An Adventure in Sweden – from West to East
We left the summer place on Monday with some relief, as it was getting very wild and windy there. The journey back east to Täby, near Stockholm, took 12 hours including a long break in Göteborg. It felt like a very long time with our lovely lively twins, but with some beautiful moments and strengthened my resilience, being someone who is sensitive to energy and so is not keen on being around lots of people for hours. I also have greater awareness of how to make it easier next time. Relax and Breathe deeply! Thankfully, on the train from Munkedal to Göteborg, we met a lovely mother from Israel and her caring Swedish husband and their little boy the same age as our twins. We got on very well and chatted the whole journey from Uddevalla, where they lived. I admired her tenacity and courage to move to a new country to be with her love and to have a child there, with no family or friends living nearby, which is of course similar to what Anders did, when he met me. Only he had an easier transition as only to a nearby country. It was humbling to think of her learning the language, whilst she is looking after her young toddler, so she will be able to get more work; she was a psychologist in Israel, but can’t get similar work unless she knows Swedish well. It was interesting to hear more of Anders’ story of living in Israel and that our new friend appreciated this connection; it must very rare to meet someone by chance in Sweden who speaks some Hebrew! We were amazed to discover that she is also vegan; seeing a video of the extreme atrocity that many animals experience led her to caring deeply about animals and being vegan. She said it hadn’t got to her before then just how intense the suffering of farm animals actually is, until she witnessed it on film. She is a caring, warm and compassionate person. We felt uplifted by the synchronicity of meeting her and the grace within our connection.
When we arrived in Göteborg, we said goodbye to the lovely family, and walked to the nearby park and found an absolute gem. We walked a different route to last time we were there, and discovered a very beautiful magnificent garden in the park, with an abundance of colourful roses amongst many other flowery delights. Each type of rose had a sign with the name and the date when planted, some back in 1960! It was a relief to see many flowers for me; we saw so many vast forests and lakes and the sea when travelling in Sweden, but I was really missing colourful gardens. I feel it was a sign to keep doing gardening work. The children played in the well-designed play-park before we left. We saw a young band perform near the train station, they had great energy and vivacity, Grace was bouncing in rhythm to their heartfelt tunes.
After the long three hour train ride back to Stockholm, we ended up walking across the bridge to Gamla Stan, the old town, to get to a different metro stop that was open. It was hard to keep the children sitting in the buggy on the metro, but we persevered, with watermelon bribery, as it was busy at rush hour. I felt exhausted by this time, but my energy was revitalised a little when we went by bus to near our house, and walked back on a path through long grasses and wildflowers, surrounded by silver birches . After a late supper, the children at last slept at 10pm, and we felt grateful for our successful travelling adventure. We did it again!