New view

We didnt need an ark in the end but it was close for a while... Now we have very nice autumn weather instead. Bit warmer then usual but i think this is the new usual weather..

At the moment i am waiting for my lunch to get ready and then i am off to work my evening shift at the shop. And for once i am looking forward to go to work. It has everything to do with that we have a new boss. A Lady Boss, whos is extactly what we need at our place i think. The one we had before was a real donut, sweet and nice but bad for you.

It is also our last chance as a shop. For now it seems we have untill february next year to prove we still have it in us to keep the shop going and improve or else i think we are up for the chop. It seems at least that the new Lady Boss is doing everything she can to get us going and keeping Mr B in check and on a very short leash. Not a minute to late i might add. She is well aware of the amount of money he has squandered away on bad deals and bad pricing so this is a refreshing start and the rest of us are going around smirking at his new position at work, general cleaning and maintance...... We SO do love our new Lady Boss!

An Ark, A kingdom for an Ark?

Yes that is what we need. After a downpour of biblical proportions yesterday i think that is what our new decking is meant for, a mooring place for the boat we will be needing after todays forecasted rain. Yesterdays downpour was just a warning of what to expect and it wasnt nice. We had to go out in it and rescue our house from being surrounded by a mote from all the water gushing out from the drainpipes! We had also a little lake growing on our drive and lawn, i kid you not it was a foot deep! They had to close down all bus services in Borlänge and they closed down several roads as well since the drains couldnt keep up with the volume of water. The drain lids simply floated away south apparently...

What did i say about rain...?

It has been raining for 2 days...
Our little working gnomes haven't turned up today. Either they are busy somewhere else or they thought working in the rain wasn't such a good thing to do today and are hiding in their little gnome houses. They have started to lay down the decking and you can now appreciate it more how the finished deck will look like. I am just impatient now. Want to have it done! But cant stress it I suppose. They weren't meant to come until august anyway so anything done before then is just great!

Eh..what is that thats landed in our garden?

Yes well you see I think we might have been a tad on the cautious side when we discussed the size of our new decking and instead we went ballistic...It is HUGE! It is being constructed as I type and every time I look at it I think it must be shrinking because first when they dug all the holes for the supports it looked like we were building another house but now when the frame is up and the posts are getting there it doesn't really look that big anymore... Until you place our current patio furniture on it and then it looks like a cavernous dancehall with some kiddie furniture in it. So we have been looking at new furniture, obviously, just to make it feel smaller! We might get some this year depending on what the bank (James) says. Also I think wee need to see it completed as to understand just how much space we have.

Summer, you'd think it would be typical Swedish summer, rain, cold and more rain? But no, it is a very balmy +31, light breeze and no clouds after this mornings pitiful little attempt of ruining summer with a bit of rain. It hardly wet the ground for more then 10 minutes before it all had dried up again. Well its my weekend off so Im not complaining the least, I think James might differ but then again he is a penguin and don't approve of hot summer weather. I didn't like it before either but since I shed some weight it doesn't bother me as much and that irritates James no end since it is only him now complaining it is too warm. But I do agree there could be too much sun, we are running out of water for the garden! Well rainwater that is. Somehow I think it is such a waste using drinking water from the tap to water a garden. But don't despair they have actually predicted cooler weather with rain on Sunday onwards. Will do my vegetables some good if it did rain some more.

The garden is looking better and better. Considering we've only lived here for 4 years and all that we started with was a lawn and some apple trees I am amazed at how it looks like now.

Keep on walking

I am just back from my walk this morning. There is something very relaxing and meditative about walking. There is nothing better then walking in nature and mulling things/problems around in your head. Any problem doesn't seem nearly as bad as after you've thought about it during a walk. Me and James have our best discussions during walks. I'm sure there is some scientific explanation to it all but I don't need that to know that a walk is good for you. Not only for your health but also for your mind. I'd like to go on a hike somewhere scenic before the really warm summer sets in. Got to ask James if he wants to do something before we go visit Al in late may.

In other news:
We now got a quote from the window people or rather two, one with windows and one with just the patio door. It is scary but not too bad. We also had a third company come by early this morning to have a look. He did the quote while talking to me so we now know more about what ballpark we are talking about. This guy is a local one that the window person recommended and got in touch with for us. We still have another one coming on Monday but then that's it, we have to make a decision or else we will be really late into autumn before they can start build! At the moment it looks like any of them cant start build until mid July anyway. But it is our own fault, we started looking too late really.

Spring is sprung

Ah what a lovely day! And it is my day off as well. We've had a bit of rain during the night so the air was all fresh and lovely when I went out to pick up the newspaper. Just one of those things you realize you've missed during winter. A fresh spring morning...

Well another thing I haven't missed is just how stressful it is to hire someone to do a job for you. We've had 2 builders here to have a look and give us an estimate of how much our decking plans would cost. I am still not sure who to give it to so we've called a third company and they are coming next Monday to have a look. Also we have a man coming here today to give us an estimate about new windows and a new patio door. There is just so much to think about, what you want, when you want it, how much is the topp end cost we can afford or want to afford. But mostly, who will do a good job?

Let me introduce the contenders. First guy drew a very nice first draft on his computer when here to see what we wanted. He's now come back with a more detailed draft that we said was what we would like so he is going to come back to us this week with a quote. We can call him Baldy (because he was, completely).

Second guy is more of a jack of all trades kind of guy. He came by on Sunday and had a quick measure up and came back with an offer later on same day which we were surprised about since we thought he would be a cheaper option. Maybe he is since we haven't got any others yet to compare with. We can call him Jack.

Third guy was very VERY nice on the phone but we haven't seen him yet. But I got to say that someone who has manners over the phone has an advantage.

I hate talking to builders, plumbers or whoever who cant see past the fact that yes I am a woman and yes it is me you will have to deal with since James thinks his Swedish still is too poor for such contacts. And I will NEVER EVER hire anyone who talks past me or treats me like an imbecile just because of my gender.

I'll keep you posted.

Stalkers...

I've just learned I have a follower.... Yes I haven't been blogging much and I have recently come back to blogger after a short visit to live journal but I have just seen that I have 1 (one) follower. Thank you Eleanor for making my day :o)

At one point this blog had quite few followers but then I got slack and didn't blog much and now most of them have gone away... boohoo.. People today haven't got any staying power! They should have stayed around because I do blog, just not that often anymore... well.. not at all looking at my record of the last 2 years actually... Oh well but there might just be a change in that. Pigs can fly now cant they?

Seriously though, I once took great pleasure in blogging but there is just so much you can talk about when you are a bit limited in the language. I am playing around with the thought of writing in Swedish but then no one of my followers would understand.. erh..follower. I am actually a bit miffed I don't have more followers! Me brilliant young woman(cough yes young) deserve a wider audience then I have at the moment.

My stereo have decided to pack it in. Did you notice the very abrupt change of subjects? Cunning isn't it...Now read on. Its just been to be repaired since it stopped spinning up but the nice man at the shop said there are no replacement parts made to my kind of stereo anymore so all he could do was clean and re-oil the wheel that spins the cd and tell me that when it breaks again it will be the last of it plus he charged me 400kr for looking at it. And it just went. Sigh. I really liked my stereo. The sound was outstanding for being such a cheap one bought at half price at a sale ages ago. And now I suppose I have to look at these space machine looking things they call a stereo today. Me don't like one bit! I like sleek, clean, easy-to-use, very good sound, preferably black stereos if there is a color choice. I DO NOT like these bombastic, gadget filled, blinking both here and there for no purpose kind of stereos whit speakers the size and shape of Gods know what I have been seeing lately. I know there are my kind of stereos out there as well but usually they are way out of my price range. I am going to be grumpy for a while now. Excuse me.

Going wireless

Thanks to Jamie and a little bit of hinting from me we now have a laptop and wireless internet. We went and bought the wireless router today and Jamie started to set it up but got stuck so I helped him out with the few tweaks that was needed so now I am sitting downstairs in our lounge and blogging a bit and surfing just because I can . It is a bit of getting used to having a laptop. But I can see the appeal of being wireless compared to a stationery computer. It still feels like a toy though, the new computer that is. It is small and the keyboard is nice to type with but am not used to the cramped style of the keyboard. Not to talk about the touchpad. I am still finding it hard to make the cursor go where I want it to without opening everything it is hovering over for a bit too long.

The main reason for us going wireless is so we can get rid of the big desk we got upstairs in the little hallway where we got our stationery computer at the moment and free up some space for a nice little reading corner with an armchair a small table and lamp. If I was able to do exactly what I wanted I would take away the little closet as well and make the hall twice its size for a really nice minilounge.And put in a door where the window is now and make a balcony to sit on top of our porch which is directly under the window. But considering the amount of work to be done to do said things I don't think I can convince Jamie that this is a GOOD idea...well maybe not this year since we have decided to get our decking done this year and putting in a double door( depending on cost) from the lounge out onto the decking. We have someone coming in 2 weeks to give us an estimate of what the door would cost and as well what it would cost to replace our windows to new high spec insulating ones. That will probably be a project for next year but it is always good to know how much pain it includes when paying for it.

*cough cough cough*

Oh don't mind me, I'm just covered in grey dust from sandpapering the plastering I did earlier in the upstairs toilet. It is looking nice and smooth but will need a bit of touch up before I paint.

James surprised me the other day by suggesting we should change the carpet as well while we are doing the rest. I was genuinely shocked that it came from him but I did as I was told and went hunting for a fabulous new carpet instead of the a boring bland magnolia one that is sitting there at the moment. And of course the carpet I wanted only came in a 4 meter wide roll which is a bit unnecessary since our toilet is 1,19x1,07. So I asked if they knew anywhere else I could look as well and there was this place that was a bit further up the road that specializes in carpets and they might have off cuts as well that would fit. But when there I was lucky enough the be at the right place at the right time. You see there was a salesperson in showing the new carpet selections for this year and I asked if he had any nice ones in either white, grey or black. So he showed me a very nice one in a tile pattern in dark brow/black which I thought was nice but then he creped up behind me and showed the absolutely most wonderful new one he had just started to sell. It just said click and now we are getting one that twinkles in black. There is an optic illusion in it so it twinkles slightly when you move around looking at it. It might sound a bit tacky but it isn't actually. Its like coin size irregular flecks of glitter that are dark or muted and then shine and sparkle when you move and the light reflects differently on it.

Hopefully they can come and take the old carpet out today and do the underneath plastering because then I can paint and wallpaper this weekend before they come and put the new carpet in next week. And then its just to phone the plumber and the electrician to put the final bits in and it is done.

Spring in the air?

Currently playing Creed - Higher

I'm looking out at a wonderful sunny day where last nights snow is melting ever so slowly away. It is dripping from the roof where the sun has got to it already even though it is early morning. I've started to buy some seeds for this summers flowers and vegetables already, am getting the itch to dig and plant and see things grow and flower. I never used to look forward to spring before but now I am. I wonder if it is because I now have a garden to spend the time in and I really miss it when winter goes on too long.

I am going to get started on redecorating the little upstairs toilet. The electrician is coming later on this afternoon to have a first look and see what it is to be done. Got to phone the plumber and ask as well when he can come and get the sink and cabinet in place as well as change the piping to a nice chrome finished one to match all the new stuff that is going in. We've already decided on a wallpaper for a section and I am going to paint the other walls a soft white. The colour scheme is black and white with chrome. I like to decorate and make it look nice from ugly and scruffy. So now there is only the rest of the house to fix up...

The more it snows a tiddeli pom..

Oh yes! A lovely 30 cm of the fresh white stuff was dumped on us in the last couple of days. And now it has gone cold. Seems we are having a very normal winter this year. But I could have done without the cold though, my hands and now toes are aching even though I try to keep warm. Oh well there is always something isn't there? But never mind that now!

An old friend has re-appeared! Say hello to Mary over there in Personally Me, its been an age but we always look forward to hearing from her. I hope you are serious about taking me up on my challenge in the earlier post, but you know what you need to do... My mind boggles in excitement thinking up something to make for YOU, so go on.... put the post up!

Did I ever tell you that it is because of Mary that me and James met? Well no? It is true and she put on a very lovely party when we met at her place in Dublin for the first time. If I remember correctly it included some wild brats from Wales as well that ended up in the er the first night...

Oh I still have that video snippet you took of us all Mary... and the photos... is that enough to blackmail you into putting the post up? ;of)

Up for it? Go on, I know you want to..

The first six people to respond to this post will get something made by me. It will be about or tailored to each of those six who respond first.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. (Although let me know if you have any allergies)
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year.
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a mix CD. It may be a short work of fiction, or a poem. I may draw or paint something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal/blog as well, if you expect me to do something for you!

Idea found at Peel Me a Grape.

Happy feet Happy feet!

Yes Yes Yes!!

I am again going to see Bruce Springsteen in concert! I finaly got through and could book us some tickets for his concerts here in Sweden this summer. They sold out in 90 minutes and i just got in there in the nick of time to grab me some!!

*doing the happy feet dance*

Christmas Spirit

This years tree is a Swedish one and it was a tall one so we had to trim it a bit. But it looks very nice in all its finery. Observe the fake cotton snow... Jamie thought I was weird doing that when he saw it for the first time but it looks nice and is better to use then the fake stuff in a can...

This years gingerbread houses with chocolate snowman who is not expected to last much longer.. we do have someone who decapitated the last one I bought so he could say it was melting, melting..!

Grumble..

You know I told you last time it had snowed? Well now I am looking out at RAIN! All the lovely fluffy stuff has gone and it is now sort of barely covering the ground. They are predicting colder weather though so there still might be a chance of a white Christmas which we haven't had for some years.

Part from the weather being obnoxious everything is set and ready to go for Christmas Eve dinner with the family. I've made it easy by choosing a pre made ham instead of needing to cook the whole thing myself, all that is needed is to roast it in the oven with some sweet mustard and breadcrumbs sprinkled on top before serving and mum is doing the marinating of ribs and we are not having a big spread of dishes anyway this year so a Christmas made easy it is!

We've had a few friends over before Christmas for pressie swaps and pre holiday fun. We attempted to do marzipan gnomes and ended up doing snowmen and pigs as well that we dipped in chocolate. We had a little chocolate dipping frenzy with dried figs and strawberries wrapped in marzipan at the end. Lovely...

White Christmas..?

Currently playing Bing Crosby - Silver Bells

It has come about 15 cm of new fresh fluffy white snow. It snowed all day yesterday so now everything is perfectly coated and the sun is shining from a clear blue sky. What else could you wish for? Well maybe that my cold would go away. I've been home the last couple of days with a very thick head and nose. At least it is showing signs of clearing up. So it is back to work for me tomorrow.

I've sent Jamie off shopping for some gingerbread house dough. I spent the morning making a layout of the gingerbread house I am going to attempt to build this evening. I hope he remembers the smarties to decorate the roof with! We have a tradition of building gingerbread houses for Christmas. Mum used to make a whole village with houses in different sizes and decorate the landscape with fake snow(cotton wool)and use our plastic farm animal toys. We usually got to help out with the decorating and the icing and smarties. Somehow you ended up eating most of the smarties though..

I am really starting to get a hang of how to get a relaxed Christmas by just doing the things I really enjoy and cut out most of the must-do's that really no one needs or miss if they are not there or done. It is mainly in your head actually these must-do's. I did a bit of decorating yesterday when I was home from work and it is now looking Christmassy in the Last residence. Only thing missing is the Christmas tree which we will probably get sometime next week. I've also sorted through the decorations, did that actually last year, so now I only got the stuff up that I like (Jamie don't mind whatever is up as long as it isn't too tacky..)We have hyacinths blooming and spreading their lovely scent all over the house. My deep red Amaryllis is just starting to open and we got Christmas lights wrapped around the 2 small conifers beside the front porch.

Ahhh sigh...now for a lovely cup of tea with some honey for my sore throat.

The more it snows a tiddeli pom..

Currently listening to Joan Baez - Sweet Sir Galahad

It is snowing. Gentle little fleks falling. I love snow. We went up to celebrate my sister on her 40th birthday this past weekend and it snowed all day so we had perfect snowmen snow. So of course we went out and made a snowman that ended up looking like Mickey Mouse for some unknown reason.I tried to ambush Jamie when he came out to help with the snowmouse but he was already prepared and had four snowballs at the ready against my only one. I also made a snowlantern that we had lit all evening. It was a very relaxing day with lots of good food and laughter. Just as life should be.

Big turned little

So we have finally done the Big Dig. Well it turned out to be a small dig actually since they encountered problems when digging and thought it safer not to dig around whole of the house foundation and rather just do the bit where the cellar is, we got a quarter cellar where there has been an old boiler, heater which is very damp indeed. So it is all sorted and the bill came this morning i think because i saw it on the kitchen table and by the size of it it seems like the small dig was almost as expensive as the big dig!

Oh well it is done now so we can pay it off and start to think about what is next to do to the house. Highest on my list is decking around the house including putting in a door from the lounge out onto said decking. But at the top of the list is also redecorating the shower room/utility room where we have a sauna we never use taking up a lot of space and fix/decorate the upstairs toilet and the downstairs toilet. After that i suppose there is the kitchen to think about. It never ends does it?

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..!