Back in February I got a FB message from Martin, a guy in An Tir who wants to move to Sweden, and who had gotten my name from a mutual friend. I was, of course happy to answer all of his questions and enthusiastically encourage the idea.
We have chatted off and on since then, and he and his partner, Molly, flew over for a week’s visit to check out a few cities in Sweden and see where they might like to live. The started in Gothenburg, drove over to Stockholm, since they were in that area at the right time I sent them over to the first day of the combined birthday, birthday, midsummer party at Stigot’s, which they really enjoyed. Then they headed north to a campground in Orsa where they caught a Midsummer festival.
At the same time, Keldor and I went to Umeå for a Midsummer bbq, and whilst in town we picked up a free second hand computer, and a bunch of party pavilions. Our job is to sort out the pieces, figure out how many there are, set up one or more in our yard for the summer to provide shade for me, and/or make a place to store the lawnmower.
On Saturday Martin and Molly started the long drive north to visit us, and we started a home improvement task.
The City Council recently decided to change how trash is collected. Instead of our needing to take away our recycling ourselves to a local collection station, they traded out our trash bins to new, larger bins with divided interiors, one for each catagory (compost, paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, coloured glass, clear glass, and everything else (unless it needs special treatment, such as electronics, paint, etc)).
With this change we realised that we no longer need the closet full of large plastic bins to sort recycling. So instead we emptied and cleaned the under sink area. Then we put a few small containers there to collect small piles of sorted glass plastic and metal before we take them to the large bin in the yard. We left one large plastic bin in the old recycling closet in which to hold things like electronic scrap before we take it to the city dump, and we left the paper bag to collect cardboard scrap next to it.
Then we moved the vacuum cleaner from the cupbord near the loo to the old recycling cupboard, standing it o top of the electronic scrap bin. The shelf in the cupboard near the loo, that used to hold the vacuum cleaner mow has all the cleaning supplies, which is much easier to access, as it is waist height.
We managed to get everything moved just before Martin and Molly arrived, which was perfect timing, as the house was presentable, and we were both relaxed a d feeling accomplished.
Their visit was fun. They stayed two days, during which we went into town and wandered around and looked at the museum. They want to move to Sweden, so a goal for this trip was to visit a variety of cities in a variety of parts of the country, and get a sense for the feel of each, so they know where they would prefer moving to. Keldor and I hope they wind up in northern Sweden, but, of course, it is where the job market takes them that will most matter.