Back to our old life...

After two weeks in sunny Sweden, we're back to an equally sunny London. Probably a bit sunnier, even.

We had a really lovely time in our new house, which has had a fresh layer of paint put up by my mother (thanks again, mum!). It's really quite a transformation, and it probably hasn't looked so clean for at least 25 years (a family with three kids were renting it for the last 20+ years - and it's a small house, so it was quite crowded).

We were away for two weeks, and we managed to squeeze in loads of things, but at the same time, there was so much that I had planned that we never got around to.

The house was pretty well equipped, so there was little need for buying stuff, except for a bed and some food. There was some kitchen ware stored away in the basement from when dad started renting the house out, as well as a few boxes of stuff from when I last lived in Sweden. It was quite fun going through all the boxes of stuff that I stored away in dad's attic when I left for London.

We spent our time seeing friends and family, sorting out things around the house and garden, and making cherry cordial. There's a lot of berries in the garden, and the most prominent weeds are wild cherries, blackberries and smultron (wild strawberries - small and quite different from the variety you know from the shops). We've also got a fair bit of blueberries raspberries, and one bush each of black and white currants. On the second to last day, we finally got around to cutting down some of the densest shrub of hazel, cherry and oak trees - the sheer quantity of it was quite amazing, and it made three or four man-height piles. I think we'll have one hell of a bonfire this winter :)

I also convinced my lovely wife that we needed to look at cars, so that when finally move over, we know what we want to buy, and can start looking at the dealerships a few weeks before going, ideally having one lined up when we get there. The house is located in a semi rural area, and we will need to have one straight away. It's not an entirely straight forward decision... We've currently got an M3, which for a 4-door saloon has pretty good performance - a 3.2 litre engine, producing a claimed 321 BHP, which propels it from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 5.5 seconds, and has to be electronically limited so it won't do over 250 km/h (155 mph). You can't really change from this to a 1.6 litre Volvo estate... There are a few cars that I'd love to buy, and most of them would be completely useless for trying to travel with baby + pram + luggage ;-) Then there are the practical family cars, such as the RS6, which I've heard is quite easy to tune to around 550 BHP, which is great when you're running late on the school run, or trying to beat a Ferrari at the traffic light GP ;-) They also cost way more than I could justify, and we need to hang on to our cash so we can spend it on rebuilding the house. So, the answer must lie somewhere in between... it needs to have 5 doors, decent luggage space, be comfortable enough for 500 km trips up north to see dad and his wife, be fairly new (because we don't need the hassle of a car with problems - I've had enough of that for now), reasonable fuel economy, and still enough of an engine so that I don't risk dying from boredom. There's no point in having a super powerful engine in a family car - I'd be better off buying a second "toy" car, so I figured it's probably best to either get a powerful but still economical diesel, or an ethanol car that can run on E85 (85% ethanol - available at petrol stations throughout Sweden), petrol, or any mixture of both. E85 is *much* cheaper than petrol, and depending on the engine, gives around 20% increase in performance (since E85 has a higher RON than 95 Octane petrol, the SAAB increases the pressure from the turbo and the compression to get more power out of the engine). E85 does make the engine slightly thirstier, but the price per km is still much lower than with petrol.

Although they're both foreign owned these days, I'd kind of like to get a "Swedish" car, and both Volvo and Saab are good quality, and very comfortable cars. I don't like Mercedes, and I'm not a great fan of BMW (despite owning one at the moment). I would have considered Audi A4, but it doesn't do Ethanol. There's obviously lots of other cars that we could be considering, but then we don't have the time to test drive everything out there... After the test drives, the modern Volvos do feel a bit more like old man's cars, whereas the SAABs felt more agile and a bit sportier to drive - and my wife prefers the look of them compared to the Volvo estates.


After a few test drives, I could confirm that both SAAB's and Volvo's highest performance diesels are really nice. I also drove a Renault Laguna, at the Volvo dealer's, which felt very plasticy compared to the Volvo, as well as an Audi A4 1.9 or 2L diesel, which seemed to lack in low-down torque compared to both Swedes. The SAAB 1.9 TTiD has, as suggested by the double "T", dual turbos, one smaller than the other, to give loads of torque through the range. I then compared these to the SAAB BioPower (flexi fuel) engines, and for the combination of performance, economy and carbon footprint, the 2.0 turbo seems like a really good option. Not as much torque as the diesel, but still fairly decent, and much more nippy when you start getting higher up in the rev range. The clever sales man at the dealership, who could tell that I like engines, also talked me into driving the 255 BHP 2.8L turbo petrol engine, and although it was good, it wasn't exciting enough to justify the economy or carbon emissions compared to the two-litre BioPower, running on E85.

So, it looks like we'll be going for a low-ish mileage 2007 or 2008 SAAB 9-3 2.0T BioPower Vector. Would go for Aero, but it won't be available until next month, so we'll have no chance of finding a used one by November.

Sorry for getting carried away when talking about the cars... can't help it... I just like engines :)

As expected, we ate lots of herring and other seafood, and I introduced my wife to a few more Swedish specialities, including Isterband med dillstuvad potatis (a type of smoked sausage, served with dill creamed potatoes). We also celebrated our wedding anniversary by staying at a small hotel (Styrsö Skäret) on a small car-free island in the Göteborg archipelago. We had a very nice stay, cycled around the little villages, and then had a nice meal at the restaurant. When we got to the room, we were greeted by a bottle of Champagne, courtesy of our friends Johan & Anna - a nice touch which we really appreciated, although Mrs Bump could only taste the champagne, and I had to do all the drinking :)

We've been back in London since Saturday, and we were very pleased to see that our new boiler had been installed and was working. It's nice to have a reliable shower, and hot water that doesn't constantly cycle between hot-cold-hot... Everything in the garden has been growing like crazy... lots of tomatoes, and the grapevine is huge - we've had to cut off quite a few bunches of grapes, and put up some wires, since it's grown out of the trellis. Yesterday morning I mowed the lawn for the second time since returning, and realised that parts of it are suffering from being shaded by the ivy, which is taking over everything. So, I started clearing ivy and clematis out of a tree, as well as our giant (about 6m high) rose. Funny how you don't realise how overgrown things are until you start clearing them out... I ended up with a mountain of branches, filling 6 trash bags offcuts (after compacting), as well as some larger stuff that I'll probably end up burning in the barbecue. I spent several hours on a step ladder cutting and pulling out the ivy which was entwined with everything it could find, and doing its best to strangle anything that got in its way, and then probably another hour just clearing up all the crap from the lawn. Well worth it though, since the garden will be getting a lot more light, and you can now see a lot more of the giant rose! I like the garden a lot more than I like the flat... :)

On the baby side of things, my poor little wife is still feeling nauseous quite a lot, but she's been spared from throwing up in the mornings. The heat has been quite difficult, and we probably won't be going on holiday anywhere too sunny (we were considering going to the Maldives, where we went for our honeymoon, later in the year).

Tomorrow afternoon, we've finally got the 12 week scan, and I'm really looking forward to seeing our baby for the first time (unless you count the flicker on the screen from the first scan we had). I'm also very much looking forward to being able tell friends and family about our news, assuming that everything is well. I'm not really feeling too nervous, but I'm sure I will be tomorrow.

Phew, that was a long post... I've got more to share, but will do so later... I'll probably post again tomorrow, both before and after the scan. Next Wednesday we've got our first midwife appointment.