acquisitions

I recently acquired a purple cardigan. It was from the 'lost and found' box at my local dancing hall. Everything that had been left behind and not reclaimed in 2011 was left in boxes for people to sort through, find their own stuff, or claim stuff that they wanted. I don't normally wear purple of this hue, or cardigans buttoned up. But I am very much enjoying this one.

In other news, baby type person is growing astoundingly quickly. I am once again blond, having bowed to Swedish peer pressure. I have decided that I don't hate pumpkin anymore, so long as it's not great hunks of it. More to come.

Of bread

So I was reading over at soozs about baking no knead bread in a dutch oven, cue laughter, and was inspired. I've always enjoyed baking and really wanted to bake some more bread. We have fortunately inherited from some dear friends all of their kitchen wares which include a cast iron pot with lid that is perfect for the task of making this no knead bread. I've made several lots so far and have found it to be delicious and crusty and all things wonderful. Please see below for take 2 of the bread.



We have friends coming for lunch tomorrow who we haven't seen since October last year. They moved to Oxford so that M could study and have only got back recently. I've decided to make a double batch of the dough tonight and see how we go tomorrow. Crossed fingers and toes here that it'll be as tasty as the previous loaves and perhaps even better because there is more of it.

Anyway, I should go and do that starter dough now before it gets much later. I've finished pumping some milk for the wee one, ready to go in the fridge for tomorrow's consumption. So all that is left to do is to get the dough ready, brush my teeth and fall into bed. I live in hope that I will be able to sleep from midnight-ish until 5 or 6am without a break. I very much doubt, however, that this will happen. The small one enjoys a 3.30am feed recently, and if not a feed, certainly enjoys stirring as though she's going to wake properly. She makes just enough noise to make me think she's going to wake fully and get her some food organised, before settling back to sleep. Sneaky monkey.

Long time no write

So it's been a long time between posts. I don't even remember what the last thing I wrote was, so I'm just going to start writing whatever I like and those who read this (hi Mum, wise old aunt and husband!) will probably know half if not all of what has been going on in any case.

Today, the smallest one and I went to a friend's house in Mölndal for fika. We were offered rhubarb pie with vanilla sauce, coffee and soda water. It was delightful. It was one of those lovely summer days in Sweden that is much nicer than you could possibly imagine. Something like that anyway. The sun was shining, there were a few clouds in the sky and there was a light breeze. Comfortable to sit in the sun or shade and just relax. Not humid, like previous days this summer have been. Lovely.

We got to meet my friend's newest addition to the family and show off the smallest one to her. The new baby S, has lots of hair and looks like she'll end up a redhead. She mostly slept and ate, but finished up with a giant poo, just as we were leaving. The smallest one was exceptionally well behaved, having a feed, a nappy change, a bit of a play with the newest addition to the family, Sophie the giraffe (see below) and then fell asleep in the sling before we raced off to the bus stop to start the long journey home. We also got to play with E the 2 year old who is currently being toilet trained to greater or lesser success. She had an accident on the deck and spent the rest of the visit underpantsless telling us about her trip to the park recently.

No crafty adventures to speak of here at the moment, apart from a half finished sock for a friend and some facewashers that I knitted for a new baby, but failed to photograph. Will try and post more regularly here, if only for my own records of the smallest one's achievements and development.

Skill that is currently favoured by her is grabbing her feet and sucking on her right big toe. I am reminded of Fergie every time she does it. I'm not sure that's a good thing.

news and happenings in the world of Kate part 1

So, I haven't posted on here for about a million years. Life gets in the way of blogging. Life and facenerd. I think I spend so much of my time on telling people what I've been doing there that I forget about the good old blog.

In recent news, I have turned 30, found out that my PhD thesis sat in Canberra in an office for 4 months instead of being sent to my examiners, moved apartment and started to appreciate the Swedish summer with all the light that it brings.

For my 30th birthday the boy and I travelled to Oslo to celebrate. Much the same as we did the year before. We stayed in a lovely hotel, walking distance from the center of town. I was suffering from terrible hayfever that I believed was actually a head cold, so much of the trip was spent sleeping. I find hayfever absolutely exhausting for some reason. Pollen is evil and should be banned.

But the good thing about all the pollen I guess, is that it means that the flowers are blossoming and spring/summer is here. It's outrageously beautiful and transformative in a way that Australian spring cannot compete with. The total difference from winter is apparent as within two weeks the entire outside world transforms from brown and grey to GREEN! Flowers start appearing everywhere and the Swedes start emerging from hibernation. More about that in a bit.
So we visited our favourite frognerparken on my birthday, went to see the Munch museum where one of my favourite paintings was one of Nietzche. I tried posting linkage and/or the image and failed miserably, so if you are interested, google image search works pretty well.

My family called on my birthday and I got to chat with them for a little while.
We went out for dinner both the night before and the night of my birthday. The first night was at a Bahranian restaurant for a friend of the boy's birthday. Once it got past midnight I got a piece of birthday cake with a rocket sparkler in it and an Arabic version of Happy Birthday played over the loudspeakers. The food was pretty tasty, but as with everything in Norway, expensive.

The next night we decided to do something relatively cheap and go out for some Thai food. We looked up the closest restaurant to our hotel and decided to walk there. We ended up getting lost, but found the strangest Thai restaurant ever. It was in the basement of a building and was decked out as though you were in a beach bar in Thailand. There were UV lights everywhere and the tables were made out of bamboo. Halfway through our dinner there was a 'thunderstorm' with flashing lights and a soundtrack of tropical rain. It was hilarious. This combined with our Swedish waiter, complete with Swedish moustache as sported by the guy in the front of this photo. This stype of moustache is all the rage here in the Swedens and is found on many of the young hipsters. The boy has dubbed it the Swedish moustache and keeps on threatening to grow one. The waiter also had the large 80s glasses that are also quite popular, see here. So in any case, it was a lovely evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

After my birthday, the 'cold' that I had meant that I spent most of Sunday asleep. But it was nice to get a rest and know that I had nothing I 'had' to do.

The next day was Norway's national day and we made our way into town to watch the parade and check out the royal family waving from the balcony. I will post some photos soon to show all the cuteness of the kiddies dressed up and all the national costumes. We then decided to have lunch with a friend of the boy's and played Rock Band on the Xbox. I had a thoroughly good time playing 'drums' and listening to the Norwegian, which is like Swedish only different. The Swedes always say that the Norwegians always sound happy when they speak. I'm not 100% sure I agree, but I became aware of how much Swedish I understood when I was in Norway and suddenly couldn't follow the conversation as easily.

Anyway, it was a pretty good trip and I enjoyed myself. It's now getting kinda late and I have to be up at some undogly hour to go to Stockholm, so I'm off to finish my washing and pack for tomorrow.

Winter versions of those trees

So as promised, here are the photos of some of those trees from yesterday as they are seen now. They are sans leaves and occasionally with snow in the branches. I also tried to get a photo of what the snow looks like when it's been sitting there for a while. It looks like leaves or feathers sticking up. Very pretty. But I don't think that my photo really did it justice, will have to play around with the conditions.

So heres the tree outside the lunch place





And here's the tree outside my window





And here's my attempt to capture the snow from this morning




Perhaps this afternoon will be a discussion of mores stuff from Xmas and hopefully some more photos.

obvious season changes

It's a cold winter here this year. The temperature hasn't been over 0 for a very long time. I'm not sure I can remember when it was last above zero. Maybe sometime before the new year. In any case, now that we are heading towards spring, I have started to notice the days starting the lengthen. 3 weeks ago it would have been fully dark now, 4.45pm. But looking out of my office window (praise be to the spaghetti monster that we've moved out of the basement) I can see a vague little remnant of red on the horizon. This would have been unheard of back before NYE. It was dark at 3.30pm.

The other thing I've noticed is the changing of trees and plants. I have some photos of trees around my work this autumn. I'm going to take some photos tomorrow when there is some sun to show you the snow that is currently blanketing everything.

So here are the autumn photos. Let's see if I can be organised enough to get up the winter ones soon.

Here is a tree that is across the road from our flat. This photo was taken from our kitchen window.




And here is a tree at work.




And the last one, outside my favourite lunch place.



I think they are so pretty. It was sad when all the leaves went away.

Good continuation!

So here in the Swedens, they say (translated of course) good continuation either between Christmas and New Years Eve or in the new year. I guess it's supposed to be an hope that the new year will be as good as the old, or better or something good in any case.
I was at the doctors on Monday talking about gut issues and results from my gastroscopy, all normal you'll be glad to hear, and he asked about what we say in English at this time. I honestly couldn't think of anything. In fact, it's now getting to the point that even if we did say something at this time of year, I wouldn't remember it. My english skills have fallen by the wayside. I can't remember simple words like cash register.
So, to the news of the post. Today I was a consumer whore (and how!). Those who have watched the cartoon rejected will get that reference. In any case, I am in the position that all my items of considerable worth are all kinda dying at the same time. My black knee high boots that I've had since January 2004 have repeatedly had the heels peel off and have a hole in the sole. They also are all worn in a number of places. They need replacing, desperately. My coat, which is even older, possibly dating back to 2001 or 2002. It's getting thin and it's definitely not windproof. My laptop is dying in stages and will eventually crap itself and die properly. Finally, my ipod is no longer stereo and because it's got a harddisk in it, it means that when I'm running, it's probably not doing the ipod any favours.
So today I solved two of those problems, the coat and the ipod. My new coat is superb. It's about -10 outside at the moment and I went outside wearing normal clothes with no jumper, just a t-shirt under this enormous down jacket. I was toasty warm. In fact, if I had had a jumper on, I probably would have been roasting. It's fabulous. It's from peak performance, which is apparently a swedish company. It has masses of pockets, a hood and feels like I'm wearing a doona around. I've only had it a few hours and I love it beyond all measure.
The second problem I solved was the ipod. I'm now in possession of a pink nano and an armband to wear it while running. I will be testing out the running capabilities tomorrow or possibly Friday. I've just found out the gym is closed tomorrow and due to all the ice on the ground, running outside isn't really an option.

I'm trying to think of news to tell the interwebs. My brother and his friend Wombat came to stay with us for Christmas this year. We had them here from the 18th until last Sunday. We had some amazing weather while they were here. It snowed, a lot. And it was really cold and relatively clear for most of the time they were here. The three of us (the boy doesn't like the series in question) watched all of the Green Wing on the projector and a good amount of other TV shows and movies. We baked pepparkakor and the boys decided to make them a little rude. There were many penises and animals humping one another.

See here for an example :

Odd things that happen when in Sweden

Today I was in the supermarket getting myself a lussekatt and the woman behind me has a very old phone with 'polyphonic ring tones'. Her phone rings, it plays Walzing Matilda. She is definitely not Australian. Weird.