Ups and Downs

It's been a strange week, or a little under actually.

The thing that started it was Sunday. Linda and I went to the Tower Café. It's basically how it's described - a little café on top of a tower (I don't know what the tower is for, actually), and you get a great view of Gothenburg. We had raspberry pie with ice cream and custard (or vaniljsås, as the Swedes call it) with come café latte. Then we had a little walk by a nearby beach, because it had been a remarkably nice sunny day.

Then we went back to Linda's, the plan being that she picked her work clothes up and we go back to mine, as I was catching a plane on Monday morning (more on that later). It was by pure chance, then, that I was in the kitchen and I heard Kittypoo meow. But, it didn't sound like it was coming from inside the house, so I leant over the kitchen window, and there was Kittypoo, outside, looking up at me. "Oh God," I immediately said to Linda, "Kitty has fallen out of the window," to which Linda ran down the stairs, picked him up and brought him back in.

He was in bad shape - Linda lives on the third floor (or second floor if you count the first floor as "ground"). He was limping badly, trying not to put pressure on his left hind leg; his body was twisted slightly, he was in shock and very "distant". Linda immediately phoned her boss to say she was having Monday off, and we looked after him the best we could. (I went back to mine briefly to pack my case, but came back.)

Linda took me to the airport on Monday morning and went back to the house. After all of my travelling to England, I got an SMS - Linda had taken Kittypoo to the vet, but he had to be put down. Linda was in tears and I felt useless because I was in England. She knew I had to go and was fine with it, but still... you know what I mean.

So... Kittypoo has passed away. I know I called him a little git and pissed on his head, but he was still Linda's pet, and the poor thing had to go like that, injuries because of a long fall.

Anyway... the reason I was in England was that I had a business meeting. I was there from Monday to Wednesday - it was a flying visit and I didn't get a chance to see anyone at all - not even those in London. It's a shame that I didn't have time, but hopefully soon I'll meet up with the gang again. I didn't particularly like the journey either - just felt "rushed", and because Linda was hurting, that didn't help either. But Linda had a conference in Stockholm too, so she's away until later on tonight. I got back at 9:30 last night, much to my relief. I went to see if Åke (Linda's big cat) was ok and spent a little time with him.

My mum phoned me earlier too. She was hoping to wait until my birthday (which is tomorrow), but she had to tell me that John (my step-dad) had had an angiogram - that's where they use a camera to check your arteries. It was lucky they did - John has two bloked arteries, so only one was working. He could have had a heart attack. So, they've kept him in and are operating on him today.

They have two choices, depending on where exactly the clogs are: implant a couple of stents, or bypass surgery. A stent is a plastic tube that acts like an artery. They would open up the clog, and put the stent in there, to keep the artery open. The alternative - bypass surgery - well, you know what that is, so we're hoping the stents will do the trick -- especially because John was supposed to be having his eye operation next week.

As previously mentioned, it's my birthday tomorrow. It will be no surprise if I find myself at the Kville Biljard in the evening . We will probably go into town on Saturday, too, just to keep the celebrations going. Linda has promised to cook me "English" breakfast on Saturday and Sunday mornings too, which will be nice! (That's bacon, sausage, eggs, beans... actually it's technically called "London Fry-up" because Full English has a few other bits.)

So, happy birthday (glad födelsedag) to me for tomorrow. This may sound a bit "grumpy old man", but I'll be glad to have something else to focus on, after this pretty shitty week.

Almost Swedish

It's been a while since I've added something to this blog -- mainly because Im a lazy sod who always forgets!

Yesterday, I received a letter through the post from Skatteverket (the tax office) - and I have finally received my "proper" personnummer! This is almost the final step of making me a real Swedish resident! All I have to do now is go to a bank or post office with this form, my passport and a couple of passport photos and I will get my ID Card, and I will be fully integrated!

The only major step now is to learn Swedish - the basics to make myself semi-understood anyway. There's still the SFI (Svenskundervisning För Invandrare, or Swedish For Immigrants), but that's a one- to two-year course; it's free (run by the government) but the length is because it has to cater for the "lowest common denominator", i.e. people who are less able to learn a language. The alternative -- and the one I'm probably going to take -- is an intensive six-week course run by "folkuniversitetet" (The People's University). There are two lessons per week, each running for two hours and 15 minutes. Although it will be full-on, I think this will work better for me to saturate my brain with Swedish.

Linda's grown-up cat, Åke, had a bit of a scare last week. On Saturday, we noticed that he couldn't sit down properly and was waddling rather than walking. Linda phoned up the vet and took him down, and they received him immediately. The poor thing couldn't pee; his bladder was apparently the size of an orange and he was in danger. Thankfully they drained him out and he spent a couple of days there. He's back now -- a little lethargic but healthy. Shittypoo (as you'll recall from previous blogs) is still a little bastard, and he has two big hairy balls, so I think it will soon be time for a "Tchaikovsky" (Nutcracker Suite, geddit?!) before he starts humping everything in sight and spraying over everything to stake his area.

My old mates Lee and Mez came to visit last month, too. They did a little bit of touring around Gothenburg, and we went drinking (of course) as well. A throroughly good time had by all, I think!

I've also been helping K. out at work. He works at a "gymnasium" (college) specialising in I.T. (websites, databases, media, etc) and the college has just moved location. This means that the students' laptops needed to be re-installed, and there's a hell of a lot of them. So I was drafted in to do that. Being young students (of ages 16-19), they've just come out of high school and their English is still fresh in their brains, so I had no problem talking to them. One bright spark passed his laptop to me, ran into the corridor and proclaimed, "Take it easy, guys... he's English!", much to my amusement!

Linda is moving away to Trollhättan on November 1st. The main two reasons are that she works there, and commuting every day is taking it's toll on her a bit. She's always tired because of the long hours and the type of job she does, and she has to get up at 5:30 every morning just to get ready and catch the train (or drive), so moving into the same town will be perfect. The second reason is that her grandparents are helping her buy the flat (yes, she's setting foot on the property ladder!). There's also the fact that the sub-lease on this flat that I'm in runs out in November, too, and I need to move (because of the way that landlords work here). So, I can move into Linda's flat when she moves.

Now, the downside to all of this is that her and I are going to be in different towns. But we've had a good long talk about it all, and it's not as bad as it seems, especially because of this intenstive Swedish course I want to do. She can still drive down here for the weekends, and I can go up with her and do my work on my laptop on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then I can take a train back down here for the first lesson, be here on Wednesday for my radio show, and then do the lesson on Thursday. So, we'll be apart for three days (which will take a little getting used to) but we'll still have an extended weekend together, so it will work out.

And that's my recent happenings! I think I'll lie down now, I'm not used to writing this much in one go!