The kids are off on their bikes getting some milk and bread for tomorrows breakfast and ending this evening with an ice cream. Bribing them with an ice cream might not be the most pedagogical way of involving your children in chores but after all, it is summer!
Summer (meaning a blue sky, warm weather and sun) is finally here and Ingrid and Elsa are enjoying a one week daycamp outside Ulricehamn. Every morning they get picked up by a school bus which takes them to a camp with 43 other children interested in outdoor activities (such as fishing, swimming in the lake, cooking on the open fire etc) and learning about friendship and working together. The municipality and the Swedish church arrange the camp and it is really great! The kids love it and spend every day outside in wonderful summer weather coming home happy but really tired. With ten weeks of summer holidays for the kids we have to do our best to keep them active and happy. Nils has been to daycare at school (BSO in Dutch) where they also spend most of their time outside doing different small excursions every day.
Looking at the lives our kids live here and the way they can enjoy the nature we have around us I feel very privileged. We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is not big, we do not have any world wonders around or any ancient treasures but what we have is simple, beautiful and accessible for anyone. The kids can go fishing or swimming and one of the many lakes around here whenever they want, the town of Ulricehamn is small but authentic with a history dating back 700 years and hikers, skiers, golf players, bicyclists etc. can use all of nature as much as they want to. For Swedish people this is not strange but for foreigners it is still a real treat to have free access to all nature. You are even allowed to camp on someone else’s ground for free for one night and if you don’t want to buy a snack in the skiing restaurant or at the lake-cafe you just bring your own hotdogs and grill them over the public fireplaces spread out around the town.
Ulricehamn has a lot to offer tourists but I think that we, who live here, are the biggest winners. Today a colleague of mine said that we would all be happier if we did more “fun summer things” (such as picnics, walking barefooted, playing soccer until late in the evening, making a spontaneous barbeque etc.) spread out during the year instead of pushing it all in during our few weeks of vacation. I think it is true that we sometimes forget to do enough fun things during normal working weeks and that we sometimes force to many activities into our holidays. However, if you live in Ulricehamn you actually have the chance to do many “fun summer things” from May to the end of September and we have tried to make us of this (eating out on the porch as soon as it was warm enough, playing games outside and making spontaneous parties with friends.).
This summer Nils (6) will go to swimming school in Nybrostrand (at my parents summerhouse in south Sweden) and Ingrid (11) will be on a CISVcamp in the US for a month. From the first of July Jochem will become a stay at home dad for some time (first he said a year, then he said 6 months and last I heard him say 2 months so I just wait and see…). Elsa (9) and I will just do whatever comes to mind. I value non planed holidays more and more!
On Friday it is midsummer in Sweden (the biggest holiday of the year next to Christmas) and we will participate in a casual, non-traditional gathering with friends who like us have no midsummer tradition. We make our own traditions with a mix of cultures, food and great company!
Have a great midsummer everyone!
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