Dear Santa, Jesus, God...

As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,

They kill us for their sport

Dear Jesus, The Holy Shamrock, Zeus, Santa and all the other big wigs!

I am sorry! I have clearly pissed you all off …a lot! I know I have mocked religion just a little in my blog. I include Santa as a God because he has the same credentials… imaginary, blindly believed in by millions of hapless people (in this case, children, lied to by parents rather than priests) and he promises things if you are good but never delivers… someone else has to fake it! He shares a special day with Jesus. Oh, and like religion he is a massive commercial success! I have failed to maintain the magic of Santa for my 10 year old who now thinks you’re fake (sorry!).

I know I’ve been a bad girl but I didn’t realize how bad until the Karma came back around!

Being told I have to leave the promised land of Americana, the land of milking the honeys to move to Sweden should have been enough punishment for all my badness. To exchange the glorious sunshine and shallowness of Texas for cold dark days in Sweden will give me time enough to reflect on my sins, but no! Not enough for you bastards.

First, you cause me to break my little toe en-route, not just stub it…an oblique fracture which means it twisted and broke diagonally! I was forced to endure the hideous shame of having to buy and wear fake crocs. This guaranteed the whole trip hurt a lot!

Maybe Santa it was because I eat smoked Reindeer on my first day in Sweden, looking for houses and schools that you butted into the equation to ruin Christmas. I was told it was a delicacy. It looked bad and tasted worse and I will never do it again! I promise. I’ll stick to fermented herring from now on as a form of self flagellation for ever eating Rudolf!

We were shown a house that I now see represents heaven! A heavenly aspiration a bad MoFo like me will never attain! It was beautiful. It overlooked a lake. It had its own little jetty and a boat. It had a sauna. And the pièce de résistance, a potato store! You’ve made it in Sweden if you have a potato store. Most swedes can only dream of such a thing, although I don’t think you have to limit storage just to potatoes!  A whole room dedicated to root vegetables so we could bunker down in the winter. It was there in the Lake house. Heaven! So close… and yet way to fucking far from civilization! 3 hours a day dedicated to the school run is just too much! Like heaven… out of reach! You Bastards!

So we looked at houses in the town! You showed me heaven and gave me hell!

Hell #1 was a tiny apartment that quite clearly some old person had died in. Not only did it not have a potato store it didn't have space for a washing machine. There was a communal laundry room where I would be given a WEEKLY slot to do my washing! You godly bastards know I have to run a washing machine 24/7 to clean up after my son! His lack of bottom wiping skills alone fill a washing mashing load on a daily basis.

Hell #2  I grew up on a council estate of blocks of flats. It was condemned years ago. I thought it had been knocked down but no! It had been moved brick by brick to Sweden Karmly waiting for me to come back round!

Hell #3 A house smaller than my first 2 up 2 down house. I accept that the house in Texas is absurdly big but moving into a living space the size of our bathroom in Texas is too much of a compromise

Hell #4 I think the torture chamber scenes from ‘the girl with the Dragon tattoo’ were filmed here. More than one person had died. Think trailer park trash Swedish style! Maybe it was the mock crocs giving out all the wrong signals to the relocation agency about the sort of person I was!

Then there were the schools! Only a choice of two that had English lessons. One school would not take my son (I thought his reputation preceded him but they do not take kids under 10) and the other that appeared to be floating on a mud lake! I could turn a blind eye to the ramshackled shit hole of a building. I could turn a blind eye to the lack of adult supervision outside, it was cold! I could turn a blind eye to the poor behaviour I saw in the classroom, I couldn’t understand it and I would have played up because it was in Swedish! SWEDISH!!!! That bit I couldn’t ignore! 50% of lessons at the ‘international’ school were in Swedish! My daughter struggles with maths in English! Added to that, my son started school at 4 in the UK. They made him start again at 5 in the USA. They want to make him start again in Sweden at 7. They showed me the reception class of 7 year olds. It looked like a nursery class. My son reads novels!

So the punishment continues! I tried to be creative. Live in the lake house, I reasoned! Store potatoes, invite the neighbours round to view the impressive array of root vegetables and drive 50 kilometers to the school each day. Pretend the school was lovely. Go to university to fill the time while the kids are at school. The only Masters course I could apply for? Holocaust and Genocide studies! Sweden has a higher suicide rate in polar winter. I fear the rate may increase by 1!

So! I move to Sweden in January.

My dear gods! I know I haven’t prayed for … a very long time…. Errr Ok, never! But I’m f**king praying now!

Yours repentantly

Stranger about to enter a Stranger Land Still!