Northward [2] Space and the summer home
May. 2nd, 2010 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marshtide(Weekends are fairly lost causes when it comes to the internet, because so much is going on on a logistical sort of level. So you just get one post.)
Sweden is one of those places, and I think I touched on this before, with a fairly small population concentrated in one particular part of the country. In this case the population is mostly in the South, especially around a few cities - Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmo. Stockholm is our nearest, though it's still some way away, and it's also the furthest north of those. This area (known variously as Stockholms län, Uppland, Roslagen, or by its kommun name, for varying values of actual practical application) has been described to me as one of the moderately crowded bits.
But I come from England. If you compare the local council area I grew up in to the roughly equivalent administrative area denoted by kommun, the local council area has almost twice the population of this kommun in less than half the space. The council area is a fairly sparsely populated one by UK standards. Overall, some adjustment of the way I think about space and isolation and crowdedness is needed.
In broader terms the UK is basically a crowded place; Sweden is basically a fairly sparsely populated one. So even in an area like this one can take the main road to Stockholm and hardly see a house between here and the outskirts of the city; in fact, one will hardly see anything but trees. This is partly an effect of better roads which bypass towns, but only partly. It's also just a much less busy landscape, and also a much less agricultural one; forest punctuated by occasional fields, where I grew up with fields punctuated by occasional trees. (Very occasional trees, given that home - Norfolk - is essentially drained marshland, but over the whole of the UK forests are really limited in size.) Further south there are more fields because more crops can be grown, and further north there are even more trees, but all the same: Uppland has a very different tree-to-person ratio than I'm used to, and I kind of like it.
What this part of Sweden does have in common with my part of Norfolk is that they're both coastal tourist destinations (largely domestic tourism), with a significantly bigger population in summer than in winter. In the UK people have holiday cottages in little villages, including the one I grew up in (in which I think maybe only two or three of the older & prettier houses are still lived in as first homes); there is some kind of little country cottage ideal, but it's not so much about being completely isolated as being in a smaller village with a (perceived or potential) slower pace of life. Of course, if you actually do want to be moderately alone in the UK you probably need to move to the Hebrides. (For example.)
Here, because there's more space, people are able to go a bit more all-out a bit more easily. Summer houses are common, because quite a lot of people apparently have the sort of mid-range income needed to afford one*, but I gather one doesn't really have them in a settlement if one can help it, if one is going to go with the stereotype of the Swedish Dream Home. The middle of the forest is good, and a tiny island is best if you can find one - the Stockholm archipelago runs past here, so there are a lot of islands, of varying size and accessibility. (Once you have acquired your isolated wooden house, make sure it is painted the correct shade of red. Then you're good to go.)
Much of Sweden seems to take the summer off - the local library, for example, is currently rushing to get modernisation work completed before the contractors take off on their holidays for a couple of months, and the summer holidays are also really long, with holidays at other times of year being shorter than in the UK, I guess so that one can get the most out of the warmth & light - and a lot of people do spend that time in summer homes, with this area being a pretty popular one for that sort of thing. Of course, so many people now have summer houses in this area in their quest for being left well alone that the area gets really crowded (Swedish definition, but edging back towards UK definition) in summer.
In short, this is an awful lot like the relationship between London and North Norfolk, but more so - partly because there just aren't as many coastal areas within a few hours' drive of Stockholm as there are near London. There's also possibly something to do with the way part of the Swedish population seems to feel about islands - maybe that it's a way of being (feeling) more alone, separating yourself from other people; I haven't quite figured out what's going on with that one yet, but I guess there's something romantic about the idea, from a certain perspective. All the same, even if one wanted to it'd be impractical to live all year 'round on an island for anyone working in Stockholm - from even the biggest and most landward islands in this area, which have ferries or bridges, it can take three or more hours to get there, depending on how you're connected to the mainland, so. Summer homes.
And that said, of course, here and the Norfolk coast are both places which people mostly come to in order to do the same things - be outdoors while the weather is good, sail, walk. They're both otherwise looked on as sort of dead-end places; small boring towns and possibly frequent jokes about inbreeding, not that many jobs except in the tourist industry and generally not much happening.
But pretty in summer.
* We'll maybe talk another time about the not-too-much-not-too-little thing that I've heard people talk about in relation to Sweden (lagom?), but basically, I'm told that the gap between rich and poor is a lot smaller than in the UK, and most people aren't at either extreme.
Sweden is one of those places, and I think I touched on this before, with a fairly small population concentrated in one particular part of the country. In this case the population is mostly in the South, especially around a few cities - Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmo. Stockholm is our nearest, though it's still some way away, and it's also the furthest north of those. This area (known variously as Stockholms län, Uppland, Roslagen, or by its kommun name, for varying values of actual practical application) has been described to me as one of the moderately crowded bits.
But I come from England. If you compare the local council area I grew up in to the roughly equivalent administrative area denoted by kommun, the local council area has almost twice the population of this kommun in less than half the space. The council area is a fairly sparsely populated one by UK standards. Overall, some adjustment of the way I think about space and isolation and crowdedness is needed.
In broader terms the UK is basically a crowded place; Sweden is basically a fairly sparsely populated one. So even in an area like this one can take the main road to Stockholm and hardly see a house between here and the outskirts of the city; in fact, one will hardly see anything but trees. This is partly an effect of better roads which bypass towns, but only partly. It's also just a much less busy landscape, and also a much less agricultural one; forest punctuated by occasional fields, where I grew up with fields punctuated by occasional trees. (Very occasional trees, given that home - Norfolk - is essentially drained marshland, but over the whole of the UK forests are really limited in size.) Further south there are more fields because more crops can be grown, and further north there are even more trees, but all the same: Uppland has a very different tree-to-person ratio than I'm used to, and I kind of like it.
What this part of Sweden does have in common with my part of Norfolk is that they're both coastal tourist destinations (largely domestic tourism), with a significantly bigger population in summer than in winter. In the UK people have holiday cottages in little villages, including the one I grew up in (in which I think maybe only two or three of the older & prettier houses are still lived in as first homes); there is some kind of little country cottage ideal, but it's not so much about being completely isolated as being in a smaller village with a (perceived or potential) slower pace of life. Of course, if you actually do want to be moderately alone in the UK you probably need to move to the Hebrides. (For example.)
Here, because there's more space, people are able to go a bit more all-out a bit more easily. Summer houses are common, because quite a lot of people apparently have the sort of mid-range income needed to afford one*, but I gather one doesn't really have them in a settlement if one can help it, if one is going to go with the stereotype of the Swedish Dream Home. The middle of the forest is good, and a tiny island is best if you can find one - the Stockholm archipelago runs past here, so there are a lot of islands, of varying size and accessibility. (Once you have acquired your isolated wooden house, make sure it is painted the correct shade of red. Then you're good to go.)
Much of Sweden seems to take the summer off - the local library, for example, is currently rushing to get modernisation work completed before the contractors take off on their holidays for a couple of months, and the summer holidays are also really long, with holidays at other times of year being shorter than in the UK, I guess so that one can get the most out of the warmth & light - and a lot of people do spend that time in summer homes, with this area being a pretty popular one for that sort of thing. Of course, so many people now have summer houses in this area in their quest for being left well alone that the area gets really crowded (Swedish definition, but edging back towards UK definition) in summer.
In short, this is an awful lot like the relationship between London and North Norfolk, but more so - partly because there just aren't as many coastal areas within a few hours' drive of Stockholm as there are near London. There's also possibly something to do with the way part of the Swedish population seems to feel about islands - maybe that it's a way of being (feeling) more alone, separating yourself from other people; I haven't quite figured out what's going on with that one yet, but I guess there's something romantic about the idea, from a certain perspective. All the same, even if one wanted to it'd be impractical to live all year 'round on an island for anyone working in Stockholm - from even the biggest and most landward islands in this area, which have ferries or bridges, it can take three or more hours to get there, depending on how you're connected to the mainland, so. Summer homes.
And that said, of course, here and the Norfolk coast are both places which people mostly come to in order to do the same things - be outdoors while the weather is good, sail, walk. They're both otherwise looked on as sort of dead-end places; small boring towns and possibly frequent jokes about inbreeding, not that many jobs except in the tourist industry and generally not much happening.
But pretty in summer.
* We'll maybe talk another time about the not-too-much-not-too-little thing that I've heard people talk about in relation to Sweden (lagom?), but basically, I'm told that the gap between rich and poor is a lot smaller than in the UK, and most people aren't at either extreme.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 11:04 am (UTC)It's funny to me looking through your journal just now (you may have expected that when you followed me!) because it's almost like a skewed window back in time - since I immigrated to Finland like six years ago now, and Finland and Sweden have a lot in common, but are not quite the same, etc. My intensive Swedish-learning period was several years ago, but I also dove in via first Kent lyrics (I translated all the albums through Hjärta och Smärta, quite gradually and with varying degrees of labor involved, and many of my favorite B-sides) and then some children's books. It's fascinating but also a little unsettling!
While you're studying language, I highly recommend you take some courses - perhaps aimed at immigrants or exchange students? - in culture and cultural history of Sweden and the Nordic lands. It helps a great deal to look formally at these things while you're in the process of picking them up by osmosis, or at least, it did for me. I took "Swedish-Speaking Finns as a Minority" and "Gender and Sexuality in the Nordic Countries", both from the Sociology department, during my first few years here, followed by "Verbal Folklore" and some Etnologi course on the cultural history of the area taught by a Danish man with a near-incomprehensible accent. I had a lot of "A-ha!" moments.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 01:49 pm (UTC)Not surprised it feels like that. :)
I've been working through Kent lyrics - starting with Röd because it was released when I was just beginning to think I might need to learn the language - as well as picture books, mostly by Tove Jansson (just to add linguistic confusion, with her special blend of Finnish Swedish and Swedish Swedish and words she made up) or Sven Nordqvist. And childrens' films. Fortunately there's a big supply of those things around because of the kid. *g*
There are actually a really tragic number of courses I'd like to take, with a particular focus on this part of the world, and the main thing that's prohibitive about them is that I live over an hour away from Stockholm, so though they're free themselves getting there eats more money than I can spare for the moment! No universities or higher education colleges nearby here (Uppsala is maybe a bit closer but actually takes longer to get to due to total non-overlap of public transport systems). But it's definitely something I'm keeping an eye on for future reference.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 06:29 pm (UTC)I'm familiar with Jansson's picture books through the children in the family (three nieces, two nephews) and the passionately possessive/patriotic feelings for her of the Swedish-speaking Finns - and from osmosis through her cultural omnipresence; there's a 5' stuffed Moominpappa on the baggage trolley in Åbo's airport! - but most of my practice reading was with Emil i Lönneberga and Pippi Långstrump.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 06:52 pm (UTC)We were going to go Uppsala to take a poke around a while ago but there was a snow storm & heavy ice, so that one got postponed and I've still never been; it sounds like a really cool place. I'll probably go some time this summer, and maybe take the ferry to Åland as well, since it's from nearby and a very cheap journey. Need to explore more!
Swedish immigration was... well, remarkably easy, actually, for me. Of course they're totally willing to accept a gay relationship as grounds for immigration, to start with. But I had the added advantage of being an EU national moving to an EU country, which cuts out an awful lot of hoops too.
*amused* Oh, I bet there're patriotic feelings there, yeah. Not that I can blame anyone for being proud of her; she's pretty great. I haven't really touched Astrid Lindgren's books yet, though I've watched a couple of the films based on them (Ronja & Bröderna Lejonhjärta), which I can follow if I turn the subtitles on. We'll probably grab the Pippi Långstrump series next! And I might try the books. To be honest, a few of the picture books I've been working through have been so complex and/or eccentric in the way they use language and so text-heavy that I suspect some children's story-books would be easier and just take a bit longer.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 06:02 pm (UTC)I haven't read the Lindgrens for older readers, but a single chapter of Pippi or Emil is a good size, but maybe still several degrees more demanding than a picture book.
Weirdly, Finland has registered partnership and gives gay (unregistered) cohabitants the same legal rights as straight ones (all the social welfare you'd get for being married). But the social benefits don't accrue for any cohabiting relationship until you've been living together for 3 years, and gay people, unlike straight ones, aren't allowed to skip them by getting married straight off (or getting a registered partnership either).