A friend brought the problem of redback spiders to my attention and I realized I hadnt done enough research. As I came down into the toilet I found a spider on the floor. Ran up to google redbacks to see a pic and as I checked the one I had in the house I couldnt see anything red on it, and in the wikipedia pic it was black and mine was more light brown so Im quite sure it was not a redback however I didnt even dare stepping on it but I used a big piece of cardboard box to kill it. Goodbye spider! Now I hope I will be spared more spiders for a long time....

....but that is just about it. Its been crazy busy trying to get all the furniture and paperwork sorted. Will try to give a short update. Flight here was ok, A was enjoying the films but J was a bit bored and couldnt sit still, wanted to touch everything. It took ages at the airport, I had to do an eyescan for my residency visa and then our last piece of luggage came out absolutely last, when we had almost given up hope. It wasnt until after 2 am (UAE time) that we got to the house, all of us exhausted.

Since then we have been to IKEA three times and other malls too, looking for furniture but we ended up getting everything from IKEA so as if we didnt have enough boxes in the house already as it was we are totally overloaded with things to unpack and assemble. Curtains are coming on Monday and as soon as a room is ready I will post some pics....

I also had time to go to the hospital for my HIV test and chest x-ray (this is standard procedure to get a recidency visa) and if I ever felt hospital in Malta was crazy I can now say its nothing! This place was sooooo full of ppl but luckily there was a special line for women and we did manage it in one morning. Im really happy I dont have to go back there again!

Now everything apart from the handluggages are stuffed in the car. Apart from the pushchair I have a box with a bike, two suitcases, one bag (bigger size with wheels) and a slightly smaller bag. Kids slept fairly quickly and now I can only hope all runs smoothly tomorrow so we finally get to see R again.

Bye now Sweden!

Tomorrow we are finally off! It feels great but Im still a bit on edge as I havent managed to pack everything yet and Im not sure how we will fit everything in the car :O My mum is working and she said she would try to leave a bit early but they are so busy all the time Im not even convinced she will be able to leave on time so the butterflies in my stomach will probably be with me all day....

Not sure I will be able to update more before we leave, but I will be back as soon as I can!

We have spent the last two days with my dad, we finally spent a night there, kids have been asking when we could sleep there. The kids "helped" my dad in the garden, we have eaten good food and I have been to the hairdresser before the move, good to get it out of the way and like this I dont have to start looking for someone as soon as I get there. Dad put the kids to bed and it felt really good as it was the first time in 2 months that I didnt have to do it. My mum has been a great help but she has been too tired in the evening. She read a couple of evenings but I had to take the fight to brush their teeth. So now we said our goodbyes to my dad, I think it will be another year until we come back and he hasnt planned to come this winter. We will miss you!

Didnt write to the nursery to complain, found out that A´s schoolday starts at 7.45 so even if J were to start at 7.30 I wouldnt manage. The only solution to the problem would be to ride together with someone. Luckily we know a couple with a son in A´s grade and a daughter at J´s nursery. We talked a bit that evening and decided that we will find a solution together. As soon as my kids are settled a bit and I can drive we will take turns driving boys and taking girls and that can kind of a blessing too!

Right now everything feels hopeless. My cold is not giving in including the headache, kids woke up too early this morning and have been driving me insane and to make matters worse J´s nursery is annoying me. Her daycare is brand new and the second branch in a chain and when I contacted them in april/may I was told that the details would be the same as the first branch. That would mean J would start at 7.30 and that would be perfect as I would then drop her off and take A to his school at 8. It also said the kids would get bfast, snack and lunch. This evening I get an email where they say that classes start at 8 and that if you come in early you have to wait with your child until the teacher is ready for the children at 8. Apart from this it says bfast service is avilable for working parents and those children that have to travel a long way and who register for it. Basically my whole planning is going down the drain and I feel upset and sad. I want to send them an angry email but have to wait until I have discussed it with R. He is out eating dinner I cant reach him and that makes me even more sad and angry. Its totally unreasonable, I know, but I cant help it, my patience is running out and the headache is affecting me more than I wish.

Today the rain is pouring down and its grey, wonder what we will do today?

My cold is not getting any better, nose is possibly even runnier than before and J´s nose is getting runny too. How will we cope on the flight? :S

Today I feel completely braindead and totally exhausted. Guess my patience is seriously running out now that I can see an end to my days as a "single parent". Will try to get an early night, just took a footbath trying to get my feet decent for Dubai and sandal weather, but first my favourite folk musician on tv!

when we move to Dubai will be to find my two lovely children in my bed. That is what I will enjoy and make the most of now that im going to bed.

Today when we talked about Dubai and his worry I told him how he will feel at home in Dubai, how we will decorate his room with the pirate wall stickers we bought and his bed from Malta. Then I said he is growing so fast he soon wont fit in it and we will need to buy him a new, bigger bed soon. A little later A asked me where will mormor (my mum) stay when she comes to visit? I told him that we plan on buying a day/sofabed like we had in Malta. He replied that we can buy a double bed for him so she can sleep in his bed! He is so caring he sometimes makes my heart ache.

In one week I should be packing up the last few things and try to fit everything in the car. I get butterflies in my stomach when I think about finally seeing R again after so long apart. Lovely!

A is a totally different case....today I asked both of them if they look forward to moving to Dubai and he slowly shook his head with the saddest look on his face. My little sweetie.... As an adult I can reason and realize that he will soon see Dubai as his home but I dont think it works that way for him. He only knows that he left what has been his home for all of his life and has no idea that he will get to live in a nice house, go to a good school, meet new friends at school and even for playdates. It doesnt matter if I tell him either he doesnt seem to take it in Then I sort of wonder why he doesnt tell me about his worry, why does he only say something when I ask him? Is its cause he doesnt dare/want to talk to me or is it cause its not really a big issue that he carries around all the time but something he only thinks about when I ask him? I hope and think its the last, if he didnt want or dare to talk to me about it he wouldnt even say anything when asked. And like R said, the kids seem to live day by day at this age.

A´s behaviour is leaving lots to be desired right now though I was expecting it. Same thing happened last year, at the end of our stay in Sweden. I think he is missing his dad a lot without the ability to express himself and he ends up doing nothing but wining. At the same time he doesnt know what to expect from Dubai and I think its worrying him although he doesnt tell me anything about it. Lots of change right now and its not surprising that he reacts but he is still giving me a headache every day!

Today I went to the village library again and as I wrote in an earlier post "Foggy" its located in my old school. This time I had the kids with me and they were curious to see my old school and the librarian, a jolly and friendly older lady, realized I was an ex student and told us we could go into the school part. It had changed a lot! The kids thought it was great to see and very different from their maltese school and I thought it was strange but really cool to see what happened to the place I basically grew up in. We met a teacher that I talked to a bit and after some thinking we concluded that she started working there when I was a student and it it me, she was my brothers teacher back then. She confirmed it when I told her his name and then SHE remembered my name! 20 years later, so many students later, that is not bad!

To anyone reading the enligsh part of the blog, if you ever meet any of my in-laws out and about, please do not tell them anything about the blog. Here is where I write what´s in my heart and its not always for them to know.

R had two exams in Toulouse today, he passed with flying colors 100% and 99%. We are so proud of you!

Yesterday my mum baked cinnamon rolls with the kids while I started knitting project number 2 and tried to take it easy for cold to go away. Cinnamon rolls came good, knitting project was surprisingly boring and the cold only got worse. Still not any better today but I guess I should be happy that it came now so I have time to get better before we have to fly.

Yesterday I took a trip down memory lane when we went up to my mums attic to clear up a bit. I found sooo many things from my childhood, toys, books, clothes and diaries. Some for the bin and others for the kids to play with. Its very nice to see the kids playing with things that I remember playing with and that meant something to me as a kid.

Even though the kids drive me insane at times most of the time they are sweet and make me smile. I forgot to mention what J told me while we were in the changingroom in Falun as I tried on the different outfits:

"You look so nice mommy" and "My mom is a princess"

Not really what I feel, but its nice to hear someone say it :)

Autumn is really here now, you feel it in the air. We had a lovely, warm autumn day but you feel the difference from a sunny summer day. A dear friend came over for a walk in the morning and in the afternoon I tried to dig up some weed and raspberry bushes in my mums lawn to make space for the wild strawberryplants I got from my dad. It was tough work but tomorrow Im hoping to make a box for the plants and complete the work.

After lots of begging to get to go on a bus in Sweden yesterday we caught the bus from my mum´s small village into the slightly bigger village to go to the library. I just have to point out these differences between swedish bus system and the maltese.....and know I wrote it with a smile on my face, dont read it too much into it :)

¤ The bus was on time!
¤ The bus stopped for us slowly and without screeching breaks
¤ The driver happily said hello back to the very excited kids
¤ The driver didnt start driving until we had sat down in our seats!
¤ The driver didnt smoke nor played strange music from broken speaker
¤ The bus had seatbelts

and finally

¤ We were alone on the bus

Today we´ve had a really boring day, rain has been pouring down all day. Now we have about 2½ weeks until we leave for Dubai. I really look forward, Im missing R and I cant wait to settle in. I know I have written about this before but Im feeling it more and more, its taking up more time the closer we get to departure date.

Shop til you drop, or in my case, shop til you dont fit anymore in your suitcases :)

Yesterday my mum was off and we spent a whole day, from 9.30 am till 6 pm in different shops in different places. Crazy! Im surprised the kids were fine with it :)

Yesterday we had a lovely day. Wonderful warm autumn weather at my dads house. The kids helped my dad to prepare for winter in the garden and I could read my book in peace and quiet. My dad´s neighbours daughter came over and then J went over to their house. It was her first visit with a friend without me, it went well but she came back quiet quickly when she had said "now I want to go back home to my mummy" :)

What about A´s possible "illness" then? I think it was the build-up of a cold, his nose is blocked and a bit extra short tempered but I will still keep an extra eye.

A was not feeling well this evening. He had been playing a bit on the computer while I arranged dinner and when he came to the table he was complaining, nothing was good, he just wanted to lie down and was feeling cold. No fever but I still gave him paracetamol cause I could see that he was not feeling well. Now Im sitting here wondering and worrying about those ticks I removed yesterday but it says "icubation time 4-6 days" so its too early to have anything to do with them so I have decided to wait until tomorrow and call for information when I know how he is feeling in the morning. To be continued.....

Just cause we are in september now and we are leaving in 20 days does it mean I have to spend them longing to get there so much? 20 days are quite a lot anyway. But on the other hand when I think about it I kind of panic about the fact that we are "soon" leaving. Time has flown by so far and Im sure it wont be long until we have to start packing up. Amazing how mixed feelings you can have :)

When A came home yesterday and I took him for a shower he had 2 ticks on him! :O Disgusting little animals that might carry a virus called TBE click here for wikipedia article on it. Risks are only in parts of Sweden and even in those parts only a few ticks carry it so reason tells me there is no need to worry but I cant help it, I feel sick to my stomach when I think about it. The area where we are from is a bit of a grey zone, it might be part of the riskzone and it might not be, its all a bit vague. However I did read that kids under 7 normally cope better if they do get it. Now Im thinking for next year we have to try to give the kids the vaccine that exists, all this worry is not worth it! I now have to stay worrying for up to a month and hope that he stays fine.

Yesterday A had a day with his grandfather. My dad came and picked him up before 9 and they came back again after 4.30 pm. By then they had had time to pick chanterelles, eat lunch with my aunt, picked lingonberries, washed and cleaned my dads car and shopped a bit. When they were going to buy an icecream at the end of the day A told my dad he had to buy one for J too, it was not fair if he would get icecream and not she. My caring and wonderful little boy <3

In the playroom in Malta we had really cool "Wallies" but they are a bit expensive and hard to find in Sweden so I searched a bit and found cheaper options on ebay. Since the kids have chosen to sleep in their own rooms they got to pick one design each. A piked pirates and J a princess castle. I dont know how they picked so "expected" things from their sex, I have never tried to push them in any direction. If anything I would have encouraged A to pick "girlstuff" and J "boystufff". Unfortunately ebay doesnt let me save the photos so I cant show them....yet at least :)

Right now Im really missing R.....I wish we could be near him but he told me they are really busy in Toulouse. The guy he is paired up with is panicking a bit cause his parents came over today and this weekend his wife and kids are coming and I think he feels he should be studying. Upon hearing this Im quite happy we decided not to go see him in Toulouse, its better if he focuses on this and then we meet up in Dubai.

Tonight I swam 1 km for the first time in many years. You can bet I feel it in my body, and im guessing it will be even worse tomorrow....A man was swimming with one big frogfoot and he left big waves and I swallowed some water and I had a bit of a blackout and had to swim to the side and recover for a bit. It was a bit scary and I dont know why it happened. Maybe cause I was breathing heavily and my brain was lacking oxygen from the start so when I stopped breathing I just blacked out for a bit?

Even though I understand that the swedes are finding it a bit depressing that autumn is here I think its rather cosy to wake up to fog so thick I can just about see outside the window and feeling slightly cold getting out of bed and actually wanting to put on a pair of socks.

When I went to the library yesterday they didnt have the next book in a series Im reading but when I searched the computersystem they had it in at the small local library in the village where I went to school. The library is actually IN my old school nowadays and it was really strange to walk into the school again. What memories....

I also picked up J´s new shoes. A pink pair of canvas shoes I have been eyeing for a while. They were slightly big (as I expected) but better big than small, at least she can grow into them :) Since they were pink they got thumbs up from J too :D On the way back to the car I happened to see someone I went to school with from age 6 to 15 walking with a pushchair and I didnt even know he had a child! Anyways, I did slow down a bit to avoid talking to him. Some other school friends told me he is a bit strange and since he removed me from his Facebook I didnt feel like chatting to him, would only feel strange.

Now we will see what the day has to offer, mum is off. Maybe we will make some more apple mash?