After three days of trawling around various sights, museums and shops in Stockholm there is one clear winner. She has strange red hair, odd stockings and a monkey called Herr Nilsson. Yes, it’s Pippi Longstocking, who as far as I can see is the most enduring Swedish character there has ever been.

She is from a children’s book written by Astrid Lindgren in 1945. On the back Pippi is described as “the strongest, the richest and the nicest girl in the whole world.” What’s not to like? On top of that she lives alone in a tumble-down house called Villa Villekulla with her horse (whom she can lift with one arm) and her monkey.

The great upside to living alone is of course that she doesn’t need to go to school, or to bed and she can also bake ginger biscuits on the floor. I think you have to be partly Swedish to understand the latter.

But my point is this. Pippi’s life is every child’s fantasy. She can do exactly what she wants, when she wants and there is no one to boss her about. No matter that her mother is dead and her father is off being a king on some remote island. She’s happy as anything. And children adore her. I adored her. So it’s nice to see my children do the same. Which I suppose is one good thing about getting older with children; you get to remember all the things you loved via them.

Now we are off to the Stockholm archipeligo so there will be no more blogs for a few days. But I expect you all to have learnt the Pippi song (in Swedish) by the time I get back. Hej hej!

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

So, the journey started well. We had been driving for three minutes when Olivia announced she wanted to be sick. Once at Stockholm airport (which seemed like a lifetime later) we lost Leonardo. I had that awful pit-of-the-stomach fear that only losing a child can give you. Eventually we found him, chatting to two Swedish girls who made Paris Hilton look like a red-neck.

“What were you doing?” I asked him.

“They’ve got nice gros-gouttes,” he replied grinning broadly. Gros-gouttes in the children’s word for breasts. This boy is three; what he’ll be like when he hits puberty is not worth imagining.

Although I was partly brought up here in Sweden I feel like a foreigner here. For a start it is 4.15 am and I am wide awake. The sun is shining. What is the point in that? In the winter it is dark all the time and in the summer it’s light all the time. That seems mad to me. Also everyone here eats meatballs; all the time. If you go out for lunch or dinner you will be surrounded by Swedes happily chomping away at their national dish. Now I like a meatball as much as anyone, but every day?

I am no longer surprised that on September 3rd 1967 the entire population of Sweden changed from left-hand to right-hand drive. Most of them live in identical houses painted the classic Falu red. They all eat the same food and they all drive Saabs or Volvos. It would be more of a challenge to get them to do something different.

Not that I’ve anything against this uniformity, or in fact Falu red which is as nice a colour for a house as you could wish for. It just seems strange to me now.

Yesterday we had a lovely day taking the children around Djurgarden which is an island a short boat ride from the hotel. It is entirely made up of fun things to do like a museum dedicated to Swedish characters from children’s books like Pippi Longstocking (where you can meatballs for lunch), Skansen, meaning zoo but which is actually an open-air museum dedicated to Swedish history and tradition (lots of red houses) as well as home to lots of animals including bears, wolves, seals and the totally mad-looking elk.

We ended the day at Grona Lund, a funfair. This is a name I remember from my youth. It was where you wanted to go and get drunk as a teenager. I never went then but now I have and although I was sober it was good fun. Generally I loathe funfairs but as with everything else we saw yesterday this has been very well done. There is no foul-smelling food but nice hot-dog stands (another national dish, just in case you can’t find a meatball) and lots of trees which give it an almost park-like quality. The rides of course are mainly terrifying. We went on a children’s version of a sort of human falling elevator which was far too much for me. I did enjoy the ladybird roller-coaster though; just the right amount of fear mixed with exhiliration.

So now it is 4.30 and I suppose I may as well get dressed. Luckily breakfast starts early. Meatballs of course.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Today is the last day of school. You would think the children would all be jolly happy and behave beautifully but no, this morning from the moment they woke up to the moment we left them in the care of their deliriously happy (I wonder why?) teachers, they fought.

They fought about everything and nothing. Every single decision was a battle. Every action was commented upon. Every word prompted a violent reaction. I was called “evil” by my son at least 50 times and told he would rather go and stay with Chantal (my child-minder) than come away with me. The extent of my evilness was to put the wrong T-shirt on him and insist he go to school today.

In the car on the way to school Bea finally lost her patience. “I tell you Olivia,” she warned. “Jesus will send you to hell.” Bea’s best friend Manon wants to be a nun and there is a lot of talk about Jesus at the moment. The other day Leo was told he could only borrow Bea’s scooter if he promised “not to shout at mummy and to pray to Jesus”.

We left school feeling extremely gloomy. The prospect of our “holiday” which starts in two hours and 45 minutes is not a nice one. A week in Sweden with three warring factions. It makes Tony Blair’s new job as middle-east envoy look like a walk in the park. Maybe we could do a job-swap?

So if you don’t hear from me for a while, it’s not that I’ve forgotten you, it’s just that I’m using my laptop to beat the children with in between trips to Hennes and IKEA.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I can now die happy having watched David Owen sing along to Bob Marley’s One Love. On Saturday we went to a wedding. These were not friends of ours re-affirming their vows but the children of some friends. That’s how old we’ve become.

The service was in a little church in an idyllic village nestled in the mountains about half an hour’s drive from our house. The congregation was made up of mainly English and Australians; the groom being English and the bride Australian.

I have always thought David Owen is a rather dashing politician. Of course it helps that he started life as a doctor. Until last week when Brown appointed his new foreign secretary Owen was the youngest man ever to hold that post, aged 39. He founded the SDP and often turns up in trouble spots as a negotiator.

Nowadays, he told me during drinks after the service (and I think it is interesting to note that he failed to sing along to The Lord’s My Shepherd and only came to life once Bob started blaring) he is less involved in politics and more in business. He does a lot of work in Russia. We talked about Russia, the Balkans, Thatcher, Brezhnev, Blair, Bush, Clinton and Iraq all before dinner. Then we were told to go and sit down. We were given strict instructions to sit next to someone we hadn’t already met and who was from another country.

“Where are you from?” he asked me.

“I’m half-Swedish, half-Italian,” I said.

“Perfect, I’m partly Welsh, shall we sit next to each other?”

Over dinner we had many more fascinating conversations. Then we were told all the men had to move two places. I am all in favour of this when I’m being bored by someone droning on about how dreadful their commute is but for once I wasn’t.

I lost both Lord Owen and my charming friend Patrick who was sitting opposite us. Instead I found myself sitting next to a three-year old whose first move was to pour a bottle of rose all over me. Meanwhile the woman who had insisted we all change around was cosying up to Lord Owen.

I had to drown my sorrows and as a result woke up yesterday swearing never to drink again. Then at lunchtime I had a glass of red wine which made me feel much better.

Happily I noted that the woman who replaced my amusing and interesting guests with her wine-throwing son was feeling much worse than me. At brunch she lay on a sun-lounger with a towel over her head groaning, barely able to move.

As Byron commented: “Sweet is revenge - especially to women.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007