We moved our whole life overseas but the dream was just that. Have we failed? It’s just a matter of perspective, says Herald columnist Kerry Hudson

Hello from ‘twixtmas’, that liminal space between Christmas and New Year where one more serving of Stilton will send you right to gout-city and, if you are like me, have far too much time to ruminate on all the ways you failed in 2025. This time last year we were newly immigrated, specifically to Malmö on the coast of southern Sweden, connected to Copenhagen by the Øresund Bridge, famous from TV Scandinoirs such as the, frankly lazily titled, The Bridge.

We’d moved here with every intention of staying forever. We went through the arduous bureaucracy, including full biometrics, of getting a five-year residency, which would, in theory, allow us to apply for full citizenship. We bought a beautiful 1950s flat for a third of the price of anything we could afford in the UK and I took my janky old body to the Swedish health service and threw myself at its mercy and medication. Meanwhile, my husband immersed himself in the self-explanatory titled ‘Swedish for Immigrants’ and my son started a preschool where he played outside in the mud in all weathers, happy as a pig in…well, you know.

It seemed then that we had moved to the perfect city. Malmö, a city of immigrants with 187 countries represented in the city. A place........

© Herald Scotland