Swooooosh!

What was that? What you mean already back to work?!?!
I cant believe that my vacation just went by like a blink of an eye! But by gods it was a busy blink!

The first two weeks was spent at home doing gardening stuff or so we thought, you see my knee happened and that put a nice stop to that. At least we got a bit done before i had to take a seat on the sofa and the stupid knee was much better when we went to Germany and England.

Oh the concert with Bruce was magnificent! I have for so long wanted to go and see him in concert but it has always been hard to get tickets since they sell out in a matter of hours here in Sweden. But my clever husband looked elsewhere when it wasn't possible to get tickets for the concerts in Gothenburg so he thought, why not a weekend in Hamburg so he could finally ask me the question, Excuse me, but are you a Hamburger.... Yeah i know, he has a warped comic streak in him but i love him for it all the same. I don't know if i like Hamburg though. A bit soulless if you know what i mean. Oh it is a big town and all but almost all of its history had been blasted away in WW2 and it showed.. I really cant get all excited about something built in the 50s and 60s not to mention the 70s..brrrr. As well as i cant understand the need to advertise the red light district as a 'must do' when in Hamburg. We had a quick drive-by with the open top tour bus (yes you got to do one of those) in St Pauli and the famous Reeperbahn. And that was frankly enough to put you off from going there anymore. I cant and will not ever see the point of going somewhere to see someone stick a needle up their arm, totally oblivious to the fact that a full tourist bus is slowly crawling by watching him do it. Just as i cant see what point you have of the pictures you take of the man...? Is that what you will show your friends back home when they ask what your holiday in Hamburg was like? Sigh...

I would like to go to Germany again but maybe to somewhere that has a bit more history saved. And you got to admire the German efficiency. Everything was on time and clean and ... well there is nothing to complain about, well maybe that irritating habit of dubbing everything into German on the telly. Do you know how weird it is hearing a German voice coming out of Orlando Blooms mouth when trying to watch Elizabethtown? It was just too much. We ended up watching the football (yay Spain!) and trying to decipher the news and weather.

Our week in England was lovely. Lots of shopping done(new smaller clothes that actually fit me!!) and we had a really nice family day out hiring a boat on The Broads celebrating James' dads 60th birthday. He didn't know where we were taking him but he soon sussed the general direction out and then he put two and two together. Everyone took turns in driving the boat and we had a nice buffe picnic by the side of the river and toasted in some bubbly. It was very relaxing gliding down the little rivers and canals, just watching the world go by and look on in amazement how big a boats some people have! And luck would have it it didn't rain until the very last hour.

We had 2 days at home before going off to Stockholm with some friends of ours. We had a 3 night stay in a hotel, saw lots of stuff you don't normally do when in Stockholm, like the boat tour under Stockholms bridges, going by boat to the viking settlement of Birka, the lovely garden and castle of Rosendal, went up the tower at Kaknäs and got rewarded with a great view of Stockholm, had a night out in the amusement park Gröna Lund where we did try out the Funny House and the Haunted House (well me and Rosie wanted to get scared) and watched Fredrik go on one roller coaster after another while safely on the ground taking pictures of him. We also managed to have a long walk through the Old Town and all its small alley ways and artists shops. Not to mention tripping over all the Japanese tourists flocking around every corner. I don't know why Stockholm is so popular with the Japanese but they seem to be everywhere in summertime.

All in all a very good vacation, part from my knee which btw is much better now so I'll stop going on about the knee since the knee is so much better in a knee like way...

Restless legs..

I am getting the jitters! On Friday we are going to fly to Hamburg for a weekend stay including going to see Bruce Springsteen in concert on Saturday and i am getting very excited about it all! But also very nervous... We have booked an apartment in central Hamburg but it is always a bit nervous before getting there and seeing how it looks like and getting settled. It seems really easy to find though, just get on the u-bahn at the bus station and hop off after 6 stations, if you are going the right way of course! We have been doing a wee bit of research of what there is to see but I still think it will mainly be a hop on hop off bus and then maybe a stroll through the older parts. Got to see how much my knee will allow me to do as well. The knee is feeling much better even though it really is sporting all colours under the rainbow at the moment.

Tickets, concert tickets, passports, euros, guidebook, camera, instructions to find apartment+map, adress book, mobile phone - check.

Clothes? Don't know what to wear and no it isn't because i got sooo much to choose from anymore, nothing fits me anymore! You see i am shrinking, shrinking..!! The last time James translated it into pounds and stones I'd lost 2.8 stones. Doesn't sound much compared to when you say it in kg, which is 18, something. Sounds better doesn't it?

Oh well at least we are going straight to England from Germany so can get more clothes there... shhh, did you hear that? It was James screaming of despair at the weight of our suitcases... poor soul no wonder he is preparing and doing all these sit ups. I do count them our for him when doing them, well at least i try to do so between the burst of laughter at the sight of him doing sit ups crawling out of his underwear inch by inch. Don't know how he does it but it is sort of watching a very slow sporty striptease..!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it is my knee!

Yes i know i said i would be back after my walk yesterday but since it was Friday the 13 th what did happen? Well on my walk yesterday i was looking at a plant saying to James that that one is just like the one we got in the garden when i twisted my ankle and feel hard on my left knee which now more or less resembles a blimp in size and are proudly sporting 2 huge bruises and a nice shaved off patch of skin. In the process i also managed to make a hole into my new trousers over the knee. Hopefully it will soon go back to normal. My knee that is, trousers are now degraded to being worn when doing gardening stuff instead of coming with us to Germany/England for our vacation. If i don't see any improvement i suppose i have to go to the medical center on Monday and see what they say about it.

Cant live life in the fast lane without injury eh?

Back to blogging...

So here i am again. I tried to feel comfortable at livejournal but it didnt really happen. As i have been reading a bit what i've written on here before i got thinking i should give it another go.

I'll be back in a bit. Got to get my walk in before those clouds that look likethe are going to empty of lots of rain get here.

Paranoid moi? What you mean its all in my head!

I have a feeling i will change direction in blogging soon. I have a feeling people i dont want to read this blog is or will do soon. So it seems i will reinvent myself somewhere else. I'll let anybody who wants to follow me there know where Im going to end up if you let me know in the comments but in the mean time damage controll is in progress..

Happy New Year!

So another year has passed and left us with various memories, both good ones and bad ones. I hope the new year will bring each and one of you what you wish for the most.

Warning Chocoholic ahead!

I am all sticky from tasting and making Christmas sweets. I've just finished off making a batch of dark chocolate truffles with lovely smooooooth cognac(Prince Hubert De Polignac V.S) in them. It has to cool down now enough to handle so am waiting for the fridge to do its stuff. Then I'm going to roll them into balls and dust with cocoa powder. Yummieee... There are also Ice Chocolate Éclairs sitting cooling off in the fridge and I have a lot of Cocoa Crispies cooling on the kitchen bench, they didn't fit in the fridge! It feels like I've rolled a hundred of little marzipan balls as well that is waiting to be dipped in chocolate. I ran out of the nice milk chocolate since someone, no naming names, had eaten a WHOLE 250 g bar (minus a little row I had last night but that was crumbs compared to the whole bar!) I got to find a hiding place for my sweets I think or there wont be any left for Christmas. I was going to leave them here for a treat for my mum and sister since we wont be here for Christmas this year. We are going to spend the holidays with James' parents. I am very excited about that because I have never had an English Christmas before. Only thing that is wrong with that is that I wont get to open my pressies until Christmas Day! Here in Sweden we open our pressies on Christmas Eve. Which to me is the right day...

Done diddely darn done!

YES, finally I am done with the Christmas shopping for this year! It was a slow start this morning but once I got going and got a few ideas of what would be suitable it all seemed to fall into place quite alright in the end. But now looking at the big pile of wrapped pressies we are going to take with us to England I am seriously doubting we can fit any clothes in our suitcases or we might be overweight checking in!

We'll just have to squeeze some thin clothing into the little spaces left and wear a double set when going. Now that could be interesting at the airport when going through the security check!

Fiddle fiddle fiddle sticks..!

Well yes I couldnt help but to fiddle a bit with the new blogger beta.. I dont know if I like it yet or if i will up sticks and move somewhere else... I quite liked the old blogger but then my dear James updated his side and suddenly mine was hijacked because he was put as a contributer to mine and i couldnt accsess it as easy as i did before. Something weird and it wasnt, isnt his fault.. :)
Another weird thing is that the spell checker isnt working. I use it when im not sure about spelling and it helps in the I and the 'nt that im too lazy to put in when typing.

Chrismas shopping... woho..

No, not one of my favorite things to do at the moment since I am out of ideas. I've been doing a few bits here and there but these last few ones seem to be dragging on and dragging me down as well. I had actually promised myself to cut back on who I buy pressies for and just do it for the family and a few friends but every year it seems that the list somehow magically enlarges to a long scroll. But I have been thinking about it lately and really am going to stick to the guns this year and only do family and a few friends, period.. maybe. No matter how much angst im getting for not buying for the others. At the same time as I like Christmas I dont like the Silly Season which is what I call the time leading up to Christmas when you get bombarded with tips and ideas in how to make this Christmas the most happy and wonderful one, if you just do this or buy that.. You know the feeling? Well I 'spose theres nothing for it, nothing to make me linger any more at home. Up and atom... ;)

It is a very weird winter going on here. It has been hovering around +10 for 3 weeks now. No snow, no frost, plenty of downpours and they say it will keep like this for quite some time yet! Mind you i dont complain too much, no snow to shovel away and the house is quite warm inside since it isnt cold outside, we have crap heating that doesnt cope when it gets below -15 ish you see. But it feels odd. There should be hard frost nights with snow falling, really there should, but there isnt.. They are talking about it being an effect of global warming, which i could well believe, and some say it is because we are getting into another El Nino period. I just feel spooky about it since it seems so out of wack.

Currently playing Astral Projection - Solid Electronics

The computer music center is going in full swing and the roof and walls are absolutely coming down on me any second now. Or at least the neighbours will think we are having a full blast rave party going on. The only thing missing at the moment is the strobe painting the night sky!

I have a very diverse music taste. I can listen to opera one minute to swing completely and listen to Death Metal because there is this one song i like or like now trance music full blast. I enjoy serene music like Enya but also blue grass , blues, heavy metal, classical music, really you name it and I'll listen and i might find something i like and keep in my library.

It is such a shame it is illegal to download music. You really got so much to choose from on the Internet and there are chances you might find the next Britney Spears or Madonna by searching and listening and sending a good song on to your friends. You still do of course, download i mean, illegal or not but its such a shame that it couldn't be free. I know the artists have to get paid as well and it is right that they should be but looking at the price of a CD in the shop i cant but help feeling that we the customers are getting screwed big time by the big music labels. Thinking about what the prize for a new CD is at the moment , 225 Kr, I understand why people search and download.

I came across this one from my old entries and thought it worth being posted again.

On a British Airways flight from Johannesburg, a middle-aged, well-off white South African lady has found herself sitting next to a black man. She called the cabin crew attendant over to complain about her seating.
"What seems to be the problem Madam?" asked the attendant.
"Can't you see?" she said. "You've sat me next to a kaffir. I can't possibly sit next to this disgusting human. Find me another seat!"
"Please calm down Madam." the stewardess replied. "The flight is very full today, but I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go and check to see if we have any seats available in club or first class."

The woman cocks a snooty look at the outraged black man beside her (not to mention many of the surrounding passengers). A few minutes later the stewardess returns with the good news, which she delivers to the lady, who cannot help but look at the people around her with a smug and self-satisfied grin.
"Madam, unfortunately, as I suspected, economy is full. I've spoken to the cabin services director, and club is also full. However, we do have one seat in first class." Before the lady has a chance to answer, the stewardess continues... "It is most extraordinary to make this kind of upgrade, however, I have had to get special permission from the captain. But, given the circumstances, the captain felt that it was outrageous that someone be forced to sit next to such an obnoxious person." With which, she turned to the black man sitting next to the woman, and said:
"So if you'd like to get your things, sir, I have your seat ready for you..." At which point, apparently the surrounding passengers stood and gave a standing ovation while the black man walks up to the front of the plane.

People will forget what you said...
People will forget what you did...
But people will never forget how you made them feel.

DIY time!

We did block off a doorway into our lounge earlier this autumn and now I'm finally getting round to plastering the joints and trying to make it blend in with the rest of the wall, still got the wallpaper to do on one side and painting the other side. Also James and his dad boxed in the chimney breast that was showing in the lounge and I am also trying to make that one look nice. But bugger it is hard getting the corners nice and sharp on that one! I've sanded it once and patched up were I missed so I'll just have to sand it down once more to see if that will do or if there is more to patch up. We also have to get around doing the skirting boards in the lounge and the frame for the attic fold down stair. All the doors need seeing to as well since most of them had been clad with plywood to hide the nice old frames and the paint is peeling on some of them We might even repaint the hall, still thinking about that one though... I just want everything finished! It has been lingering on for quite some time now but I suppose we'll have plenty of time this winter to get all things done..

If you ever feel like you got too much time on your hands and don't know what to do with it or if your just plain old bored go Grow something. I dare you to get it working at its maximum.

Currently playing Scissor Sisters - Ta-Dah (on repeat..)

Weird that, you know, sometimes you find a band that you like immediately. That is what happened when I found this one. I've heard the hit 'I don't feel like dancing' on the radio previous and thought hmmm might be good. So I decided to get the CD after a radio show featuring them and I got to hear a bit more of what they play. I think I might drive James round the bend though if I play it much more when he is at home...

The more it snows a tiddeli pom...

It has come about 20 cm of fresh new crisp white snow! I love winter, especially the snow and the clear dark nights when you can see the stars go on forever and ever. There is nothing that compares to a late evening walk in the moonlight and it is all quiet and the only sound is the crunch from the snow under your shoes.

I remember from when I was little that we always seemed to be out later in winter when the lake had iced over and the snow had come. You could play cops and robbers in the dark or more fun have snowball wars with your own castle made of snow to protect. If you were lucky dad piled all the snow into one big mound where you could bore holes and make little chambers inside and sit there with a candle lit eating your sandwich pack that mum used to prepare with that warm choco in a flask which always seemed to go cold just too quickly. We played we were astronauts at night walking around in the cold empty space(usually down by the lakeside) and used dads old binoculars as our telescope to see if we could spot any UFO's or alien invaders. We never got very close to the stars but it made it all much more magic when you could see them a bit closer to you. Sometimes we'd see the northern lights glimmer and flicker its band across the sky and there were shooting stars raining down on us. You don't see them in summer since the nights are too light and I do miss them. So I always welcome winter like a good old friend, a wee bit too cold at time but still the very best of friends.

It is raining

And I really mean RAINING! No little dripdrops, I mean full front on pouring! And I will have to go out in it later to go collect my car. It is at the moment at the garage for a long over due service. Me, I'm due for some serious sleep but cant really since there is a bit to do in the house and I have work later on. It has been three days with really early mornings since I've worked the weekend and today was just too much when I really should have been able to stay in my much cosy warm bed instead I had to get up and go. Thankfully I got a lift back home courtesy of the garage or else I would have been even more miserable getting back home in the rain on the bus, even more so since I forgot my umbrella at home...

Near miss

Just a bit north of us they are now covered in the white cold stuff. Apparently it has come around 10-20 cm of it. We just got the sideways rain.. But I am happy it missed us this time since we haven't put on our winter wheels on the car yet. That appointment isn't until tomorrow.

The garden is almost sleeping. Just got to get some rose cover and rake up the leafs and apples that are falling as soon as you turn your back. It was a lovely day yesterday so I thought I'd make the most of it and got the dahlias up and tucked in for drying. I also turned the flower bed over and moved some of the perennials that had got too big for the spot they were in and cleared of the last of the marigolds and petunias. Parsnips are now down in the cellar for winter storage all scrubbed up and tucked away. There are only a few summer flowers left in the garden and they are still so nice I don't have the heart to pull them up just yet. Especially since they have promised a bit warmer weather for next week. It will be a new record for me to still have flowering Margueritas in late October not to mention the lovely crawling and sprawling Nasturtium I have in front of the porch. I wish the frost would hold of just a bit longer so I can take a picture of it for you to see.

We've had the smell of snow in the air for 2 days now but nothing as of yet. But it is getting colder the longer the week wears on so I wouldn't be surprised if we did get some of the white cold stuff soon. It has been a weird autumn my dahlias are still in full bloom and the last of the marigolds are budding, my lovely dark pink roses are flowering again and got lots of small buds coming and we haven't had one night of hard frost yet! I am dithering about if I should cut my dahlias and bring them in for storage or let them flower until the frost gets them. Everything else is more or less tidied part from the parsnips that still are going and the late salad which is covered by some fleece anyway. James has kindly turned half of our vegetable patch and I need to find some fir tree branches to cover up our roses when it gets colder. Yes I know, how ironic that we did cut our fir trees down..

We've been busy over here. I am getting into this thing called eBay you see.. Am trying to sell some of my surplus postcards and have managed to sell two (2!) so far. I also managed to have my birthday and had a very nice gift from James, my own web site, which is in development. I had lots of other nice presents and a two day celebration as well! Is it silly wishing it would have gone on for another day? I have been a bit slack with everything online-ish but now when winter is setting in I will get back in the saddle and start writing more regular. There wont be much to do outside anyway when everything is covered with snow or it might just pour down with rain. You never know now a days.

Far too much is going on in real life to be able to fit any extra blog time in. It is a shame and I really shouldn't be able to call this a blog anymore. But I'll try and make it better soon.

I've been trying to sell some of the surplus junk we got in a car boot sale which went quite alright but it was really too little people to make for any good money. But what we got was alright. Shame though that you have to haul all the leftover junk back home, that wasn't intended you know! But maybe later in the year I'll try again and sell some more off. I've been trying to get my other enterprise off the ground with a bit of help from James, more on that later when I have something to show.

Gardening is slow and enjoyable. I have been making a few bargains at the plant nurseries when they have their end of season sales. James has been very nice and dug me a bit of a bigger flower border that we started off with two bushes and not complained too much to me for buying more plants and bushes. You do get into some sort of frenzy though when you have a blank canvas to fill up with plants. Because when we moved here it was just lawn, one old rosebush, a few apple trees and one, 1 !, tulip bulb. Next year I am going to try and grow some more perennial plants myself if the ones I did this year come back next spring..

Onward upward eh?

Btw..

Just a little brainteaser until i blog again... My score was a struggling 13.

Gardening is slowing down. We've picked all the potatoes, carrots and parsley, Still got some beet roots left and the parsnips aren't done yet but getting there. We might be getting some late salad if the warmth lingers a bit longer. But it is getting quite cool at night. Apples are getting there and we've had loads of plums that I've turned into the most lovely tasting jam I've done so far. Imagine ripe red-blue plums spiced up with a vanilla pod, yummie. Dead simple recipe too. You take 2kg of plums, halve them and take out the pips, boil with 2 dl of water until soft and mushy then add 1.2 liters of sugar and one big vanilla pod, you add both the scraped out black seeds and the whole remaining pod, boil for further 10-15 minutes to a nice consistency, de-foaming it if necessary then put in warm jars and seal.

We've had very rainy wet weather with sunny warm days in between perfect for growing but too late for the year I think. Today is a Change day. You know the kind, pelting rain one minute, sunny spots in between but also quite a fierce northern wind blowing. Definitely a Change day. Me, I'm home with the first cold I've had for ages. One by one got hit by it at work so I was just counting the days really until it was my turn. It isn't too bad, sore throat and fever and general tiredness but not really any running nose and coughing, yet I might add...

Just cant pass over a test can i.. It is pretty accurate as well.

Your Five Factor Personality Profile

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people. Conscientiousness: You have high conscientiousness. Intelligent and reliable, you tend to succeed in life. Most things in your life are organized and planned well. But you borderline on being a total perfectionist. Agreeableness: You have medium agreeableness. You're generally a friendly and trusting person. But you also have a healthy dose of cynicism. You get along well with others, as long as they play fair. Neuroticism: You have medium neuroticism. You're generally cool and collected, but sometimes you do panic. Little worries or problems can consume you, draining your energy. Your life is pretty smooth, but there's a few emotional bumps you'd like to get rid of. Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits. A great connoisseir of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

The Five Factor Personality Test

Do you ever get the feeling that there is a change even though nothing obvious has changed? I had that feeling today when i went outside. It just felt like the summer is ending, strange because it is still nice and warm outside, but you know there is a time when the garden turns. Lots of things are ripening and it looks like we will have a great year in the size of crops we are getting. Some of the summer flowers have ended though, surprisingly early but i think it has to do with the long dry spell we had earlier and now that there is rain it really doesnt help.

The garden has looked better this year and will do even better next year i hope. Our new hedge did suffer a bit from the dry weather but hopefully it will spring back next year and get going. We have to start pondering about the Big Dig next year. Considering the amount of downpours we have had it is time to do something about our damp foundation. So that is something we would like to do first thing next spring. Also there is this wast amount of space around the tree stumps that could need a bit of work and planning. I would like to make that part of the garden a bit of a wild spot, bushes, small trees, ferns and flowers of course. Like a little hideaway with paths around and in it. We'll just have to see.

What is keeping me busy...

Untill i get my writing skills back again i am doing a little photoblog. Feel free to visit.

Should i stay or should i go...?

At the present it seems i cant find the time to blog and when i do i get writers blog.. So, what should i do?

Summer has arrived with a BANG!

Lovely blue skies, temperature is hovering around +20, the Syringa hedge is in full bloom with lovely lilac flowers and all my summer flower seeds are growing like anything now, plus all the weeds of course.. Not to mention the lawn and there isn't anything we can do about it since our lawn mower decided it needed some service and was making this horrible sound when James was going to cut it last week. The damn mower is only 1 year old but James thought it might have to do with that he by accident drove it over a piece of rope that tied itself around the knife last time he cut the grass. Oh well, helpful neighbour let us borrow his mower once so it isn't a complete jungle out there. Hopefully we will get our own mower back soon. Anybody got some sheep we could lend?

We've been digging new flower beds as well as putting up a little willow fence to try and get people from cutting across to the Finn neighbours. Will see how much help it actually is later on. The new hedge is coming along, slowly. We've had loads of flowers on our plum tree this year and not so many on the big apple tree. But the huge old apple tree in the corner is covered in flowers so we'll see how much we'll end up with this year again of uneaten apples. I mean there is a limit to how much you can do and eat with apples in it before you get so tired of it you don't want to see another apple pie for as long as you shall live.

The vegetable patch is on the go, don't know how much will actually come up though due to a large flock of magpies. They are forever there picking at it so don't know how much spuds we got left or any other seeds. We did try to scare them off with dangling CD's but they soon learned that it wasn't scary. We did cover the seeds up with fleece but on closer examination there are now huge holes pecked in the fleece by them. Any suggestions to what to do about it? Part from shooting the buggers! Which isn't allowed anyway...

Flowers are going better this year but it has been nerve racking a couple of cold nights and I'm sure some of my climbers have been frost bitten because they look ever so sad so I've started a new batch just in case they don't pick up. Trying to organize the flowers and new shrubs in a way that is nice is fun but frustrating as well. It's sometimes a bit hard when you start off with a little little shrub that is supposed to grow as big as 2 meters and visualize how it will look in a year or two. I want instant BIG and bold plants. It is always easier as well to see how they will match each other when they are bigger and I wasn't planning on moving them in the near future but I might have to if I got it wrong.

Anyway it is nice that some plants survived the first year and are now coming back bigger and hopefully flowering better this year. I had some casualties that didn't make it through the winter. Sadly my big red poppy didn't like it where it was planted and was rotted away and also I don't have high hopes of my big, white, wonderfully smelling lilies coming back, no sign of life yet where they are but all other lilies are coming along nicely.. But surprise surprise all the tulips came out even though I did plant them way to late last autumn.

Currently playing Peter Gabriel/Kate Bush Dont give up

I've finaly got around to sort out all my mp3's and stumbled over some old favorites of mine. It has been sort of a night with music overload. Got rid of quite a lot of crap music as well. Everytime i hear this song i get goosebumps, i really dont know why, i just do.

It is still cold and wintery over here. The snow is slowly melting away but it is still a thick layer on the lawn and not a flower in sight. We have now finished our decorating inside and are preparing for the big push in getting the garden in shape whenever the frost has gone. First of all we have to get rid of all the fir tree branches that remained after we cut down the 3 big trees earlier. And then there is just a the question of what to do with all the space we now have.

It is snowing

Not just a little but a lot and it is wet and heavy and just plain old horrible! I am soon to do the last few strips of new wallpaper to our bedroom and hopefully that will be it until we have saved enough money to renovate the bathroom.

So onward getting all glued up it is. Back with pictures later

Morning walk

We went for a walk today to the local auction house to have a look at what they were going to auction out later on today. I think we saw all in all 3 people on the road there and it wasn't that early, around 10 I think. Partly I think people kept inside because it was Sunday and Vasaloppet (90km long ski race) was going on up in Mora and was being showed on TV. But also it was cold and windy plus they hadn't cleared much of the snow that came during the night. It was bit hard going on the smaller roads but we managed to get there without slipping over even though James did his best impersonation of a skier without skis. The auction looked more interesting on the pictures online then it did in real. There were the odd bits and bobs that I might have wanted to bid on if they didn't go too expensive but nothing really special.

We are going to my mums today for a Sunday dinner. My sister and her bf are picking us up in about 1Â? hour so got to think of something to do until then.

The more it snows a tiddelie pom...

At the moment it is still snowing, third day in a row and James has started to throw the snow past the big ridge of snow that is now enclosing our drive or else he wont get it over the top soon. We have started to shrink the driveway as well so it will just accommodate our car and a guest instead of 3 since we haven't got anywhere to put all the snow that is coming!
But hopefully it will ease off after the weekend. It's really not too bad compared to what I am used to from my childhood but still, I think it must be one of the few winters of late where there has been plenty of snow.

Yesterday and today have been spent looking at wallpaper for our bedroom and looking and trying out a new bigger sofa. We were thinking of getting a corner sofa so we didn't need to shuffle around and try to fit in 2 armchairs with our old sofa. So in search of the perfect sofa we have looked everywhere and did find a very nice one at Lidens but realized once we came home and started measuring up the lounge that there wasn't a chance in hell for it to fit in. Even though we used various option in building it James got it right when he asked if we wanted a lounge or a sofa. That is how imposing it would have been. So yesterday we went back to Mio here in town to have a look at a similar one but slightly smaller version of a corner sofa. But that one would have been too big as well, it would have fitted but maybe just. We were getting quite despondent at that time before we looked at another option that we are favouring at the moment, it is a wide 2,5 seater (longer then our current sofa)with a corner divan stuck on it and would fit nicely without taking over the room completely. We even took some fabric swatches with us home and James had to agree that my favorite color, a mild green, actually worked very well with the rest of our new lounge even though he protested at the start and said NO we have plenty of green (our hall and my sewing room). But we will have a bit of a think before we decide yet.
As for wallpaper, would you be surprised if we said we have actually been looking at black and grey prints? There is this collection by eco that just have the most lovely black and grey prints among other colors as well but we just fell in love with the black and grey ones. But knowing me and just how much color actually affects me I don't think I would put it in the bedroom. We looked for other options and found a very nice chocolate brown with a darker brown hazy floral print from Midbec that we are quite in agreement of. We went today to see if Falun had any better options before deciding in favor of the choco one but couldn't find any that tempted us as much. But it still is an open issue what we will have in the end.

Nostalgia

I've been reading some books that pictures Falun how it used to look like and what it looks like now. I am still very attached to that town even though we have moved and are now living in Borlange. I sometimes do wonder about the good of progress and change, at least in the way how towns change over the years Somehow I would like to smack the silly people who thought progress was to knock down charming old houses and destroy complete blocks and replace them with bunker looking complexes all in the name of progress and the future good. Borlange I think is a brilliant example of how it can go wrong. The town center looks like it is a set of concrete boxes put together, no curves, no greenery, no surprises just this grey, beige mass of concrete and glass from the seventies. No wonder people don't like to be in town and that the businesses are moving en mass to the big shopping mall Kupolen just outside the city center. But I must say that Falun did patch up a lot of the damage done by redoing lots of the buildings as to make a softer skyline.

Just as an example the house we now own is from 1925 but you really couldn't tell, that is how massive and damaging the renovation to it is. The former owners must have ripped every feature out of it because bloody eck we haven't found ONE original feature, part from the doors which I am surprised they kept. But also very pleased that they did because they will be lovely once we have stripped them of I don't know how many layers of paint and repainted them in a soft white. I am quite sure that at one point they must have had a balcony above the porch and most likely a glass veranda entrance underneath it. Also I think there must have been a wooden staircase inside even though the one in here now is made out of the much used MDF and then covered with plastic carpet (shudder).

There is quite a lot I would like to do with our house in terms of renovation and putting a bit of the features back in or at least try and give it a bit of its charm back. At some point we will renovate the bathroom/sauna/utilityroom and the kitchen. Most likely we will get rid of the sauna, I quite like saunas but haven't tried ours out because it has been packed with books and other stuff when we were doing the lounge and bedrooms upstairs. I much more prefer to have a bath tub installed and a better way of having the washing machine/dryer tower placed. The kitchen is a problem in itself as it is now since there really is only one way of having our kitchen table and we cant fit any free standing cupboards in since the walls are too narrow and you got a fire in one corner. It would be very interesting to change everything around in there and move the fire into the lounge plus put in a better fitting window where the sink is today. That's another thing that is annoying me just a bit, there are at least 6 different styles of windows in the house, somehow it makes it look lopsided. But there are good points as well with the house or else we wouldn't have bought it, but I like to dream a bit of what it can be made into. Just to ease James' worries I'd better put this disclaimer in; I am just talking out loud and not making any firm plans to do anything or all of what I have written in here. Better love..? :)

Golden Sunday

Sweden won the Olympic hockey final today over Finland, YaY to us!! Hockey is one of the few sports I do enjoy watching and it was a nail biting one as well since it was a close match from start to finish. Not to talk about the last few minutes when the Finns really were throwing everything they had against the Swedish goalie, taking out their own goalie to gain an extra player and the Swedes were diving in to stop the puck with their own bodies if anything else failed. It was really tense and people at work who snuck in to watch it on the staff room TV were shouting and jumping and then the last second ticked over and we WON!!!! Poor Susanne was sitting at the till all alone while the rest of us was shouting in the kitchen but I don't think she minded and there were hardly any customers in at all during the game anyway. Everybody was home watching it just as they have been during any other Swedish highlight or chance of a medal in the Olympics.

It's that time again.

You know, when you look around and get the urge to change everything around you?
You don't know it? Oh good for you because it is a hard bug to shake once you've attracted it. We are now getting in gear to redecorate our bedroom after having a wee bit of a rest from the stressful pre-Christmas rush getting everything nice and finished. We are starting slowly by looking at wallpaper and taking home endless amounts of catalogues and test rolls and you really don't want to know. We've gone off the idea of the one we had decided on before Christmas, partly because it will be the only thing in the house that is blueish and we don't have anything that will match it, not to mention any bedspread that will fit with it. And I have an inkling that I wont be allowed to buy yet another bedspread just because I have such wonderful puppy dog eyes when I really want something from James. He might have fallen for it earlier but he is wising up ...! It's a bit tricky this time too with a north facing window meaning not a lot of light in winter and huge white wardrobes, white floor and white newly painted ceiling. At the moment it feels a bit bleak and too white. I do like white and shades of white when seen in magazines but I don't think I'd like it so much if I had it at home. Because if I did we wouldn't have decorated the house so much since almost everything in it was white or beige to start with! I'm more of a colour girl but not bright ones since I cant stand it loud and bright everyday. So the question for the next couple of days and weeks is, which colour do we pick for our bedroom, not to mention the pattern....!

Work is as work usually is, boring but pays well. Stressful and intrigue filled as well as of late. I'm really really REALLY trying not to get sucked into all the gossip and bullshit that is flying around and just do my stuff and get out and home before anyone has the chance to start asking me what I think of this and that and have you heard of so and so... But it is hard to close your ears especially when the person talking has this loud and shrieky voice that will penetrate steel if necessary to get her point across as the one that should be heard and obeyed and oh yes we will do as you say Mrs B, not really, up yours and leave me alone is what I really want to say!

Spring is not sprung but mini springing as the snow is melting at daytime and freezing again at night time. Hopefully it is not too far away since we both are eager to get started with the garden and getting various projects going.
I've asked James if he would build me some flower boxes to hang on the side of our porch. I also want a trellis for a climber plant to grow on as to shield us from the wind on the left side of the porch. Also we have to get the rest of the boxes for the raised beds made and put in place, all fir tree branches cleared off and the freed ground surveyed to see what to make out of it. Raspberry bushes bought and planted, black currant bush moved from the allotment to a suitable place in our garden and flower beds dug in various places if there is time. Lots to do and plans to be made. All great fun eh? :)

I've cut my hair

Not just trimmed the ends a bit, oh no I have really really cut it all off... It feels weird not being able to put it up in a pony tail as I am used to doing to keep it away from my face. There wont be a pony tail for ages! But it has it advantages as well, no more frizzy hair in winter when everything is so dry you could almost touch the air inside. And at the moment all I need to do before going to work is ruffle it up a bit, add a bit of hair spray and off I go. It is also fun seeing people doing the double take when they don't recognize me at once. I got to look different if they walk past and then stop and have a second look before saying ' oh it IS you'.

We have had some cold weather for a while but now it is finally easing up a bit with warmer weather in the daytime at least. Right now it is close to 0 and the snow is melting a bit on the sunny sides but still loads of snow left since we had some more the past week. I managed to capture a sun halo with my camera when it was -20 the other day you can really see how misty and cold it is I think. Hopefully it wont be getting that cold again for a while.

A wall of snow coming down

That is what it looked like a minute ago when I glanced out the window. Here we have had absolutely perfect winter weather with up to +8 degrees for a week and now it is back to old miserable snow and cold. Sigh..

I hate to be fooled into thinking it might be getting warmer and a bit more like spring but its not spring but you could have fooled me the past couple of days! It's only February I had to remind myself over and over again. I was getting really excited about the warm weather but to no avail. Everything is once again covered in a white blanket and I'm sure it will remain so until late march if we are unlucky. Booo hiss!

Bloggers block or Just to damn tired

I've not written anything for ages partly because we have been very busy before and during Christmas and New Year as my family decided on to have the Christmas dinner at our place this year and we also had James' parents stay a week after Christmas.

And after all of that i naturally got a cold that is still lingering on and making my voice disappear. Oh joy of sitting at the till all day tomorrow trying to get my voice to make an audiable sound and not just a little huff and puff crow. I went to work on Tuesday barely being able to say hi but my boss didnt think it such a problem as to let me of till duty when i asked if he could let me off. He just asked me why i hadnt got some medicin for it. I looked quite dumbstruck asking him what sort of medicin you would take when your voice is lost and he looked even dumber when mumbling something about me sorting it out myself.. I shouldnt have gone back to work but hey you think you are being nice and loyal by going back as soon as possible since you know that they do struggle when someone is ill. That's gratitude for you!

I had a very pleasent surprise the other day when Mary phoned us to see what was wrong since I hadnt blogged for ages and James hasnt even glanced at his blog since i dont know when. We had a little talk and it was good to catch up and i seem to recall me promising to get back into blogging again so voila, here i am! Mary can work wonders you know.

But now when im here i really dont know what to blog about. Before Christmas we were so busy with redecorating, that was all that i blogged about. And i still have a few things i would like to change around the house but im in no rush really anymore and i cant bother you all about the pain of finding the right wallpaper and all that stuff again. I'll take some photos and post here to show you all the hard work we've been doing but i'll have to wait untill the batteries for the camera is charged up again. I've not touched that camera for so long it was dusty when i picked it out of my cupboard! Shame on me, shame!

It is snowing at the moment outside. We had been treated to a few days of +5 last week but it all seems to be changing again. You get that longing for spring when it does get that warm in the middle of winter, not so nice when you get blasted with -7 and a hard wind making it even colder the next day. They've promised lots of snow for tomorrow so we'll have to see if it is back to getting the snow shovel out and back into action again.

Spring... oh there is lots to do outside in the garden this year when spring has sprung and i've already bought some seeds and cant wait until it is warm enough to get them going. Got lots of ideas in my head what to do with the new space that the 3 big fir trees left us with now that they have been chopped down. Also we have to finish building the boxes for the raised beds we dug out last autumn. I dont think i'll have anything growing close to the house this year just in case we do decide on doing the Big Dig this year. Plus we had an awful lot of bindweed in that flower border and along the house itself that i'll have to spray this year in a feeble attempt to get rid of it. We got to prune the apple trees now in February/March and i'll make an attempt at getting the middle size tree a bit more even looking since it has been neglected and is growing far more at one side then the other. It looked like it would topple over last year when all the apples on one side was pulling it down, i really thought the branches would snap when we were surpised with some heavy wet snow when there still were apples left in it in late october. But it survived but i cant say that about a bush we have close to the old shop, it was looking really sad with branches cracked and all hung down by the heavy snow. i managed to keep the rest of it intact and hopefully it will grow back this summer. And hopefully our new lilac hedge will grow very well and tall this year so we can trim it and make it nice and thick.

Busy bee or lazy snail?

I'd go for the lazy snail any time, any day after this hectic month! I'm not used to a fast pace with a calendar that is fully booked with things to do and places to be at. It was fun I admit to go visit Al and her family but shopping for 6 hours straight in a very big, very crowded shop is nothing I will be doing for quite some time thank you very much!

The weekend spent in Stockholm with colleagues from work I could have given a miss. Ok, the food was excellent and the show funny enough to give me a few laughs but the rest I could have missed out on without regrets.

But the weekend in Gothenburg with James and my mum was very fun and the show wonderful and funny. The hotel was very nice and just situated outside of Liseberg, big amusement park, so we ventured into the Christmas market already on Friday night. Saturday morning was spent looking for my mum who disappeared when going down for breakfast. We had to take turns to get into he elevators and how she got the notion of trying to find the breakfast room on her own even though I told her we would be getting downstairs to the lobby as soon as we could would she please wait there for us I'll never know. When we eventually got down she had vanished and me and James went looking for her if she had gone to the lobby to sit or already gone into breakfast. But oh no, she had asked the people in the lift if they knew where breakfast was being served and they had answered the 18th floor... So off she went even though we told her to wait for us downstairs. We finally caught up with her when she was on her way down and the elevator didn't stop at her floor for whatever reason and James had just gone to have another look around the lobby area. After that she stayed close by, mainly because I threatened her with being locked in her room for the rest of the day for scooting off like that! Mums!

The evening show and Christmas buffe was very nice and boy are we glad we came a bit early seeing the queues that lined up to the food later on but by then we were already into the desert table. The show was a combination of music in Christmas boogie woogie style from Robert Wells and some fantastic magic by Joe Labero.

In other news we have repainted the kitchen to a lovely soft yellow, we've just finished laying a new floor in the lounge and have decided on what new wallpaper we are going to have in there as well. And it all has to be done before Christmas whcih we are going to celebrate HERE this year!

Fanfare!!!

In celebration of my 501st post i present

Bunny Story

A precious little girl walks into a pet shop and asks, "Excuthe me, do you have any widdle wabbits?"
The shopkeeper's heart melts, he gets down on his knees so that he's on her level, and says,
"Do you want a widdle white wabbit or a thoft, fuffy bwack wabbit, or one like that widdle bwown wabbit over there?"

The little girl blushes, rocks on her heels, puts her hands on her
knees, leans forward and whispers ...

" I don't weally fink my pet pyfon gives a phuk."

Wannabee Busy Bee?

And the race is on! This will certainly be the busiest month I've had in quite a while and it isn't Christmas yet. We've just had a lovely weekend in Stockholm as it was my birthday present from James to stay in a hotel and go to see an opera at the Royal Opera House. So that is what we did. The opera in question was Figaros wedding and we had seats high up but could see all of the stage part from an icky little bit of the left corner. It was a very nice weekend away from the normal everyday routine with lovely meals out and great big breakfast buffe and we finished it in IKEA on Sunday morning before heading back home.

Now this weekend I am working as normal but next week we are going to visit my friend Al in Gothenburg for 3 days. She has been asking us for ages to come see them and now we finally got our dates to match so we are off. And on that trip we are going to the biggest outlet store there is in Sweden called Gekas in Ullared. I think Al said it was as big as 7 football pitches and had everything in it. I'm saving my money and not buying anything until we have been there...

The week after that we are going down to Stockholm again with work to have dinner and a comedy show at Hamburger Bors. We are staying over night so all of that weekend will be spent away from home. James have plans on inviting the guys from work over and take down the partition wall in the lounge before heading out with them for a night of bowling while I'm having fun in Stockholm. Hopefully they are sober enough to take down the right wall, I know we are planning to have an extension with a conservatory attached but not yet!

For the last weekend in November we are going back to Gothenburg, spending two nights at a five star hotel and go to a Christmas show with Magic that we gave my mum as her birthday present earlier this summer. There will also be time for some shopping and possibly an evening at Lisebergs Christmas Market depending on when they are open.

Never mind that December is breathing down our neck with lots to do at work and at home. But all in all I think it will be a lovely month, hectic but lovely.

Oh, did I mention that I finished wallpapering my hobby room. It is all nice and green in there with a floral feature wall. We also found some nice wallpaper when we went to Stockholm. I am severely tempted to have it in our bedroom. A very light turquoise blue with a gold print. It is called Wisteria and is made by Nina Campbell. We also took another sample of a darker turquoise blue with gold print, they both look nice but trouble is we have absolutely nothing in blue that would match up with it. What to do, what to do...

Yippiiii!

I'm almost up to date with the dreaded To Do List! At the moment I have the tumble dryer squealing like a stuck pig downstairs drying some t-shirts I just washed. Don't ask me why it squeals. Apparently it does so in the start, or so the former owners told us, but it seems to work since I tested to dry my jacket in it when I was in a hurry the other day. I would prefer it not to squeal of course but what do you do? If I get someone to have a look at it and they charge you for shaking their head saying I might as well by a new one I will stick to the squealing thank you very much! I've done two loads of washing, cleaned the fire stove out and tested it with a small twig of wood and plenty of paper. It works, part from that the stick didn't burn, still too wet! I've also changed knobs on my desk since the other ones had one broken when we moved and it already had two odd ones in replacing others that broke.

Oh bliss, pig has gone asleep! Or at least the squealing has stopped even though it is still drying. I can now understand why she said they didn't use it much...

It has been very heavy frost here in the last couple of days so everything is looking quite limp and almost all the leaves has dropped. We did tidy most of the dead summer flowers away on Monday and dug over the flower borders, all prepared now for next years planting season. We also had the car tires changed to studded winter ones on Wednesday. Good thing we did because it was quite slippery this morning when I drove to work in heavy fog even though it still was -6 so just about everything got a nice coating of ice. Including the road. But I took it easy and no one was really in a rush, quite sensible as well since you could just see about 8-10 meters ahead of you and sometimes it just fogged in completely so you crawled at around 30km/h. But as soon as the lake Runn freezes we will be rid of this cold wet fog and by the looks of things it shouldn't be long now.

James' mum should stop reading here and hop to the next paragraph.




They are predicting the coldest winter for decades due to the Atlantic being warmer then usual and not sending the warmer westerly winds this way so we are to put up with the Siberian Express earlier and for longer and they are already scaring people that there wont be enough electricity around. If they do cut the power I want my tax money back! I am not paying tax for the pleasure of freezing my butt off!

I hope it snows soon. I just love winter and snow and now we'll have a whole yard to play in when it does start to snow. James has threatened to build us an igloo and an army of snowmen parading the backyard. Well I don't mind, I'm sure I will indulge in a few snow lanterns of my own and we are thinking of putting some lights up in the trees for Christmas. I have a little idea of having a mini Christmas tree on the porch dressed in my colorful mini lights and putting up nice white lights around the bushes where all the bird feeders are hanging. Also got to invest in a good snow shovel or two, one bigger and one smaller.

But before all that I have to start finishing my hobby room. The wallpaper has arrived and I don't know what it is keeping me from doing the plastering in there and sanding it down all ready for the paper to go on the wall. I just don't have the energy for it at the moment. Or something...

Tadaaa!

New luscious guest room completed this morning with the curtains going up and the sunscreen in place. It took all in all 4 days to do it, 2 days hanging wallpaper and 2 days for the preparations. But now it looks very nice and very...white!

This is the result for all the hard work though and I must say I am pretty pleased with myself for being able to do it mostly myself with hints and tips from Lotta and mum.

I've had a change of heart...

It is quite a radical one as well. From a nice rusty red to pale white and beige floral for a feature wall and striped one to match. But I think we'll like it for longer then the red one. I wasn't so sure when I saw the red one in the shop and I got lots of help from the staff at Flugger Färrg with different suggestions to whatIi could have instead. In the endIichickenedd out and took the sample book with me back home to see what James thought of the different options before deciding. He actually agreed with me straight away on my favorite one butIi showed him some of the other options.

This is what we are having. Went and bought it this afternoon plus everything else needed so we might start doing the room tomorrow. Depending on the weather. If it is nice we are going to help mum turn her allotment for winter and cut the grass since it is our turn in the rota. If it is pissy and rainy weather as predicted this morning in the news Lotta will be coming over to help us out with the wallpapering. Keep your fingers crossed about it being rainy! Want to get started now when we have decided.

Early bird and such..

It is still pitch black outside, James has gone off to work and I am still perky as anything! It is very weird getting up at 4 in the morning voluntarily! Don't ask me why but I just woke up when James did and thought, hmm cant be bothered to try to get to sleep again. I'm sure I will suffer later on today but at the moment I am ready to do anything. Cant really go out in the garden just yet though since I wont see a thing and I think the neighbor's will think me slightly mad if I wander around with a flashlight while weeding out summer plants and stuff.

We have plastered and prepared the guest room for wallpapering this week. Lotta came over to help me do it on Wednesday and I finished it off yesterday by sanding it down so it is all nice and smooth now. I am going to go and order the wallpaper today and I might have a change of heart in what wallpaper to use. We were thinking of having a rusty red with a medallion pattern in a deeper red but I am not sure at the moment. Will have to see if I still like the one we decided on before. Anyway, I got carte blanche by James to choose which ever one I liked instead. Dangerous that, you know, I might come home with a lovely deep lilac aubergine colour and then what would he do... ;)

At the moment it is hovering around 0 degrees outside and things are turning more and more like autumn. This is what the view out our bedroom window greets me with every morning

Lovely isn't it.
It will soon be time to plant our hedge as well. Hopefully we will get them in the next week or so depending on if it gets colder so the leaves drop. James is sawing the planks for our vegetable raised beds boxes. I think they will work very nicely with what we have planned for next year in the vegetable garden patch. Still have to decide if we are doing the big dig next year to improve the drainage around the house. I think I'll ask Rosies dad what he thinks seeing as he is in the construction business and if he knows someone who could have a look and see how serious it is. If we do the Big Dig we will probably re-do the front drive as well while we are messing about. At the moment the weeds and grass are creeping ever closer into the gravel and its just not looking nice. I thought about some sort of paving, possibly cobblestones if you can get them cheap off a reclaim yard. Lots to do and plan and think about. But first we will get the guest room done in time for James parents visit at Christmas time. We will probably take down the wall downstairs after that and lay new floor and wallpaper downstairs before they come as well. It is just a matter of cracking on when you get the time at weekends.

Season of plenty.

The only vegetable growing well in our garden are my yellow pear tomatoes. Hopefully (crossing fingers) they will still have some time to mature on the vine before the frost nights start if not they will make do with my window sill in the kitchen. It is looking very hopeful at the moment weather wise though. Something else isn't looking hopeful though, I've picked only 12 runner beans from my 6 (!) plants so as you might imagine I'm not a happy bunny. Thank the gods that mum has plenty at the allotment this year. Even though we fertilized and watered extra when it was warm and dry the beans haven't really liked it here. Possibly the soil is very poor and needs a major injection of manure/compost/extra peat next spring to be able to sustain any sort of vegetable. I've had a closer look at the soil and it seems lacking of something. It is nice and light but feels... starved, cant find any better way of explaining what I mean. The new soil we bought will boost it somewhat but I think we will be buying manure in bulk next year to get any sort of structure into it..

The flowers like it here though....

Planning the garden

It seems to be coming together bit by bit out in the garden. It's much slower inside. Still haven't decided on wallpaper for the guest room or what the new floor is going to look like downstairs but I'm sure as soon as it gets to cold to do much outside it will get into full swing inside as well.

We staked out our vegetable plot last night before it got too dark to see what you were doing. For the ones who have seen it, it is somewhere in the region of 2 allotment plots or 7x8 meters. I have a hunch James will be eager to start digging it since he was the one dragging me out late last evening to get it done. The plan is simple. A large rectangle set between our biggest apple trees divided into 6 smaller beds with walkways made out of mulch roughly 50 cm wide in between. We are going to build frames of planks so it will be a bit raised and offer an option of having a grid of plastic tubes attached on top to hold up some fleece for those early vegetables to be protected from frost in spring and late autumn. The new hedge will be delivered within the next 2 weeks so got everything ready for that. Also the Mount Everest of soil has disappeared onto some tarpoling underneath one of the big fir trees we have. Plans are taking shape as what to do after we have dug around the house for new draining and seen that done. We had thought about putting down paving around the house to minimize all the weeds that now are growing very well in the sandy gravel closest to the house. It would work out much better I think and also the rain would drain away from the house as you would tilt the paving a bit. We are almost sure of that the 3 big fir trees have to come down. Right now there is a huge amount of space in our garden that is just sitting there in shadow not doing anything really and it is a bit gloomy as well. The trees are magnificent I agree and most certainly around 80 years old or maybe more but still.. Besides, on days like this, rainy and very windy, they are a bit scary. What if they are rotten inside and give way? Not such a pleasant thought.

Other garden news, the tomatoes are finally starting to ripen and I could pick 3 (!) for our salad yesterday. They are very sweet tasting yellow pear tomatoes. But they would have done better in a green house so I don't think many of them will be able to ripen on the vine since the weather has turned most significantly more autumn like the last couple of days. Nice and sunny, warmish yes but colder at night, much colder at night. I think there must have been a slight frost because my lovely Busy Lizzie on the porch had gone all limp one morning so it was off to the compost heap with that one. The others seem alright. The apples are getting tastier according to James. Got to see what we will do with them. I cant eat them raw and James usually gets tired of them after a few weeks of apple eating. And there is just so much you can do with them part from apple pie, apple sauce, apple cake, apple strudel and then you start all over again. Wish I'd now how to do cider or at least some apple juice, but it think it would involve a press and I don't have one. Things to wish for from Santa?

Little Mount Everest

That is what we now got on the lawn after we had a truck leave 10 cubic meters of lovely garden soil. We have tried to make a dent in it dispersing it into the hedge row to be and at least it shrunk a bit. We are going to add some to our existing hedge as well since there seems to be no top soil whatsoever left in it. Not even weeds grow in it!

At the moment James is dreaming sweet dreams happily snoring away in bed but I cant get to sleep. I think that big bold full moon might have something to do with it as well. Isn't it just lovely seeing how everything turns different in moonlight? It is light enough so I can see all of the garden without any help from the front porch lamp. You can tell it's a Saturday night. Slight screeching of car tires and an occasional acceleration roar beyond the railway track, but it is very calm on our street. At the moment..

We have decided to dig a little vegetable patch anyway this autumn. I really want somewhere to grow a little bit of vegetables next year. A few bushes of tomatoes really doesn't do the trick and I doubt there will be any runner beans this year. The soil was too poor for them to grow well. They are spindly little things not even a meter high even though I did fertilize the soil before planting them. Have to see what will grow well and what don't like it at all. At the moment the summer flowers are doing very well and the rose we bought earlier is now flowering with light pink semi filled flowers. The red sunflowers are all flowering looking quite stunning and my pink Silkesblomma is lovely when the sun is out but quite boring on a cloudy day since the flowers don't seem to open up then. We got some seeds from James grandma and we did manage to set one sort of them since we got started so late. I cant remember the English name for them but in Swedish it is Indian krasse, but they are out and have started to flower and shoot of long strands which are filling up by the wall of the old shop.

I think I might have a second go at this sleeping thingy or I'll be no good tomorrow when we are going to see my sister in Ludvika. God natt.

Long time no write and all that jazz..

We have been busy elsewhere, James too even though he is permanently declared a mini zombie by me after his 3 weeks long stretch of working early mornings and not going to bed when falling asleep on the sofa. Go to bed! I say and poke him quite violently and he says, in a minute, soon, and falls happily asleep anyway half laying over me making my watching the telly very uncomfortable indeed. We definitely need a bigger sofa and a lounge to house it. Good thing we are going to knock down a wall then isn't it you think. But by the time James has mustered the courage to knock it down with me we will be old and grey, or so it feels like at the moment. It's just a wall, not a load bearing one either but a thin pathetic partition one where they thieved a bit of the lounge to make a big walk-in-closet. But I think it is the cleaning up bit afterwards that have him scared. Not cleaning cleaning, but the getting a new flooring in and wallpaper the lounge since the wallpapers didn't match in the two rooms. He wants to wait until we know what the chimney chappy is billing us for fixing our trimmings and a rain cover that looks like a hedgehog and what the ventilation chappy is billing us for coming here taking a quick look saying he cant see anything wrong and we should call him again if it starts smelling of burnt rubber from the air outlet. So we are waiting and waiting and you all know how impatient I can be at this waiting malarky don't you... *grits teeth*

Oh, pictures are coming as soon as the batteries are charged enough and I can get my head around a picture view program with tantrum troubles. It wont let me see the thumbnails of the pictures in the camera or to download them to the computer! I'll be looking for a hammer in a minute..!

Our final corner section to the new wardrobes came on friday and we have just finished putting it togheter. The last door will go on in a bit. But what a bugger it was to get in place! I hate our leaning floor by now because it didnt fit to put it togheter as it suggesteed in the manual so we had to improvise as how to do it and in which order so all pieces would line up in the end. It was a lot of huffing and puffing, swearing 'till your ears went red and an exess of banging them togheter using your feet, hands or you name it!

And now when you think that it will all fit nicely the bloody middle door hinge is one hole too high up! And yes i did measure it!!!! Calm down, breeeeaaatthh.........!

Part from all the hiccups and exsessive swearing the new wardrobes looks fantastic. Now theres just a trip left to return 2 damaged doors and get some shelfs and pull out drawers.

Sauna anybody?

It is warm and sticky outside today since there is spurts of rain in between the sunny spots. Feels like walking in an outdoor sauna when in the garden. I did bake some bread though earlier this morning when it still was cool outside, but now I don't think I want to be in the kitchen at all but got to make some dinner for James when he gets back from work in a couple of hours time.

I've had a go at carpentering today and fixed the upstairs loo door that was very tight to close. Now it works like a charm and glides close with a smooth swoosh sound instead of the crackling screech it had before. It still hasn't got a door handle though so it is still a matter of getting your finger almost caught when hooking it in the hole where the handle should be when closing the door. But once we find some nice old-fashioned door handles I think we will be replacing all of them so no point in just buying one odd one is it. There are just too many odd ones already! I am also going to start stripping the doors before it gets too cold outside. I thought I might be using paint stripper and it doesn't work so well if it is too cold. For maximum effect it needs to be above +15 and you really have to be outside since it does smell very VERY foul when gucking it about.

We are off for a quicky to IKEA tomorrow to buy a corner section and new doors for our wardrobe upstairs. We had a peek to see what make the wardrobe was because we wanted extra shelving and by luck it was from IKEA's range so we bought extra fittings and shelves the last time we went to IKEA and now we are thinking about expanding it along the wall and corner. We are aiming to empty the downstairs wardrobe so we can take down the wall and get the space back that they used from the lounge to make it in the first place. It is only 1.5 m but it will make all the difference since you will gain an extra doorway as well into the lounge.

Hopefully the man from the chimney shop will get in touch early next week so he can come measure what size our chimney is and fix the odd little jobs needed to it and also fit a slip stop for the roof ladder before we get our chimney swept this autumn. I also phoned a big garden center outside Ludvika about planting Syringa vulgaris (Bondsyren in Swedish) as a hedge and what it would cost and when the best time was to plant them. I also asked about our existing hedge towards the road that is looking very bleak and thin and it seems it is best to cut it in spring so that is what we are going to do. Planting the hedge is best to do in September though. So we have to decide what kind of Syren we are having and how many to get. You have to order in august to get them in September so got a little while yet to decide. They had 3 varieties that suited as hedges, one mixed coloured one where you get white,pink and lilac flowers, the old sort Bondsyren and a new Russian variety that had dark lilac flowers. The nice chappy recommended the Swedish Bondsyren for hedging since it grew very well and thickly so that I think is what we are going to get. The bushes cost from 200-400 kr for a bundle of 10 bushes and you would need 2-3 bushes per meter.

I also called the council to ask about putting up a fence towards the road and if there were any restrictions. Apparently you can put up a see-through-fence 110cm high without permission but if you wanted it higher and non-see-through you needed to apply for a building permission. I also asked about hedges and if we needed the neighbours consent to plant one. We only need them to agree if we want it smack on the border but we could have it well in on our yard and they would have nothing to say about it as long as it didn't grow into their yard. But considering the big stump of an old maple three that they have cut down just in the border I don't think they can argue that much. We'll just have to see. Mum has offered to come with us encase they start talking Finnish behind our backs just to listen in on what they are saying, no need in telling them she will understand is there...

I think, yes i think B,C & O is back in business.. But got to remain calm it could just be a trick of my eyes that the Blog Goddess is back and writing!

Now if only James would get his ass in gear and start writing again it would be perfect... :)

Wandering benches..

Woke up this morning at 4.30 by James saying that our two new garden benches were missing and that he found one of them all broken up a bit further up the road. I got up and went around the block to see if I could find the missing one. I asked a passing neighbour as well but he hadn't seen or heard anything even though the bench was found just outside his house. James went the other route and found the other one in one piece at the railroad crossing

I called the police later on and reported it, got to see if we get anything from our home insurance, doubt it will cover the risk though. When I was out putting the table and the rescued bench away I saw that our neighbour across the road was looking agitated and on the phone so I asked if he had something broken too last night. They'd smashed his car rear light in and he was on the phone to the police. We talked a bit while waiting for the police and while waiting our neighbour across from us came home, still drunk... He asked a bit what was going on and we said what had happened and he looked a bit blank. Bet you it was him and his friends going to a party who did the damage but was too drunk to remember, because he couldn't for the life of him remember how he ended up sleeping in a forrest 10 km from here...

Anyway, the police came round, they parked in our drive way and looked at our bench and Olle's car and walked around looking mighty important. Hopefully it made the drunken neighbour a bit nervous and that his dad had a look outside the kitchen window to see what was going on too. Whoever did it left behind an empty cart of Finnish strong beer so it is a bit touchy whether or not it was neighbour or not. We'll probably never know.

The adventures of living in a house has just started! I've calmed down now though..

Some things don't need an explanation..

This is what greets me every time I need to go and get a garden tool. And it smells absolutely divine... And on the right hand side of the door there is a small golden honeysuckle adding to the scent as well. It's not as big as the rosebush yet but give it a couple of years and it will cover the wall behind it and the doorway. I'll make sure of that!

Right now inside the old paintshop there is a very pungent smell of wood oil since we have given our patio furniture their first coat. It didn't help to have both doors open and all windows wide open, I still got a headache from the fumes.

We've celebrated midsummer here in Sweden and we had my mum and sister with bf over to stay. We had a bit of luck with the weather being very nice and warm so we did manage to have a bbq. Much laughter and a game of boule on the lawn after the bbq made the evening complete. We didn't have a midsummer pole to dance around and neither did we bother about going somewhere to have a look at one being raised. We might have one next year and I'll make sure that James does the frog dance as well! Everyone stayed the night and we had a very late night game of TP. The next day was very chilly after a early morning downpour which actually filled all the water butts! We were all very tired so we just relaxed and had a nice lunch before people started to set of back home.

And today it is back to the grindstone but somehow I don't mind anymore, because I can just leave it all back in Falun when I go home at night. It does make a difference with a bit of distance between work and home. Anyway for me and it also helps to know that I can just sit out in the garden and relax if I like when I get back home.

Some pictures from our new house and garden. These are the lovely pink roses in their new pots on the steps.

I just love these flowers. Gazanias they are called here and they only open when it is sunny.

Finaly done with the new hall downstairs and upstairs!

And this is what we are considering having on our kitchen wall, it's just a little bit of wall by the window that will have it if we decide on it.

A young brunette goes into the doctor's office and says that her body hurts wherever she touches it.
"Impossible," says the doctor.
"Show me."
She takes her finger and pushes her elbow and screams in agony. She pushes her knee and screams, pushes her ankle and screams. Everywhere she touches makes her scream.
The doctor says, "You're not really brunette are you?"
The girl says "No, I'm really a blonde".
"I thought so," the doctor says.
"You have a broken finger."

Time is a flying...

Where do the days go? I cant believe just how quickly the days have passed since we moved in with boxes, furniture and fishes. Thing is, it is only 3 weeks since we did move in and we already have some flower beds going and a bit of a vegetable patch started. Plus we have managed to almost agree on a wild kind of wallpaper for the kitchen and paint the hall a very nice shade of green. Today we went and bought some more good soil and 3 pale terracotta pots for my intense pink patio roses I bought earlier this week. They are now sitting nicely on the steps up to the front door.

I also managed to connect the water butts together with this brilliant set of tube and washers that James dad suggested we get. I still cant believe that we Swedes haven't come up with something similar so James ordered them online and had them sent to his parents and they sent them on to us. Might be a good import idea there...Hmm. I got a bit of assistance from Lotta when assembling them so if there is rain tomorrow as they predict with some thunder included we will be set with rain water in hopefully all 5 butts for another spell of nice warm summer weather as we have had for 3 days now.

I planted my beans today and put up the bean poles. All I need to do now is sow some marigolds and weed and water. Until this autumn that is. We have to see if we will get started on a bigger vegetable plot, lots of digging involved there though so we'll have to see, I would like to be able to grow potatoes at least!

I had a nice little chat to one of our neighbor's. We can call her Liz. She has lived here all her life and took over her parents house. She used to know the first people who owned this house and she could tell me quite a lot about how it used to look like before. They had big garden beds with summer flowers and vegetables in them, but they were all on the wrong side for us as we intend to dig up the lawn closer to the house rather then the old shop. They had pebble paths inbetween the beds and now I understand where all the pebbles are coming from when we have been digging up our new flower beds. She also said there used to be a one room and kitchen upstairs and that the 2 brothers lived in the house with their parents and one brothers family. It would be fun to get a hold of some pictures from how it looked like then. Maybe I'll ask our Liz nicely if she has any.

I cant believe how many shades of green there is!

We are trying to decide on a nice apple green for our hall that continues on up the steps and the landing upstairs. We contemplated lots of different colors before settling on some sort of lime green or apple green. Not knowing how many shades there were that looked nice on paper and horrible on the wall we are now into our fifth tester pot and still it doesn't feel right. Well one of the new ones we got today feels better then the darker olive green we decided on yesterday. The olive is nice in daylight but makes the hall look very dark at night time. What to do, what to do..

In other news we have finished digging two flower borders and have planted one up but got some left to do in the shady one. The tomatoes have gone in the short end where there is sun all day and they are really sprouting on now. We have also got rid of the big mound of dirt that they dug up earlier when fixing a leaking water main. We also shifted the big lilac bushes they uprooted at the same time.

We are doing a wee bit of planning for the future as well. We really do want a green house in the garden or a conservatory added onto the house and if we did the latter one we could have a patio area next to it with steps down to the garden we thought. Still have to decide where the vegetable garden is going to be dug this autumn though. I dread that because it was hard enough doing the little flower beds with all the turf that had to be removed and all the weeds that left all their roots if you weren't careful with the fork. Maybe we could have a digging party? Anyone interested?

I think I'm going to have a look if the paint has dried yet, they tend to dry darker these green ones..

So here we are then..

The new house.

And we all are a wee bit bushed really and in need of a few nights good sleep but who got the time for that when there are things to put in place and boxes to be taken out and the garden to tend to and lots and lots more stuff. We cleaned out the apartment today and took just about everything that was left there from yesterday when the big move was. We had some good weather yesterday but today just rained in really. The next adventure for us is the hunt for a new lawn mover and we will have to venture into the land of DIY at one pint or another and I'm sure it will be a fun trip but a bit scary since there is a house to tend to now a days. As soon as the weather eases off a bit I'm going to have a good poke around the garden and see what can be done in there. I'm tempted to get started but I really shouldn't until the house feels a bit more finished or at least until we have some curtains up and not a box in sight.. good thing there is some storage to tuck boxes into isn't it?

It's short and sweet today since i really am longing for bed, so tired..

4 days remaining...

The moving crew (James mum and dad) are arriving tomorrow. They will be staying until next Saturday and help us with bits and bobs and driving the van. We are getting to borrow my sisters huge Mercedes Estate as well so we'll have an extra car to take the boxes in. And boy do we need it. At the last count we did, including all the prepacked ones in the storage and the ones under our bed we are now up to 64 banana boxes filled to the rim with our home. And still we are functioning quite well without everything that is packed. It sure makes you wonder why you have so much stuff doesn't it. And perhaps if you really need everything you got as well...

12 days remaining....

Got this in my mail today and laughed at the last little paragraph, nice pun.. :o)


TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL! And YOU are one of them!
CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.


Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

14 days remaining...

Well now, it is getting closer to our moving date and i am feeling more and more drained by the day. I dont know if it just all down to stress and that my spring allergys are going in high gear but i just have NO energy at all. Dont know what to do about it either. I was home from work yesterday and slept practically all day but it only helped for a few hours this morning when i had some errands to do and visit my gran who is in hospital due to a fractured thigh bone after a nasty fall last thursday. Now i have no energy to do anything, just sit and my eyes are starting to itch and all i feel like is to go to bed! Help

21 days remaining....

Do you have a theme song or know anybody that has one? James, my sweet and funny husband has one. Its like a little fanfare and he uses it when entering a room, preparing food or any kind of action produces it now a days and all I can think about when I hear him go "Du de Dum" is .... Danger Mouse! But I'm sure its not from there but all I can think of is Danger Mouse and Penfold racing to the rescue of the world, again. LOL

22 days remaining....

New phone number and adress... check
Notice about moving sent to internet provider... check
Electricity company - chosen and informed... check
House insurance... check
Give notice to cable tv operator... check
Appartment sold.. check (big YAY)
House bought.. check (HUGE YaaaaaY)

I think that was all..? Oh i almost forgot..

Vacation planned and approved.. CHECK!

Got up early today and went to the allotment to get it prepared for sowing. We got some gravel added to our little path so it is all nice and straight. I tidied up the raspberry bushes and added onto the wicker fence I tried building last year it had sagged a bit during the winter. Some of the spring flower bulbs are coming up but nothing flowering yet but hopefully they will be soon if this nice warm weather persists. It was a lovely day with almost summer temperatures and a nice cool breeze coming from the lake Varpan. There is something very relaxing about gardening spite the hard work of turning soil and you get the extra bonus of watching all kind of little birds help themselves to whatever worms you expose while digging.

4 weeks left BTW, cant wait until we are in the new house!

I know, I know its been ages since I blogged. But there has been some developments. We did sign the contract and sent it of to the housing associating for approval earlier as I blogged about. Only thing is that it came back last week Friday saying they couldn't process it because James name was in it as well. So we did rewrite the contracts and the buyers did sign again even though I thought for a while they wouldn't, you know nerves are tense before the contract has been approved. But to our surprise James still had to sign a consent form allowing me to sell the apartment! Wouldn't it had been better if they would have agreed to the first contract?! Anyway it is all done and has been sent away again to the housing association for approval.

Right now we are in England since my maniac for a husband is going to run the London Marathon on Sunday. We went into London yesterday to pick up his running number and some other freebies that came along. After that we had a very relaxing day and visited the British Museum and did a spot of shopping as well. Cant go to London without seeing what's new in Covent Garden now can you? But did we have tired feet after all that walking, no not much..

Today is set for a spot of light shopping in Ipswich and tomorrow it is visiting day to James grandparents and other relatives. Sunday we all know what James is going to do, hopefully around 4 hours worth of it as well. On Monday I suspect I will have the pleasure of pulling said James out of bed and giggle while he descends the stairs on his bum since he will be too stiff and achy from the run to walk down it. Hopefully by Tuesday he is well enough to make the plane trip home. We might have to get him a wheelchair at the airport since it is quite a long treck out to the gates in Stansted Airport... At least the ones Ryanair uses for its Swedish flights.

Finally at home it will only be a month before we are moving!