P!nk

Tuesday night A and I went to see Pink in Stockholm at the Globe arena - which had been spectacularly floodlit in pink especially for the occasion. The concert was fantastic - a carnival theme, not as in Mardi Gras, but more vaudeville and burlesque. I never actually realised Pink had such a great voice until now - she was pretty spectacular live. My favorite number had to be "So What", while Alice liked the low key acoustic version of "Mr President".

This was one of the occasions where I was reminded that I live in Sweden (if I should ever forget!). The Globe was full to capacity at 14 000 people and everyone seemed to be having a great time watching Pink. However this didn't manifest itself in the audience reaction, which at times was reminiscent of the polite applause the principal might get after the end of year speech in the school auditorium. I know that Swedes in general don't often raise their voices and are not prone to outbursts of excess emotion, but this was in fact a rock concert and shouting, cheering and screaming yourself hoarse are usually obligatory.........

September

....... in Sweden has been gorgeous so far. I've been out into the countryside of Habo to capture the mellow evening light.

Goodbye Daphne

We lost a member of our little family during the summer. Daphne allowed us to share her house for 6 years and kept us entertained with her wobbly walk and toe-nibbling, chair-stealing antics. We will miss your little pipsqueak meouw, Daffs.............

The Cake Barn

Well, Garnheim's Bed & Breakfast (aka. my house) has officially closed its doors for the season after a month of guests, mainly family over from England. We have had lots of fun and eaten LOTS of cake.

The cause of this cake gluttony is several visits to "The Cake Barn" as we have dubbed it - or "Lustfyllt" which is its Swedish title, a beautiful converted barn with an all-you-can-eat cake buffet.

If you happen to be visiting Habo (18km north of Jönköping on road 195) then this is the place to go. There are also many antiquey bits and bobs for sale, as well as the owner's pottery. A lot of thought seems to have gone into this concept as every corner is like a scene from an interior design magazine. Judge for yourself from the pics I took.......

Customer Service Part 1

Several people I've talked to seem to think that it's really expensive to eat in London. I disagree. The secret is to leave Swedish eating habits behind (like eating a big meal at midday during the week) and adopt British ones. Buy sandwiches from Boots and eat them in St. James Park, and instead have a main meal between 5 - 7pm when many restaurants have specials on.

I'm going to give a shout out to 2 places I really like in London. The first is Bistro 1 in Covent Garden where the prices are great for such a central touristy location - 2 courses in the evening for just under £10. It's a small restaurant, with a homely atmosphere, serving simple, hearty food. They even have another couple of restaurants in other central London spots. Check them out here.


The second place I have to mention is the Brick Lane Brasserie House of Spice (Brick Lane is the mecca for Indian Food in London) who win my Customer Service Award 2009 ;). We'd just done the spooky Jack the Ripper walk and I was feeling peckish and fancied taking a curry back with me to the hotel, as no one else in the family wanted to eat. This particular restaurant was pretty full, while many of the others were practically empty. Not only did the owner do me a special half portion (to suit my student budget) but actually gave me some of his silverwear to take with me, as he didn't have any plastic forks. He gave the kids little chocolates to eat while we were waiting for the food and even put in some free poppadoms for them. When we then asked for directions to the nearest tube station he came out into the street with us to direct us, even though he was pretty busy.

That's what I call great customer service folks :)

London through a Kodak 620 Junior

On our recent trip to London I dragged 3 cameras around with me. The one that got the most attention was my dad's old folding Kodak 620 Junior, which I am now able to use after learning how to re-spool new 120 film onto old 620 spools.

Here are the shots that I delevoped in the darkroom yesterday. I love the vintage look to these, dust specks and all (no photoshopping needed here!) and how the overexposed edges (due to light leaks??) merge the image into its background.

Covent Garden
View over Thames to Big Ben and Westminster Bridge


London eye Marble Arch, Oxford St
British Museum, covered courtyard
My house!

Spring?

Only people who have experienced countries with loooong, cold, dark winters will understand the longing for spring that people have here in Sweden. The local paper even has a "signs of spring" section where people send in their photos of ice thawing, buds breaking through the earth and birds returning from migration.

For me, seeing tulips in the shops really signals a change of seasons. I saw this lovely bunch in my local supermaket and couldn't resist the gorgeous shades of pink. Snapped them before I'd even removed the cellophane.

London, here we come (again!)

It's always a good idea to have something to look forward to, to help you make it through the long dark Swedish winters. So, this Easter we're heading off to London again. As we had such a fab time there last year, we just had to go back for more. Here's a couple of photos from last year's trip - some sweet houses in Notting Hill (don't you just wish you owned one!) and A enjoying a cuppa in some old dive of a cafe that we stumbled across.

A seed of an idea....

Mmmmm. I have the idea for a little project involving vintage fabrics. We'll see how that develops.

I still have to get my camera fixed. It's actually the flash unit that's bust, and as I rarely shoot with flash, the camera is still usuable - although I'm ashamed to be seen in public as it's cracked with wires sticking out in all directions! So I have been getting on with editing some on the many hundreds of pictures I have already taken.

Here's one which was taken on a frosty misty morning in January in Stoke, my hometown while on a visit over Christmas. It's a homage to Stoke's industrial past, showing the top of one of Stoke's hundreds of disused bottle ovens (where pottery was fired). I had set off with my trusty camera and was wrapped up to the nines in woolly items, telling my mother I would be gone an hour. Arrived back after about three hours, with my mother on the verge of ringing the police ("this is not Sweden you know Dawn!"). Sorry Mum. I tend to lose track of time and space when I'm out snapping.

Have a heart.......

Just spreading some love on Valentines Day :)

Boo to Friday 13th

I am by no means a superstitious person usually. I did not realise until the evening that this day was Friday 13th. When I did everything fell into place.

A few crummy minor incidents blighted my day (the details of which I won't bore you with here). But the major upset happened late afternoon. I was out on the veranda photographing some beads and making the most of the lovely natural light. I turned to go back into the house to fetch my gloves, slipped, kicked over the tripod and sent my beloved camera crashing to the ground. So now the flash unit is completely shattered. I also got a pretty nasty electric shock off the thing when I was inspecting the damage. And I have a big bruise on my bum to boot. BOO!

Here's a picture of some cherries anyway. Just for the heck of it!

Out and about again!

With the half term break upon us, a scattering of fresh snow and A kitted out with her new skis (thanks Arne!) off we set for an afternoon of cross-country skiing. This kind of skiing is lovely - the stillness of the forest has a great calming effect on me and it's easy to control the speed (i.e. slow!).

I am such a baby about downhill, as I hate falling and have an aversion to ski lifts. But cross-country is pretty non-scary. It was about minus five that afternoon - a strange combination of being all sweaty but yet freezing at the same time - so we took a flask of hot choc with us. The final score I may add was 2 - 2 (-we both fell twice!)

Appley-cinnamony comfort food

I have been home for the last few days looking after A who has come down with a bout of the flu. So, in an effort to keep cabin fever at bay, I decided to get out a stash of recipes I've been wanting to try out. When I was a kid myself, I remember ice cream being the only thing I really felt like when I was under the weather.

This was pretty simple to do. It's basically apple slices fried in butter (yes!) for a few minutes each side. I then sprinkled about 2 tbsps of brown sugar over them in the pan, added the chopped zest and juice of half a lemon and a sprinkle of cinnamon. The apples caramelize in a minute or two, ready to be served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.

I just had to show you this. With some Christmas money burning a hole in her pocket, my daughter decided to browse Etsy in the hope of finding something to spend it on. She finally settled on a little critter from morninglori's shop. Lori made "Alice" to order for us with our choice of fabric and Alice is now winging her way to us across the Atlantic as we speak....

Inauguration party

Well, he's now officially installed and some of the US community of Jönköping got together at E's to celebrate in style. Being the generous hostess that she is, E even extended the invite to some non-US peeps, like me.

Beautiful baubles........

I recently bought a small batch of these georgeous blown glass hollow beads. I used some for earrings and sold the rest in my Etsy shop. They have been rather popular -after just a week I only have one lot left.

Lucky cats

Just bought these cute little cat beads, which I'm adding to my shop.