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?

Glad midsommar!

It is midsummer eve and we are in the car on our way to a music festival in Croyde, Devon. A nice four hour drive through very pretty country-side. The best part is that even though it is nearly eight o'clock, the sun is high in the sky.

Very appropriately for the day we just drove past Stonehenge. It is a bit of a pity to see such a remarkable place be completely deserted on a midsummer eve. Well well, I guess that's the way it is here. At least I got a sneaky shot of if through the window as we drove past.

And of the gigantic pig fram across the road. It was definately not there last time we were here. Time to enjoy the magnificent views a bit more.

The J&L story in photos

It started rather innocently on a Tuesday evening...














... attack ...

... All was calm again...