Florida Photos

Florida

Happy 2008

Christmas and New Years 2007 Washington and New York

Back in London and back to work... as I predicted the xmas holidays passed by way too fast to make a difference to my motivation at work. So far I can blame my sleepiness on the jetlag but what do I do on Monday?? Well, I could join a gym and lay off anything toxic until my birthday! But at work the only thing to keep me awake is coffee or time off. So there goes the "detox" haha!

Anyway, had a great time in Washington DC with Matt, Tim, Laura, Glenn and Kate + afghans and a cat. Did the usual stuff, opened presents, ate and drank a lot, played some pool, did some sightseeing and a lot of shopping at the mall.

In New York there was only time for a few minutes of sightseeing. Glenn and Matt went sightseeing by night so us girls went sightseeing by day, catching the Empire State building before the 2hr+ queue set in. I wasn't so lucky with the Ellis Island ferry as the queue stretched through the whole park by the time Matt and I made it down there. So instead I saw the Statue of Liberty from land rather than by boat! There's always next time!

We also spent New Year's on Times Square and met loads of people from Sheffield, England and Canada. Kate and I tried to see the rehearsal of the ball drop but nothing was happening at the promised noon drop so we went to Planet Hollywood for lunch and cocktails. Matt and I had dinner at Red Lobster... well I finished my whole mega seafood plate while Matt mostly watched his ;) mmm to think of all that lobster and crab and garlic prawns go to waste!

New Year's Eve we spent in a club, it took us a good hour to get 2 blocks across Times Square - we ended up taking a taxi 10 blocks up to Central Park, walked 5 long blocks down to the other side to catch a taxi back 10 blocks to get to the night club where we had a table and champagne reserved for us. The hip-hop dj "forgot" to do a countdown for us at midnight but we had our glasses ready and cheered away. Thank goodness there was no auld lang syne singing this year!

Matt's finally back in London with my new ipod touch, wohoo! It's time to fire it up now. Wish me luck in my "detox" for the next 3 weeks! Click here for photos

It's xmas time again!

Ice-skating Kew December 2007

Not that it really feels all that xmassy yet! We've got a xmas tree in the lounge and some xmas lights up but so far I haven't managed to get into the xmassy spirit yet.

Last week us Swedo's, an Aussie and a couple of Frenchies went ice-skating in Kew Gardens and afterwards we had a lot of mulled wine, gingerbread biscuits and lussekatter as we do every year thanks to my organising everybody and Erika doing the baking ;) My organisational skills weren't on top this year though since I forgot to bring the e-ticket for the ice-skating! Oh well, 45mins later we were in and with our "skates" on that were the most uncomfortable things you could dream of putting on your feet! I would gladly wear high heels all day than those things. Which means I need to dig out my old skates from the basement somewhere in Sweden or buy a new pair... hmm very tempting but there's no-where to skate here for free or for less than £10 so I might have to dig my old ones out and get them sharpened :)

My next skating opportunity will be in New York. Matt and I are flying out to Washington DC to spend xmas with his Dad and Laura. Glenn and Kate are joining us on Boxing Day and then we're off to New York on the 29th to spend New Years on Time Square. So maybe this year we'll even get some real snow! I'm really excited and can't wait to see New York as I've never been there before. And I have to break my tradition of celebrating a Swedish xmas in London :)

My other news is that Matt and I have moved to a big house in Ealing, sharing with Lisa and Damon and Ben. We also have a nice big garden so I'm looking forward to spring-time when we can start having a proper Aussie "barbie" and some "bevvies" - that's BBQ and drinks for those of you who don't speak Australian :)

Anyway, time to go downstairs for an afternoon of football, Man U - Liverpool and then Arsenal - Chelsea, wohoo!

More rain in London

And the rainy season continues.... No need for summer clothes this year, the autumn holidays to the sun are going to be seriously booked up soon by the sun-desperate flooded Brits! Will definitely have to plan at least 2 weeks in a place where the sun is guaranteed as have spent the last few months in more or less wintery conditions.

But on Sunday Nathalie and Christian and I had a perfect day out at the Lovebox London Weekender festival in London. A very daring thing to do but we had not even a drop of rain all day and I actually look a bit tanned now :) So we spent the day lounging around with drinks and food and enjoying Nouvelle Vague, Tinirawen, Hot Chip, The Rapture, B 52s and a fantastic set by Groove Armada.

Let's hope we have the same luck in August when Matt and I are going to the V festival with some friends! I better buy some rubber boots as insurance. Took a spare set of clothes, a rain jacket, and an umbrella to Lovebox and what happens, no rain ;)

Matt is finally back in London tomorrow after only getting his passport and visa back on Tuesday this week. I've been pestering anybody with some spare time to take me out and so far I've been to Jenny's Super Hero house party, a couple of nights at the Redback with Lisa and Kirst and a couple of scrummy dinners at Nathalie's.

Mum is also in London visiting since yesterday and last week Erika came back from her holiday with her parents in tow, along with a kitchen table, chairs and great-looking new shelves for the lounge built by her dad. So it's all full house everywhere now :) All we have to do is finish up the flat, order the last bits of furniture and move in properly!

Back in rainy old London again

I'm slowly getting over my "jetlag" and I'm taking it easy this week to make sure the sore throat I picked up in Sydney goes away for good! My second week in Australia was spent with a whole lot of animals, we had pets running up and down the bed, the cat seemingly happy to keep me awake all night by purring in my face.

Since Hunter Valley was still more or less flooded and the wine tours only running on Sundays during most of winter, we drove up to Nelson Bay to catch one of the many whale-watching boats. The wind was quite brisk so we decided the best chance of avoiding sea sickness was to have a proper aussie burger meal first while admiring the view of the bay.

Our boat left the dock more or less empty so we had the place to ourselves and plenty of deck space to be blown about on. We finally spotted 3 whales and 2 dolphins that kept swimming parallel to the boat for quite a while so the captain decided to come back in a bit early as we were a bit frost-bitten towards the end!

On Thursday it was time to head back to Sydney to see some of Matt's friends for a few drinks. My Sydney mission was to eat sushi and thai so Matt took me to a fantastic thai restaurant in Newtown where you get to sit on cushions on the floor. We ordered more than we could really eat but couldn't finish until it was all gone!

As we hadn't had quite enough of fish Matt and I went to the aquarium in Darling Harbour and the new wildlife zoo thingy next door. We've now got a hundred or so photos of animals we'll never look at again haha.

The flight back was ok, after 5 gruelling hours at Sydney airport, BA let me on their flight to Bangkok so I was a bit "worried" I would get stuck there for days as it's the worst airport to travel stand-by from normally. But I rushed off the flight, collected my bag and managed to check-in on the next flight so my dream of spending the night at BKK airport was sadly just a dream.

Arriving to London on a rainy Sunday morning I texted Erika so that we could meet for breakfast at Heathrow before she flew off to Sweden on holiday. We basically drank coffee in the queue for security before her coffee cup was whisked away by the guard. Perhaps we shouldn't have annoyed them when everyone was on high alert...

Thanks to the coffee I couldn't manage a nap before I met Chris, Jen and Nath at the pub for a drink and a few games of pool to fight my jetlag and make sure I didn't fall asleep too early. What better way than to persuade Jen and Nath to take me dancing for a couple of hours at the Reddie ;)

To the other side of the world

We're back in Raymond Terrace after a few days queueing at airports and filling in hundreds of landing/leaving/quarantine cards... I bet the ones who land without a passport and illegally try to smuggle an apple actually are dealt with faster than the 100m queues the people with correct documents and no food hidden away in their bags get to suffer.

We just managed to check in on time for the last flight to Auckland on the longest night of the year (who wants another summer solstice anyway) after a free king prawn lunch courtesy of the cashier at woolies.

Jodi met us at the airport and as we landed so late went straight to Jodi's house for a night cap and a long sleep. Well, a long sleep for me, Matt is still on 2 time zones and gets up really early, any time from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. while I don't mind sleeping 12 hours in one stretch. Hey, I'm on holiday :)

We started with a fantastic lunch at a Belgian restaurant, then went for a few spins on the pokeys at the casino where Matt won $40 to spend on more free prawns at the Japanese Daikoko restaurant where the chef thrilled us with his teppanyaki skills. Sadly we saw no Swedish wierdos celebrating anything in particular though.


Saturday it was time to queue our way back to Sydney and the Central coast where we stayed with Matt's friend Marko and his girlfriend in Woy Woy. We hit the pub where I got to try my first barramundi fish, yum. However, the entertainment factor was not at its best so we took a taxi to a waterside club in Gosford where we spent the night trying to convince the dj to play some real rock and not the 80s/90s stuff. As you might've guessed, he wasn't inclined to switch music just because I was Swedish... well you gotta try :)

Yesterday Marko and Jess took us to a fantastic cafe who serves the best breakfast in the world. Cheap and plentiful and most of all worthy of a couple of michelins! A few hours later it was time to drive ourselves back to Raymond Terrace to meet Matt's mum and youngest brother who are back from their week in Brisbane.

Hong Kong to Raymond Terrace

Hey dudes,

after a long flight delay from Heathrow, well the usual 2hr delay anyway, Matt and I touched down in Hong Kong a bit too late to try the next flight to Sydney so we left our bags at the airport and went to Hong Kong for the day. After no sleep on our Qantas flight (we were trying to watch as many films as possible) we were pretty much too tired to do anything but to go for a short wander uphill to the free Hong Kong zoo and botanical gardens in the muggy 30-degree heat. After a couple of photos we made our way back to Soho for a drink and a bite to eat, reading the local news paper and waiting for our flight. We were given seats straight away on Virgin Atlantic but I didn't enjoy this flight much as I was too tired to really explore their excellent entertainment system and the seats were getting very uncomfortable after 3hrs.

Arriving in Sydney we took the train straight to Newcastle where we stopped at the local pub for some games of pool while waiting for the bus to take us to Raymond Terrace. We were starting to feel the strain of travelling for near enough 48hrs with little sleep so I went straight to bed for a nap, then we were off to the local social club to play pokeys and make sure we didn't fall asleep too early...

Today we've been to Newcastle to check out their latest tourist attraction, the beached tanker below, quite a site that was! And for more excitement Matt bought the latest Queens of the Stone Age cd, cool stuff :)

Holiday time

We're finally off to Australia tomorrow all going well with our stand-by flights. We'll hopefully catch the connecting flight immediately out of Hong Kong and land in Sydney on Sunday night so that we can go straight to bed and wake up without a jetlag :)



To start off the holiday feeling I took half-day off work to pack and put all the stuff back in my room as it now has paint on all the walls... but pulled paint of the ceiling instead so I have another couple of large paintjobs left to do before I can say my room is approaching completion.



And last night a few of us went to a music festival in Hyde Park to watch the White Stripes and Queen's of the Stone Age, which were 2 top bands and performances. Sadly the evening was over all too quickly!

Another weekend in Brighton

Just back from another weekend in Brighton, drove down with Matt, Armel and Sara to meet Helena, Marja and Mette. I got to test my newest toy, TomTom which did its best to let us avoid the traffic on the M23 and lead us on a country route past horse shows and Lewes, not bad ;)

We started by touring the Palace Pier, then had our drink at Fortune of War that started our evening off. Unfortunately we all decided to stuff ourselves silly at a small Japanese cafe so we were too full to do anything after that really. Helena had kindly got us 5 a 3 bed room where the beds were about 70cm wide... we went to bed, Matt and I decided that putting 2 duvets on the floor would save us falling off the bed all night and all slept quite comfortably... until the other hotel guests got home from their respective stag and hen nights out and proceeded to loudly party all night until it was breakfast time. Only when they left around 8.30 was it quiet again. So for £20 each we had the luxury of not sleeping for the night.

After a night like this we treated ourselves to an English breakfast by the sea, then Matt and I did our required game of crazy golf.... which I won by 10 points or so thanks to great 1hr night's sleep ;)

The rest of the day we spent on the beach or shopping in the lanes but disappointingly the girl who sells millions of silver rings was not there this weekend so I didn't get to spend any money on any bling. So there's nothing better than crashing with an ice cream on the beach!

Svenska Flaggans Dag 6 Juni

It's Sweden's national day today so celebrate now with cake and general flag-waving, wohoo!

Morden Hall Park

 

Enjoyed a cycle ride during the week through Morden Hall Park next door to where we live in Wimbledon, an absolutely gorgeous park! Looks just like Oxford. Too bad the weather this weekend turned so crap, it's 12C and raining and it's end of May and 3 days ago it was summer, sunny and 25C. It's so great living in Britain sometimes ;)

Stereophonics

So...

it's been a month since my last posting, my time does fly ;) The latest news is that I've bought a pink car, a 1.2l Vauxhall/Opel Corsa from 2001! Picked it up a week ago and it runs very nicely, if only I could drive it properly haha. But thanks to London traffic I'll be an experienced driver in no time! Uh huh, you're still wondering about the color of the car... well it's not exactly pink pink, more of a metallic dark salmon or pinkish brick so it's a bit orangey rather than candy pink. Otherwise I don't think I would have bought it ;) Anyway, found a picture on the web of a similar one:



Matt and I had the most terrible time trying to find me a car, though. I trawled through autotrader and gumtree and phoned all the cars in the right price-range, size and such but by the time we'd arranged to see it, the car would have been sold, sometimes within minutes. The market here is mad! We had even put £50 deposit on a car that turned out a previous owner still owed money on it and it had been a write-off in Nov06 so it was a no-no.

Anyway, the reason I've decided to drive a car around London is that I thought I'd improve my journey to and from work and it looks like I'll cut down my commute by 1 hour a day which is a result. So far it's been taking almost 4hrs a day commuting so anything to reduce that is more than welcome!

On Saturday Matt, me and the gang are heading up to Blackpool for the weekend. It's Lisa's birthday on Friday and her favorite band, Stereophonics, is playing on Saturday so Kirst managed to get us all tickets. I've never been to Blackpool and can't wait to see the concert so it should be well cool :)

Otherwise the flat is improving slowly, bought Erika a heatgun so she can burn off the paint off our skirting boards while I try and sort my room out. Was supposed to be more or less finished in time for my mum's London visit tonight but thanks to a leak my efforts were put on hold and I've only just managed to paint the ceiling once last weekend... Anyway, will give it another go next weekend so should see a big improvement then ;) Have to do my skirting boards as well, all in good time.

Until next time, hope you're all well,

xx

 

Saturday night at Nathalie's enjoying a fantastic BBQ before she moves down to Kew and we have to do it all again in her new garden.

Another leaving-do

So today we had Mounira's leaving-lunch at an amazing spot not far from work but you could be fooled and think we were far far away from Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport!

Food was your standard pub grub but not too pricey considering the location ;)

Just had to take this photo of Matt yesterday morning soaking up the sun ;)

Summer's here!

Easter break in Bournemouth checking out their beach and pier but I'd say Brighton wins hands down on this point... why would anyone wanna take home tons of sand when they could lie on rock-hard pebbles ;) anyway, had a great couple of days out in the sunshine doing the typical English weekend away from London.

My "boring" accounting team at work

Photos from skiing in Val d'Aosta Feb07

Italy Feb 2007

Hi guys, have just posted my photos from our ski trip to Val d'Aosta. Please note I'm still waiting to get Maggan's photos as she always takes more photos than me ;) Click on the photo above to get to the web album!

V Festival 2007

Wohoo!

I managed to get 2 tickets for the 2-day V Festival 2007 in August. Didn't think I would get through but thanks to being home sick from work I got through a couple of hours later when everybody else had either got their tickets or given up ;)

I'm most looking forward to seeing the Killers who are one of my favorite bands. And tomorrow night we're going to see the Kaiser Chiefs at Shepherds Bush. Can't wait! And on Sunday Matt and I went to Koko's to see an Australian band called the Howling Bells, a really cool band reminiscent of Cranberries.

I still have no photos to show you as I've lent out my camera but will hopefully update my photos with my last trip to Val D'Aosta in Italy where Maggan and I went to stay at my old colleague's B&B for a spot of skiing and lots of pasta, pizza, gorgonzola and red wine. We had an absolute magnificent time!

And if you've forgotten already, Erika and I moved to our new flat end of January so we are now living in a nice dusty bunker-like place without curtains, not quite the latest trend so we will be finishing the living room asap, a bit more sanding and filling and then some painting. It would help if we didn't work full time and I wasn't getting sick all the time but hopefully it should be done by the end of March, including Erika's room.

Will have to take it easy this weekend though as been struck down with a virus for the last few weeks and that won't go away. Now at home with a really sore throat so probably have tonsillitis or something similar. Now facing the usual dilemma whether I'm well enough to work or sick enough to stay at home tomorrow as well...

anyway, time to go for now

xx

Another Album Chart Show

Last night I joined the gang for another session at Koko's in Camden for the Album Chart Show recording. This time we got to see the Magic Numbers, 1990's, The View and Bloc Party. It was good but Kaiser Chiefs are still my favorites :)

Now we are hoping to get tickets for my birthday too as there is nothing on next week. It's a great Monday night out as tickets are free and with the move I won't be planning anything special for my birthday anyway! Let's just hope the move is finished before then coz it's really started to drag on a bit too long now... we were hoping to finish everything today but we are still waiting for papers to back and forth between the solicitors. Now it looks like we're lucky to get it done by Friday next week!

We have started packing but it's difficult to book any moving company and self-drive vans are so expensive! Well the real problem is the weekend opening times of car companies, they close at 13.00 on Sats and are closed on Sundays... aaargh!

Another Great Concert

On Monday night we had free audience tickets for the recording of the Album Chart Show. The best thing is that the Kaiser Chiefs were playing and they have been one of my favorite bands for the last couple of years. Their new album is out in March so this was a nice preview! They played 3 songs from their new album which sounded great and then they did a mini concert just for us which was fantastic!

There were 3 other bands playing we never heard of before. The first guy was really cool and very glittery but we don't really know what he's called so will have to record the show to find out and of course to see if we can spot us in the audience!

Now I'm hoping to get free audience tickets for the Brit Awards and other cool shows, cross your fingers! I can't wait for the next concert now!

It's 2007 guys!

Happy New Year

2007

I hope you all celebrated the end of 2006 in style, I certainly did! After catching a couple of hours of sleep, it was time to drag myself out of bed and go back to London Heathrow to check in for our KLM flight. Christian and I got on without any problems as KLM decided to fly us on a huge Boeing 737 with as many seats per person as you could ever wish for! Jasper picked us up from Schipol and we arrived to a large 2 p.m. breakfast at the house. The others decided that it was time for an excursion to downtown Amsterdam while I decided to stay behind with Olivia and take a well-needed nap. Unfortuntaly for Olivia, little Julie was not as sleepy as me ;)

When I dragged myself out of bed for the second time that day I helped Olivia prepare the spread for the party and play with Julie while waiting for the others to get back. We had so much yummie food to eat we were completely stuffed by the time the guests arrived :)

At midnight we went out to experience a proper Dutch NYE which meant trying to kill your neighbours with rocket-propelled grenades... or whatever you use nowadays. There were so many fireworks everywhere we thought we were in the middle of a war zone but it was soo cool! One of our rockets fell over and because of all the wind there were fireworks going off everywhere, underneath the cars, at us etc. We had to run back indoors not to lose all our limbs haha. But then indoors we also had a chocolate fountain so we weren't too worried about missing the rest of the fireworks.

So I hope Olivia had an excellent party celebrating her 30th birthday as we really enjoyed ourselves. I also hope you will all have a great year and don't forget that life's a party!

xxx

Merry Xmas everybody!

I've finally managed to get to Stockholm after another great Xmas at home in London. On Xmas Eve Victoria cooked us traditional Swedish smörgåsbord dinner at home consisting of herring, salmon, ham and meatballs, incl. "Dopp i Grytan" or dripping... yum! Even our 2 English guests Claire and Alex were impressed by our food I think, things always get a bit blurry after a few snapses ;)

On Xmas Day I was invited to a traditional Aussie Xmas at Lisa's and Damo's place in Acton. Lisa cooked us a fantastic roast dinner with a 6.2kg ham and a 3.something roastbeef so we were very well fed. We stayed around all night for drinks and then I managed to actually get to the airport on Boxing Day even though I did miss my intended flight as Matt wasn't awake enough to locate the car keys amongst all the Xmas presents ;)

Having a nice time in Stockholm catching up with mum, Kalle and Iris the cat. Also hitting the shops for the Xmas sales today and tomorrow! Then it's time to go back to London for a quick change of clothes before Christian and I are off to Amsterdam for Olivia's 30th birthday and NYE.

Xmas plans

Hi,

We've had a great couple of pre-xmas weeks going to Xmas parties and xmas shopping with Erika and Christian even though I'm not buying or receiving any this year... well ok, a couple maybe ;) We have been to two xmas parties at work, (as usual only Christian wins airline tickets!) and we have also had time for a few of our own, the last one arranged at the Harcourt Arms, a Swedo-Anglo pub opposite the Swedish Church in Marylebone. The Swedish Church choir were doing a Lucia so we had some glögg and enjoyed the singing.

I took yesterday and today off work so that I could fly to Stockholm for the holidays ahead of the big 'rush hour' at Heathrow airport but the weather had other plans. We've had thick fog covering England since Tuesday so of course we get tons of flight cancellations and delays, which meant that my slim chances of travelling stand-by are kinda less than slim now.

So yesterday Christian (who is also stuck in London for xmas due to no passport) and I went to IKEA to stock up on some essentials and of course for lunch consisting of meat balls, potato, gravy and lingonberry jam. Christian and Victoria already have a xmas eve celebration planned for Sunday night so we'll see if I get to spend another xmas eve in the comfort of my own home or if I will be stuck at the airport and missing the xmas lunch on Sunday in Stockholm...

When we got back it seemed a shame that we haven't yet got around to buying a xmas tree so off we go to the market. They only had ugly ones left so no luck but maybe today they have better ones! So to celebrate having a day off work we went in search of a pub with a pool table and we found a great one with good music and I managed to beat Christian a few times even though he plays every week and I play once a year ;) But boy do I need practise... am not playing anywhere near my best!

After a cider or two we decided that the fire place at the Atlas was the place to be and as luck was having it, there was a free table right next to the fireplace! We had great pasta, another drink and then home to watch a great Swedish film Erika got for her birthday, called "Slim Susie." It's a bit scary to imagine that Swedish small-town people actually are like the people in the film... says Miss big city girl ;)

Until next time, have fun preparing the last bits for Xmas!

More Birthday Wishes

Happy Birthday James

21 December 2006

Hope you have a great birthday, love from London

XFMs Winter Wonderland

I'm so happy coz last night I managed to score a ticket for tonight's XFMs charity event in aid of Shelter where some of my favorite bands are playing at Brixton Academy: Kasabian, The Kooks, The Feeling, The Automatic, Boy Kill Boy, Captain. Doors open at 5.30 p.m. so we should get at least 1/2 hr from each band! How could I say no to such an evening!

Birthday Wishes

HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY CAROLINE

03 December 2006

Bestest birthday wishes from London ;)

Nearing the end and approaching new beginnings

It's turned December 1 so Christmas has officially started here in the UK. We're looking forward to dusting off the xmas decorations and buying a huge xmas tree again. Tomorrow we are having our first glögg of the year and of course we've got Blossa vinglögg, the best and the yummiest one!

We also have 2 xmas parties to go to so I've bought 2 new outfits as they were an absolute bargain! Our first xmas party is on Thursday night in Soho so looking forward to dancing the night away with a lot of people I never see otherwise from my old office. Then next Friday the big party is held in Pinewood studios so I'm expecting to be whisked off by Daniel Craig in a Bond suit! Always lots of champagne, wine and good food to make the evening even better ;)

Lot's of things are changing here in time for 2007. Ludovic is moving from our house to his own studio flat, so a friend of a friend from Sweden is moving in today :)

Then for some bigger news: Last week Erika and I took the plunge and without much ado put an offer on a flat and it's now in the process of being purchased! We're crossing our fingers that we get to sign contracts before xmas, that would take a whole load off our minds and let us celebrate this season in style! It also means that we have a lot of work ahead of us next year when it comes to house-decorating etc but hopefully we'll get there in the end and can relax and watch our new investment grow! So any donations towards new paint and bathroom gratefully accepted!

It also means that I'm absolutely on rock-bottom financially so this xmas will be spent window-shopping and dreaming of nice birthday gifts instead... maybe that DULUX paint in #0012 colour would do me nicely, haha!

But I won't give away too many details of our new purchase before we know more and we've signed that contract and been approved for a mortgage so we can pay for it all! In the meantime I'm losing lots of sleep for no reason so was kept in bed all week by a nasty case of tonsillitis that almost killed me. Then my recovery was as quick as snapping my fingers! Virus puzzle me sometimes, how you can feel so sick one day and 2 days later like you've never been sick at all!

So now I'm party party party girl again but without any distraction to keep my mind off things which I desperately need now...

Thames Festival, 17 Sept 06

Jodi and I at the Queen's Head 

Late autumn sunshine, Kensington Gardens, 29 Oct 06 

T-shirts from shop David and Goliath, Covent Garden, Oct 06 

Notre Dame, Paris

Notre Dame, Paris, Thursday 26 October
I thought I would post a photo or two from the last couple of weeks as I haven't posted any lately :) Had a great time in Paris last week even though I had the flu throughout... this time we stayed at the Citadines aparthotel near Moulin Rouge which meant I had a studio flat to myself with a small kitchen with a tiny dish washer. There was even a stereo in the room, fantastic! So I went to the cinema 2 nights in a row so I wouldn't start hating my hotel room, there's only so much you can take of French TV and a tiny dish washer!

While I was outside the cinema trying to decide what film I wanted to see and trying to make sure it was in English, an old French lady gives me a left-over ticket to the film The Perfume which made me love Paris even more. So after the free film I treated myself to a nutella and banana crèpe (has to be done). The night after I saw the film I was intending to see, The Children of Men with Clive Owen and Juliane Moore. Good but strange films, I'm still dying to see the Departed, though, since everyone says it's a very good movie!

Thursday night I decided to ignore my flu and go down town with 2 colleagues so we ended up window shopping in Les Halles, then walked past Notre Dame and ended up in Qartier Latin for som cheese fondue and wine. It's great when the company pays for dinner ;) I was so inspired by the French that I cooked duck breast for some friends last night with mashed potato and honey glazed carrots and mushrooms... and more red wine of course!

Happy Halloween

Hi there,

I don't see me posting anything this week so thought I may as well wish you happy pumpkins a great All Hallows Eve. Us? Well we'll be hiding from the neighbourhood's kids and trick or treating as it isn't an English tradition and ASBOs here think that throwing eggs and flour constitutes proper Halloween behaviour. So Erika and I have decided to spend Tuesday night at the local pub. We don't really need an excuse but the last couple of weeks have been slow as we've been feeling under the weather so now's as good time as any to spend all night at the Atlas eating well! Then on Wednesday we're watching Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas! Well, if our visitors from Copenhagen want to :)

Otherwise the flat we viewed in Streatham isn't a realistic option as the outer wall seems to have a major problem. The estate agent keeps claiming there is nothing structurally wrong with the place, but why then is there a long crack running down the whole outer wall and the main bedroom window frame top bit is sagging and the plaster has come off the wall and ceiling! Hmm... then the agent says there might be dry rot! That's building cancer for those uninitiated, so would then mean costing more than a few hundred pounds to fix as you would have to replace half an outer wall and window! So we're back to checking new areas we could see ourselves living in or nearby but hopefully this week our mortgage broker will get us a good Mortgage in Principal so we know how much we can spend...

Wish us luck and watch out for those spider webs on Tuesday!

Happy Diwali!

The morning started with a Happy Diwali message from Niina. As usual this brings nostalgia as I moved to England around Diwali and one of my first experiences of my new life was to share the Hindu festival of light with Niina and her hubbie Niel + family with all the indian stuff that goes with it, food, drink and fireworks a la Hounslow!

Since then Diwali has always held a special to my heart (what's there not to like?) and by chance Erika and I went to south London today to look at potential properties, stumbling into the first estate agent we see in Tooting Bec. There was no-one in the office but we didn't leave straight away and out comes a sweet Indian lady from the back to take our details. We wished her Happy Diwali and she goes back to get us some traditional Indian sweets, had a lovely one with chocolate, mmmm. She (and not forgetting Niina) gave us luck for the rest of the day and we met some really funny and nice estate agents and got some helpful advice from all around. We ended up in Tooting Broadway which is just like a "Little India" and much more vibrant and exciting than Wembley, Southall and Hounslow. We like the area so much we don't mind looking for a flat nearby as you get all the Indian shops and markets and yummy authentic food that would cost more than your shirt in other posher parts of London!

So when you can't afford posh, go multi-culti and opt for the mixed areas where you get strong influences from around the world, rather than your bog standard British cloned high street and Starbuckified suburbs of London/UK.

So Happy Diwali again and may your year be just as prosperous just it promises to be for Erika and I :) xxxx

End of October? Autumn?

Hi all,

was still munching on fresh strawberries yesterday and you can still sit outside during the day and enjoy the warm sunshine! You wouldn't think it's soon Halloween! This is apparently ta record summer in Britain and no-one's complaining as no-one wants to pay for gas and turn on the central heating...

Latest news is that Erika and I are looking to buy a flat so if any of you want to donate £100.000 in cash I will gladly email you my account details :) The house market here is so fast we risk being priced out before we arrange a viewing with an estate agent! Or maybe you could play the lottery for us! Some good news is that my bank has finally considered me worthy of a credit card! Without one you can never get a good credit rating here in the UK and the only way is by having lots of credit that you've paid off. So I will have to go shopping and then refund everything again just to build my rating haha. If I up my rating I can then be offered a better mortgage with a lower interest rate. It's all terribly exciting business, really.

Unfortunately I have next week off as I'm going back to Paris for some more training but this time I'll be coming straight back home so we can continue looking at potential properties!

Otherwise I'm terribly busy as my social life has picked up tremendously this year, no point in planning a quiet weekend this side of xmas anyway... tonight Smari is coming back to London after moving to Iceland for 2 whole weeks (they're a bit mad those Icelandic people) so he's promised to cook us an authentic Icelandic lamb dish tomorrow night, yum yum. Next weekend we have a couple from Copenhagen visiting us and when they're gone my mum and MaryLou will drop by for a few days. And then it's the lead up to xmas so there'll be no saving money either, aaargh! We did say NO MORE VISITORS haha... A friend of a friend has moved here from Sweden so I'm also trying to fit her in out busy lives so last Friday we went out for an all-nighter at a local pub/club :)

Otherwise my new job is still going well, haven't picked up everything yet but it's easier than I thought even though I've never trained in accounts... but the requirements for this job is a brain rather than qualifications so I hope my blond hair will not be my downfall ;) But it feels godd to be able to say that I'm responsible over the UK banking for an international company! Though, let's not forget my very knowledgable colleagues who have accountancy diplomas that I have to fall back on when I'm having my blond moments.

Tonight I'm going to a comedy club so the weekend should start off with some laughs, even though I'm feeling a bit fluey and under the weather... But I've got lost of vitamin C at home, Cranberry juice, 3 pomegranates and red grapes. But I don't know how to tackle my pomegranates, the last one I ate took me 2 hrs to get through. What am I doing wrong!?

Happy Pumpkin week everybody

xx c

p.s. several English people have claimed in the last couple of weeks that I sound English... wahay, I have finally integrated! They don't believe me when I tell them I'm Swedish haha!

Strawberries

Right now I'm sitting at my desk at work munching on fresh strawberries... who said it's autumn :)

Anyway,

A BIIIIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BIRTHDAY GIRLS:

My mum

Kristine

05-Oct-06

Sara

06-Oct-06

Jodi

10-Oct-06