When we first announced our plan to move to northern Sweden, my girlfriend’s parents were not exactly pleased. They told us we’d hate the cold and that the 24-hour darkness would corrode our souls. And why on earth would we want to leave the UK?
This was before Brexit, but we could see the direction the UK was heading, and we didn’t like it.
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure my in-laws even knew exactly where Sweden was.
One of them kept referring to our “daft” plans to move to Switzerland. They made jokes about cuckoo clocks and chocolate.
They are rather insular souls, though - few of Donna’s family have lived outside the county they were born in. London, for example, a thirty-minute train ride away, is regarded as a sordid fleshpot full of exotic people and weirdos.
I think this impression was formed on a trip to London's West End to see 'Cats - The Musical'.
So their first visit to see our new home and their new twin granddaughters was pregnant with the possibility for conflict and tension. They really did have the notion that northern Sweden was some icebound hell-hole for ten months of the year.
I think they expected to see polar bears stranded on bobbing ice floes. Admittedly, back then, the municipalities of northern Sweden hadn’t started promoting the area as a year-round tourist destination, rather than just as a winter one, so it’s no wonder that most people seemed to think we lived ten minutes from the North Pole.
However, to say that the in-laws were won over by northern Sweden is an understatement. Within minutes of their arrival on one of our many fabulous summer days, they were surrounded by inquisitive, friendly locals.
Donna’s parents soon resorted to English tourist stereotypes and started shouting at people to make themselves understood.
– Why are they talking so loud, asked one of our neighbours.
– Do they have hearing problems?
Luckily, the lovely locals were forgiving. Ten minutes later the in-laws walked away with two dinner invitations and at least four offers of fika.
Keen walkers both, Donna’s parents also enjoyed the benefits of allemansrätten. Long walks were undertaken, piles of berries were picked, hidden beaches were lounged on and impromptu boat trips with neighbours were enjoyed.
Upon their departure, Donna’s father talked about our “little slice of paradise” and the extreme friendliness of our new neighbours. We both felt as though they actually got it, that they not only finally understood the appeal of northern Sweden but the draw of travelling and living in - and experiencing - other cultures.
That was until a couple of weeks later when, after a brief email exchange in which Donna explained that we were trying to arrange some domestic help to assist with the twins, her father tried to score some cheap points by saying that if only we had listened to him, and we had stayed in England, we wouldn’t have needed external help with the girls. Donna was briefly depressed by this backwards development.
But this sour mood only lasted 20 minutes. Then there was a knock at our door. It was one of our neighbours. She walked in, home-made apple pie in hand, and said:
– Do you want me to take the twins for a couple of hours? You can have a lie-in and some pie in bed.
A little slice of paradise, indeed.
This article is a column and the opinions are the writer's own.