Maclayhem

A move to Sweden in 2012 Tatty and her family recently moved from Scotland to Sweden. Half-Swedish and half-English, Tatty grew up in the UK and works as a journalist. This is a journal of her first year in Sweden with her Scottish husband and four young children.

Maclayhem: Thoughts from the Motherland

by Tatty Maclay

One of my happiest discoveries since moving to Sweden has been Blocket. Blocket is the Swedish equivalent of Ebay or Craigslist and it has been a revelation, I can tell you. Not only because you can find almost anything you need, and many things you definitely don’t (I could purchase a Pomeranian puppy or a pizzeria in my local area today, should I wish to), on the website. And not simply because things are a great deal cheaper than they are in the shops, which, as we know, is always a plus in Sweden.

No, the real benefit in buying things on Blocket, as far as I’m concerned, is that it affords you a brief window into the lives of random Swedes and a glimpse into pockets of the country into which you might never otherwise stumble. Over the past eighteen months, I have been to countless small Sörmland hamlets and Stockholm backstreets in search of everything from fridges to kids’ winter boots to design-classic deckchairs.

And I have met, among many others, a wonderful old lady in Uppland who invited me into her beautiful old farmhouse for coffee and to admire her original wallpaper and made me promise to drop in with my family whenever I was in the area, a sad divorcee in Nacka who sold me his laptop and made me resolve to work on my marriage and a couple with a stunning flat in Södermalm which gave me serious house envy and made me resolve to work on my housekeeping.

I realize now that, factoring in my time and petrol money, some of these purchases were not quite the bargain they first seemed, but in these times of faceless internet shopping, it makes a welcome change to have human contact involved in making a purchase. And while you may get cheap mattresses and occasionally exchange a word about the weather over a cash register at Ikea, for a slice of homemade cardamom cake, a bargain pair of vintage bedsteads, a detour into the deepest Swedish countryside and a quick resumé of a complete stranger’s life story, you’ll need to get on Blocket.