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!