Spice and Flu

Yes, lucky me still have a few hours before L arrives. Plenty of time! So now (instead of being a good girl) I sit here and listen to the Spice girls (very inspired by last Friday's events) on Spotify. How did I ever survive without Spotify? I'm not even bothered with their commercials (yes, I'm cheap and use the free version).

The TV news are all full of stories on the swine flu. Terrible for everyone affected of course, but other than that it doesn't really bother me. Should I be worried? Perhaps? Do I care? Certainly not! Maybe Tim is more sensible, who says that we shouldn't forget the flu in 1918 ('the Spanish flu'), when between 20 and 100 million people died. And to a certain extent I agree, but at the same time - a lot has happened in the medical area since 1918! I just cannot get around the feeling that it is a bit like the bird flu: a big hype by media, but then not actually a real threat (unless you like sucking on live chickens of course). I just can't get around the feeling that people are picturing a world like in 28 days later. Or maybe I'm just naive?

Inefficiency is my middle name

Oh, I feel so guilty today. I just cannot get anything done. One of my oldest friends, L, is coming to visit tomorrow (her poor husband being left behind, in charge of their two daughters, ha ha!), and the flat is in great need of a cleaning session. (Tim has been very busy writing his next catalogue, and I have - with that as an excuse - been out with friends rather than staying in as the good housewife I maybe should be.) Also, two articles are due soon, and I really need to get on top of that (so, not a great combination). My new Office 2007 doesn't help either - it's still quite hard to find the different features. Although I am absolutely excited to have Outlook again - Uni uses Thunderbird, which is fine but it doesn't have a built in calendar, wont accept vCards, and also wont sync with Nokia (oh, the horrors of the 21st century). Well, hopefully I should have a few hours tomorrow morning to at least make the guest bed and hoover up the worst spider hoards.

Another party

Well, aren't I popular, all of a sudden. Went to a "ladies' dinner" with the choir last night. It's an annual thing, where all the men throw a great dinner party for the ladies; so lots of singing, drinks, food and dance. This year's theme was 'folkpark' (thus bangers and mash for dinner...). Didn't really feel up for it (being tired after the previous night's adventure), and was a bit bummed that it began so early (party started at 17.30, but met up with some of the other girls at 15), but had a great time. The boys had made quite an effort, and when I left at 3 the party was still going... Unfortunately, my night bus apparently doesn't run from the same bus stop as the day bus, so I ended up having to take a taxi (Marylebone is not an area I am very familiar with, so it seemed like the better option, rather than stroll around unknown streets in the middle of the night).

It was, however, not very pleasant to get up this morning. We had choir practice at 13 today, and of the normal 30-40 people, only 10 showed up. (And we didn't sound too good.) But still managed to sing for three hours, even though it was super nice and sunny outside. It took me quite some time to get back home, because the marathon was on today, but now I'm back, and I will take a long, hot bath (and hope I don't fall asleep and drown) before I make dinner and go to bed... It has been quite a weekend. I am defintiely too old for this life!

Dressed up!

I ran around like a headless chicken yesterday, in order to try and find an outfit for the fancy dress party. Even texted the people I was going with and asking whether I actually really had to find an outfit. Well, they replied that everyone basically was going to, so I'd better. In the end - in a major fancy dress store/rental place - I decided to go for the cheap option: a Union Jack dress (think Spice girls) for the not too overly priced sum of £15! Also had to run around to find some matching stockings (the dress barely covered my bum), and finally found a pair of bright blue ones (when will I ever wear them again???) in Topshop, where I also got some bright red sparkling nail polish. Perfect!

Ran home (opted for the bus rather than the tube, since there had been problems on the Victoria line all day), but it really took for ever. Had 15 mins, so picked up the things I needed, and then left for Convent garden, where I was supposed to meet my friends. Met them, just to turn around and go straight back the tube (now that was quite a stupid detour! I thought we were having a drink or something to eat) and headed out to Canary Wharf, where they live.

We all changed into our ridiculous outfits: (the boys were knights) and I discover that the other Spice girl had the exact same dress! Oups! I am the first one to admit that she wore it a lot better than I. Also, she had the matching wig, and thus made a perfect Ginger Spice. (I was Wannabee spice - the one who never made it past the auditions...)I had a very quick dinner: one vanilla soy yogurt (yuk!). (Tip from the expert: don't combine that with beer!)

We took the tube in to town (got plenty of stares and a few comments) and to Leicester square. Went in to the club, only to realize that we were the only ones in fancy dresses!!! No one else of all the guests had bothered, and sat there in their normal little party/after work outfits! Oh, the horror! I have seldom felt so out of place! But we still managed to have a good time, and it was great to hang out with my friends from the States. I was, however, very happy to have a very long trench coat when going home...

And in fifteen minutes I am off to a party with the choir...

Updates

Thanks for the suggestions for the fancy dress party. Got another two today: Patsy from Absolutely fabulous or a tourist (which really seems like an easy way out). Will rush in to town tomorrow and see what I can find... Report will follow!

But I am quite proud at the moment - I have finally fixed my (formerly) slow laptop! After some correspondence with the computer guys at Uni, I did even more googling myself. Their responses didn't work, and I just felt that I knew more about the problem than they did. So eventually I got bored of waiting, and decided to just deal with it. Uninstalled Office, made a back up of my bloated folder, removed all files associated with Office, and then installed Office 2007. So, now I have almost 45 Gb more memory on the computer, no slow start up, no programs which want to constantly update, and the latest version of Office! (Even got Outlook again, which works nicely with my gmail. And also Publisher, which I really like. Yay!) Emailed the computer people and told them about my success. They wrote back and said they were very impressed and would add my solution to their 'solution database'. Oh yeah! I could have been an IT-guru!

Masquerade

In desperate need of ideas here. Going to a fancy dress party on Friday (I think it's St George's day), and the theme is 'reminds me of England'. I don't have much time to make a costume, or the money to buy a fancy one, so I could really use a few suggestions. The people I am going with are all American (dressed up as Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter, Ginger Spice and one of the characters from Sweeny Todd), and as I think there will be many Americans, it should probably be someone (something) that is widely known (so no obscure TV profiles). The alternatives so far: the Queen (present one), queen Victoria (now, that will need quite a dress), Vicky Pollard (from Little Britain), one of the other Spice girls, Elton John (!), English policeman ('Bobby') or school girl in uniform (not sure I want to go for that naughty look though). Any other ideas? Come on, please be creative!

Creatures = uncomforts

I am, once again, starting to freak out about all the little creatures I keep finding in the flat. The occasional spider I can live with (except for the big, fat one I found sitting next to me in the bath one morning, just after I'd had a shower - but at least that woke me up!). Also, I know that the fact that we have such a great gap under our front door brings in the occasional critter. But finding a really big woodlouse in the middle of the bathroom floor is not alright. On any level!

And then, a day later, I suspect we have textile eating moths. We have had some moth like things flying around ever since we moved here (nice, I know) but I never thought they were the bad kind, because I haven't had any problems with any of the textiles we have (especially not with the towels, and the seem to prefer hanging out in the bathroom). But last night I discovered that there were loads of little holes on my t-shirt. So, I have now been googling all morning. I'm starting to doubt that they are actually moth holes (which I guess is a good thing, but also bad because it means that it is my fat tummy that has worn it out). But googling creates another problem - I have now seen too much! And I am now awaiting the arrival of cockroaches, bedbugs and lice (but am still confident that the neighbourhood cats will keep any rats away)...

Spring is here

I am almost inclined to say that summer is here. Today, it has been 20 degrees (Celsius, that is) and sunny. I have spent the entire morning reading a good book in the sun, but now in the afternoon I am inside, working, listening to Lily Allen and drinking coffee.

Here are a few pictures from the summery garden. Enjoy!

Oh yeah!

Guess who's going to Saint Tropez this summer. And who doesn't have to pay for it. Oh yeah, sometimes life is sweet! (Or, Tim knows the right people.)

Scared

I still haven't heard from the hi tech computer guys at uni. And I am very worried to screw things up. I know I have everything I need backed up (thank heaven for external hard drives!), but still... Do I dare? We already have two half useless computers - one which has absolutely no battery life left (it doesn't work without a cable), and one in which the wireless doesn't work (don't ask me why, but it happened after we had to install a new hard drive, so it's not hard to assume it's related...) I might give it the weekend, or I might just soon go experimental...

Easter, here I come

Went to Scandinavian Kitchen today, where they sell Scandinavian food and coffee (Gevalia!) as well as an assortment of especially imported Scandinavian groceries. So today I went bananas (considering the amounts of money we spent in IKEA the other day), and bought two bottles of rather overpriced Påskmust (a Swedish seasonal soda - it's a must, ha ha!) - £ 3,25/bottle! But it is only Easter once a year, and tomorrow we're having visitors - my cousin and her boyfriend from Milan, Italy.

Friday and Sunday I will sing with the choir, but the rest of the holidays I will just relax and eat loads of yummy food - we have bought an enormous lamb steak, as well as eggs and salmon and chocolate. Easter - I'm ready!

Breakdown?

The weekend was great in many ways, but not for my poor little laptop. I've had problems with it for about a year now, and it all comes down to some problems with installing updates for Microsoft Office. And since Office is a program which you don't really want to mess around with too much (at least not while writing a phd) I have left it until now... Well, seems every time the laptop starts up these updates (14 of them!) try to install themselves - every time ending in failure. I now assume that these unsuccessful updates are stored on the computer, because the Windows Installer-folder now exceeds 44 Gb! Which, frankly, is quite big. Basically, that's more than all the normal files I have on this computer (program folder excluded). I also ran a virus scan (just in case), which showed that there were more than 7 000 000 files in that folder (and then I gave up the scanning)! No wonder it is amazingly slow, and keeps freezing. So, I have now written to the uni computer guys, asking for advice (and that is part of the problem - the computer being bought through the uni means I don't have the rights - or disks - to do everything), and bought a 1Tb external hard drive. Back up copies, here I come. And if you don't hear from me in a while, then I might just have ruined this laptop by trying to re-install everything myself...

(Pic from Wulffmorgenthaler, who are incredibly non-pc, and very funny.)

Shopping excursion

Today, I finally managed to get Tim to go with me to IKEA.* There are a few in and around London. Unfortunately, the one which is probably the closest to us (in Croydon) is not very easily accessible (as there are no tube lines going in the south, thanks to the swampy land). We have once before been to the store in Tottenham Hale, but decided to try the one in Wembley this time (both in north London). So, after a 30 minute tube ride we got off at Neasden. Well, the map wasn't exactly on our side, because there was quite a walk from the station and to the store (which was why we chose no to go to Tottenham Hale, where you have to take a shuttle bus). But we were there, so we might just as well go for it. We had the obligatory meatball lunch, and then strolled around. Got all the normal items - candles, serviettes, lightbulbs etc. My greatest buy was otherwise a great bit wok pan for the amazing price of £3! And then the food section! And this is normally the best thing about IKEA abroad - it's food heaven for an expat. We were both slightly disappointed this time though, because the food section was a lot smaller than in the other IKEA. Still, I managed to fill up a whole basket with Singoalla biscuites, dill flavoured crisps, elderberry lemonade, Swedish fish (from Malaco!), cheese (that can be sliced with a cheese slicer, yay!), Kopparberg's cider, lingoberry/cowberry jam (we got cloudberry jam last time) and other little bits and pieces. Tomorrow, I'm the one having polar bread and blueberry soup for breakfast!


*IKEA in Oslo was otherwise one of our very cheap weekend entertainments - you'd get out of town, and could buy really cheap Swedish candy and a hot dog for hardly any money. However, IKEA also represents one of the biggest arguments we've ever had. We were going to buy some storage for all the shoes in the all, and couldn't agree on which item to get. Tim famously stated that the one I preferred would make the hall claustrophobic... Anyway, after som arguing, which I of course won, we went off to pick up the storage unit - which we suddenly discovered weighed 30 kilos! So, that was our punishment for arguing in IKEA - in the three years we lived in the Oslo flat, we never had any storage for shoes...

Super Saturday!

Oh, we've had such a nice and relaxing beginning to the weekend

Yesterday, we went out for a few drinks after work with a few of Tim's colleagues. M joined us a bit later, and we went to a Chinese place for some simple (and cheap) food. Went on to a pub, where Tim - who was very tired - left us to talk about flowers and pink things and butterflies and periods and make up and all those other things we girls normally talk about.

Slept in this morning, and then went to Clapham Common (pic from Wikipedia).

Clapham is one of my new discoveries, not far from here - a 20 min walk further south. The common is, well, green and nice. There are some really nice houses around, and loads of trendy restaurants and fancy stores* and (towards Stockwell) the normal chains. We bought ourselves some sweets and drinks, and placed on in the sun in the middle of the Common. Absolutely gorgeous day - 18 degrees and sunny. Tim fell asleep on the grass, and I sat and studied the people around us. Headed back home at around five, and went upstairs, as we had been invited to dinner by our landlords. She had made some really nice slow cooked belly pork with roasted potatoes. Yummy! And then some nice wine on top, and a apple cake to end the meal. Lovely! And now we're about to watch the extended version of Alien vs. Predator...



*Among them one of the best butchers in London. It is very inspirational to look around in the shop (they really have some nice looking meats), but it's not exactly our price class. £30 for a chicken is hardly what I'm willing to spend... And, yes, I'm sure it's all locally produced, and ecological, and the chickens were happy and sang Kumbaya with the farmer - I'm still not paying that for a chicken!

Cool?

I have spent most of today surfing job ads. It is incredibly uninspiring, and quite depressing. Not that there aren't any jobs, but because I don't know what I can apply for. I have been looking more and more into general admin jobs. Today I found one ad from a 'Cool Media Company' (yes, the alarm should have gone off already there). I read on about the tasks, and what would be expected. At the end, they listed what the company wanted from the applicant: 1) Must be personable and well presented (sure, I can do that) 2) Must be confident (well, ok, on a good day) 3) Must be expert on a computer (eh? well, that's a bit vague, but no problem) and finally 4) Must be cool and funky (ah, definitely not for me then!).

Spring in London

Sometimes, life is sweet. I was quite grumpy and slightly bitter this morning - finding it hard to come back from a 'working holiday'. But right now (as I write this) I'm sitting outside in a deck chair in the garden, enjoying a big cup of coffee and the warm sun. It's funny how little things can make such a difference! Yes, there are things I occasionally think are wrong with this country, but its spring (in comparison to the Scandinavian ones - it snowed three days ago in Stockholm) definitely isn't one of them!

Locked up

Tim has forbidden me to go in to town today. In a way, that is a good excuse to walk around in sloppy sweat pants, and say that I cannot do any work because all the books I need are in the library (yeah right!). The reason for this house arrest is not because of me behaving badly (which, of course, I would never do!), but is thanks to the G20 meeting in London. Most of the demonstrations are in the financial district, but parts of the West End are also affected (where they will have protest marches etc). The Firm, Tim told me, sent out emails a few days ago warning their staff from wearing suits to work today (!), and yesterday they put up boards over their windows (and so did most of the neighbouring business)... So yes, London is prepared for a fight. While I think it is rather sweet of Tim to be so concerned about my security, it also annoys me that normal people have to take these security measurements! But based on these pictures:

(taken from www.aftonbladet.se)

and
(taken from www.svd.se)

I guess one has to. But at the same time, I just think this is such a waste of resources. 5 000 police men out today! What gives these protesters the right to take over the streets? Yes, they certainly have the right to demonstrate, but which support do they think they will gain from vandalizing banks?