Yay!

Invisible me

I have been invisible here the last couple of weeks. I know. There has been a shortage of time to sneak away and update this page. I just finted and "snuck" away right now to tell you that I will indeed update this page "any ole day" now. That is my intention. For sure. There are questions about the owls to answer. Our new sun deck/porch. Yay! Details about a lovely wedding/reception we attended last Saturday and possible plans for a Midsummer feast on Friday to write about. Unfortunately rain is on the menu. That is quite normal for Midsummer (i e Sweden) and especially if you intend to spend time outside and have made a beautifully laid table - that is when the sky opens. Always!

But - that's for later!

Last Saturday..

...this happened...

Saturday we surprised one of our friends with a hen party. Spoke to her the morning after and we are still friends! She is one of those person's who actually likes playing games and charades, my opposite exactly. I was glad it was her and not me! We were really nice about it all. It could have been so much worse!

This is what she had to do:

Yup - she got to be Pippi Långstrump/Pippi Longstockings/for a day. We dressed her up in different colored stockings, put orange braided hair on her; well you can see for yourselves. She was really pleased about the look. Not bad at all! Most kids started out being kind of afraid to come and play with her, but most overcame their shyness pretty quickly.

Then:

We had lunch on the cliffs - we were lucky, it was a beautiful day! Isn't the cliffs and seaside a pretty sight?

Then:

In the evening we went to a small restaurant for a bite to eat. This shrimp sallad was as scrumptious as it looks in this picture! Yummy!

Then, as usual, "Pippi" stayed out half the night - and I went home. Nothing unusual about that either...
__________
I had a question about what a "hen party/bachelorette party" really is:
That is when a woman is getting married and her friends take her out in public, making her do things like "acting like a moron", be Pippi Longstockings (like in our case), sell different things to the public "in public" (i e in front of a store or something). OR if you are nice you just take her out for a good meal...
The male equivalent is a "stag party/bachelor party".
You must surely have something like it?

Update..

... will be coming shortly...

Unusual behavior!

We are somewhat concerned with our owl family!

The thing is that the owl mother has been sitting on a branch of a tree about 10 meters away from the nest during the past weekend - and still was last night (Monday). She hasn't gone back to the nest as far as I/we have seen. It is very unusual for this kind of owl to be out during the daylight in the first place. So why? No baby owls alive? Too much noice etc for the mother owl to stay in the nest? What's happening in there?

To be continued!

Our owl!

Just wanted to share "our" owl mother that lives in our garden! Our hope is that there will be some baby owls showing themselves any day now! Will be back then with more footage. It took me a couple of hours to upload the videofilm to my computer. This is my first time on Movie Maker so the next time might be easier, hopefully. In this particular film a couple of crows are teasing her, jumping from a branch on her right and then flying back and forth and back again. Looked really amusing (to us at least). Her head went back and forth to keep them under tight surveillance....

In sickness & in health - and an owl!

The whole of last week was no fun & games at all at our house.
I was the first one getting the Shivers & Shakes on Friday. Got out all the extra blankets we have in the house, but still cooold as ice. S followed suite the following Monday. Then the fun just continued with fever, bronchitis, runny noses and total and utter exhaustion. The first two days were spent in a daze - not a chance of getting up. My head telling me "You need to get up!" and my body answering "No way I am getting up - I am beat!" You would think I would be skin and bones from only drinking water for over a week. No. Think again. This body of mine knows exactly when to switch over to the low-low burner to preserve the current weight!

Although not exactly well yet - we are now back at work - like it or not....

One fun thing did actually happen during the daze and illnesses of last week:
We got it confirmed that there is indeed an owl living in our birds nest in our garden. This made S very happy. Now we are impatiently waiting to see the baby birds/owls that "most likely" are in the nest. S filmed about an hours length of film, so the mother owl is duly documented. One of these days I will get a cable to be able to get the film onto my computer.

Now I am tired again.... Bye for now!

Swedish Champions! Svenska Mästare!

HV71 - SWEDISH CHAMPIONS!!! AGAIN!

For those of you outside Sweden - That is Sweden's no 1 hockeyteam!

I'm happy! :-)

Alive & Kicking!

I know, just taking a quizz like this is kind of hypocondrical. But 36% isn't that bad!
Y'all have a healthy week now!

You Are 36% Hypochondriac

You can deal well with being sick - even if your symptoms are a little scary. You're occasionally prone to worry about your health, but only when you have pretty strange symptoms.

Are You a Hypochondriac?

Oh No!

This morning I woke up to sub zero degrees Celsius...
Had to scrape the window shields of the car before I could drive to work...

Then around 09.00 am it started to ---SNOW!!
And you wonder why Sweden has the highest suicide rates in the world!
Typical April weather.

Are Swedes really that normal?

An Englishman in Sweden...
I think..... No comments! :-)

Pretty fun read!

Happy Birthday - the sequel!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Have a good day today!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY DAD!
on the 26th...

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY NEPHEW!

on the 25th....

March is quite a popular birth month in our family!

Happy Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY S!

The cake is in the fridge!

Glad Påsk!

Today is Maundy Thursday, half day for most laborers in Sweden. Tomorrow is Good Friday, a day off for most, and then we have Easter. Can't say I remember ever learning the phrase "Maundy Thursday" - but I am sure my English teachers would nod their heads affermatively.

Had such a nice surprise yesterday. Have been home sick this week and didn't go out to get the mail in the mailbox in the morning. S came home and took it in in the afternoon. He said "You've got mail"! That could mean two different things these days. When I was younger it meant that I had had a "regular" mail in the mailbox - a handwritten letter written with a pen or pencil - when today it means that you have an e-mail in your computer. Don't you agree? I so loved recieving those "regular" letters. On the other hand today you can keep in touch so much easier/faster by e-mail. You don't have to go week after week waiting for the mailman anymore. Yippeee!

So THANK YOU cousin L!

HAPPY EASTER to you and your family!

HAPPY EASTER to all of us!

I am Swedish, you know!

Just a quick clarification:
Please don't think me ignorant for obvious (to you) mistakes in the English language.
This is not my primary language. Please feel free to correct me (I do want you to), but at the same time concider my disadvantage!

I am using the very useful site www.woxikon.se when there is a word I just don't know or something I can't for my life recall. With age facts seem to get stored further and further away in the brain or the memory capacity might actually be somewhat reduced. Don't know exactly which one applies to me... Maybe a bit of both. This is the moment you have to start to rely on "post-it notes". Personally I buy them by the dozen. My desk at work is really colorful. There are pink, yellow and orange post-it notes everywhere in my office. It all looks very colorful and bright.

Might add that nobody has been questioning my English - yet. I guess I am a bit self conscious of my lack of certain phrasing and structure of the British/American English.

I was schooled in the British English way of writing and talking and then at 17 I spent a year in Texas.... Going from a "proper" English accent to the Texan drawl. Go figure!
Telling you this, you might understand the ambivalence of it all!

What makes you laugh?

I get a good laugh out of things like this:

Click on it to make it happen!
(Credit to www.staversjo.se)

Skottdag

Skottdagen - Leap Day
Today is the day when women, inclined to do so, can kneel down and
ask their beloved ones for their hand in marriage.

Since the year 1996 it has been on the 29th.
(Previously on the 24th, according to Wikipedia)
Some men out there today not answering their cellphones??

Whimsical Wednesday Day!

I declare today the official WHIMSICAL WEDNESDAY ! Have you ever been there? When you have been given the information, you have to ask again "to make sure" you got it right, and yet you don't know the answer in the end? Today is one of those days for me. My brain has taken some time off. Don't know where it went - just hope it's in some sunny, relaxing place. Where I'd rather be too! Let's hope I'm all put together for work tomorrow!

Sad news

Sad, sad news.
My uncle lost his wife early this morning.
The children lost their mother.
The grandchildren lost their grandmother.

She had yet to celebrate her 57th birthday.

I am unique! How about you?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I actually had an idea about that beforehand. I have a unique last name even for Sweden. As we have our own family name. As my dad had it changed. He was a common Johansson before he changed it.

So how about you? How many have your particular name?