Swings and roundabouts

So today has been a day of swings and roundabouts. Actually, most of it was lovely, but the last little bit has been not so great. I've recently discovered that I'm lactose intolerant. I stupidly had a coffee with milk in it at the lovely party/dinner I was at. We made it home in time for me to have a good old sit down, but it was a close run thing and my guts were very unhappy.

The other thing that isn't so fabulous is that our neighbours upstairs are having a party and we can hear it. It seems as though they are doing karaoke or something to that effect. We've been lucky enough to hear their rendition of "hit me baby one more time" and many other delightful songs. I hope that they can it before I really want to go to bed.

The good stuff that happened today was something along the following lines, I'll hopefully fill in the rest of the details later. We got some new forks and knives from the charity shop across the road, as well as some new tea towels. We only had two before, tea towels that is, and all our forks and knives are tiny. I think the forks are cake forks or something of that nature. We washed all our clothes and mopped the floor. The floor here gets very dirty, very quickly. I think it partly has to do with the lack of a doormat, but it means that a lot of the time there is a layer of crap attached to your foot when wandering about. I got an opportunity to speak to my lovely friend EE and her husband about the arrival of their daughter two weeks ago. Apparently, according to EE, breastfeeding is like having your nipples tattooed. Mind you, she has never had a tattoo, so it's just a guess. She is, however, happy with every other aspect of motherhood and fingers crossed her nipples hold up under the strain. I got to talk to my parents and my brother for a little while too, which was rather nice. My dad has bronchitis, which he got from his sister. He says he's feeling better than she is and has antibiotics. He should be better soon.

Other good stuff from today: we were invited to a Swedish easter dinner. We went to a member of my lab's house for dinner, starting at 4pm-ish. We were picked up by my boss and her husband and went to S's house. It's a lovely house, near to the ocean and very light and breezy. There were four couples/families there. We were the only one without children. There were 7 kids there, two of whom were called Embla. Three kids were from a newly arrived German family. We had a Swedish easter dinner with salmon, potatoes and pickled fish of different flavours, lamb, salad and bread. It was really tasty. I took some photos and will post them later.

After dinner we went for a walk down to the water, through the forest and had a few adventures up on the rocks. Ask, one of the kids, lost his shoes when dangling over the edge of a small cliffette. He sounded quite calm when he asked for help to get down, so his parents didn't realise how precarious his situation was. But he was okay, his shoes were found and he was hoisted back up the cliffette. On the walk back from the ocean I had the pleasure of a conversation, somewhat one-sided, with Josefine, a 5 year old German girl. She could really talk and required little from me, so my German held up well. She was most amusing. I also put my German skills to use in helping her older sister Johanne (sp?) play monopoly (Gothenburg version) with the kids of the household.

We were there quite late, and had to get a lift to the closest tram stop. We made it there just before a tram arrived and had to walk about 15 minutes home. In that time, my guts were quite unhappy and I was concerned I wouldn't make it home. Fortunately, for me and the boy I made it home safely and without incident. I wish that I hadn't had that coffee with the milk.

The other delightful thing about today was the weather. It was blue skies, sun and warmth all the way and I got to see a bumblebee. That makes me ever so happy. They are such ridiculous looking animals.

Right, almost bedtime, I hope the neighbours pack it in soon, or I'm going to have get all nanna-like and go up there and tell them to please be quiet. I wonder if banging on the roof here would work?