Please don't worry about the Granny. We're trying to take good care of her: boiling all her water (apparently we have the parasite, cryptosporidium in Europe's cleanest water) and only letting her out with a bodyguard and in the protection of one of Santa's elves. She has to spend a few hours in Stockholm on Tuesday, but we'll wrap her up in some of the cotton wool in the background first.
Last week was half-term, holiday here. The girls got the whole week off, and I was able to work from home Thursday and Friday, so we went out to the cottage for a few days. It was great to be able to let the dog off her lead. She loved the freedom. The only problem is she moves so fast it's difficult getting shots of her. Miss T. got the dog to stand still for a second on this shot, then she was off again, flying over stones, snow and ice, while we slipped and skidded. I even lost a welly at one stage, it got stuck between stones under the snow.
The hole in the ants nest in the background of this picture was probably made by a bear. There weren't many blue berries this year, so hopefully the local bears have filled up on ants instead.
After our thousand mile long trek North in search of Nipa, we are catching up with life here at home and preparing for our trip back to the old country to say farewell to our Great Gran.
Sorry everyone, there has been a lot going on here, but I'll keep trying to stay on top of it all and whatever happens I shall follow the advise of my Grand mama and keep smiling :):):) too.
Travelling on a train a few years ago my youngest daughter asked me why ghosts were not allowed to use the toilet on the train. It took me a while to work it out, but as you can see she's quite right. According to the signs pasted to each toilet lid, ghosts are not allowed to relieve themselves on Swedish trains.
I am glad we didn't stay the night, I don't think we would have got a lot of sleep, it was the sort of house where every floorboard creaked before you even thought of putting a foot on it.
Holidaying at home we are finding there are plenty of places to keep us all entertained. These photos were taken at a new museum in town where the military history of the area is represented. There was lots of stuff to keep the kids happy and the MOTH took a trip down memory lane.
We stopped on the way home for ice creams at Wangen ("a national center for education and development in Swedish trotting" :) We didn't see many horses, I think they must have been, like us, on their summer holidays.
Going down south to pick up a nice niece, we made the most of it by spending half a day at the National Museum of Art, my treat, and a whole day at Tom Tits Experiment, the girls treat, see pictures above. All very satisfying, thank you Granny! And thank you Pa for the gobstoppers, the long journey down was very quiet, even if their tongues and teeth turned black and yellow!
While I'm gone, see if you can guess what this is?
Miss T has been poorly this week. Her temperature has been 39 C (102 F) for nearly a week. When she's is sick or in pain she becomes the politest person you could ever wish to meet, apologizing for not being able to eat or drink more, and thanking me for small things like puffing up her pillow. I knew she was on the road to recovery this morning when I thought I heard her say something rather rude to me as I tried to convince her to take a second egg. When I questioned her about it, she said "No, I didn't say that, I just thought it!"
