Family visit from Sweden

A week or so ago I had a family visit from Sweden or Sverige. My sister Penny came with my nephew Gabriel who is six.
Ryan Air had cheap air fares from Nykoeping to Edinburgh so she took advantage of that and came for 4-5 days. It was not a long visit but longer than a weekend which would have been far too short. In the end it was a good length because of its intensity.

I had not seen my sister for 13-14 years, since the winter of 1995-96, and I had never met my nephew. Last time was when I visited Sweden for Christmas and New Year and to see my son who was staying with my sister at the time.

So many years had passed and I was really looking forward to this visit, also I was to meet her son and to see her as a mother!
It was a wonderful time together! We talked so much and in Swedish and had endless pots of tea. For me it was wondrous to be "Swedish" again. It is my mother tongue and English is my father tongue. I love to speak it and apparently I dream in it and talk in my sleep in Swedish. It is fun and very elastic as a language, the sounds are gorgeous in the mouth and to the ear. You can quite freely change the words like plasticine and it is still easy to understand. Especially perhaps when you are sisters with a similar feeling for the language, a playfulness that we share also with my brother.
We had halcyon days together visiting Noah and playing games like Connect Four, lego, and roulette! Gabriel bought a game at a boot fair in Hexham that we went to on the Sunday, none of us knew the rules, but Neil actually did and so we all played together on the floor. I was the bank!

On another day we went to Kielder and to the Birds of Prey centre there. I brought a picnic in a basket so that we could have it by the lake side. It was amazing, we all got to hold birds on a glove as they had their flying/feeding time. The Owls made the biggest impression on us. There was a beauty called Whisper a barn owl. They fly silently. We also got to stroke a baby owl of six weeks and other small owls. Gabriel loved it and bought a tiny little cuddly one to take home whom he called Ugglis. Uggla means owl in Swedish. It started to rain so we drove home and had the picnic on a blanket on the floor in the living room!

Gabriel learned how to be gentle with the cats and they let him stroke them. He gave Myles/Milo little tiny saucers of milk.
When we visited Noah he also got to meet Sofie the sister of Myles and Fergus. She was far less interested in a little person!
Noah cooked us a gorgeous meal of a leg of lamb in a Schlemmertopf with vegetables. Mmm...yummy!
Penny was a also a very good mother. To see my sister with her son and that she was not only grown-up and responsible but she was still the fun younger sister I knew. That was what was so cool. She almost talked us into visiting Sweden again!

I really hope they come and visit again! Gabriel can even come on his own when he gets older and he could use some holiday time away and to practise English which he will be learning at school in the next few years. He does not know English yet.
I would love it if my brother visited too!