After two and a half months in Sweden I felt the need to spread my wings a little outside the confines of Stockholm and its inner archipelago (well, Vaxholm to be precise). New partner in crime Rachel was up for a weekend away so we set off to Sweden’s fourth largest city, Uppsala. Uppsala is a city famous for its university, its cathedral and as the long-time home of Carl Linnaeus (for the forgetful scientists among you he was the one that invented the system of binomial classification that is still used in identification of plant and animal species). It’s also smaller than Bromley. A fact which shouldn’t really surprise, given that Sweden has a population of only 9.2 million. Saturday morning dawned and it was due to be one of the hottest weekends of the ... read more

This weekend I had my first visitor! But before I met Sarah at T-Centralen on Friday night I had a social life to nurture... Hence I found myself at "Boule & Berså" with a Daniel Craig lookalike. Let me start at the beginning. When I knew I was going to be working out here, I realised that I wouldn't necessarily be able to socialise too much with my colleagues (and actually they don't seem to do that much themselves so another reason to look elsewhere). Plus I feel bad that everyone has to speak English with me all the time. So I searched the net for a Stockholm expat group that I could join. Which is how I found the Stockholm Expat Meetup Group. They seem to have events every couple of weeks and last Friday ... read more

One thing we Brits could learn from the Swedes is how to have a good bonfire. Then again they seem to have more occasions to practice. Last night was one of them - Valborgsmassoafton (or Walpurgis Night). Whilst the bonfires apparently once protected Swedes from witches, they now mark the beginning of spring. The weather was certainly playing along yesterday with beautiful blue skies and sunshine, even if the temperatures are still not particularly high. The sun had brought the Stockholmers out in force though - all the local restaurants and cafes now have pavement tables which seem to be well patronised (particularly those that provide blankets!). I started my evening with a leisurely stroll south through the city then along the water at Strandvagen towards Djurgarden, ultimately headed to Skansen, Stockholm's open air history museum/amusement ... read more

After 3 whistlestop weeks back home it was with a little trepidation that I got on the plane early on Tuesday morning, headed for Stockholm, land of vikings, Abba and Ikea. I was about to start a job with no clear remit, knowing no-one in the city apart from my new colleagues (who I briefly met the previous week and who may not like me for very long) with a 4-night booking in a fairly rubbish hotel and no return ticket. What's to worry about?! Well, the hotel thing was relatively easy to sort out. I did practically nothing apart from take a tour of 3 very nice hotels one evening and state my preference (sadly the comment about loving the suite wasn’t quite taken seriously). Then some lovely people at the office entered into frantic ... read more

No, nothing smutty! I'm just talking about the two non-skiing snow based activities of this rather busy weekend... First of all, tubing on Saturday night. For those of you who don't know, tubing is the term used to describe hurling oneself down an ice channel whilst sitting in an inflated inner tube. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves for the most part. I will say that the black diamond run was my favourite - especially going over the roller, at speed, backwards... Some of the others favoured the blue run where the attendant was treating everyone to the spinning treatment - not sure if you'll be able to access Jack's video to see the full effect! On Sunday I treated myself to a snowmobile trip in the Callaghan... read more