A royal encounter by Loch Muick

I may have been really bummed that we did not get the Easter bank holiday at my company, but boy did the replacement day off we got today make up for it!

I love going for scenic walks, however not having a car it can be slightly tricky getting to some of the places, so when a colleague at work asked if I wanted to tag along for a walk on our day off I jumped at the chance!

Armed with some cinnamon rolls from the freezer, and some bars of chocolate I got picked up early this morning, and we set off for Loch Muick (pronounced as Loch Mick)

Originally the plan was to bag a munro (climb a mountian if you don’t speak scottish) and head up Loch Na’gar, however as I have pretty much no experience hillwalking I was glad we settled for Loch Muick instead, and 8-mile walk round the Loch, and fairly flat – slightly easier than going up a mountain. But after I found out that Loch na’gar translates to the loch of the goat, I am almost regretting it. Ah well, there will be other days!

I am warning you right now if you don’t like pictures of the Scottish countryside you might as well look away now!

It was such a stunning day – around 15 degrees, and hardly any clouds! Made for a pretty warm walk, but we had a bit of a breeze at some points as well to cool us down.

After a quick stop for lunch, we walked past this little “bothy” which was built for Queen Victoria as a cottage in 1869. Love it when someones summer house is bigger than your parents!

A couple of minutes after taking this picture a landrover drove by and I thought nothing of it, then shortly after another one followed and we had to step out in the road and wait for it to pass. Just as I was thinking I recognised the woman driving it, Sarah just went “that’s Camilla” and Claire who didn’t believe it then saw it too and went “yeah look it’s Camilla” and started pointing. Sure enough, it was Camilla Parker Bowles, The Duchess of Cornwall out for a drive with a friend.

She must have seen we recognised her as she just waved and smiled at us as she drove past. We were all a bit starstruck and dumbfounded, and at one point I think I even considered a curtsy whereas Claire actually started doing this royal wave at her. She must have thought we were right crazy, but who cares – we saw Camilla and she was so lovely (seen from a car) one of us may have described her as “having hair like a mermaid”  – that wasn’t me – but as I say, we were all kinda starstruck…

We also saw loads of deer, but they were not as exciting.

All in all a great day, definitely something I’d like to do again, and I think we may have some plans for some more walks this summer if things work out! Fingers crossed!

How has your Monday been? Ever seen anyone famous? How did you react?

Do you want to keep the length? Nah – I’m over it.

Do you know how long it takes to cut off hair that you have been growing for about 2 years without a haircut? 

About 40 minutes once you set your mind to it, which coincidentally I did on a spur of the moment this week, and then hey presto two days later I have my hair in a bob and people at work are stopping in their tracks going “oh my god what have you done??” Well apart from that one guy who was like “to be honest I never really noticed your hair much anyway” which I thought was oddly refreshing to hear ha-ha!

It actually took longer getting a decent new haircut selfie than actually getting the haircut. In fact, I have yet to succeed on that as most of my selfies end up looking like thisThe thing now is that I actually have to make an effort with my hair as I no longer have the option of getting out of bed and putting it straight into a ponytail which was my usual routine, instead I now have to actually get up that little bit earlier in order that I can use the straighteners to sort out the mess that is my bed-hair. Something I had conveniently forgotten about, but I am sure I will get used to it. I am sure I am also going to save myself a fortune in shampoo and conditioner usage being drastically reduced for each wash!

I hope you all have a great Easter weekend! Working for my company has its drawbacks in that we don’t get a single bank holiday this weekend, as compared to my husband who gets both Friday and Monday off the jammy bugger. I have told him to do the hovering at least. In fact I find that in the UK the Easter holiday tends to be kind of forgotten about, there are practically no traditions at all, compared to what I was used to back in Sweden and Norway where they pretty much take the whole week off with various traditions. Over here I think the Easter traditions only really start when you have young kids that you can take Easter egg hunting? I am not that big a fan of easter eggs that I am gonna start having kids yet just for the sake of it, put it that way.

One tradition we do have is that my parents are over for a visit this weekend, so I think I will spend the next two days doing the usual with them, i.e shopping, Turkish food, maybe a cinema trip, plenty of board games, me stressing about the flat being a mess etc. etc.  All is as it should be in other words.

Except my neck is cold due to my hair no longer covering it and I am feeling very light headed!

What are you guys up to this weekend? Any Easter celebration plans?

In which she is alive after all

Wow, sorry guys – It’s been what – 3 weeks? I swear I didn’t meant to go completely off the radar, and no I haven’t died or anything.

I could do the whole spiel of, so busy, lots to do at work blahblahblah, and whilst all that is true, to be honest I don’t think I really need to justify why I’ve not been writing here. Who is actually interested in that anyway? Unless I come up with some super story about how I was kidnapped and then a rescue attempt by Pete aided by his friend Inigo Montoya who had his very own personal agenda of revenging his murdered father. Because that is totally what happened you guys!

Well no, I kid, but I am sure you are waiting with baited breath to hear of my escapades in the last few weeks, sit back and prepare to die (oops, no, princess bride again)

Basically, nothing much has been happening since last we spoke, which could help explain my lack of writing. I’ve woken up, gone to work, been super busy, gone back home, watched tv, fallen asleep, repeat etc. I guess the think we call everyday life. There has been bits and pieces of interesting tidbits thrown in for good measure though;

I got to see the solar eclipse earlier this month!

I am a bit of a space-geek so this I was totally up for. Lo and behold I then got booked in to chair a meeting exactly during prime time of the eclipse – not a happy bunny! Fear not – I inconvenienced everyone by rescheduling the meeting because I was “busy” (staring straight at the sun) and so people had to dial into my meeting over lunch instead. Sorry not sorry! I had cleared it with my boss and he was totally fine with this.

I also went against everyone’s advice and actually looked straight at the sun during the eclipse. Like the rest of the people in my office who had not been clever and bought eclipse glasses. With the result that I spent the rest of the day having a sore eye and wondering if I may have made myself go blind and whether it was worth it. I still say it was, I love space-stuff! Did you guys see it?

We went to watch the Ireland – Scotland rugby match in Edinburgh

In short, the rugby was not all that great, last years excursion was much better, probably because I was in more of a party mood then. Although we had a really good time this time round as well, it just wasn’t quite the same. We still went to this awesome Mexican restaurant afterwards though and ate ourselves into a food coma. Again I was in bed by 10pm.

The next day I dragged everyone around The Royal Mile to my two favourite shops only to find they have both closed. Fail

I have also had the pleasure of spending almost a week off with the plague.

Also known as the common cold. Don’t tell Pete this but I think I get the man-flu way worse than he does. So I am just a moaning complaining sniffling wreck whenever I am off sick.

On the plus side I got to catch up on a LOT of TV and movies. I am all chick-flicked out and have gorged myself on romance dramas such as Outlander  – like I watched all the episodes in one day. All of them… , Poldark (oh. My. God AIDAN!!) Austenland, Pride and Prejudice, you name it. I feel a bit sorry for Pete because by the time the weekend came I think my expectations of romantic gestures was a bit warped with all this costume drama, and essentially there is no way Pete could live up to that and I was just grumpy from general staying inside for 5 days and cabin fever.. I mean.. take Poldark.. Rugged, Broody, not quite clean shaven, sweaty from working in the field – Cecilia is like… oooooh myy..

Then Pete comes home, has maybe ran home so is in need of a shower (take note – apparently a sweaty torso is only a good thing on a hot summers day standing in a field wearing a cloth cap..) looking at me with his dark eyes and I guess brooding looks.. Cecilia is like “why are you looking at me like that – go for a shower, you are annoying me, and also please shave, your beard is itchy! WHY DID YOU NOT BRING ME FOOD???” To be fair I don’t think Pete is trying that hard, but even if he did I don’t think he would get quite the reaction that these period drama guys would get… this should probably be its own blogpost actually…

Ok, I will end the word-vomit – I promise I will try better at updating this blog-thing, there are some things coming up that I can try to squeeze some posts out of

So enough about me, what have you guys been up to? Are you still around? Judging by the 500+ unread posts on bloglovin I guess you still are? Anything exciting happening?

The curse of the bitchy resting face

So today dear readers I am going to rant a bit.

I am going to rant about something that I don’t think I am alone in – my face.

Or to be more specific, the fact that I do not have a “naturally cheerful” face. In fact, with my face in it’s natural state, I probably come across as pretty grumpy. It also what is known on youtube as Bitchy resting face syndrome.

So yesterday I was standing in the elevator at work, minding my own business on my way down to the coffee shop. I was neither, angry, concerned, stressed or anything. Ok, perhaps a little tired but it was early in the morning and I hadn’t had my morning cuppa yet. I might have even been thinking about kittens in my head or something.

And THEN – random colleague in the elevator whom I do not know, just turns to me and says “cheer up, you should be smiling – it’s MONDAY!!!”

Ok, without even going into the details of how all sorts of wrong it is to smile because it’s MONDAY (who does that) there is seriously nothing that is more likely to make me grumpy, than some random person telling me I look grumpy because I am not smiling.

I am happy on the inside! I just look this way! How rude is it even to say that to someone you don’t know?? All those things I wanted to say to him, however I did the usual and just smiled and said “oh I will be smiling once I get my coffee” and just made it the hell out of that lift as soon as I could. I do realise he meant nothing by it, and I just didn’t want to spend my time on a Monday morning to educate people on whether it is acceptable or not to tell other people to cheer up.

Another time after a pretty tiring weekend with the extended family (in-laws) I had a 90-ish year old lady wanting to leave me and Pete some life advise before she said goodbye. Her advice to Pete – “grab life by the balls yadiyadi etc etc.”

Her advice to me? “I have only one thing to say to you – you need to smile more, because it makes such a difference to your face, and NOBODY likes a grumpy face!”

… uhm.. ok did you just tell me I look ugly for not smiling at you? Well now I am definitely angry – go away annoying old woman!

The thing is that this happens fairly regularly. I just don’t have a very happy face.

I may be happy or laughing on the inside, but my face is not necessarily equipped to naturally adapt to this emotion. For example, in the below picture I have stolen from Sarah’s Instagram, I have just devoured 3 pieces of chocolate, and was on my way back home from an great weekend in Bruges. Do I look happy? Not necessarily. Was I as unhappy that I look in the picture? Definitely not!

So that was my rant for the day. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even gotten into how uncomfortable I am with public displays of affection, crying in the cinema, hugging strangers, or hugging close friends for that matter. And that whole kissing of the cheek when saying hello. Basically all those little social codes that are accepted as the norm these days.

Hello my name is Cecilia and I come across as a grumpy, switched off, unhappy bugger to people who do not know me. BUT INSIDE I AM LAUGHING!!

Cecilia then and now through pictures

Last year my dad started digitalising all our family photos and spends hours and hours in front of the computer scanning them in and categorising them. I think he may have covered 1975 to about 1990 by now and he still have hundreds of pictures to go. It’s a good thing he is enjoying doing this, because it saves us having to do it later on (in which case it probably wouldn’t get done.) I will just have to forgive him for tagging me in every single family photo on Facebook!

So when I was home over Christmas I got a whole cd full of pictures that I have enjoyed reminiscing to, and it struck me that some things remain the same, and some things don’t although alarmingly, with the availability of picture phones, most photos of myself in my 20’s I am usually at various stages of tipsy in.  I guess that is when I am most comfortable with the camera!

Also I thought it would be a good idea for a post. So here goes, Cecilia then and now through pictures!

Birthdays
there appears to be a theme of celebrating a lot of my birthdays wearing a crown.

I do not intend to change this, would you?

Maybe need to get a less fiddly lock for my handbag though.

Rocking a Swedish national dress

To be fair it’s impossible not to look good in a national costume.. well, that may be debatable actually.  In the above picture I am rocking the child’s dress from Leksand and since then I have graduated to the Rättviskdräkt. I also look more and more like my mum apparently. Except I am blonder, and have to have glasses, and I refuse to wear the ridiculous headscarf I should technically be wearing with my outfit.

Unfortunately there aren’t that many opportunities for me to wear this in Scotland, especially as it’s quite unusual so it attracts quite a lot of attention when I do wear it so I get a bit self conscious. It’s a shame, because it’s handmade by my mum (and great grandmother) and the shoes are made out of leather moulded to my feet specifically so they are the most comfortable party shoes ever. Also, having a national costume, means I basicaly always have an outfit for a wedding, or fancy ball, or a gala. I think it would even be acceptable for a Royal occasion, should I ever get invited, so I wouldn’t have to stress about an outfit! I am ready for that invite!

Rocking the dance-floor

As soon as I stopped ballet my grace and posture just went downhill…

Again, I suspect the alcohol might be to blame. Don’t drink and jive folks! (That was a reference for you Sarah!)

Dressing up with friends

When I was a kid this was part of a regular day, now it usually takes a charity event for me to put some crazy outfit on

Maybe another goal for this year – more fancy dress parties!

What’s your take on old pictures of yourself? Love them or loathe them? As you can see I am on the love them side!

5 things I did this weekend

Happy Monday and Happy March!

How are you all on this fine Monday morning? Can you tell I am cheerful because it is a sunny day? Let’s see how long it lasts

Here is a (very) quick recap of my weekend, and some of the things I will be up to this week.

This weekend I

Attended another sewing class. Considering I had only made a pin-cushion and a pillowcase before christmas, and then not touched a sewing machine since, the Rockingstitch class to sew my own Coco top was maybe a tad ambitious! But we got there in the end and I have a snugly top that I’ve sewn myself. Ridiculously pleased! now I want one in every colour and stripes, and polkadots and.. you get the picture!

Got attacked and robbed by seagulls.

Picture the scene, you have just bought yourself a delicious bacon and cheese turnover for brekkie, and just as you leave the shop you feel this thumping at the back of your head, and there are just crumbs and wings and feathers everywhere, and your hair is a mess. Before you manage to gather yourself to realise what just happened the same thing happens again, but from the front this time. Those pesky seagulls stole my brekkie! damn you vermin of the sky! (Seriously, you have not seen “big” seagulls until you have been to Aberdeen)

Attempted home made naan breads instead of shop bought

And oh my goodness was it worth it – and simple to make too! yum yum! The vegetable curry I made to go with it wasn’t my favourite though I have to say, but who cares when you have bread?

Feasted on pick and mix jelly bellies.

Yes my Saturday treat consisted of jelly bellies jelly beans that I had hand picked myself, which meant that the bag was pretty much full to the brim of just cinnamon and buttered popcorn flavour. Pete was not impressed.

Finished watching season 3 of the walking dead

Gah – I want to watch season 4 and 5 now but we are too stingy to pay for the seasons, so have to wait until they become free on amazon prime.. this could take a while, so any suggestions of what we can watch next instead?

So that was pretty much my weekend in a nutshell. How was yours?

This week is not a terribly exciting one. Lots to do at work, attending a charity spinathon tomorrow, getting my fancy employee portrait taken by a professional photographer (heeeellooo giant spot on the chin, I guess you got the invite did you??) and maybe, just maybe attempt to make macarons again. I didnt even bother blogging about the 1st try because let’s just say they didnt turn out too nice looking!

10 Movies from my youth that I could watch over and over again

Do you have any favourite movies that you could just watch over and over again, regardless of how many times you’ve seen it? I certainly do, in fact I have a fair few, but there are some that have been with me since I was a kid / teenager and I couldn’t possibly tell you how many times I’ve seen them

Prerequisites for these kind of movies include

• You can name every actor in the movie and recognise them instantly in other movies
• You know the script off by heart and quite regularly use quotes from the film in day to day speech
• You know the soundtrack. You probably have the soundtrack downloaded on a CD somewhere or have it as a Spotify playlist
• It’s the perfect Sunday movie to lounge about on the sofa / possibly recovering from a hangover to

With that in mind, let’s have a look at my top 10, (in no particular order)

Now, let me be clear, I am well aware that some of these movies are absolutely terrible and cheesy, it doesn’t matter, If I see any of these come on the telly, my evening is sorted. Doesn’t matter if I have it on DVD to watch later!

Also, I have omitted Disney classics from this list because they are a whole other genre!

10 Things I hate About you

Ok, so everyone who were a teenager in 1999 will probably agree with me that this movie needs to be on this list – am I right? Everyone in my school saw this movie in the cinema and I’m pretty sure that song “I want you to want me” made it into the top 10 on the radio hitlists in Norway that year.

Apart from the awesome story, and the supercute cast, this movie had a gag reel at the end credits! Gag reels are my favourites and pre-youtube these were hard to come by unless you bought the dvd.

If you haven’t see this movie – just do it!

Favourite quote: Kissing isn’t what keeps me up to my elbows in placenta all day long

Clueless

I am not gonna lie, I think a big reason I am watching this movie over and over again is because of Paul Rudd.. mmmm Paul Rudd..

Favourite quote: He does like to shop, Cher. And the boy can dress

Dirty Dancing

Goes without saying. Me, my sister and our neighbour and close friend Ranveig used to sit and watch this at their house, eat chicken wings or popcorn and laugh at Patrick Swayzee going “goo goong, googoong”

When it came to Ranveig’s hennie last year we were meant to buy something as a gift based on our friendship and she had to guess who it was from, so I bought her a copy of this. She knew straight away it was me

Favourite quote: I carried a watermelon?

Empire Records

If we didn’t watch Dirty dancing we watched this one. I am not sure why this is actually on my list as it’s not that good a movie, but I couldn’t not have this here as it’s one of the movies I have seen the most. But for the life of me I can’t remember the story, just that there is a record store, singing, some fangirl crushing on a creep celebrity, someone high on weed all the time, a shoplifter, stolen money, Liv Tyler, lot’s of 90’s hipster music and Ethan Embry.. ooh yes it’s all coming back to me now. You should watch it!

Favourite Quote: We mustn’t dwell… no, not today. We CAN’T. Not on Rex Manning day

Hook

Ok, so NOW we are getting really cheesy. Like Steven Spielberg, and Julia Roberts dressed up like a fairy cheesy. And I think Gwyneth Paltrow had her first role in this movie?

But seriously, who doesnt like a good Peter Pan story? And that food fight seemed amazing, I wanted to do that as a kid! Oh and when Rooster got stabbed by Hook? I cried!

When I was 18 and at school I randomly overheard one of the cool boys use my favourite quote that made my head kind of explode a bit as I had never heard anyone use that line apart from me!

Favourite Quote: Lookie lookie I got Hookie!

Independence Day

I have a diary entry from around 1994 / 1995 when I was 11 years old that just reads “INDEPENDENCE DAY IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!” I am not sure I agree anymore, but I still think it should make it to the list. Also the oldest brother in that campervan was kinda hot.

Favourite Quote: Welcome to Earth!

That Thing You Do

Now we are talking! Probably not just one of my top ten from the 90’s but my favourite feel good movie ever! (It’s up there with 27 dresses!) This movie again has Ethan Embry in it, in a role just referred to as “the base player” Tom Everett Scott was mine and Ranveig’s crush the summer we watched this, but he never managed to live up to expectations after this movie.

Also the soundtrack is so good – I still have it on my playlist and I am not ashamed

Favourite Quote: We actually made a record, a record-record record!

The Hunt for Red October

What’s not to love with this one, Cold war thriller, Sean Connery speaking Russian and a plot-line that even though I watched it 100 times I can never remember how they manage to resolve the situation in the end.

And there’s a Swedish guy in it playing a Russian villain.

Favourite Quote: Be careful! Most things in here don’t react too well to bullets!

Titanic

I went to see Titanic 6 times in the cinema, (and only paid for one) One of the times was when our year spent the night in the cinema watching non-stop movies and by the time Titanic came on it was 3am.

Another time me and Ranveig sat in the back and were those obnoxious teenagers who ruined it for everyone else as we giggled our way through it and translated all the names such as Lovejoy into Norwegian.

I had never liked Leonardo DiCaprio until I saw this movie, then I could agree he was cute but that was about it. Nowadays I find the running about in water part of the movie a tad on the slow side. Like, ok, just get on with the dying now please? Also I have never figured out – does the old lady die at the end or not?

Favourite Quote: do you wanna go to a real party?

The Rock

Aaah, my ultimate guilty pleasure! I LOVE this movie, I don’t care if Nicolas Cage is a terrible actor! The soundtrack is awesome (If you listen to it you’ll totally recognise it’s the same composer as the Lion King, and Pirates of the Carribean and Batman and all those movies. No? Just me being a geek? Ok then.)

Then of course there’s the story and the tension throughout, will they or wont they manage to disarm all the rockets, is Mason a nice guy in reality, why did they talk about stabbing needles into your heart earlier, how can those green beads be so deadly, they are preeeeetty! WHERE’S THE GREEN SMOKE????

Needless to say, if you havent seen this movie, you should, ok. And please don’t judge! Remember I was 13 when I saw this! lol

Favourite Quote: So, so many to choose from here, but I’m gonna have to go with ’cause I’d take pleasure in guttin you, boy!

So that was my 10 – now I am curious to hear what you think? Do you agree with any of these or do you have a completely different list?

Coffee and Banana Cake

I had all grand plans this week about writing one of those “10 happy things this week post”, and then what happened is that for reasons I don’t particularly want to disclose too much on the internet, it has been the shittiest week, probably since my cat got hit by a car and I had to go and identify him last year. So yeah. Not a happy Cecilia this week, and it’s probably gonna be a bit glum for a few more days to be honest.

Anyways, so when I woke up on Saturday and was gonna go and make a breakfast smoothie, but discovered that the bananas were a bit too overripe for that, I just thought “screw it – I’m baking a cake” Now cake doesn’t really solve any problems in the world, but I have never heard of it making anything worse either, so I started scouring my cookbooks for Banana cake recipe, and this is what I came through with on the other side

If you find yourself with a number of bananas that you are planning on just putting in the bin because they are overripe, I say go for this option instead!

What you will need is
100g butter
300ml caster sugar
2 eggs
500ml plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder (which I am totally noticing when reading the recipe that I forgot to add)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
ripe bananas  – approx 400g (I used 4)
50ml cold coffee

Cream together your butter and sugar until fluffy, then continue creaming, adding one egg at a time.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and combine with the butter/egg/sugar mixture

Mash the bananas, mix them into the batter, and add the coffee.

Add to a cake tin (one of those with a hole in the middle) and bake at the bottom of the oven, for around 60 minutes at 175 degrees celsius.

Take your cake and eat it! It probably goes quite nice with ice cream or whipped cream. I just had a slicet on it’s own, it works that way too!

Remember, bananas are high in Potassium, Potassium is very good for preventing high blood pressure and strokes, so basically this is a healthy cake! 😉

What do you tend to do with overripe fruit and veggies? just bin it or come up with a separate use for them?

Oh by the way, if you are following me on twitter, you may find it a bit confusing in the next few weeks that I start tweeting like crazy about my bus-journeys to work. The reason is I am taking part in a study about commuting and social media use that is being done by the University of Aberdeen. I am helping out with science!

A Super-extra-ordinary day in my life

Let’s have a look at what I did this Monday shall we? I love reading these kind of posts, so I am basically forcing you to do so as well!

Actually this Monday wasn’t quite as normal as they usually are because I was working from home for a change, but it was a lot easier to take pics that way! (although they are still crappy phone pics but bear with me        )

7.45 – ish

I got a longer lie-in today due to the whole not having to go into the office thing, and so I get up and get dressed for an 8am start. The great thing about working from home is I get away with wearing trackies and comfy base-layers all day!

8.15-ish

Coffee is ready and computer is loaded up. Time to do that work!

9.00 – ish

Work is dull, let’s put some radio on in the background

10.00 – ish

Taking advantage of no distractions to catch up on a lot of training courses I need to finish – this time it’s all about various standards and regulations. Learning is fun! I am not bored whatsoever! There are actually tests between each module so I better pay attention, i.e switch off the music video channel in the background

11.45 – ish

After finally completing the training I do some sneaky chores, like hanging up the washing. Isnt it amazing how these kind of tasks seem a lot more appealing to do when you’re meant to do something else? I recognise this from my university days.

13.00 – ish

After our flat inspection (the reason I stayed at home today) which included in finding out or smoke detector doesnt work (yay) I finally manage to grab some super non-healthy lunch of toast with brown cheese, and tea.  Empty carbs and sugar! mmm

14.00 – ish

Attempt more training and discover that this goes very well with knitting – multi-tasking all the way! This is gonna be a scarf.

Actually at this point I am struggling, as the training material keeps crashing and I can’t for the life of me figure out why, and start playing about with my java settings and stuff. I am seriously worried about having messed up my work PC. Two hours later I get a message from a colleague that the internet went down at work, and everyone left around 14.00 as there was no point staying there as nothing could be done. I am connected by VPN so this is why I haven’t managed to do anything. Had I been in the office I would have stopped working a long time ago, it is only because I am at home I sit and stress out about this for about two hours instead, until I am told ten minutes before regular close of business hours that I could have just taken the afternoon off. How typical!

17.15-ish

But look at the sunset from our living room window! How pretty is that? it was gone 5 minutes after taking this pic, and at that point Pete came home from his work, which is not work this week but Jury Duty. Some people get to have all the fun!

17.50-ish

We head to Tesco for some foodshopping. We mainly buy beer and vegetables.

18.40-ish

Because when we get home we  whip up a beef and ale casserole for next days dinner. By the time this is done and in the oven neither of us can be arsed cooking anything for tonight’s dinner so we end up with a Pizza from the freezer

19.20-ish

Which we devour to the sights of Walking Dead Season 3. I want to watch all the episodes, but Pete is mean realistic and sets a curfew on two, because he wants to play Nintendo instead.

21.00-ish

So I go for a shower and retire to the bedroom watching old episodes of Skins on Netflix, before falling asleep.

So there you have it, my extremely awesome and super interesting Monday this week – nothing much to remember really, except I will now because I have written it down here. My mum always says to not forget the ordinary days in your life, and I guess she has a point, it is the ordinary days we experience the most often I guess.

How was your Monday this week?

Off the needles – Traditional Norwegian Sweater from Fana

As you may or may not know by now, I was born and grew up in Norway but my parents are Swedish and I have a Swedish passport, and generally consider myself Swedish in all aspects. Add the love / hate relationship between Sweden and Norway as a nation and you can guess that my loyalties lie with Sweden at all levels. Apart from a few exceptions.

There are 3 things I think they do better in Norway; Hot dogs, Chocolate and Knitwear!

I am a massive fan of the Norwegian knitwear tradition and the patterns used, and you will have seen in a few posts that I was working on yet another Norwegian traditional Sweater. Trust me, you can never have too many handknitted Norwegian Sweaters! So last week, I finally finished this one, and I predict this will be a good contender to my Marius Sweater this year! The pattern is named after the region it originates from, that is, you guessed it I am sure – Fana, which is an area near Bergen on the West Coast.

The Fana Sweater is one of the most popular and well known patterns in Norwegian knitting, and has been made since around the 1850’s in some shape or another. If you know your Norwegian knitwear traditions you will be able to recognise a Fana from miles away due to the stripes with the incorporated lice, and the traditional Roses around the collar. In the original Fana sweaters there is also a checker-board pattern around the cuffs and hem, but in my pattern they had skipped that and gone with just a ribbed edge, I modified it to a twisted rib instead as I think it sits much nicer (I realise a lot of you guys have a very limited idea of what I mean about different ribbed edgings etc. but you know, for especially interested this might be of use)

Colour wise, the Fana is usually knitted in white as the main colour and then a contrast colour of red, blue, or black  or just any you like really) I don’t think there are really any “rules” as such, but there is usually white in there somewhere. I very nearly went with blue and white, but changed my mind when I saw this beige / camel colour in the store, and I am really glad I went for this instead, as I think it goes lovely with the blue!

The yarn is a blend of alpaca and wool which is super soft and also gives it a slightly fluffier look due to the loose hairs in the alpaca yarn, but alpaca smells a bit like wet dog when wet so I better not get caught in the rain too often
All in all this took me around a month and a half to complete and I’m not gonna lie, it wasn’t the cheapest yarn I have bought, and it can definitely be knit in cheaper yarns and be just as nice, but I wouldn’t want this one any other way. Let’s just say that I could not make knitting a full-time job – people would not want to pay for the cost of materials and the man-hours that go into making one of these, but as a hobby, it works!

Size-wise this fits me perfectly! Yay for that! – as I mentioned earlier I took a bit of a risk and did not make a swatch to check my gauge and decide on a size before I started, I just went with what I thought was right. Lucky for me it worked out this time – it doesn’t always!

So what next? I made it a goal to make a lot more smaller items this year, like mittens, socks scarves and hats, but that was before I bought that book with Norwegian traditional Sweater and cardigan patterns so hmm.. Is it sad I already have my eye on another Norwegian Classic? I should really be focusing on some of the unfinished items and sweaters I have at home, but oh – the temptation! it is definitely there! And don’t even say anything Sarah because I know what you are thinking right now! haha