Tuesday 31 March 2009

G20 musings

So it has been an interesting day. Media has been trying to hype up the protests. Security has been extensive in CW. Walking through the shopping mall it felt like a weekend. The sun was shining and most people had dressed down. And all in all I've only seen one tired protestor catching a train home.

However it's been amusing to watch the dressed down "bankers". The train to work wasn't its usual black suits rubbing shoulders experience. Again a slightly weekend feel with a bit less people on the train. I can't complain.



Anyway it remains to be seen if the 5000 protestors will descend upon CW tomorrow or not. Here's a photo of what it looked like today, no suits in sight...

Apparently it was 10 years ago Symbian set up the Ronneby office so the Swedish ex-pats met up after work for a drink at our trusted Stage door. A nice evening with plenty of catching up on gossip.

Saturday 28 March 2009

Afternoon in Exeter




On the road back from Exeter. I'm stuck in the back seat as Rob has stolen my front seat. Don't really mind to be honest. Means I can sit here in the back playing with my iPhone.


We have all been to a family get-together in Exeter. Ian, Rob, Ruth, Piers and I all piled in to the cars this morning to meet up with Jane, James and the extended Hutton family for lunch. Ian's uncle Neil and aunt Rowe was there. It was good to see them again. Haven't seen them since Jane and James's wedding. Ian's cousins were also there with their kids. It was very nice to finally meet them.

Rowe, who organised the event, had picked a very nice restaurant for us to meet. Luckily we had a whole room to ourselves. Specially since it were 19 of us. After a few hours of splendid company and good food it was time for us to head home. We now have a four hour drive to get back home (and my battery is nearly dead!).

Exeter seems like a really nice place, the little I saw of it. I definately like to explore it some more. Perhaps next time. In the meantime, here are some photos I took.






Thursday 26 March 2009

Queen of the desert




On my way back home after a fab time at the theatre. Via my wonderful colleague I had managed to bag four tickets to see Priscilla the queen of the desert. I convinced hubby, R&I to tag along. And yes, I did not mentioned at the time that Jason Donovan was starring nor that it was a musical. In the weeks leading up to tonight the boys were giving me lots of grief and tried to get out of the whole deal. But no luck there.

Luckily the show was brilliant. A real feel good show with lots of laughter. Everybody enjoyed it and their faith in me is restored! I think I'm allowed to make more theatre bookings :-)



Wednesday 25 March 2009

It's all happening

Oops, it's been some time since my last blog. Sorry about that. A few things have happened since last. First of all, my project has been completed and is now adorning our kitchen window. The chillies look really amazing when they catch the sun. They almost become translucent and you can see the seeds inside. Obviously I had to photograph it.

Secondly, the spring has arrived! For two weeks now the weather has been lovely. Sunny, warm and generally pleasant. This means that our garden has come alive. It's all very exciting to see which plants will come up etc. Specially since this is our first spring/summer in the house.

I've been particulary keen to see how the bulbs I planted will do. And yes! a few weeks ago I saw the first purple crocuses appearing :-) Unfortunately the wind/frost got some of them pretty quickly, but not before I got a chance to photograph them.

Next in line where the daffodils. They been cheering us up for the past two weeks and are still going. The tulips is in the process of coming up and soon the flower bed will have some purple in it again.

The weekend saw a proper spring clean of the garden. Ian had fun laying grass turf and plant a hanging basket whilst I was tearing down the naugthy climbing plant (not ivy but it behaves like it) and ensuring all the weed and snails are non-existent. All very satisfying work. The garden looks so much nicer now.

That's it for me, soon time to get off the train. More photos of the garden will follow as it progresss...

Wednesday 4 March 2009

New toy

Been playing with my iPhone again. Downloaded another sweet little software for photo editing. This one, called coloursplash, turns your photos black & White and then let's you use your finger as a brush to bring back one colour. Very cool and fun to play with.




Tuesday 3 March 2009

Kitchen project

For the past weeks I been working on a mobile to hang in our kitchen window. As I came to the conclusion that a curtain would block out too much light and (yes Mom you are slowly converting me) the window seemed a little bare, I thought a mobile could do the job. I guess I got a bit inspired from the mobile shop we found in Japan.

The question was what should I hang in it. As it is a kitchen dried chillies and limes seemed to be the obvious choice. So I've spent a week or two drying them.

Next question was what should I use as a hanging base? I was pondering on this whilst the chillies were drying. The only thing I could come up with, which didn't involve a complicated shopping trip, was gigantic tooth picks. Not ideal perhaps but should do the job.

The week turns into weekend and my in-laws came for a visit. On the Sunday we all went out for a nice walk when it suddently hit me; I can use fallen down tree sticks and branches.

So I came back with an assorted collection of branches and sticks. Next was just to assemble it all. It was a bit fiddely but then again, that's the kind of job I like. Last night I strung the last bit together and voilĂ , we got a mobile for the kitchen. You can see the result below.

All that is needed now is some heavy duty drilling to put the hook up in the window. I might leave that to Hubby, he enjoys that kind of job more than I :-)



Monday 2 March 2009

Culture in Cardiff

The Plants invited us to join them for their annual cultural weekend in Cardiff, Wales. Having attended it last year it was an easy choice to tag along. In splendid Plants fashion the weekend was spent with much laughter, sillyness and good wine & food.

We had left the logistics to Rob which ended up with us taking the train. Believe it or not but he was so organised that we travelled back in first class. Obviously we had to keep up the appearance and when the white wine ran out we naturally had to continue with the champagne. Credit crunch, what do you mean? ;-)

The actual "excuse"g for the gathering was to go to
the opera. This year the Welsh opera house was giving a brilliant production of Mozart's the Marriage of Figaro. We all thoroughly enjoyed it. Not sure it had anything to do with the Mojitos and Caipirinhas we had before though...

Sunday was saint David's day so the Welsh were all out. Leeks, daffodils and red dragons where ever you turned. Some off us piled onto the tourist boat and went for a turn around Cardiff bay. Ian spent most of the time chatting up old ladies while Laurie and Andrea enjoyed the diesel fume at the back of the boat.

After some milling around the Docks, trying to get a coffee, it was time to leave Cardiff. Once back home we went to R&I to have pizza and to admire their blue-ray player. Unfortunately the only film they had to demonstrate with was National treasure II. When R started to rewind because he missed a scene we couldn't stand the badness anymore and went home.

More photos can be found on my flickr...