Yes, as the title says: we are now back to reality. And that with a bang! Landed late Sunday night, after having had an amazing last week. Swedish summer at its best. 25-30 degrees Celsius every day, and 22 in the water.
Went on small excursions, went fishing (both with fishing rods and with net. I was good at throwing with the rod - too good, actually. One hook got caught on a rock, and we managed to tear of the fishing line. I was secretly happy it wasn't a big pike ['gädda'] though. The net was more rewarding: we got 3 fishes to keep [two flounders, and one silvery big thing, 'Sik' in Swedish, which created a whole bunch of jokes from Tim, e.g. "did he wear a turban?"]. 6 fishes were too small, and were thrown back in, although one of them immediately jumped back into the net, so, 9 or 10 fishes all in all. We had a bet going, and I'm sorry to say my pessimistic guess of 4 did not make me a winner. The lucky winner was my uncle, who guessed on 8.)
Other than that, we mostly relaxed. Were good one day, and assembled a cupboard for the summer house, in midst Tim almost fainted, and had to go and see a doctor. (Something wrong, but not wrong enough, with his ear. It'll go away on its own.) So, we are back to Tim always being sick on holidays! (Israel being the exception to the rule.)
Going back to work on Monday was really depressing, but at least we got the moving boxes delivered. Today we started packing... It is hell! We managed to move with only 18 boxes from Norway, but we seem to have accumulated loads of stuff this last year. We ordered 24 boxes from the removal firm, and, well, it does not seem to be enough. The main problem, of course, is all the books. Filling just the bottom of a box with books makes it too heavy for anything else to go in. In Norway, this was no problem. The removal firm we hired there definitely had no health and safety regulations for the cheap Polish guys they used. Our boxes were twice as full. Now, no box is allowed to weigh more than 20 kg. So we pack, and then unpack, then repack, then unpack etc. etc. etc... First priority tomorrow morning is to try and get hold of book boxes. I wish I could say we have a clever back up plan, but we really don't...
Back to reality
Roller coaster
Today has been a real roller coaster. Extreme happiness, and then amazingly down. Tim has been just the same. Good news about my PhD – will not have to write the paper on grammaticalization, which I thought I had to in order to hand in. My colleague handed in today – very happy for him, but also depressed that it wasn’t me.
We spent quite a bit of the day finding a recipe and then shopping for tonight’s dinner. Made ‘pink ladies’ before dinner (mainly white rum and cranberry juice), with grilled pita bread, hummus, ‘aubergine mash’ (inspired by our trip to Israel) and olive tapenade. Then chilli marinated grilled chicken, with an amazing sauce with lime and sambal oelek.
Had to drive to Oxelösund for the shopping. I am really tired of the car now. Well, the car itself is quite all right (a Saab 9000?), especially after my parents fixed the ac. But there’s no radio and no CD-player, and as previous stated, I really prefer driving with music on. Driving down from Stockholm to the summer house, I had to sing to myself to get some music. However, I couldn’t really think of any songs that I knew. Aimed for some old style jazz/easy listening. Wanted to sing ‘Fly me to the moon’, but couldn’t even remember which song it was, only that it was something to do with ‘moon’. So started singing ‘Blue moon’ instead – problem being, I only knew those two words. Gave up. In the end, starting to sing ‘Happy birthday’ just because it was the only song I could think of.
The really bad news of the day is that my camera has died!!! Well, it was actually the lens, and not the camera house. To begin with, it was really hard to zoom in and out with the lens, but when removing it from the camera house, it refused to work completely, and there is now something loose inside it. Aaaah! I am so frustrated. Especially since Tim had just showed me a perfect butterfly bush, which we apparently have in the garden. Well, at least managed to take a few photos first… [And here, I tried to insert a few pretty pictures, but the amazingly slow internet connection we have in the cabin cannot take it.]
This has really been a great bug year. Not so many mosquitoes (or they have stopped liking me), but loads of flies and wasps. Luckily, my uncle has an illegal electric bug killer. It is shaped as a tennis racquet, which electrocutes the bugs. The voltage is apparently not allowed in this country, but it was bought in Thailand, so oh well. Tim loves ‘the toy’! And today I was grateful that he does, since we found the biggest flying thing I have ever seen. It was the size of my thumb, I swear. My mum argues that it was a hornet, but Tim claims it was just a weird form of fly. Whatever it was, I am more than happy to see it dead. Some parts of nature should never come inside…
Last week of holiday
So, it's our last week of this summer holiday, and it feels quite stressful. Wish we had more time for most things: more time to relax, more time to work (nothing new there, ha ha!), more time to spend with friends and family, more time to ourselves. More of everything, basically. These last few days have been very summery, though, which is really nice. Last week's rain didn't do much for our holiday mood. (Oh, how Swedish of me - to discuss the weather. According to Tim, the weather is one of two safe topics for conversation - the other one being dinner!)
Tim has been good, and has proof read most of his book. I have been less good, and has barely looked at my documents. I have, however, solved a load of crossword puzzles, which I claim is very good for my written Swedish - at least I'd like to think so... The last few days have also been spent in the company of friends with babies - and poor Tim has done his best to remind me of how stinky, noisy, messy etc. babies are. Ha ha! (And it is worth to note that Tim is a lot better with kids than I ever will be - well, I guess he can relate to it - being one himself!)
We are now in the summer house, together with my parents and my aunt and uncle. The have a dinner order, which means that each family takes care of the dinner every other night. Tim, the fool, suggested tonight that WE should cook tomorrow, being part of the household and all! Well, I should be fair and maybe mention that it was originally my idea - but the thought was that we would think of something to cook first. Now, we are really stuck, having promised four people to serve something really amazing tomorrow night... One of our (very few) specialities is lasagna, but both mum and uncle wont eat pasta, so such much for that. If I know us right, tomorrow will largely be spent hunting for recipies, and then panicking when we can't think of anything. Tomorrow night could be a very interesting evening...
Summer holiday - mid report
So, half of our summer holiday has now passed. It has been eventful, to say the least. I really don't know where the days have gone, but we sure haven't been lazy. Met several friends in and around Stockholm (and had a well deserved hair cut, thank you Lisen!), including Lena, who had come with her kids all the way from Puyallup, Washington.
Picked Tim up on the Friday, and then drove to the island where my parents have their summer house. It rained! (So much that I had to stop the car in a panic, since I couldn't work out how to get the wind screen wipers to work on max - very embarrassing!) It was great to see Tim again, although he still had not really landed mentally - it would take him a few days to relax from work.
Saturday, my darling parents had planned a surprise birthday party for me. Unfortunately (or luckily for me, whichever) one of my cousins had managed to say a little too much, and I had already worked out what was going on (which I found quite convenient, because then I could dress up a bit and put on makeup, something I would normally never do when just relaxing in the summer house). I did not, however, know who would be coming, and it was great to see everyone who turned up, although I hardly had time to talk to them all. The biggest surprise was to see one of my oldest friends, who I hadn't spoken to for years. Tobias and Lisen and baby Vera spent the night, and chilled out the day after. Tim, my niece Felicia and I had the first swim of the year. It was absolutely freezing!
On the Monday we drove down south, to meet one of my cousins and his family, who were out with the boat. We swapped the car for the boat, and then sailed off. Five days at sea followed. Tight, no personal space, sunny (got, as I do every time I'm sailing, terribly burnt), rainy, ran out of bread the last day, but also very nice, and good to spend some time with the family (without computers, TVs or anything). It was, however, also very nice to come back to a hot shower (jumping in and out of ice cold sea water just isn't the same) and a proper toilet (with privacy!)...
Today, we swapped back - car for boat, and headed back. Mum and dad stayed at the summer house, while I drove Tim and Felicia to Stockholm. This weekend will be spent seeing some more people (I am, after all, not the only one to become old this year). I am looking forward to seeing everyone we haven't seen yet, as well as having some 'us time'.
Report from the mother country
Oh, I can hear the echo in here... Sorry about that. Being back in Sweden has, as always, been rather chaotic.
Spent the first few days with mum, dad, sister and niece in Göteborg. Forced the rest of the family to take a small detour through Vadstena on the way there, so that I could have a look at the birgittine museum there. They even had a few manuscripts on loan. Very nice! (I could tell the others couldn't care less, but I was really excited. Rather pathetic, come think of it!) Amusement park and museum and good food on the west coast, and then the rest of the week in Stockholm.
I've tried to see as many old friends as possible, and have done a fairly good job. Many of them I had not seen in over a year and a half (I didn't meet up with anyone when we were here at new year's, and I was not back at all last summer), so there was a lot of catching up to do.
I did try to be good as well, and brought the laptop (oh, I can't wait for the day that the laptop wont be my number one accessory), but efficient working time so far? Well, probably not more than 30 minutes.
Tomorrow I'm off early to Skavsta/Nyköping, to pick up Tim (the cheapo-airlines of course never flies to central Stockholm). Then on to the summer house, where we probably will spend the rest of the holiday (although the promise of a friend's birthday party might bring us back for a day or two). It's a bit frightening to be driving again (but very excited that I managed to fill up the gas in the car - for the first time in four years?), especially since someone has removed the aerial so there's no radio. I always, always drive with the radio on. I need music to be able to drive properly. I did try singing to myself when driving to the gas station earlier today, but it just wasn't the same... Luckily, I have bought two new (well, to me at least) CDs, so I hope that at least one of them is good...!
I'm now really looking forward to getting out to the summer house. Tim will sleep and fish, I will play with my new camera (birthday gift from mum and dad - also, Tim's mum, who's a photographer has promised to give me a few lessons later on. Sweet!).
Will try and write a few updates. (And if it rains, there will probably not be anything else to do.)
Nice day
I had a really great birthday (and I normally don't like birthdays) yesterday. Got lots of phone calls, messages and emails. Thank you! It was really nice to have a relaxed day. Went to the library, of course, but had a long lunch (with dessert!) and stopped caring about not being finished. Took the bus back to Waterloo at eight, and as I was sitting there, going over Waterloo bridge, looking at the setting sun playing over the Houses of Parliament, it didn't matter that I don't have my PhD yet, no kids and no job. I am quite happy anyway. And sweet, sweet Tim took me to dinner at a rather fancy place and made the staff sing for me (ha ha ha!). Came back home and opened the cards that had arrived, and the gift from my family (a camera, so there'll be plenty more photos coming up here in the future). I was all smiles! I think I could get used to being twenty-ten.
Tonight I am finally off to Sweden. Can hardly wait!