky reason not want to freeze to death. And, just like gathering peat on Shetland, this warms the body twice.

Could this be better than a bank? Talk about giving yourself a bonus? Think about it. Retirement insurance is good to have!

…and my very favorite city to visit when having the time to do so. Coming into Heathrow Airport, I started to consider the many many exciting and educational places that could be visited in this wonderful metro area. Should I pay a visit to The Globe Theater? Museums around town? Boat ride along the Thames?

I came upon a slightly different idea for amusement during our few weekend days here. Why not visit Kew Gardens? Kew is about 10 miles from Paddington Station and I wasn’t sure just what the best way was to get there. To my surprise, it was just to take The Tube, an easy ride via Earl’s Court and directly to the Kew Station.

Kew is probably the best place in the world to see thousands of plants, flowers and trees from our earth. Starting in the 19th century, Kew has collected botanical specimens and taken well care of these for all of London, or the world, to see, take guided tours and learn from. Perhaps not the first thing most would visit on a trip to London but a wonderful time can be had for the daring tourist.

Fortunately, the weather was superb. The entrance fee was not harsh in comparison to other attractions (Kew = £13,50 adults / London Eye = £18,90 online for one trip) and once inside you can stay the whole day and walk around the place taking in everything that Kew has to show. Some people even take picnic lunches and easily spend a day!

One drawback about Kew is the closeness to Heathrow. Every 90 seconds the air is filled with a noisy jet coming in for a landing. To bad, but that’s how city planners decided!

My favorite Kew place was the treetop walk. I also fell in love with the hundreds of different trees growing within the whole compound. The greenhouses were full of exotic plants but the “waterlilly house” was on the top of my list. And this summer they had a special exhibition area with a butterfly room, where many butterflies were flying loose inside for everyone to get near with.

So, tired of the Tower Bridge, Picadilly blasé or no time for Big Ben when in London? Wear a pair of good walking shoes and try a day’s outing to Kew Gardens. It’s much more than a walk in the park!

…has come into the world! With the environmental mistakes we humans are catastrophically doing, What will this little thing experience in its life?

It’s just to congratulate the new arrival, the mother and RSPB for the webcam!

…the power of oak trees, I again went to Käringsboda today and tried to clear my thoughts out about several things. Perhaps it worked for a short time. Here’s some images I caught along the way…

…is the week in the year that Swedish schools have their autumn break. My wife had an opportunity to visit me in Nynäshamn for the beginning of this break and we took Jeppe and “discovered” the surroundings.

Photo: Ösmo Church has origins from the middle-ages and is south of Stockholm in Nynäshamn

Photo: Interior of Ösmo Church with 15th century wall and ceiling paintings by Albertus Pictor

One thing that we enjoy together is to visit churches. Besides visiting Nynäshamn’s central church to listen to a choir concert, we also visited the old churches in Ösmo and Sorunda. If I remember right, both churches are from the middle ages, if not earlier. Ösmo Church is known for the church that the Swedish author August Strindberg first preached, when he briefly had aspirations of being a minister. Sorunda Church is the burial place for the author Moa Martinson, where she lived most of her life.

Photo: Sorunda ChurchPhoto: Gravestone of the Swedish author Moa Martinsson

It was a great weekend and even involved an unexpected autumn market in the central part of the city.

…to think that returning to Sweden would be easy. It was not just to drive over the Öresund Bridge nor just to return to our house in Jokkmokk and think that life continues in a normal and expected way. To return to Sweden meant to be registered back into the digital systems and bureaucracy of the Swedish Social Services and Swedish Tax Agency on an official base. And, with traditional Swedish “suspicion”, it isn’t easy to return.

According to the Swedish Tax Agency, Swedish citizens are to register their intent of staying in another country, should this stay be more than one year. Abidingly, we did the paperwork. We left the country for Shetland. We returned to the unexpected run-around and administrative stupidity of just one of Sweden’s inability of making things work.

To be able to have a television, mobile phone, broadband, any type of identification and do many bank errands Sweden has a system of each individual being cleared via credit checks. These credit checks are based on the computer information of social services and the tax agency. Now, here’s the important part… if you’re not on this system, you can’t get television, phones, broadband, ID’s etc.

To get back in the system, one informs the Swedish Tax agency, who collaborates with Social Services. For myself, it wasn’t enough to go to the local social services to register. I had to take the time to go to the offices in Stockholm, wait in line to get a queue number and wait a couple of hours more to show my passport and register my existence in the country. This I did August 14. Worse off was for my wife. The Social Services office in Jokkmokk no longer exists and the closest office for her was a two-hour drive and one-day-away-from-work away.

In spite of registration, I am still, at this writing, not in the system. A phone call to Social Services and an overworked service administrator revealed I had to wait at least 6 months! C’mon Sweden!

It’s easy to deduct that Sweden does not work! Sweden is becoming a backward country with good marketing skills to hide its unofficial backwardness. It was easier to leave Sweden than to return to it. It was easier to start living in Shetland than returning to Sweden.

I have a feeling that, next time we consider living in another country, we will not follow Swedish laws that make the return part a real head-banging pain-in-the-butt. It feels like being punished for obeying the laws. But, that’s Sweden for ya. Think twice before leaving it…then, think a third time with returning!

We left Shetland with mixed feelings. Our sabbatical had come to an end and, even though we often kicked around the thought of a continuation, life’s “realities” had chiseled on our decision and the smartest thing to do was to return to Sweden…for now.

As we stood on Hrossey’s deck, we passed Lerwick and Gulberwick with heavy hearts. Next day, the drive from Aberdeen to Newcastle was uneventful, except we were confronted with inconsequential and sometimes total absence of road directions and signs with the drive around Edinburgh. We came to Newcastle and got on board the ferry to Amsterdam without any mishaps or problems.

Photo: Saturday morning sunrise. Soon landing in Amsterdam

Well in Holland, our road map was giving confusing signals. Getting back on track, we hit several stretches of road maintenance (C’mon, on a Saturday??), long lines, waiting and time ticking…traffic accident on the autobahn to Kiel…long line, waiting and time wasted…

From all this, we consequently missed our ferry from Kiel to Gothenburg! Shucks! Crap! So, using the small rural roads of northern Germany, we followed an alternative route from Puttgarden, Germany and caught the ferry to Denmark. It was now nighttime. Drove through Denmark. Crossed the Öresund Bridge to Sweden and Malmö. Now on familiar turf, we were so tired that we found a scheduled castle area, dragged ourselves and sleeping bags to an elm tree and feel asleep under its branches.. It was 2 a.m. and we had been on the road for 20 hours.

Photo: Small rest at an ostrich farm outside of Stockholm

After a few hours of sleep, we drove to Växjö and stayed with an old friend, getting some R & R that Sunday. Monday morning, we continued to Nynäshamn, just south of Stockholm. I had a job interview for a teaching position next morning. Tuesday noon, after the interview, we drove to Umeå and stayed one night with our oldest son. Wednesday, August 5, we finally arrived in Jokkmokk dead tired. We had been on the go with Jeppe, who never let us down, for 6 days. What a road-trip, heh?

Photo: Circle complete. Arrival home!

Thursday evening I got a call from the school in Nynäshamn wanting me to work for them. I spent Friday & Saturday helping Brita get the essential furniture back in the house (beds, for example) Sunday afternoon, I threw essentials into the jeep and drove to Umeå, stayed with our son again, and was in Stockholm on Monday. Arrived back in Nynäshamn Tuesday morning and looked for a flat, got a flat and started to work Wednesday morning at the school.

Mentally, I’m still in Shetland. I’m missing our friends, the sea and Shetland’s peaceful respect and celebration for life. But, being up to my ears with a new challenge in education and not having the time to dwell on these thoughts, I’m not sure what topic(s) will dominate this blog. Possibly, comparative thoughts about both Shetland and Sweden? When things have settled and fall better into place, we’ll see… but, for sure, we will return to Shetland!

…,especially those who plan on being away for a longer period of time, have sometimes thought of freighting personal items to their point of destination. Often between countries, postal services are the only alternative available and not entirely to a satisfactory result and that appeals to a tight budget.

When we started to plan our sabbatical to Shetland, we considered sending a few “boxes” ahead of time. This idea was largely to ease the costs of gasoline required for the trip as well as thinking in an environmentally way. But, having intensely searched internet and a dozen or so phone calls to shipping and freighting companies in Sweden, the trouble and search became too negative and we had to make compromises. The Swedish excuses for this were that shipping companies didn’t know where Shetland was, they never ship things for private people only businesses (which wasn’t a problem) or they would charge colossal amounts for insurance on less than 1 cubic meter; thus giving a we-don’t-wanna-give-you-service response.

Now, when returning to Sweden and the remote rural area of the sub-arctic, we again decided to try to ship a few boxes using a local Shetland shipping and freighting company. To our wonder and amazement, we stumbled upon one of the world’s most sincere, capable, knowledgeable and service-minded professional shipper this side of the world… Streamline Shipping of Lerwick!

Our first “trial” box with Streamline got to its destination in a week’s time…door-to-door service. Today, I sent two more personal item boxes and was met with the same service enthusiasm as the first i.e. handshakes, nothing impossible, first name friendliness, yes-sirs and…”come back and we’ll treat ya t’ some ice cream”!

With my question of ever needing to freight things from the sub-arctic to Shetland in the future, there were absolutely no problems. Mike Davies, the manager of Streamline in Shetland, only needed a post number, names & addresses and Streamline would take care of the rest! It was just to contact them. I got personal help with paperwork from Ms. McDonald, office administrator, and she even followed me to the warehouse, rolled my boxes away and gave me a handshake and the invitation of ice cream.

Streamline works with other similar companies, has a large park of trucks and a container ship and centers its business with Scotland and the U.K. But, I’m confident they can deliver anything from here to yonder.

The next time we need that all important we-care-about-you service with shipping requests, I won’t even consider Swedish shippers with the attitude I was met with. Streamline is now at the top of my list and I’ll recommend Streamline Shipping in Shetland any day!

PS- This is not a paid advert but comments from a satisfied customer
PSS- Jeppe is almost loaded, the flat almost clean and we’re off soon.

…after we first arrived in Shetland, our sabbatical has come to an end and it is time to return to Sweden. With mixed feelings and heavy hearts, we will be filling up Jeppe with our personal things, clean the flat, say our goodbyes and do last minute tasks the next few days. Our blog will be temporarily ignored as we will be busy with returning.

For the most part, we will be on ferries during our return. More fun to be in bunks, relaxing, than fighting traffic on freeways and roads. Safer and environmentally friendly, too

After a year we’ve discovered many things. Some things on Shetland we’ve spoken about as “a Victorian way of doing things” or “Victorian thinking”. With other things, we’ve learned some positive ideas that we will carry with us. In the broader view, Shetland’s culture is exciting, the ocean has become addictive, great friends have been made (and will be missed) and we haven’t become tired of or bored with Shetland after 1 year & 1 month.

As one of our friends once said, “you’ve gotten some roots”. I can only agree and, as we pack our bags, we have the words “We’ll Be Back” in our heads. Somehow, I think Shetland will be a bigger part of our lives in the future…only, we just don’t know when.

PS- Laplandica’s blog will return, as we will report on the trip back to Sweden and other thoughts and experiences we’ve had on the way. Right now, we’re on the move…