When we were in 'Flance'

I have a few memories from our trip to what TWO refers to as "Flance" to get out here. It comes with pretty pictures, so it won't be entirely boring for people to read/look at.  Or so goes the hope. Most of my experiences in France seem to relate back to food or knitting. I was most pleased that my belly coped so well with being away from the comforts of home and that I was able to enjoy some of the delights that southern France had to offer. 

Here is a pictorial representation of what I got up to, when it comes to food, while there. 

First day we were there we went to a giant supermarket to grab supplies and for a bit of a stickybeak. I think going to a supermarket in a new country is a great way to really get a sense of what the culture is like. What sort of things are commonplace? 

The things I found that I enjoyed, apart from the entire row of alcohol that seemed to never end were the following:

Rainbow pasta: 

I'm sure that this exists elsewhere in the world. But I've yet to see it in Sweden and it was really really pretty. Shame I couldn't eat any of it, what with the whole wheat is the fructan containing devil that wants to destroy me from the inside out. 

And the wall of sausage: 



So much dried sausage. We took home a giant dried duck sausage that was enthusiastically enjoyed by all members of the family. It is a big shame that it is all gone now. It was ever so good. 

The first southern French meal we enjoyed was confit duck with cubed potatoes cooked in duck fat and a salad. Can I just say now *drool*? It was amazing. Crispy duck, crispy spuds and some lovely salad. All washed down with a local red wine. I was in heaven. 


Our adventures continued at the local market on Sunday. The boy, Kristin and I went to get some ribs and vegetables for our evening meal. We found both without difficulty. We also found a ginormous piece of beef that we just had to buy. We cooked it up as it came, on a giant bone. Sealed both sides in the pan and then into the oven to finish up. It was perfection in steak form. You can see just how enormous this steak was. I think it must have been close to 10cm thick. It took up the entire pan!



While at the market, Kristin and I got ourselves an espresso from the only coffee van at the market. The sugar packets were very cute.



And we were given a complimentary biscuit. I ate it, even though it was a wheat laden treat. I survived this small test of the fructan group. It was worth testing too. Delicate and light biscuity goodness. 




I did thoroughly enjoy my long weekend in Toulouse. I think I might find my way back there sometime to visit again and get some more duck! We brought home two tins of confit duck. They are sitting in our pantry now. We are thinking they might make an excellent Christmas dinner this year. Most years we have a roast chicken and watch Kalle Anka. But maybe this year we will eat duck and watch the duck? Could be good. 

Islands, knees and pushing it too hard

My visit to the rheumatologist just over a week ago was fantastic. She was attentive, took a proper history, drained over 50ml of fluid from my knee and added in some cortisone to help with the swelling. She set me up with a plan to keep my knee functional and I felt good about the plan.

I perhaps pushed the newly "recovered" knee a bit hard in the last two days and paid for it yesterday with some swelling, which if I'm entirely honest, set me to panicking. I have no desire to have a hugely swollen and non functional joint for any longer than necessary. And I need to remember that just because it looks normal, or a close approximation thereof, it is not currently normal and needs to be treated with some care. 

The first mistake I made was to go and visit Brännö on Thursday, an island in the archipelago off the coast of Gothenburg. We walked quite a bit and climbed on rocks and paddled in the water at the little cove we found ourselves at. It might have been a bit much.  But check out the overcast, but still lovely view we had. 



I sat and watched a group of five geese eat their way across the shoreline while TWO and the boy went and climbed the rocks at the side of the cove. It was all rather lovely to be outside, enjoying the breeze and the warm weather. 

The day was exactly what I needed mentally. We were unhurried, relaxed, well fed and TWO behaved brilliantly throughout the whole day. She collected shells and threw them in the water, searched for crabs, paddled in the water with me and had a brief snooze in the pram as we walked through the unexpected rain shower back to the ferry. She was entirely convinced that the ferry was actually a pirate ship and was very excited about that fact. We even got to pick some wild blackberries that were growing at the tram stop. I collected them in my hat and we have just a few left in the fridge. 

Yesterday was possibly a step too far after my island adventure, when I walked with a friend to visit a cafe. We ended up walking about 4km and I'm guessing that wasn't the best idea because I felt the knee start to swell as we walked. Fortunately, rest and ice seem to have done the trick and brought it back down. 

My lesson has been learned. I need to exercise, but not that much. It is so difficult to go from running between five and eight km semi regularly to not being able to walk even half that distance without setting off the knee into a swollen rage. 

Newest knitting project -Alberni cowl and a challenge

photo source

We spent last weekend in southern France. We went to visit a friend of mine, Kristin,  and her family who had just moved to France recently and with two small kids for TWO to play with, it seemed like a silly idea not to spend a long weekend enjoying all things French.

Kristin has just started a photography business specialising in maternity and newborn photography, that link goes to her site, check it out. So we also had a bit of a photo shoot with TWO and her elder son who is just a month older than TWO. If you happen to find yourself around Toulouse, I can highly recommend her skills. 

We had a wonderful time eating lots of duck, drinking lots of beer and wine and Kristin and I got our knit on while the kids rested in the middle of the day. 

Saturday saw us take a day out without the kids, on the metro into the centre of Toulouse. We ate crepes, wandered around, bought some yarn for a joint remembrance cowl knitting experience (pattern here), drank coffee on the central square and watched the police chase a Palestinian protest. We got home just in time for dinner. 

We plan on having a knit a long of the Alberni cowl using the same yarn in different colours. I've got the raspberry and she has the purple. An easy way to remember our lovely afternoon wandering around the streets of Toulouse and the whole weekend of visiting fun. 

I cast on today and set myself a challenge. I have wanted to learn to knit like a Swede (ie continental knitting) for a while now. It is supposed to be faster than English knitting and better for colour work, which I have intentions of getting into. But every time I have started a new project, I have been too impatient to slow down my knitting speed to learn it properly. But as I'm knitting along with Kristin, and I know she won't have a chance to cast on for a while, it seems appropriate now to attempt to learn. Wish me luck and patience, I think I will need them both. If you fancy following my progress it will be over at ravelry : here. 

photo source

Grateful three : arthritis edition 1

This post comes to you from my armchair. We have become firm friends in the last month as my knee goes through various phases/stages of swelling. Currently it is sitting on big but not uncomfortable. I have an appointment to see a specialist tomorrow and have my fingers crossed for some kind of plan to deal with it. It is getting more than a bit tedious to be sat indoors, unable to enjoy the warmest summer we may ever see in Sweden. 

So I figured it was time to remind myself of the good stuff in life and not just the things I'm missing out on.

1. We got to visit friends in the south of France and I was able to eat without consequences for my gut and TWO had another kid her age to play with.
2. The boy has been working from home a lot to help me out while TWO is on holidays from dagis. 
3. I've got friends I can whinge to about the frustrations of having a dodgy knee.
(4. My plants on the balcony didn't die despite being left alone for 4 days at 30 degrees. This is especially impressive because the balcony is glassed in and warms up a treat on a mildly warm day, let alone a scorcher. And yes, 30 in Sweden is a scorcher.)

Chicken soup -FODMAPS friendly

I used to make a chicken soup back at uni that was quick and tasty. I got the recipe from my friend Steph (link to her website there), and have subsequently forgotten the specific details of it. But there were a few things that stuck out, coriander, ginger and so very much flavour. 

So in an attempt to recreate the soup she taught me to make, and to make sure it was low FODMAPs, I made up my own version of her recipe using the chicken stock that we make regularly at home now. 

Ingredients

Some chicken stock, we usually end up with about a litre

Chicken thigh fillets 

1 bunch of fresh coriander/cilantro

1-2 tablespoons of fresh grated ginger

salt/pepper to taste

juice of one lemon

garlic oil

1/2 tsp chilli paste (optional)

small packet of rice vermicelli noodles (optional) 

Method

If you are using the noodles, set them into a heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water while you prepare the rest of the soup. Drain after 10 or so minutes and set aside.

 

Fry the ginger in garlic oil on a medium high heat until fragrant and add the chicken pieces.

Fry the chicken fillets on the higher heat for a few minutes, until they start to brown/seal. Then add the lemon juice and reduce the heat. Cover.

(I use an electric cooktop because it is almost impossible to get gas in Sweden. By medium high I mean a 5 out of 6 on the stove top. I find when I cook the chicken at a high heat to start and then reduce it I get a better result. When reduced, I take the temperature down to 2)

I then use this time while the chicken is cooking further to take the coriander stems, chop them off and crush them with the back end of a large knife. 

Put the coriander stems into the stock and start bringing the stock to a simmer.

When the stock is simmering, add in the cooked chicken and chopped coriander leaves. 

Cook further for another 5-10 minutes, tasting as you go and adjusting the seasoning. 

To serve:

Put a small amount of noodles in the bottom of the bowl, sprinkle some extra coriander over the noodles and spoon out some soup. If you want to make it a bit spicy, add some chilli paste now. I'm a big fan of adjusting seasoning, including chilli to taste as you go. 

Photos to come. I made this soup a few weeks ago when the boy was unwell with a nasty cold. He's currently on a low carbohydrate kick and so I excluded the noodles for him, but added them to my meal. It was tasty and easy to make. 

Grateful three

When I was in the midst of post natal depression after the birth of the wee one, I used to try and get a list of three things I was grateful for together every day. It was a way to help remind myself that there were positive things in the world and that everything wasn't as bad as I imagined.

I'm not depressed anymore, huzzah!, but I am currently suffering from a cold that includes much snot and a sore throat. So I've decided to bring back the grateful three here.

1. The boy is back from four days away in Korea for work and I am no longer solo parenting.

2. My strawberry plants have flowers.

3. I finished a pair of socks that are made from leftover sock yarn that wasn't enough to make a whole pair of socks on their own. They are the kind of socks that just make you happy to look at. 

RUNNING! (said in the manner of Charlie Sheen's WINNING!)

Three and a bit years ago I was getting fit. I was starting to run again for the third time and I was about to turn thirty.

My friends got me a 30th birthday present. It was entry to the midnattsloppet, and apparently it was so the 'tant' genes didn't take over. Midnattsloppet is a night time run in Sweden. It's 10km and has been held since 1982. 

I'd only ever managed to get myself up to running 5km. But the challenge seemed like a good idea. So I started training for the 10km. Only to get pregnant a few weeks later and have tiredness and nausea slow me down considerably.

I then had the misfortune of having my grandfather pass away when I was 7 weeks pregnant and I took myself back to Australia to see my family. During my visit, I wasn't training at all. I was eating as frequently as possible to stave off nausea and sleeping vast swathes of my life away.

Upon my return to Sweden, I was 11 weeks pregnant and the race was just two weeks away. I decided not to do it. I also found several weeks later that my hips do not enjoy pregnancy and were trying to move apart from each other, a painful condition known as  SPD. 

So running and I were not on friendly terms again until TWO was about two. I tried running a bit the summer after she turned one, but my hips were not too keen on the idea at all. 

Fast forward from that painful time to about March this year. TWO turned two and my friend Ana asked me to train with her. She had never run before and wanted to give it a try. We started doing the couch to 5k program and were most dedicated, even running in the snow one evening. 

I had used the Robert Ullrey podcasts previously to get to 5km, found here, and they were great again. But once we reached 5km, it was time to get something to get us all the way to 10km. Ana had her own programme going and I found Suz's 5 to 10km podcast and decided to give it a go. The combination of the 90s R&B and hip hop and Suz's high voice had me hooked. I used it, sang along at times, and found a new appreciation for TLC that I thought I'd never have. 

I ended up being inexplicably injured two weeks before the official race day, and thought perhaps I would have to miss out. But fate was on my side and I completed the race in 1 hour and 7 mins. Which is pretty close to my goal of doing it in an hour. 

Since then my running has dropped off considerably. And I think my mood had dropped off too. So in the last few weeks I have asked the boy to make me go running when it isn't pissing down with rain.

Today was an example of that kind of run. The rain was holding off, it was 7 degrees C and windy. But I went out running. I've been a bit stressed in the last couple of days and the running helped me distract myself from the stresses and worries. The cold sped me up and the endorphins made me a much happier person when I got home. 

Considering the weather predicted in the next few weeks (rain, rain and more rain), I've decided to join a local gym for the opportunity to run when it suits me and not the weather. I'm thinking after dagis drop off of TWO. The gym is between dagis and home, perfect way to get some running endorphins in me. I just hope that the treadmill doesn't bore me stupid. I guess I'm stuck listening to Suz's podcast while I run so I can keep entertained. 

Long story short? RUNNING! Love it.

Things the boy shared with me

So my Mum was born in Germany. I learned German at school and went on exchange to Germany when I was 15. The boy finds German to be an entertaining language and has a few utility phrases. These include such delights as "Can you show me where the moguls are?" and "I am a giant blue duck."

He came home tonight and told me to look up on youtube the following phrase:

Germans trying to say squirrel

I did. It amused me. Please enjoy.

There are many words in Swedish that I find nigh impossible to say. Most things ending in 'ion' for example drive me insane. 

And one more quick German language delight for you. Barbara and her wonderful rhubarb cake that is ever so popular. This one it is helpful to understand German for. Another thing the boy put me onto