Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts

Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside

We spent the weekend in Weymouth. T’s (half)brother Simon is currently working in Saudi, but was back for his once every three months visit. Simon had brought his family down to his father’s place in Weymouth, so we joined them there. It was an amazing weekend.


We barbequed on the water front. Made hot dogs and marshmallows. 





We went badger hunting. Water pooling (one crab). Fishing (no luck).  


We drank G&Ts in the garden. Watched the Olympics - women’s finals in sailing. 


We got sunburnt. Little H got a lot of fresh seaside air. I got to sleep in both days. (And wonderful T took the night shifts). I got a gift from one of my sweet nephews. 


We went for long walks. Swam in the sea. Ate local ice cream. Had fish and chips in the harbour. 


It was a really great weekend! Had almost forgotten how much I love the sea.

And I'm back!

Having left this poor blog on its own for 22 months (!), it is quite strange to be back. A lot has (not  unsurprisingly) happened in that time - I finally got a (relevant) job. Moved back to Sweden - in with my parents (now, that alone is worth a medal). Moved twice more to flats that I sub-let. At the same time I somehow still had my life in London. T stayed behind in our old flat, fighting his own battle. Admittedly, I has been a very tough time for both of us, for different personal reasons. But we are out on the other side, stronger and with a new member on the team. In May I gave birth to T junior, more commonly know as baby H.

So, for now we are all back in London. We have moved again - I refused to have a baby in that old flat (see old post on a certain rat...). We are further out from the centre (the fact that our street address has the word 'village' in it should be a clue), but it is green and leafy and baby friendly (though I feel far from one of the many yummy-mummies that populate the neighbourhood). I'll be home from work for the next year, looking after baby H. (I had some vague idea of finishing off some articles during this time, but considering how little time I have to myself at the moment that seems like pretty unlikely. I'm still impressed by people who claim that having a baby has made them much more time efficient. Hell no! It has just taking me from being lazy to making me completely inefficient.) Sunny days are spent in the park, rainy ones (which so far has been most of them) in front of the tellie, watching old seasons of Glee. Occasionally H allows me to pick up my Kindle (love, love, love!) for a few minutes, where I for the last six months have been trying to get through Karl Ove Knausgård's "Min Kamp 1" (in Norwegian, of course). A story, which so far (two thirds in) is a good, but not captivating read (therefore the long time). Hopefully, I will from now on be able to fill some of these baby free gaps with new blog posts. Fingers crossed!

Smell?

I was just about to write a half funny post about the funky smell in our bathroom, and then whinge about English houses. I was then going to joke about how we probably have a dead rat under our bath tub. This is no longer necessary, as it is no longer funny. We have just discovered the said dead rat under the bath. It is beyond horrific! I have the bravest and best husband on the planet (though I might have to be reminded of that at some point in the future), as he is now in there, trying to dig it out from between the boards. I am sitting as far as way as possible, no longer hungry...

...and Tim just ran past in order to get a big gulp from our whiskey jar.

Is there something wrong with me?

It's not even October, and I am already sleeping under double duvets. This morning, even Tim woke up cold and had to switch on the heating. Tonight I see English women walk around town in sleeveless dresses and flip flops. I am shopping for woolly sweaters. There is something wrong with this picture...
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A new pet?

Morning conversation:

Tim - I woke up in the middle of the night by the weirdest noise. I was convinced there was a parrot in the bedroom!
Me - Oh?
Tim - Yeah, so I held my breath to listen for him, but couldn't hear anything strange. But then I started breathing again, and realised that it was just something in my nose that made the noise.


And he wonders why I complain about his snoring?

Things we...

laugh at at the moment:


I don't know. We might just be really weird people...?

The black box

Posh, middle aged, female friend of ours:
- I have an emergency box in case there is a nuclear explosion.
- Oh, what's in it?
- Mineral water and foie gras.

Not that I knew that there is an immediate nuclear threat, but I guess anything goes in an emergency.

A runner

We are having friends of mine visiting this weekend, so there is an obvious need for cleaning the flat. I was sorting papers on the floor (horrible, horrible carpet!), when I saw something strange.

- Tiiiiim, is this a spider or a flower? [Please, God, let it be some funky kind of plant! I'll swear I'll go to church more often.]
- Eh, you want me to say flower, right?
- Yes!
- Eh, yeah, it's a, eh, flower.
- Nooo, it's a dead spider.
- Oh no, it's just the skin of a spider. But don't worry. It is from the running kind, so he won't be in here any more.

Wrong answer! And not comforting! Especially not since I store all my underwear in a bag under the bed...

Storage

After spending three days in bed with a super cold, Tim and I got serioudly bored of doing absolutely nothing in front of the telly. So we, or Tim rather, started a major project - doing something about 'the book situation'.

Both of us have many, many books, and together, well, it's a fairly impressive collection. (I, admittedly, owning more fictional literature, Tim having more on the ancient Greeks and Romans.) Problem, of course, being storage. (And let's not get into how to organize them - my books, his books, mutual books? Who uses one more? By theme? By size? By author?) We only have three bookcases. One being our own (which works partly as a glass cabinet for fancy chrystal glasses), the other two are the cheapest piece of crap imaginable - a basic wooden structure with no back and no sides. They are in fact so unstable that Tim has had to use his belt to tie them together, in order for them not to fall over. Additionally, we have a damp problem in that room, so nothing is allowed to touch the walls!

As we have started to acquire more and more - gifts, purchases, extra copies of our publications, the situation has become quite chaotic, to say the least. Come new solution! We have now moved a small half hight bookcase from the bedroom to a previously unused corner of the living room. (Where we had the Christmas tree last year, and which has until now been used to dump mostly crap in, since we shut off the door in that corner of the room.) It actually created quite a little nice reading corner (minus good reading lamp), and looks quite nice. We are still double stacking all of our books, but at least we're down to only one pile of the floor, rather than piles everywhere. The only problem now, is what to do with the clothes that used to be kept in that bookcase? We have basically moved the issue of storage from one type of object to another - we now store our clothes in piles on the bedroom floor. I fear we might not make it to an IKEA any time soon...

You know it is going to be a good day...

...when you arrive late to the BL, but manage to find the only empty locker. And then discover that someone has already put a coin in it. Yes, jackpot! (Should I be brave enough to buy a lottery ticket? Or maybe that is pushing your luck?!)

Happy anniversary

Today is our fifth wedding anniversary. Time has truly flown by, although it sometimes feels like yesterday. At the same time, I cannot remember life before us.

In honour of the big day Tim has given me a new super hero name: I am now Tabasco kid! Complementing him as Tiujana Tim. I whinged a bit, thinking I came off with a pretty crappy super hero name (how would I fight anyway? Throwing Tabasco at people?), so I was upgraded (?) to Ipanema Ingela. (*sound of whip*)
So, Tim has since walked round singing Girl from Ipanema, and other evergreens. Who said marriage is boring?

Happy anniversary, sugar. You make my life an adventure!

Time to celebrate

Happy birthday, mum. And happy nameday to grandma and me!

I remember clearly the first time I had a nameday after getting together with Tim:
Me (fishing for something) -It's my nameday today. Shouldn't you do or say anything?
Tim (confused) -Eh, happy nameday?
Me (honest) -Thanks!
Tim (still confused) -So, what is a nameday anyway? Is it like a birthday?
Me (a bit distant) -Yeah, exactly like a birthday.
Tim (worried) - So, you get like presents and stuff?
Me (unfortunately sounding surprised) -Presents? Yeah, eh... sure!

I'm sorry to say that Tim didn't buy it. And I still only have one birthday, instead of four... Bummer!

Pink

I think I have already posted a picture of this (last year), but I just cannot get enough of these trees. They make the entrance to our normally pretty crappy basement flat seem like heaven!



I cannot say it enough (especially not after the horrendous winter of this year) - England has some lovely seasons and really great whether (believe it or not!). It's not even May, and I am already enjoying sitting in garden in only shorts and t-shirt. (Having said that, I'll bet the summer will rain away...)

Home?

Today, for probably the first time, I actually recognised someone by the tube station. Yes, of course there's the absolutely ancient crooked lady, the guitar playing hobo and the aggressive dwarf (very short person/midget/vertically challenged man/whatever) who usually hang around the area (Tim's first encounter with the latter was when he was trying to find shelter from a rain storm, and headed for one of the phone booths, only to be met by said dwarf who was having a pee in there. I think that pretty much sums up the kind of person we are talking about.)

But it feels a little bit like this is home, when you actually recognise some other people in the neighbourhood. Or have I come to that stage in life when I have seen all faces, and they all start to blend into one?

Happy Skärstordag!

Comfort

Tim travels quite a bit, which is nice on those days when you fancy watching chick flicks, eating popcorn for dinner and having the bed to yourself. But it is, of course, less nice all the other days.

But then there are those little things which makes it a bit easier. Like being given a box of chocolates from Beligum.

They are made with love. Aaaah.... (Obviously only bought because Tim was a road trip with his boss, and she made him, but still!) And who can resist that, then the box contains lovely little pieces like this one:

Diamonds might be a girl's best friend, but coffee and chocolate are pretty close to the top too.

Just add to the burden

I am panicking quite badly. This is the most stressful week in a long time (or at least since my last deadline, or possibly my doctoral defence). I am finishing a post doc application, a job application, a serious task for a job interview, a book review and two (long overdue) articles. So, I am trying to calm down by listening to Comforting sounds, by Mew. It is for some reason a strangely comforting song. And I am such a sucker for songs that build up to a massive string crescendo!

Itsy bitsy...

While Scandinavia is suffering from a serious cold, and is buried under tons of snow* we are moving toward a new spider season. Last night, as we were on our way to bed, Tim suddenly told me not to go in to the bedroom. Did I obey him? Of course I didn't! But he had discovered a wolf spider. My hero managed to trap it under a glass (yes, he is far too nice - I would have crushed under a book/newspaper/whatever was close and handy**) and get it out. But I seriously freaked out! Tim tried to calm me down, by saying that at least I didn't have to worry about being bitten. Wrong thing to say - at least when the emphasis is on 'you' rather than 'bitten'. I.e. he normally gets bitten by them. This was followed by a story of how he just to be bitten as a kid, and I remembered the HUGE one I once saw back in Gloucestershire (too big to fit under a glass!), and Tim tried to calm me down again by telling me about all the beasts his Aussie mate was bitten by as a kid. Not helpful! I will from now on sleep on the sofa and never enter the bedroom again...

*While this seems to annoy all my scandi friends and family who desperately long for some sun and spring - suckers! - it has actually spiced up my life. 1) I get to feel like a live in the tropics (one can always dream) and in a very civilized country that has (at least for the moment) working public transport. 2) Mum has changed her normal topic of conversation from "What did you have for dinner? We had..." to "You will not believe how long it took me to get in to/home from work today" and "We have had to shovel snow xx times today". Variation is a blessing!

**Yes, once in my youth I trapped an enormous bug in the middle of a library book. I never finished reading it (or opened it), but returned the book the following day. I still feel just a little bit bad about it.

Please call more often

*ring, ring*

-Hello?
-Good afternoon. Is doctor B there?
-Which one?

Hahahahaha! Oh, that feels good. (And this, folks, is probably the only use I will ever get of that title, so I am bloody well going to enjoy it!)

Mail

I got a package in the post yesterday. Or rather, our lazy postman couldn't be bothered to ring the doorbell (I was at home!), so he just left me a note telling me to come to the post office to pick it up. (Which, fair enough, isn't too much of a task - the pick up point is literally only two blocks away.)

Getting a package in the mail is very exciting (I live a rather dull life, alright), and I had wondered about what it was. The only thing I could think of was a book I am about to review (for the Medieval Sermon Studies), and I was amazed by how fast the Danish post must be, since it had only been sent 24 hours earlier. But no, apparently the Danes are just as slow as the rest of the European postal workers. It was the latest issue of Tatler, too big for the mail box thanks to an enormous ad campaign by Burberry. Some of you might find it a bit odd that I subscribe to Tatler, and indeed it is not what I consider the best magazine on earth. But, there was an offer I couldn't refuse - 12 issues for the reasonable prize of £25, and two free products from Benefit Cosmetics. Yay! (Ok, I confess, I only wanted the make up - I love Benefit. The magazine was just an extra ... eh ... benefit.) But this means I get Tatler sent home once a month. I haven't really had the time to read the previous issue yet, but something tells me it is not really my kind of mag. I think they aim for a group of people to which I definitely do not belong. Just looking through the ads makes me absolutely convinced: any magazine which includes advertisements (all from Linley) for a keyring in walnut (for £80), a cutting board in walnut (for £250 - it's a cutting board, for God's sake!), or a monopoly set in leather and ebony (for the humble price of £5,395) is certainly not for me. Oh well, I guess I just have to spend the next 11 months looking at the pictures and waiting for the day I become a lotto millionaire.

Rainy day

Today's super plan was to bring my laptop to the nearest Starbuck's (where is that? Victoria? Waterloo?) and sit and feel city cool, and drink one of their new Christmas lattes, and possibly work a bit. But it is pissing down outside. So instead I am at home, drinking a home made Caramel cappuccino - hoping that last year's Christmas Nespresso is still ok (surely it must be - there can't really be a best before date on coffee, can there?). Also looking out the window, hoping that the grey-brownish thing right outside is two snails mating, and not a big cat turd (or fox? When is mating season for snails, anyway?). Admittedly, not as city chic as I had pictured...