First day of my vacation...

Im not allowed to gloat when James is at home that im off for 3 whole weeks! But i just did, didnt i... ;)
Oh well he will get a week off later on this summer so he can gloat at me then that i have to go to work. First day of vacation and what do you do if you'r Maria? You clean and put stuff away so you can enjoy the rest of the vacation without wading through loads of clothes and other bits and bobs that have accumulated over the last few weeks on the floor! I dont get it, how can so much just linger around even though i try to put stuff away. It just seems to reappear just as quickly! I think i have found my suspect to all this but im not allowed to moan at him because he did the washing and was generally very good at the auction when i spent some money.. ;)

Im off into town in a while, going to check out how much a river cruise to Gagnef will cost. Mum was interested in going and asked if we wanted to come along. We might if it isnt too expencive. You go by boat to Borlänge, get transported in a vintage car through town and then get shipped up the river in a different boat and have a meal as well as coffee and cake or 'fika' as we swedes say. Fika means you have coffee and cake, or drink and cake, it doesnt really matter what you have to drink as long as there is something small to nibble on with it.

Im also going to go get our weddingpicture in the newspaper. And other bits to sort out, we still have all the Thank You cards to send out but cant do that untill i get the pictures back from the shop. What else was i going to do...? Oh im sure it will come to me once im in town. Oh yes, change my bank card! Well i'd better be off now, blog more later.

I just had a msg on the answering machine about our sofa. It seems that it at least has left IKEA in Gävle and is now stuck in transit somewhere. The helpful chappy would get back to us on monday since the post and delivery is closed on weekends. Hopefully we will have it by tomorrow or tuesday.

Other news, we have been to an auction today, Lotta, me and James... And i saw very beautiful things there like a chandelier in baroque style with flat big prisms but that went for 2300 kr and it was a tad too much even though i liked it alot i couldnt persuade James to like it too. But when it came to my 'Emma fĺtölj' i was allowed to bid.

We had been into town to have a look around in the antique shops to have a bit of a reference in prices so i was prepared it might sell for at least 500 kr so to my surprise it just went for 300 kr, to me! I think it is a cute little chair and it fits snug in our bedroom where i had intended it to go and the covering is very well looked after and not at all faded, i suspect it has been reupholstered but that doesnt bother me since the colour is a very nice warm pink. Not my usuall color of choice but i couldnt resist it. Also i bought a big white bowl with blue decorations on the outside and an old swedish wooden box called 'svepask', it is made out of one thin plank wrapped around a bottom piece of wood and then stictched togheter with a string made out of roots. Very traditional here in sweden and almost everyone has one at home. It seems that anything made out of wood went for a high price, so it must be in demand right now. Lotta went after a nice chest of draws made out of big solid planks and no nails. It was painted in a dreadful white paint though that she said she would strip off. But otherwise it was a nice one and if James would have liked it i would have outbid Lotta with 25 kr since she had set her target at 1000kr. But there will be more auctions this summer since Lotta got very keen on it in the end and asked if we could go some more times and winked that it would be better if we left James at home then and i'll take care of his wallet.... ;o)

Our sofa has gone missing!

I phoned up IKEA customer services today and asked where our sofa has gone since it hasnt arrived within 5 working days as they promised. The girl said there wasnt any order with our number so she passed me on to this guy who tried to contact the shop to hear what they had done with our order. But he couldnt get hold of them so i still dont know where it is! He will try to phone them all this weekend and let me know whats happening but if he hasnt had any luck i will phone monday and raise some hell because i REFUSE to pay any shipping costs if they have buggered it up that much!

We want a sofa!

I think James got the better half of the deal yesterday, the part where he is sitting nice at home all cosy and snug and DRY! Did it rain you asked? Pah!! Thats not a word worthy of what we had! It POURED down! And there we are sitting all nicely waiting for the concert to start wishing we were somewhere else, part from the real nutters who have been parked on a bench since the park opend for the day. How the heck do they cope? Dont they feel wet, miserable and just want to go home?? Thats what i felt after 2 hours in pouring rain with windgusts as well! But it was free........ !

For all you non swedes, Allsĺng pĺ Skansen is THE main event for many people, its become kult. Its a mix of the audience singing and guests singing and a bit of fun trown in as well. And the king of Skansen is Lasse Berghagen, and since it is his last summer of doing this, hes been at it since 1993, naturaly the interest is huge to get so see a glimpse of him and sing a long with him. We call it allsĺng, dont know a word similare it in english. But you get a big crowd gathered and you sing togheter, period. Thats it really, but since it has been televised they have to have a few tv friendly guestartists as well. So yesterday we got treated to Per Gessle, one half of Roxette, Jerry Williams the swedish rocknroll star who is as tough as they come and a swedish version of Monthy Python - After Shave. It was fun in the end and we waved each time the tv camera came passing by, but no one saw us so they must have cut us out. I can now say i did it but i wont do it again unless they promise fantastic weather... and Lasse of course... :o)

Im off to Stockholm in a few minutes. I've been invited to go and see Lasse Berghagen do his thing on Skansen. Rosies bf Per couldnt come so instead she asked me if i wanted to tag along with her parents and i jumped on it. But that means James will be home all alone all day.... awwwwww... ;o)
Im sure he will spend it nicely relaxed infront of the computer!

The joys of the internet, right now im chatting to Mary on ICQ and surfing and generally dillydallying because im not tired at all!

In the olden days i would lay in bed counting sheep or watching some silly rerun on the telly, now i can surf to whatever nutty site there is or go online in IRC and chat to some complete stranger who is even nuttier then the site i've just visited

Finaly we are done with the little alotment, everything is weeded out where we are going to plant stuff, the plot is turned over to make it a wee bit softer after we walked all over it. And it has been raining for the last couple of days so no need to water it yet! Couldnt have asked for a better start to our seeds i suppose, but now it has to get a bit warmer since its dropped to only +9 today.

We are also getting around to send people our Thank You cards for our wedding gifts and all cards we got. Difficult part is, how do you phrase them??

Ouch!
It is back breaking to have an alottment, anyway an untidy one! We've been there first time today and had a little start at getting rid of all the weed. Since it is clay soil i think we will have to have it turned once again before setting anything, depends on how heavy we think it is tomorrow after we have done the other half of the raspberry row and marked out the small paths around it all. Today at least we got rid of some old windows thats been used for a coldframe or something similare. And also discovered that frogs and toads loved it underneath all that rubble! Im sure we scared a dozen away when we rattled their home underneath the pains of glass and chucked it all away.

It is somehow very satisfying to clear everything up and to get a start of an outline to how it will look like finished. We've discovered that we had some strawberry plants underneath the raspberries as well. I managed to rescue two plants and James set them on the good soil doubt they will yield any fruit this year though. Also we have two currant bushes instead of one as i thought. I think one is black and the other red currant. We have to see if we manage to get any berries or if the birds will get them first. We are doing more tomorrow and mum will come along and help us out. Hopefully i wont be all stiff and achy since i might have done a bit too much today, but i was eager to get in and do some gardening!

For now James have gone off to get some take away food, we are having kebabs with fries. Sounds just right for me and after that im going to indulge in a bath with some Lush bubbles Specificly some Flying Saucers bubble bar slices....yumminess...!

I just signed in to blogger and got a surprise, the layout is different! It looks pretty and simple. Uhm, something just happend...wonder what. Oh well im sure it was just a little hickup. If this doesnt post i know it was something else serious!

For today there is work ahead for me in the afternoon. I've gone from liking working afternoons to dreading it. Maybe i am more of a morning person as to getting things done, i do that better if i have worked first and then have the afternoon off. For example, today, i have done nothing, nada, nill! Well i dont count ordinery household work like making the bed, doing the dishes and vacuuming. But still i had no energy and a headache that felt like a concrete helmet being pushed over my brow. Yumminess for the afternoon ahead. Maybe it is the weather since they promised on tv last night some thunderstorms. But havent been out so cant say if it is stuffy or just a bit cloudy.

I am going to take my weddingblog down. Now that im married and the stress levels are down to normal i think i can cope with just one blog. Today i got another letter stating that as being the new Mrs James Last i have to change my driving license. So it is off to take an ugly picture, they NEVER turn out alright, and send it off togheter with the payment slip of 150 kr. Got to have my bankcard changed as well and get a new passport ordered. But part from that i dont think i need to do anything else. Oh yes, i might go and spend some of OUR money on new things but im sure James will hold tightly onto them and not let me get too carried away! I at least went and had a quick look at new sofas at MIO (furniture shop) But i wasnt impressed with the fabrics you could chose from or the prices even though it said it was on sale i thought them to be way to expencive for us. We might take a trip to IKEA at the weekend but dont know yet. Since we got ourselves a little alottment that has to be taken care of as well this weekend if it doesnt pour down with rain. Will take some pictures before we clean it up and after when it is growing some potatoes, spinach, peas, dill, basil, onions and stuff like that on it. At least we get 2 rows of raspberries that are soon going into bloom. Hopefully they will give sweet fruit and not the sour old type!

I'd better be off for work now since im walking it, got my bike in the shop getting the backwheel fixed. Blog later!

Finaly back and unpacked and almost sorted out!
It has been a lovely 2 weeks, with the wedding and the honeymoon to Prague. As James is telling you bits of it in his blog and have some pictures up already i will come back to my side of the story once i have my picture album up and running as well.