Not the usual commute

It is cold. -5 according to my iPhone. A thin layer of snow is covering the ground as is a thin sheet of ice. It is rather pretty.

After thoroughly checking that the trains are running we walk down to the train station.

As we are coming down the hill we spot a lorry across the road. He seems to be trying to reverse into a side road. As we get closer we realise it isn't moving at all. In fact, it is jacked-knifed across the road. Not able to move in any direction.

We walk up to the lorry in hope to be able to sneak past it. We start with the back only to realise that it is about a 2 cm gap between the lorry and the fence. I am not that thin! We find a similar situation at the front of the lorry. Not a chance to sneak past.

As we are trying to get past, the lorry driver climbs out. With an apologetic smile he offers us to climb through the cab of the lorry. Considering that our train is shortly due we take him up on his offer.

So today I climbed through a lorry to get to work...



Train arriving...

SE3

Isn't this a familiar morning view for us ex-SE3s?



I must say it felt rather familiar to get to work in the morning. I almost remembered which train coach to get for optimal transfer to the DLR :-)))




Staying in Blackheath was part of my birthday present which due to cash in. So on 15 December hubby brought me and Mos to see Depeche Mode in the O2 arena.


It was a brilliant gig. Lots of good old classics all revamped with a modern beat. Even hubby liked it!


Not only did we get to see Depeche, Soulsavers was the warm up band. Managed to get this impressionistic photo of them.


In darkness we wait...

Christmas trees in a glass box

I had some extra time this morning so I spent it photographing my favourite models.

The anchoring wires of the London eye is boxed in by a glass box. Every now and then they change the decorations in the box. At this time of year it is obviously a Christmas theme. A bit more modern I would dare to say.

Xmas shopping

I took Friday morning off work to get some Christmas shopping done. Managed to hit the shops shortly before 10 o'clock.

It was brilliant! Very few people about and all the shops were fully stocked and orderly. You could actually find things. Have to go shopping early in day more often.

Anyway, I did stop by Carnaby street and as always they had very funky Christmas decorations.

Muse

Clever Is had managed to get hold of four tickets to see Muse at the O2 arena. Very lucky as I utterly failed to get any tickets at all.



It was a fab gig! Brilliant atmosphere and obviously good music.



During the slow parts the mixer table provided us with ample entertainment. Six guys and only one seemed to do any work.

Pod is found

Some time ago I spotted that the London Eye had lost one of its pod.


Had it fallen down or had someone stolen it?


Yesterday morning I was happy to see it floating in the river.


The eye will be complete again. Hurray!

Glorious morning

It has really turned dark now in the mornings. When I leave in the morning to get my train it is still dark! In a way it is rather depressing.

However I'm usually quickly cheered up again by the beautiful sunrises I get to see. Some days the mist is majestically sweeping across the fields. Other days the light is fantastically golden. Like yesterday morning.

By the time I reached London the sun had just risen and the colours were just amazing. A fab time to be travelling down the river Thames.

Engagement party

Our cunning plan has succeeded ;-)
Our bestman and brides maid got engaged a couple of weeks ago! Today we celebrated their engagement with a visit to our old faithful Crooked Surgeon, which isn't so old and faithful anymore as they have changed to into the chain Slug and Lettuce.

As custom has it we had to get them an engagement present. Their engagement took place in Dublin so two engraved Guiness pint glasses were the obvious choice.

The happy couple seemed to think so too..


However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the bride-to-be likes the box the most...

New hat

Suprise suprise! A present awaited me as I came home tonight.

My talented mother has been at it again. This time she has knitted me a fab hat. Thank you!

Weekend in Sweden

Just had a fab and long weekend at my parents' place.


One if the highlights was the inauguration of their garden house. Dad had been busy building this fantastic garden house as an extension to the barn. We spent every evening in there!


Their hanging chairs had finally found a place again. I can tell you I've had lots of fun playing in these chairs as a kid. It is a miracle they are still usable!


Dad and my brother enjoying the garden house.


The salad is coming along quit nicely in the beds.


My brother had got mom and dad a very kitch clock in black plastic which is thoroughly inspected here by dad.


On Saturday we had a crayfish party as an inauguration party. Mom had got 8 kilos if crayfish to share between the five of us. Unnecessary to say, we didn't finish it all. So we had crayfish on Sunday too :-).


Friday and Saturday had been shopping days for me. I was on the hunt for curtains and sofa fabrics. In the end I managed to find curtains for three rooms. One for our newly decorated laundry room, one for our office/guest room and one extra pair for our bedroom as our current ones are a bit too light.


On Sunday we managed to sew them all!

For Rob

Out on our anniversary dinner. Spotted this in the drinks menu. As this is Rob's favourite (the caipirinha that is) I had to photograph it and put it on the blog. Now we are going to enjoy a very nice dinner at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen.

Box room finished!

For the past weekends we've been busy decorating the box room. We have had fun with stripping paint, filling holes, sanding and painting both the walls and the wood works.




This weekend the paint job was all done. We now had a sunny green/yellow (dulux forest lake 6 & 4) room. So it was time to put up the shelving system.



That took us almost a whole day. We hadn't got the easiest to assemble shelves from ikea. There were four poles that needed to be fixed against the wall and the floor. And to make it extra tricky they had to be in the exact right position in order for the shelves to fit in.





We managed without any major disasters or miscalculations. Yippie! Well, we did get too few fittings so the last shelf and clothes rack have to wait until our ikea delivery next Monday. But we are mighty pleased with our new laundry/storage room (stryk rum)!

Final batch

It was time to put some more fruits into our rumtopft. We already had a pineapple that we wanted to add. Ian spotted some English plums in the Waitrose so we had to have those as well.





After cutting them up I let the fruit marinate in sugar for one hour. It is increadible. No matter how many times I do this, I always end up having suger all over the kitchen. So massive cleaning action whilst waiting.

It looked to be our last batch and in the last minute I remembered to add the raisins. They were lovely last year so we had to have them now as well.





When adding the fruits I quickly realised that there was far less space left then I thought. Oooops, ended up with far to much fruit and the pot filled to the brim. Guess we have to have some for dessert tonight.

Now the rumtopft will just sit there until Christmas. Yum!

Back in business

I had a bit of a accident which is the reason for no postings in a while. My iPhone was very naugthy and decided to commit suicide by jumping out of my pocket and straight down onto a marble floor. CPR was fruitless so I had to surrender to a life without iPhone.

I must admit it was hard. We had become quite close. So in the end I decided to treat myself to a new one. Sunday was the big day when I went to the shop and picked out my new friend. And we have been happy ever since ;-)

I was particular pleased to find out that I could download all my apps without having to pay for them again. Good thinking Apple...

So now I'm back in the 'being mobile' business. And so is our Rumtopft...

Well, a new batch of the rumtopft is under preparation! This year we have actually started it on time; that is in June. We started with the must have strawberries. Followed by our homegrown wild strawberries (smultron). Last night we added blackberries (björnbär), blueberries (blåbär) and apricots.

There is still some space left before the pot is filled to the brim. Then it has to happily sit and brew until Christmas. I must say it looks (and smells) really nice. I must admit we have splashed out a bit on a 5 year old rum so it should become really yummy. Laurie and Linda, we will save some extra for you ;-)




Doesn't it look lovely?