Too much chocolate...

My colleague went to that well-known Swedish furniture shop the other day, I'm sure you know the one I mean; famous for its flat packs and self assembly and even more famous (or is that infamous) for its useless instructions. In any case she surprised me by bringing back a giant slab of marabou chocolate (the best chocolate in the world if you ask me).

My mother once told me that it's better to eat lots of chocolate in one go than to spread it out over the day, as long as you brush your teeth afterwards... I'm not sure whether she said that because she, like me, has zero will-power or what, but I followed her advice nevertheless and stuffed myself. (And then, like a good girl, I brushed my teeth...)

SPC - treading with caution

The toilet at University College London

The very first time I went to an English hospital I was shocked at how worn out and tired it looked. Having lived in Sweden, Canada and the Netherlands where hospitals often resemble futuristic laboratories, all glass and stainless steel surfaces, it was like entering a different world. Initially I thought that perhaps Brighton General was more out of shape than other hospitals, but I have since been proved wrong on many occasions. And so it never surprises me learn about yet another MRSA outbreak; what with the peeling paint, cracked plaster and scabby furniture that must be left from pre-war days, the cleaning personnel are fighting a lost battle.

So it was with some trepidation I arrived for an MRI scan at University College London this morning. Despite the expected state of disrepair all went well, now I just have to keep my fingers crossed until the results come back.

Mr muscle

“I’m weight training” he calls out from his study as I enter the flat. I laugh and tell him that’s good; he could do with a bit of exercise. “I know, my arms are turning to mush, it’s embarrassing… not what they used to be”, he jokes back. I carry the shopping bags into the kitchen and put them down by the sink, trying to avoid stepping on the cat as she winds in and out between my legs, hoping for a mid-afternoon snack.

“Richard asked me to look through this very interesting collection, it’s from a friend of his father’s… her husband recently passed away, and she has no idea what to do with it. It’s mostly England… I’ve only glanced at it really, but it looks very promising.” My father continues his monologue while I put away the shopping; his voice light and happy. I put a few of his favourite sweets; chocolate covered coconut, on a plate and bring them to the study. He looks up at me with a smile, his glasses balancing on the very tip of his nose, and then he sees the chocolate. “Oh, you are a good and thoughtful daughter” he says with a grin and motions for me to come closer so that he can kiss me on the cheek.

My father is a stamp collector, and hasn’t actually done any weight training in years (although in his youth he was very athletic and once cycled 150 km just to see a football match, and then back again at the end of the game). But he only lifts stamps now.

I suppose stamp collection is a hobby of the past, but it is one that suits my father’s temperament and personality particularly well. He’s a shy man, he’s always been very hard on himself and he has lived most of his life with a sometimes crippling sense of social inadequacy. Stamp collection has served as something of an anchor; it has given him both stability and peace, but just as importantly it has also provided him with a social scene where he has always felt completely at ease.

Being a collector is a fundamental part of my father’s identity and the security it has given him has always extended to me and my mother, and at no time was this more apparent to me than when I was a child. I have an abundance of wonderful evening memories from my childhood when I would be lying in my bed at night, just about to drift off to sleep. The light would be on in the study, and I could see his shadow bending over the desk as he searched through reference books, looking for that all-important connection between a particular stamp and a particular post mark.

The ostrich finally pulls its head out of the sand

On Monday evening I went along to a talk by Naomi Klein (author of No Logo and more recently The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism) and talk about rude awakening. I've never been very interested in politics or economics, and rather than having to deal with the horridness of the world I have often preferred to stick my head in the sand... you know, out of sight out of mind...

But Naomi's talk was so accessible and so mind-blowing that I just had to sit up and start paying attention. I was transfixed as she explained how governments exploit crisis situations: wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and whilst the country is in a state of shock they make what would otherwise be a political impossibility politically inevitable. Just like electroshock therapy regresses the psychiatric patient or POW to an infantile state, unable to make decisions, so does the crisis or disaster regress the people. And in that window of opportunity, when the people are frightened and confused, looking for guidance, governments can push through policies that otherwise would never be accepted.

And so I bought the book and I've not been able to put it down since. It's shocking how much I never knew; about the Bush administration, about what's been going on in Iraq, about what happened after the tsunami... and as scary as it is to find out, it feels great to finally be awake.

There is a great short film, made by film maker Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein and directed by Jonás Cuarón, that accompanies the book. I tried to download it here but it didn't work. Do have a look at it though, it's both shocking and thought-provoking. You can view it here on YouTube.

SPC -- a good scrub

Bathrooms on my mind... dreaming of a sanctuary, a haven... to pamper myself.

Wet room dreams...

Yesterday I spent the entire afternoon doing serious research at the local bookstore with my partner. The fact that the reseacrh involved us looking through delicious bathroom design books for four hours doesn't lessen the seriousness. You see we are in the process of buying a little flat (really exciting and scary at the same time)... and it's crying out for a new bathroom (it's crying out for a lot of other things too, but our budget can only really stretch to a bathroom for now).

So now whenever I close my eyes I see basins and shower screens and gorgeous tiles and floating toilets and underfloor heating. Trying to work is impossible, I cannot pull myself away from my lavatorial daydreams. It's becoming an obsession.


This is what the bathroom looks like in our flat-to-be -- definitely not my dream bathroom


This is more like it, I love the storage solution underneath the sink, it looks so elegant (although I would probably never fold the towels that neatly...


Gorgeous tiles, and I love the shape of the basin...



Oh yes...


I love love love this... the colour of the splash back, the recessed shelving, the lighting. Just gorgeous.

Paralysis

I have just returned from my usual Saturday afternoon with Rosie, the 88-year old lady I visit once a week as part of a neighbourhood care scheme (I've previously blogged about her here and here), and I am overcome by a muddled sense of impatience, mixed with excitement and fear.

Like most of us I dream of writing a great novel, and although I have, in recent years, downgraded my hopes and expectations to something of the Mills&Boon variety, in Rosie there is an amazing story to be told, something that could, if handled right, become that great novel... if I only knew how, or, should I say: if I only dared to try.

I have toyed with the idea before, told myself to start small; that all I have to do is sit down and write the skeleton of the story, or perhaps a short story version. It doesn't have to be of epic proportions. And occasionally I do get as far as the computer before paralysis sets in. The expectations I have of myself are crippling, and the only thing I can believe in is my failure.

How do you do it? Because I know you do...

Happiness

When my mother turned 40 she gave my father an ultimatum: "either I want to get a job or I want another baby". And so I was born when my mother was 41 and my father almost 43. Thank you pappa for being an old-fashioned guy.

Growing up my parents were older than my best friend's grandmother, but it never really bothered me, they made up for it by being far more relaxed and chilled-out than all my friends' parents combined.

But now, well now they're old. My dad will be 81 in December and my mother 80 next February. And their bodies are starting to fail. And the last four visits (they live in Sweden and I don't get to see them very often) have been coupled with either one of them being seriously ill. Until this one that is.

I have just returned back to the UK from a brief but glorious visit, and I feel... happy, relieved, grateful and calm... Having last seen my father in March, when he weighed no more than 130 lbs following surgery (not much for a guy over 6 feet), to see him now, back to his usual lively, goofy self, seemed almost like a miracle. And I revelled in their company, the conversations we had. Really inhaled them, storing them deep deep inside, memories that I can draw from in the future.

mmmm... it's good to be back.

hello...?

Work without holding
Undo all your fixations
Give up your ideas
Dissolve your conditioning
Abandon your weight to the ground
Exhale
Be simple
Receive, grow, expand
Allow your intelligence to reveal itself through your body
John Stirk on yoga

I am fine

I am so sorry for just disappearing like I did... I don't even really know why. It sort of got a life of its own: not being able to face the blog. Sticking my head in the sand. I have been insanely busy at work with a lot more responsibilities, which has left me feeling stressed and frazzled and really preoccupied.

But considering I think of many of you as friends, this is hardly a valid excuse and of course I should have let you know.

Please accept my apologies... you mean an awful lot to me, you have been so supportive and inspiring, and to know you have been concerned about me - when there is no real reason - makes me feel very ashamed.

I promise to be back soon with a proper post. In the meantime I send lots of love to all of you.

Back to basics

I didn't actually know what a blog was until early December last year, when as a big lover of Christmas, and especially Christmas food, I found myself hunting for interesting recipes, and in particular recipes for Swedish saffron buns, on the internet.

It was during this search that I stumbled across Anne's Food, and this particular post. The photograph accompanying the recipe was so salivating and the recipe itself, which combines two of my favourite flavours: saffron and marzipan, really intrigued me. I spent days trawling through Anne's previous entries; cooking and baking along the way, and slowly the idea of having my own blog was conceived.

And so the ramblings began. In the beginning my blog mainly concerned itself with food and the occasional musing over the origins of various traditions. It took a while for me to grasp the concept of visiting other peoples blogs, and so for ages the only blog I ever visited was Anne's Food. She never visited me and so I remained in the shadows for eons.

Now, food isn't exactly one of my hobbies. I like cooking and I love eating, but that's about it. So a blog dedicated to this subject didn't really stand a chance. And as I started visiting other blogs, I realised I much preferred to read, and write, about observations on the ordinary things in life.

But last week I came across this recipe, and it turned out so incredibly delicious (my partner and I were both sitting there looking at each other in disbelief: how could something so simple be so fabulously yummy?) that I felt inspired to share it with you.

Asparagus pissaladiere

Serves 4 (or two really hungry people)

50g butter
2 tbsp olive oil
750g red onions, peeled and sliced very thinly
Sprig of fresh rosemary
One bay leaf
1 tsp soft brown sugar
1 packet ready-rolled puff pastry
1 bundle of fresh asparagus
1 egg, beaten
About 100g of crumbled feta cheese

1. Melt butter and oil in a saucepan. Add onions and stir well to coat, then cover and cook gently for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Add the herbs and sugar, increase the heat and cook until the onions have caramelised. Leave to cool. Discard the rosemary and bay leaf.

3. Turn on the oven to 200c

4. Place puff pastry on a lightly greased baking sheet. Using a sharp knife, score a border approximately 2cm from the edge, be careful so you don’t cut all the way through.

5. Trim the asparagus and cut in half. Pile caramelised onions into the centre and spread to the inner edge of the border. Place the asparagus on top, season with freshly ground black pepper. Brush the border with the beaten egg and bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has risen and is golden brown. Be careful so the pastry doesn’t burn. Reduce the oven temperature to 150c and bake for a further 10-15 minutes. Add the crumbled feta for the last 5 minutes.

Serve with a fresh salad, drizzled with a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice.

Enjoy!

I've been interviewed

I know I'm going a bit meme crazy at the moment, but they're like peanuts, once you've had one... and this is one is different, it's more interactive: it's an interview. And anyone can join in.

After reading her answers and asking very nicely if I could play too, the beautiful Annika has asked me the following:

1: Desktop or laptop?
I actually prefer my desktop computer. Its virtues are numerous: the machine is much more powerful, the screen is bigger, it's better for my posture. The only thing missing really is an ergonomic chair to go with it, but if I had that I doubt I'd ever leave my little office.

2: Gory horror or slapshot comedy?
Hmmm... I'm not too keen on contemporary slapstick, but I love the old stuff with Jack Lemmon, and of course How to steal a million, one of my all-time favourites. Gory horror would never enter my house. I'm too afraid. When I watched the Exorcist years ago I got so freaked out I almost needed to be exorcised myself afterwards.

3: Small apartment in a big city or big house in the far-off countryside?
Can I have both? Or a big apartment in the big city and little cottage in the far-off countryside? No? Ok, I'll settle for the big city and the small abode then, for the time being.

4: Which is, according to you, The Best Song Ever?
No, no, no, no... I can't answer this. There are so many songs that are associated with incredible memories, but whether these are great songs or not is debatable... I don't have a favourite song, different moods calls for different songs.

5: If you had one month left to live - and you know that for a fact - how would you spend it?
Oh, what a difficult question. I would like to make one request. Can it be a summer month please? Yes? Oh, thank you. In that case I would like to rent a big beautiful house by lake Siljan in Sweden and invite my dearest friends to come and stay. The house would have a team of chefs cooking all our favourite foods, and cleaning staff so we never would have to lift a finger. The endless days would be spent talking, laughing, eating, drinking, playing games, swimming, horseback riding, snoozing in hammocks under a tree... that sort of thing. I wouldn't want my whole family there the whole time, but because we would be in Sweden they could come and visit.

Do you want to play too? Great, these are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Love Thursday - blowing the budget

I know it's irresponsible
I know it's outrageously expensive
I know I will probably only wear it very, very occasionally
I know it's impractical
I know, I know, I know...

But my bestest friend's hen do is coming up, we're all going to very shi-shi Primrose Hill (in London) for a weekend of full-on hedonistic fun, and we're even going to a disco in the middle of the day on Sunday afternoon. And to be a proper disco diva, I simply HAD to have the outfit to go with it.

So this Love Thursday I'm loving my Firaki catsuit by Malene Birger.

Too much information?

The lovely Cheeky has tagged me for this four things about me meme, so here goes... some more information you never knew you didn't need to know about me...

4 jobs I’ve held:

1. The first job I ever had was making souvenirs at the copper mine in Falun, the town in Sweden where I grew up. I hated it
2. Journalist and free-lance writer
3. Waitressing…
4. Marketing manager. They hired me despite my lack of experience or formal training, and I didn't even have a formal interview. Sometimes it’s good to know the right people

4 movies I can watch over and over:

1. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
2. Together
3. The Straight story
4. The Shawshank Redemption

4 places I’ve lived:

1. In my parents house in Sweden
2. A hayloft in Canada
3. A squat in the Netherlands
4. Countless flats in the UK

4 TV shows I like to watch:

I don’t like watching TV, and like even less that I often end up watching it anyway. On top of that I just read somewhere that your metabolism slows down more when you watch TV than if you just sit still doing nothing. So it’s a fact: TV makes you fat.

Despite these issues, I have to admit I quite like the following, in no particular order:

1. The Apprentice (The UK version)
2. House MD – Oh, Hugh you sexy bastard
3. The occasional rerun of Frasier
4. Random documentaries
   

4 places I’ve been on holiday:

1. My first ever holiday without my parents was to the Greek island of Kos with a girlfriend, we were 17 and had an absolute ball
2. The most recent holiday was to Istanbul, which is becoming one of my favourite cities
3. San Cristobal de las casas in the Chiapas in Mexico was pretty amazing
4. Venice

4 of my favourite dishes:

1. Split belly aubergine, as cooked by my partner’s mother. Actually anything with aubergine does the trick for me
2. A selection of pickled herring, new potatoes, a little chunk of Västerbotten cheese, chives and a dollop of sour cream (mmmm... my mouth is watering), perhaps accompanied by a little vodka
3. Fresh chantarelles fried in a little butter served with hot, buttered toast (a lot of butter I know, but it’s worth it) and freshly ground pepper. Yummmmy...
4. A big bowl of fresh raspberries, wild strawberries, cherries. The cherries should be cold, but the other should be sun-warm

4 websites I visit daily:

1. BBC news
2. Guardian unlimited
3. various blogs
4. I constantly update the websites where I work, so I suppose I visit these daily too

4 places I’d rather be right now:

1. At home, snuggled up on the sofa with my cats piled on top of me, a cup of hot water and lemon, reading Eat, Pray, Love
2. On a loooong train journey with my man, in our own compartment, with a bottle of champagne and 24-hour butler service
3. At a spa… in fact I'd like to be in a spa every day
4. On a long hike, perhaps in Wales

La Cubana Gringa, Daisies, Marcos and Vedrana: you're it...

Shopping with Rosie

Rosie and I are standing in the supermarket checkout queue.

“What does that say”, she says pointing to a sign on a pillar next to us.

“It says that if you want to purchase cigarettes and you look under 16 the supermarket reserves the right to ask for proof of age”, I say.

“Well, I don’t suppose I would be mistaken for 15 these days”; 88 year-old Rosie replies and flashes me a mischievous smile.

We both laugh. I ask if she was ever a smoker.

“No, not really, but I once smoked hashish with a Lebanese chap”, she’s looking thoughtful; obviously her mind has taken her on a detour down memory lane.

I try to imagine my own parents ever smoking hashish with Lebanese chaps, and fail miserably.

“How did that make you feel”, I ask Rosie.

“Oh, I don’t know… a little bit funny I suppose.” She’s quiet for a moment, “but no more funny than usual, really”, she winks at me.

It’s time to pay for the shopping.

Hillbilly born and bred

How friendly are my fellow Brightonians I wondered, and decided to do an experiment (thank you Jay of kill the goat providing the inspiration). Out on my daily pre-lunch walk yesterday I beamed a smile at every person I met: man, woman and child, to see how many would smile back.

Hmmm… although a fair number did return my smile (and yes, men far out-numbered the women, and no, there were no tears from frightened children, thankfully I don't appear to be that scary-looking), what really surprised me was that the staggering majority were so busy staring at the ground in front of their feet that they missed my friendly grin altogether.

My father once philosophised that only country bumpkins look at other peoples faces on the street. According to his theory, born and bred city-dwellers are too jaded to be curious in other people. Maybe he’s right, but there are other things to rest our gaze upon other than our fellow human beings. Brighton is not a concrete jungle after all: and even so, many of the buildings are stunning. Then there is the sea, and spring has afforded a breathtaking array of colourful flowers and brand-spanking-new leaves on trees and bushes everywhere. Why aren’t people looking, drinking it all in? What’s so interesting about the dirty asphalt that we’d rather look at that than all this beauty that surrounds us?

I hereby pledge that for the remainder of this week I will not look down more than I have to (it’s probably a good idea to quickly scan the ground ahead for dog poo and open man holes). I will also continue smiling at my fellow renegades. And I don’t care if that labels me a yokel.

SPC - On a street in Stockholm

My sister and I walking across Djurgårdsbron in Stockholm, on our way to see an exhibition at Liljevalchs konsthall last December. We had just had the pleasure of meeting Orhan Pamuk, the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.

Gloomy though it may be, I think this picture manages to capture the cool midday light typical of a Swedish winter day perfectly.

My life as a wimp part 1: Hitchhiking with Charlie

It’s 1992, the location is the south Gulf islands in British Columbia, Canada. It’s the summer I spent working wonderfully short shifts at a posh restaurant on Pender Island, serving haute cuisine to wealthy Americans who would arrive with their enormous yachts (some even carried helicopters), drink too much and leave unbelievable tips. Since I was living in an abandoned hayloft and had yet to develop any expensive habits, my outgoings were ridiculously modest, and so I worked only three days a week. In other words, I was living the life of Riley.

My days off were spent exploring the neighbouring Gulf Islands with my girlfriend. Hitchhiking never scared us. We were both still young and dumb I suppose, but also there was something about these small islands that instilled in both her and I a sense of security. And we had rules, well at least one, which we stuck to religiously: never get in the back seat of a car with only two doors.

But that day on Galiano Island we were exhausted. We had decided to explore the very northern tip of this strangely elongated island, and since there was nothing there, apart from a provincial park which could only be accessed by boat, there was no traffic. We had walked for what seemed like an eternity; we were thirsty, we were hungry.

When a car finally arrived we were so grateful that we didn’t think twice about crawling into the back seat. It wasn’t until the car took off that we noticed that the driver, a big burly dude, was drinking vodka straight from the bottle. In the passenger seat his equally burly and intoxicated friend turned around and, with a leer, checked us out with his hand casually resting on the shotgun, which we now saw lay between the two front seats. “My name is Charlie”, he said, “Charlie Manson”.

What can you do in a situation like that? With the car all over the road, and “Charlie” drunkenly ogling us, we whispered to each other in Dutch (it's useful to have a back-up language in these types of situations), frantically trying to come up with an escape plan. Finally we announced that we had to use the little girl’s room. After a few grumbles Charlie let us out, and we just legged it into the bushes. They shouted after us, but we were like two gazelles, darting this way and that, running for our lives. After a while, with no bullets ricocheting amongst the trees, we decided they had given up, or even more likely, forgotten all about us. We just threw ourselves down on the forest floor, laughing hysterically.

That summer later became known as the summer of many ridiculous adventures. That was also the summer when my girlfriend first encouraged me to write my memoirs and entitle them “My life as a wimp” after realising that I had a tendency to crumble in a crisis (in fact, I crumbled even when there was no crisis). I’m still working on these memoirs now, 15 years later, because unfortunately I am no braver now than I was at 23.

The domestic Bermuda triangle

There is a mysterious place in our bedroom; it’s right next to one of those mass-produced IKEA armchairs, that once upon a time was a non-offensive creamy colour, but is now hideously grotty-looking (which is, I suppose, the main reason we make sure it’s always well-covered with clothes). The mysterious place next to this chair attracts socks; dirty socks, dirty, smelly man-socks. Like a domestic Bermuda triangle its pull on the helpless socks appears irresistible.

It’s a reliable source of argument between us. Between the owner of the smelly man-socks and I. Usually I turn a blind eye, but if my eye remains blind for too long he runs out of socks (I refuse to carry the filthy things to the laundry basket), and so we argue. In all fairness he never blames me when his sock stock is depleted, but it irritates me that he would rather be sock-less than fight the pull of the sock triangle.

Whilst my man is of the most chilled-out stock imaginable, I am prone to the occasional temper tantrum more often associated with a five year-old. This can, as I’m sure you all realise, lead to problems. Drama queens need a regular outlet, and this opportunity doesn’t present itself very often when you’re living with Mr Cool-As-A-Cucumber. So I’m starting to wonder whether the sock triangle is his own carefully-planned invention, created purely for my benefit. After all he’s not the sort of person to leave wet towels on the floor, nor does he leave the toilet seat up or wear the same underpants for five days straight. And the sock pile on the floor always looks curiously tidy.

I’m not sure whether this annoys me or not.