Update from Down Under

Time for a little update from us Down Under. It's Monday morning and a little bit grey as opposed to the weekend which was gorgeous.

Hubby was designated Santa at his company's Christmas party. He was very well disguised with fake white hair (not that he needed that!), and long white beard, and a moustache. The only thing  that made him into an Aussie Santa was that he wore flip-flops rather than big snow boots. And don't you know it, that that is what gave him away!

Later on when he was back in normal clothes and some people were leaving, this little five-,year old Chinese girl came up and said, very politely, to hubby "Bye, Santa, thank you!". When we asked her, why she thought hubby was Santa, she said she could tell by his feet.

We have also been away on a four-day week end with hubby's friends from university, since last I wrote here. We go somewhere different every year. It is important that it includes wine-tasting, cheese and chocolate tasting, and that there are some interesting things to visit. I think I have commented on this before, but when I say "interesting things to visit", it can be a gorgeous beach or a local art gallery or an old gold-mining town or why not a very, very small church.

It is hard to deny that beaches like this are gorgeous!

Like a Mini, it is bigger inside
than it looks.

It is a different type of sight-seeing from Europe where there is so much history. Everywhere you go in Europe there are churches and museums and castles dating way back in time. Here it goes back to the first settlers maybe and the mining period. Some of the little towns have been very nicely restored though and it is very nice to stroll leisurely through them, maybe buying some cute candles or jewelery or other knick knacks.

Our younger daughter, who presently lives in Chile, has decided to come to Australia, and look for work. We are very much looking forward to that. Her boyfriend will come later when his visa has come through.

Jacarandas are in bloom at the moment, and not always alone.

Time to go and do chores. Lots of good thoughts coming your way now!!!!

Choo-choo

One good thing about being married to a train afficionado (I almost wrote train freak), is that you get to go to places you might never have thought of going to otherwise.

When hubby told me he had a little trip planned by train to Brisbane Water I was mildly surprised. You see, Brisbane is in Queensland, 8 to 9 hours drive or more from here.  I would have preferred to fly there, but since I hadn't been there before I thought "What the heck, it will be fun even if it is by steam train and just for the day." It will be like these rich people in Europe who go from London to Paris just for lunch or fly to Rome for a romantic dinner. But guess what? Brisbane Waters is just north of Sydney, near Woy Woy!  We went anyway.

Most people got off in Woy Woy to go for a little lunch cruise, but we stayed on until Gosford where hubby had a whale of a time checking out the shunting movements, the turning of the steam engine, and the numerous super freighters that came through the station. Thank goodness I brought a book.

Of course, this was before I was told about the new health scare, i.e. "Sitting is the new smoking."
Hubby had a health meeting at work where they were cautioned against sitting still for too long. Many people order stand up tables. I know, tables always stand up, but these can be pulled up to become high so people have to stand up and work at them.   So my favorite activities will have to be limited, sitting in a comfortable chair reading, or watching TV, or surfing the net in an office chair, or painting which I prefer doing sitting down as well. Fortunately lying down is ok so that will have to do then I guess.

I had lunch this week with the ladies in my painting group. We went to a place called Camellia Gardens Teahouse and it was lovely. I wish I had known about it before. I could have taken so many visitors there, I know they would have loved it. For you who are still to come this will be a little treat, I promise you.

 

So until next time here is a little quite from Aesop :" No act of kindness, no matter how small,  is ever wasted".

Men chase dog

When we got back from the city a couple of weeks ago we saw a very funny sight. It was two big, beefy men running after a small bundle of fluff, that turned out to be a dog, one of those cute little things that people take to special hair dressers for dogs. The dog was very happy to be off the leash and was running very fast on its little legs downhill towards the nearest forest. The big burly men, despite the many hours probably spent in a gym judging by their looks, had a hard time keeping up. Behind them were two gorgeous looking girls wearing very high heels trying in vain to join the chase. One was probably the owner of the dog since she was holding out a rhinestone-studded leash, which matched her own belt. I hope the story didn't end with "Man bites dog"!

You may have noticed that I have been off the radar for longer than I planned. The thing is when you write about little things happening in your priviliged life it just seems a bit frivolous compared to what has been happening in the world lately. I am thinking about the Syrian situation in particular. I dearly hope there will be an end to it soon.

Anyway, the last part of my stay in the cottage after the last visitors left was a bit long. Luckily, our old friends from up north took pity on me and came for a visit. We also had a quick trip to Oslo to pick up elder daughter and see a great exhibition with the artist Munch.

Lunch at Havets Hus in
Lysekil

First time I have paid with
my Visa card to go to the
toilet.

Elder daughter in front of
the Opera House in Oslo

However, the second week of September I went to meet hubby in Prague. He was there for a conference after having spent ten days in Spain. We both loved Prague and the hotel was conveniently situated right near the castle.

We rented a car for two days to get a chance to see the country side as well. A place I am not in a hurry to go back to is Kunta Hora or rather the Sedlec Ossuary. It was a chapel decorated with bones and sculls of 40.000 to 70.000 people. After 1511 a half-blind monk was charged with organizing these bones in a decorative way and when he was finished he got his sight back??!! If you crave more information about it, check out Wikipedia.

The Sydney weather has been pleasant but not too hot since I got back here. Except one day when it was +38°C and very windy. It felt like my eyeballs dried up and I couldn't close my eyes.

Last week end we went to the Manly Jazz festival which is on every year but we always miss it. It was great, with music being played everywhere, in the street, in pubs in churches, and on the beach.

Last Monday was a public holiday (Labour Day) I think. We had a bunch of people over for the first barbecue for the summer, and had a great time. But WHEN will I learn that when you prepare food for 12 people it doesn't mean that you have to prepare for 25 just in case?

Discombobulated

Well, right now I am not discombobulated, but I was, a little while ago, when I had to run out and bring in the laundry again that I had just hung out. It looked like the sun was coming out so I wanted to hurry up and get some stuff dry since it has been raining for days. Just minutes after it was all hung up the rain started again and I had to get the stuff inside again since it looks we are in for another day of rain.

My visitors have left and it always feels a bit weird the first day on your own. The idea was that my mother was going to come out again for a week or two but due to her fall we have had to put it off. She fell about a week ago, in the night with no one around, and broke several ribs and her collar bone and she is still very bruised. Other than that (!) she is in good health. We had a little visit with her together with my friend from the UK yesterday before she went back home to Surrey.

My first visitor was a friend whom we first met in Grenoble when we lived there.  Her husband is Australian and like us they have moved back there even though she was born in the Phillippines and grew up in America. She very kindly painted two front doors and she was so careful with the prep work I think even hubby will approve. I know he wouldn't if I had done it.

I almost feel embarrassed because my UK visitor also did a big garden job while she was here. I hope future visitors don't feel hesitant about coming, feeling like they are coming to some sort of labour camp.  You really don't have to do anything when you come here (well, ok then, maybe we just need the lawn mowed again or the little bridge over the little creek mended again) No, really, I am just kidding about that. You can just sit in a deck chair and read, or go for a nice walk in the forest, maybe picking mushrooms or berries.

Or maybe visit Pilarne, which is a sculpture park, on the island of Tjörn. Part of it is built on an old site from the Neolithic period.

Very narrow house built by Erwin Wurm from Austria

Here is what I saw when I looked out of the window last night while I was pulling down the blinds.

Vacuum cleaners

Yes, hubby went back to Australia last week, and left us with sixteen vacuum cleaners. No-one likes them around here in this family, except him, and besides now it is only me and youngest daughter left in the cottage. I guess they will have to be thrown away. Shame really, but he couldn't take them to Australia.

These little goodies are literally
called vacuum cleaners in Swedish.
 Must refer to the way you scarf
them down, much like a vacuum cleaner.

Last night we had a power cut and a little panic moment before we realized it was general and not something we had to deal with, like trying to change a fuse or something. We quickly found candles and made it quite cozy. Then we played a board game, and just as we had decided to go to bed the TV came on and scared the life out of us. You get a little bit jittery alone in a cottage sometimes.

Not much happening here otherwise, we had a farewell lunch at a very cute place called Solliden in Stenungsund. I highly recommend it. They have a wonderful lunch buffet and the setting is very nice. I think you can also get a room there.

I didn't bring the selfie stick.

Must go now and see if it is dry enough to mow the lawn. Next thing to look forward to is two girl friends coming to visit, in two separate goes, so more about that later. Cheerio!

Blinded by the light

That's how it feels here in Scandinavia in the days just before and after midsummer. I forget how light it gets. It's virtually daylight when you go to bed and if you happen to have to get up to go to the loo in the early morning the sun is up and it is broad daylight. I feel like I haven't slept for weeks. I catch little naps in the car when we have to go somewhere. I shouldn't complain though, because right now we are having nice sunny days (very chilly evenings and nights, though.)

Hubby is on a working holiday. I had always wanted to raise the sink since it was about 10 cm lower than everything else, and it was killing my back. I foolishly thought it was just a matter of changing the sink, and that would be it. But no, instead we now have a whole lower part of an IKEA kitchen with all new elements, and some new plumbing.  Next year we might have the top.

I am delighted but it is a bit hard cooking for five with no workspace but it can be done, mainly outside. The five people I am talking about are my mother, my nephew who is on holiday, our daughter who lives in Africa normally and of course the two us. As of Monday our youngest daughter will be here too, from Chile.

Other than that, nothing new, other than that we had our 36th wedding anniversary. We went to Mollösunds Värdshus and had a very nice seafood dinner, all locally fished. There was just a little "B moll" as the French say and it was the problem with ordering dessert.

We had ordered à la carte and as far as I could tell so had most of the people there. When it came time to order dessert, we wanted creme brulé, but it was only included in the set menu. We asked if we could have it anyway and of course pay the full price. The waitress then launched into a lengthy explanation of why we couldn't have it.

She took an example with buying things at IKEA. If there was a table with four chairs, we couldn't just buy one chair!? Ok, we thought, but the similarity stopped there.  No one, as far as we could tell had ordered the menu, with creme brulé as the dessert, we had all ordered à la carte. So what were they going to do with all these left-over servings of creme brulé?

We ended up having no dessert, since there was nothing else that took our fancy, and I heard from another table that they felt the same way. So I think what happened was that they missed out on selling at least four desserts at full price. (And I hope they end up with a bunch of creme brulé, out of date, in a few days that they can't serve up.)

Just wanted you to see my pride and joy.

 

Just a photo from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Actually it was only oldest daughter cleaning out some of her old clothes and hats.

More in a few weeks. Have a very nice summer if you are in Europe,  otherwise just do your best.

...and here we go again...

This is my second attempt to write something, so this time it will be short and to the point. I had a long story with many photos already prepared but forgot to save it and somehow it all disappeared, I am soo mad!!!! But not so mad that I don't want to fill you in on our latest adventures.

We have now arrived at our little cottage on Orust and the drive through Germany went okay even though it was very long so we allowed ourselves two wonderful stops at nice hotels off the beaten track on the way.

First stop in Wolfenweiler? On the wall behind me it said
that it was first founded in 1508, wow!

You know how it is when you travel and it gets to be the
witching hour and you have not booked a place to stay.
It gets a bit nerve-wracking and that is how it was for us.
Suddenly we saw this welcoming sight in the historic town
of Hann. Münden, and they had a room, and we could have
dinner even though it was a bit late. It was magic! Even
though we were a bit intimidated by the waitress who was a
Goth. When we asked her "Do you have a wine list?" meaning
"Can we see your wine list?", she said yes, and didn't get us
the wine list because clearly we had not asked her to do that.
We gave her a good tip out of fear!

The flight from Australia was okay too but it is very long and we didn't have any stop-over. Instead we had eight long hours in Dubai to walk around and try to find a place to lie down. They are so mean, every seat has armrests preventing you from being able to sleep. However, this man, at the tourist office,  was nice and friendly.

We spent a couple of days in Grenoble and caught up with some friends, but not all of course. The weather was very nice and as we were staying with our neighbors we were able to profit from their pool which was great.

The house in the background is our house.

Breakfast in the sun with C and J, thanks to hubby's new
selfie-stick, or should I say, selfish-stick.

Dinner at Cafe Forté, in Grenoble, with friends.

Saturday was booked for having our evening with our dear neighbours and it was an evening to remember. It was all the good nibbles for aperitifs, which we love and seafood and fish for mains and cheese from our neighbour's special cage. We don't quite know how old it was but it was hard to take it for cheese.

It's very unfortunate that none of our many many photos taken that night came out in a way that could possibly be used here. For everybody's sake I am refraining from using them. Selfie sticks can be dangerous when used under the influence and under tables!

We left Grenoble on a Monday morning via Pontcharra to see our friends out there as well and then it was off for the long drive mentioned above. included the 18 km traffic jam that took a few hours.

Today will be very busy finishing the kitchen cupboards before picking up my mother so she can stay with us for a while out here. It has been beautiful weather up to now but today is raining, typical.

This turned out a bit longer than I expected and I still didn't tell you everything. Take care now and have a nice summer!

Vegemite chocolate

Yes, it's true, Cadbury has come out with a new flavor. Unfortunately each shop only received a limited amount so when I went back to get more to bring to friends in Europe they were all gone, everywhere. If you like Vegemite, like me, having it as a filling in chocolate can only be good, but for people with mixed feelings about Vegemite it might not be a success.

Only one more sleep before we go to Europe. Concerning packing, I found this little drawing that describes my last days very well.

I just hope that we don't have any problems with borrelia this time. It's a variation of Lyme disease, and since we have a lot of deer on the island and some get up very close to the house (vide infra), we have to be careful. You get it from ticks that are borne by deer.

Oh dear, ticked off again! A photo from our kitchen.

Remember that I said I was going into Sydney last week to have a look at Vivid Sydney, the yearly light festival. Well, that didn't happen but hubby took some visitors there and they liked it a lot.

I can't stay with you any longer, bags have to be packed, so, so long, next time from Europe!

Thanks for reading!

Freezing cold

I meant to start this blog writing about the Eurovision song contest but feel that it is a little bit old news already. The weather is much more present, all the time, every day and it is cold here in Sydney now. The days are gloriously sunny and it gets up to +20 C but waking up and when it is only 11 in the kitchen and maybe 7 outside as it was yesterday morning is harsh. See, they don't have central heating in houses here. If you are lucky you might have an a/c that does heating as well but in our case that is just localized to our bedroom and the kitchen, the rest of the house is very, very cold. Okay, enough complaints for today; at least I can go outside and warm up as soon as the sun is out.

Soo, the Eurovision,  we won!! Or rather Sweden won. I feel it was well merited but I would have felt the same if Australia had won or the UK, they were my three faves, so any of them would have done me. Not everyone is happy though, I just read an article called "Where are the freaks, Eurovision  2015 was far too respectable" and I tend to agree a little bit. Missing the songs sung in native tongues and in folk dress, but I guess we are past that now.

Here in Australia we have Vivid Sydney going on and we might go in tonight for a stroll to the different venues, it's bound to be good. If we don't go I have seen a lot of photos of it already so I almost feel like I have been there. We are getting a little short for time before our big Europe trip.
We are leaving in exactly a week and now is the time to do all those last-minute things you have put off to do later. Hubby and I are both serious procrastinators, but we usually get the important things done. Favorite saying "No press, no production", right.

Last Sunday we had a very nice catch up lunch with a friend, whom we initially met many years ago while living in Grenoble.

 

She and her husband, who is a colleague of hubby, now lives in Switzerland and we, as you all know, are here in Sydney.  We all know "It is a small world", and proof of that is that  her son and family now live in Sydney and she was here to see them.They live on the other side of town near the  lovely Balmoral  beach,  where we had a little walk before driving home again.

Bye for now dear readers, and thanks for reading!

Man flu

We have a rampant case of man flu in the house. As usual it always occurs on the weekend. So instead of going on one of our weekend excursions we are staying put nursing the patient. That means that I still have not got anything fun to write about, we have not been anywhere interesting but a lot of things has happened in the world.

Sydney has had terrible storms with some serious damage and this weekend could be similar they said, but so far just normal rain. We have also closely followed the last days of the two Aussie drug smugglers who were finally executed a few days ago after having spent almost 10 years in prison.  One of them, Myuran Sukomaran  learned to paint while in prison and has turned out to be a very good artist, specializing in portrait painting. Wish I could paint as well as that.

Let's not forget the horrible earthquake in Nepal, with thousands dead and so many homeless. 

Hi again, dear readers!

The first part of this blog entry was written a week ago and now it is Monday again. Yesterday was Mother's Day so we had a nice visit from our son and also lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in Cronulla called Zimzala. Mother's Day is a rare occasion where I am allowed to put a photo of our son here. He is not very keen to be visible on the internet.

Zimzala is the smaller white building on the far beach. Great location, eh?

Almost nothing shocks anymore. Last Saturday we went into Sydney to see the Rocky Horror Show. I had never seen it but hubby had seen it in the days when it probably was quite outrageous. I think now we are used to seeing everything so therefore it felt a little tamer maybe. The audience were mainly our age and knew most of the texts by heart. When the song Time Warp came on half of them were standing up doing the moves. Very cute, considering they were all 60+.  I was a little disappointed though that no-one was dressed up.

"Let's do the Time Warp, again!"

After the show we had a quick look at the Star Casino and

then dinner down in Darling Harbour.

Time for bed now, so goodnight all, back next week I hope!

Too much free time

When I was a busy mother of three with a job and a house and garden to look after I never thought the time would come when I would have too much free time on my hands. But it has. I try to keep busy with different activities but still there is a lot of time left over, especially since house cleaning and ironing are not your favorite occupations.

So what do I do, well, I surf the web,  I Fbook,  and play games and read and paint.  While checking something on YouTube I came across a short film about my hometown Gothenburg. It was amazing to see how it has changed, especially to see how the harbour was so busy in those days.

That got me on to another  little film by the same man which showed the ship Kungsholm. That is the ship I sailed on when I went to the US for the first time at the age of 15 (well I turned 16  a few months after the trip). I was going to stay with my Dad and his wife in New York for a year. He had wanted me to arrive in New York  the same way  the immigrants did in the old days, and see the harbour and the Statue of Liberty. The lady I shared a cabin with woke me up and we stood at the railing in the very early morning and saw every thing just like my countrymen must have done so many years ago. I think the trip took seven or eight days and not seven weeks as it did for people in the past. I remember it as it was yesterday, the noise and the smells and the crowds, it was magic. I had never even seen a person with a different skin color before.

Oh, yes, I promised to let you know how I was getting on with being a farm hand. Well, so far so good. It turns out that the dog is the least of my problems, he is just so happy to see his feeder and for the company, plus he is really very small, so no real threat. The ducks got out of their little enclosed area one day and I couldn't get them back in but the next day I lured them in with food and it worked.

I have often wondered why eggs here in Australia are mainly brown and in Sweden they are always white. Here is a little explanation. I said that I often wondered but that is not entirely true. It is only since I became more involved in taking care of chooks. Yes, that what Australians call hens.

It has finally stopped raining so I'll be off  to run some errands.

See ya!

Petting zoo

I am just back from J, my next door neighbour. She is going away next week and needed to give me instructions for taking care of her mini zoo, so I can feed the animals when she is away. Unfortunately hubby is away at exactly the same time, he would have been so much better at it, than me.  I am not a natural choice for this job. For those who know me, you are well aware of my fear of dogs (and to some extent cats), but the neighbour's dog is not very big so I feel I will be able to cope.

Now as it happens her cat passed away at Easter so now I only have to feed one dog, and maybe take her for walks. Also feed some birds in a cage, and two ducks and two hens (and collect eggs). It will be an interesting experience. I'll let you know how I go.

Easter was quite cold and grey here in Sydney, so we stayed home and caught up on stuff around the house. Oh, I forgot we had one very nice restaurant visit as a farewell dinner for friends leaving to go to Sweden.

Having a drink at Circular Quay the first day of my nephew's visit together with E our niece from Melbourne.

My nephew from Sweden has been visiting for three weeks and since our son is still between jobs the two of them did a lot of sight seeing together, involving camping. They went to Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park, but didn't see any dingos or feral camels or snakes but a few kangaroos, mainly road kill. They missed the camel race that was going to be on the week after they left, ashame!

 

My nephew left yesterday after three action packed weeks and I guess he should be home soon.

This is going to be the shortest ever blog, I simply have to get back to watching "Welcome to Sweden" it's a serie on Youtube that a friend was watching because she is moving to Sweden with her husband. She thought it would help her to prepare for life over there. Hubby says it is right on the nose but I feel that it is a tad exaggerated. Well, up to you to decide if you watch it.

Until next time with a bit more content, cheerio!