Our stuff arrived from Australia last week. The moving men were so kind to leave it all at the front of the house on the lawn. So I got to move it all into the house. More cross training. I don’t need to join a gym. Lucky I was able to recruit the neighbors to help with the heavier stuff. We only had 4.5 cubic metres shipped here (thankfully not more). The remaining 120 cubic metres is in storage. I sometimes wonder how we accumulate so much crap. Already here, we started with an empty house and now it is full. Especially once I finish unpacking all the Au stuff, there will be no more room in the cupboards!

Jerry inspecting the pallets. There were 5 of these to carry into the house. In the pouring rain mind you. Nothing was broken, all survived the journey from Melbourne-Singapore- Rotterdam-Helsinki.



All in and now for the unpacking.

It’s so exciting that winter is coming. The boys can’t wait. Max wants to put icemagic on snow and see if it’s tasty. I’m getting winter tyres fitted Friday week. They don’t have to be on till next month, but I’m a bit paranoid about being caught out with snow.

I did some cross training the other day moving and stacking firewood. Hard work.



The sun is rising later and later and setting earlier and earlier. The first light is now appearing at 8am and it is totally dark at 6pm. Felix keeps asking why we need to go to school in the middle of the night.

Max is now getting to school and coming home pretty much by himself. He is really good at catching the metro and has developed some road sense ie knows how to cross at traffic lights and pedestrian crossings and most importantly looks both ways. He had his first ticket inspector on the metro the other day. They spoke Finnish to him, but eventually he understood what they meant. Over here there are only random checks of tickets and if you don’t show a valid ticket, it’s an 80 euro fine. Because Max lives more than 5 km from his school, his pass is provided by the school free of charge. It’s pretty good once kids are school age, school is always fee free, there is a hot lunch everyday and you don’t have to pay for transport.



Roald is getting on all fours now and rocking back and forth. He is also pretty mobile with pulling himself on his stomach. He can get into all sorts of mischief now. Gone are the days of just leaving him by himself in a room.



Felix is loving life in general. His friend Yasif is coming to play at our house on the weekend and Felix can’t wait. He is still very much into cars and in Sweden spent all his money buying new ones to add to his collection.

This weekend we went on a boat cruise to Sweden. It is the school holidays so needless to say, the ship was full. There was about 2000 people onboard. Our cabin was on the 9th floor and faced the promenade.

Picture of the ship



Picture of the promenade



It was a pretty cool experience. There were saunas and a mini water park, lots of restaurants, shops, nightclubs, pubs and even a cinema. The boys thought it was amazing and would have liked just to have stay on the ship.

Boys in the ship’s waterpark


Once we were in Sweden, we visited the King’s castle. The boys were a bit disappointed that they didn’t get to meet him. There was a bit of confusion as they though the King of Sweden was married to the Queen of England. But it was all sorted in the end. We listened to the marching band and watched the changing of the guard.

Then we went to visit the Nobel Museum. The boys even got chocolate Nobel prizes in the end.


We did lots of walking and wore ourselves out. It was a great trip.

I’ve been working in Copenhagen two days a week.

I work at a company called Telia, which is the Telstra of Sweden, I guess. They also have a big presence in the other Nordic countries.

Copenhagen is much smaller than Melbourne, and very flat. It’s quite close to Sweden, and in fact they built a nifty bridge/tunnel combination a few years ago so you can drive between them - the Oresund Bridge. It’s really expensive to drive across though - about €36.

The Danes don’t use Euros though - they still use Crowns. Finland use Euros, having thoroughly embraced the EU, more so that the other Nordics. If I shared a major border with Russia, I would too, and so would Georgia.

The Telia building is long and skinny, and 5 stories tall. I work on the top floor, which is labelled 4 on the lift buttons. The ground floor is level 0, and the car park is -1. Apparently the lift guy is a C programmer. I read somewhere a while ago that they passed a law in Denmark that all new work buildings must ensure everyone works within a few meters of a window. Well, this is true at Telia. We are all near windows. The windows have automatic louver shades on them that slide down into place when the sun hits a certain height.

The desks appear hi-tech also - they have push buttons for raising and lowering them. This is quite useless though, as we have very little space and so we share desks. Someone is always at the gap, and so all desks must be the same height.

There is a lunch hall, like many Finnish companies, and it is great. Lovely cheap hot lunches. You can sit, and eat, and leaf through a Danish telecom magazine, listening to Danish. Danish sounds like an Irishman speaking Afrikaans after a couple of pints. Beautiful accents with some harsh vowels.

From the 4th floor, I look out over an enormous field with about 25 soccer pitches in it. That is a conservative estimate. You can also see a coal power station, about 30 huge wind turbines, and the top of our Mary’s house.

Everyone in Copenhagen seems to ride a bike (or drive a taxi). I have never seen such a cycling nation (then again, I have never been to Holland). Amazing. It is quite commonplace for a guy in a pinstriped business suit to be riding to work in light rain. The ladies all ride elegantly on short wheel base cycles that allow them to sit straight up like an equestrienne. You will see all ages and all types using a bike as transport.

We’ve been off to Sweden for the weekend - it’s school holidays! Viivu will tell you more about that.