Terrible weather conditions today with a snowstorm over the city. I managed to get to work alright but lots of delays and problems with traffic.
After work we walked over to the restaurant we discovered last week and enjoyed a lovely lunch. I chose the fish of the day and it was delicious.
Almost didn’t make it back home. It was snowing really bad and the buses were delayed. But, finally my bus arrived and I managed to make my way home. Now I’ve done an hour of ironing while the food is slow cooking in the oven. I have not been out shoveling snow, so my husband will have some work to do when he gets home.
Long day
A lot of challenges to get thru today too, but when the day was getting closer to the end most of the things were sorted. Good.
We made meatballs with pasta for dinner tonight. Quick and tasty.
I will make it an early night tonight. Didn’t sleep very well last night for some reason. Woke up around 4 AM and wasn’t able to go back to sleep. Not very good. Fingers crossed tonight will be better for me.
Full week
Time for a five-day work-week for the first time in a while. Still a lot of snow outside but not as cold as it has been. About -7C this morning when I went to work though, but the forecast promises degrees above 0C and maybe some rain by the end of the week. Oh well.
We enjoyed our spa this weekend. Best time of the year, love to sit out there under the stars. It is a bit of a challenge to go out there in a swimsuit, but once in the spa life is good.
A short day today, but stayed on for about an hour to finish up. Quite a busy day with a lot of sudden things happening and quick fixes. I was exhausted when I got home. Puh. Now we have enjoyed a lasagna for dinner. Burger with pasta for the non-lasagna eater. Corner time awaits.
Hilarymos Day
On Tuesday it is Hilarymos Day – 20 days after Xmas. Can’t believe how time flies. As a tradition here in Sweden, the Xmas tree needs to be taken down no later than this day.
Since I work a long day on Tuesday I decided to take out Xmas today instead. All the elves, table cloths, curtains, window lights, decorations etc are now packed in their boxes and put away. And the tree put away.
I have done a lot of laundry too and tomorrow I might do some ironing. My winter curtains in the living room can remain where they are as long as there is still snow outside. They are more winter-patterned than Xmas-patterned. Also, the outdoor lights can remain for a while longer.
Made Swedish pancakes for lunch, served with strawberry jam and blueberry jam. Mmm. Tonight I’m making roulades, filled with blue cheese and served with oven baked potatoes. A nice dinner to end a lovely weekend.
Skiing
A lovely sunny Saturday – perfect weather for some downhill skiing / snowboarding so my husband and youngest son packed their equipment and drove over to Flottsbro for some fun. It is not like going to the mountains – more like a hill – but it has various lifts and usually various slopes to choose from. But, today only the family slope was open so it was kind of crowded.
After a couple of hours they were done and picked up some burgers on their way so we could enjoy lunch together.
I’ve started to pack away Xmas, and I’m done with the kitchen and bedroom. I’m a bit too fond of our tree still and it still looks great so I might wait a bit longer before I take it down. Or, maybe I’ll do it tomorrow. First we are doing the groceries though, since we didn’t do them today.
Shrimp Caesar
Perfect with a short week – Friday arrived extra quickly!
We decided to try a new restaurant (or at least, new to us) called Side Pour on Norrlandsgatan for lunch. We choose their Caesar salad – I chose shrimp and my colleague chose the more traditional one with chicken. And we were not disappointed – I’m sure we’ll go there more times! Good food and ok prices.
Picked up some pork filet on my way home and made dinner for the troops. Now some corner time enjoying our new addiction – chili cheese snacks – while waiting for “På Spåret” to begin. Lovely start of a, hopefully, great weekend!
Special evening
A special evening ended this long work day. My oldest niece has been in town for a few weeks and is returning to her home in Gothenburg this weekend. So, we decided to meet up for dinner and a proper chat.
She picked me up from work and we took a nice walk over to Gamla Stan and decided to have dinner at an Italian restaurant where I’ve been several times that she hadn’t been to yet. The food is usually great and it is very traditional in its decor. Small and cosy. We were not disappointed and ended the pasta dinner with a coffee and a tiramisu treat to share.
We were fortunate going home with not too much wait for either the subway or the bus, so that was extra great. A very nice evening!
Back to work
We were not too happy when the alarm went off at 05.50 AM this morning letting us know we had to get up and get to work.
Not too cold today, only -3.5C, but still a lot of problems for the buses, subways and commuter trains. I got to work in time and it was great to sit down and enjoy a nice cup of coffee with my colleague whom I haven’t seen for almost 3 weeks.
Short day for me today and I’ve enjoyed a quiet afternoon finishing one of my two jigsaw puzzles I received for Xmas. Yeah! Now I can start working on puzzle number two. Love solving them. My way of relaxing and focus on something else.
Castle of the month – Ljunglöfska
The first castle of the month this year – Ljunglöfska Slottet, in Bromma.
“When Knut Fredrik Ljunglöf (1833-1920) took over his father’s tobacco business in 1860 the property was valued to 850 000 old Swedish crowns. At the end of the 19th century, tobacco and wet snuff (Swedish snuff characteristically has a high degree of moisture) were manufactured by his firm. His success resulted in his concern becoming one of Sweden’s largest snuff and the Europe second largest tobacco business. Like many of the rich and well-to-do people, Ljunglöf left the city during the summer months. Since he already owned much of the western suburbs of Stockholm, he chose to erect a large villa there, on the shores of Lake Mälaren. Later on the villa came to be known as “slottet” (“the palace”). This colonial Portuguese-Spanish style mansion with natural stone ornamentation was finished in 1893 having taken four years to complete. Surrounding the mansion is a beautiful garden with fountains and trees such as cypress, “blood beach” and silver fir.” (text borrowed from their website)
It was a lovely day when we arrived in Bromma, but shortly after it started to snow really bad so we decided to return home. Made it back without any problems. Now it is snowing heavily so the afternoon will be spent in the comfort of our corners watching series.
Gold medal
The finale was played in the evening, local time, which meant at 02.30AM Swedish time. If one of the players was my son, I would stay up all night. But, since I don’t have that relationship with any in the team I slept thru the night, stayed away from social media all morning and watched the game on SVT Play instead.
And it was a great game! We managed to score the first goal and the following two. Then when it was just a couple of minutes left they scored two goals. With seconds left we made the 4-2 goal and won the gold medal. Puh.
So proud of our future pride-and-joy! This was our third gold in this competition, first one back in 1981 – then in 2012. Wow. And this tournament we didn’t loose one single game. Impressive!