SO SWEDEN - LIVING DIFFERENTLY

In 2012 an adventurer, a linguist and their two small boys left the hedged cosiness of rural England for the mysterious, watery expanses of Sweden and magnetic draw of ravishing Stockholm. Out of the comfort zone and into a vast, detached, pristine country with a different DNA - unflinching pride, egalitarianism, hair-shirt doggedness and immersion in nature. A challenging conundrum and life abroad with a difference - red wooden houses, tortuous vowels, feet of snow, studded tyres, ABBA and a constant seasonal symbiosis between water in every form and light of astonishing clarity.

Grappling with a people wrapped in a cloak of silence until the awakening call of spring, a fierce climate and a sense of isolation was baffling. But liberation from England’s strictures, adventure and the chance to embrace Sweden’s calm otherness and families from across the world brought new imperatives – open-mindedness, perseverance and living for the moment. After 18 months they didn’t want to leave.

So Sweden is the intrepid, wry and enlightening story of the life-changing posting to Stockholm of a family from a ‘non-skiing nation’. A journey from apprehension to almost unconditional adoration of a cool, distinct country, admired from afar, little known. Sweden.