Cinnamon bun Day

As you know, us Swedes take our baked goods very seriously! So of course, since I was working today on the very important Swedish National Cinnamon bun Day - I brought some along to work to treat my colleagues!

I did cheat though, didn't bake them myself. Trusty old IKEA came to the rescue, and the five bags of Pågens Kanelgifflar disappeared in no time! Om nom nom!

The Dunlops

The weekend after his birthday Nathan went up to Dubai to meet up with - ... Sammy!
Well, Sam and Kicki actually had a weekend away together down here in the sandpit, and Nathan kind of crashed it! No, not really, everyone was happy to spend a nice evening together, it had been a while since we saw Kicki. They went for a vegetarian Uzbek restaurant, which apparently was surprisingly good.

The next day the boys attacked Marina Mall. As Kicki wrote to the below photos on her Instagram, "Busy smashing stereotypes on gender based shopping behaviour", ha ha!

Letters of Light debut

As I did the VIP-events for the previous temporary exhibition as the Stories of Paper and Impressionism, I am not the lead on Letters of Light. Obviously I have still studied it, in case I for some reason would be the only option when there is a request.

Last week I delivered my first two tours, a tour with the German Ladies group (as they had requested me specifically) and an external tour with the Swedish Ladies, in Swedish.

Always a bit of a challenge in Swedish, as all the studying I am doing is with French and English resources. The first tour(s) are also always a bit choppy, testing your knowledge and trying out your train of thoughts and your chosen route for the first time.

But I think it went pretty well, it is a beautiful exhibition to present!

Kräftskiva 2023

This weekend I signed us up for an evening event with the SwedishLadies. The girls had organised a 'Kräftskiva' - a crayfish party, and it was a huge success.
There was everything there needs to be, crayfish, singing, colourful decorations, Västerbotten-pie, snaps and funny hats!

They had even sourced "real" crayfish, with some help from the Estonian chef at Mamsha. They were really yummy!

The hats were not only for wearing, they were part of a hat-decorating-competition, Nathan and Johan took it very seriously.

The finalists in a hat parade:

Imagine having a dining room that comfortably fits 32 people for a sit down crayfish dinner!

It was quickly decided that this needs to become a yearly tradition! Such a good night!

Old lady issues

Even though Nathan was the one stepping into a new decade on the weekend, it's me who has been having some age-related (?) issues lately... Two weeks ago, after having been sitting for a moment on my bed scrolling through my phone, I stood up again. I had pins and needles in my foot, and must've put my weight on it in a funny way, because it went 'crack!' rather loudly. Ouch!

Luckily we have a clinic right here in the compound, so after a few hours of icing the ankle, we decided to go check so that it wasn't broken. It wasn't.
But the orthopedist still wrapped me up like this:

At first I thought it was a bit overkill for a sprained ankle. But, almost two weeks later it still looks like this:

The half-cast was only on for a few days. I got medicine for the swelling and the pain, and once the cast came off I got myself a strong support brace. Although it is so uncomfortable and makes it hard to wear shoes. So at the moment I just walk very slowly and carefully, and in a straight line, not to bend or cause strain on the ankle at all.

Getting hurt really makes you appreciate your health and fitness.

Five-Oh!

As we had overnight guests, and had all had a long, late night the night before; Nathan didn't get sung to in bed as we normally do on birthdays. In fact, he tried to come downstairs in the midst of breakfast preparations, so he got sent back up to go back to bed until we were done.
No one had specified which bed though... so this is how we found him and Freddie. One of them slightly more awake than the other...

Then he was invited to his breakfast table, with flags, singing and presents!

Hmmm... all secretive about what was in this one. Turns out it was a nice decanter and glasses. As great minds think alike, he actually got TWO decanters - one from the Dehlis, and one from us.

Funny card from one of his colleagues:

A French electric table pancake maker! (Inspired by our friends the Petersens who had one when we visited this summer)

And, lots of whisky! I think I counted 5 bottles! This one came all the way from Sweden, a Mackmyra Special Edition:

Ida got put on pancake-making duty, and she did a splendid job! Such a cool machine!

After the long breakfast which lasted pretty much all morning, we had a chill day at home with our friends. Went down to the pool for a bit and just took it easy.
In the late afternoon, Nathan had wished for roast pork for dinner, so Freddie the masterchef very kindly rustled up a yummy birthday meal with Danish browned potatoes, red cabbage and roast pork with crackling. Felt like Christmas, but birthday boy was happy!

And cake, of course!

Happy happy 50th! ♡♡♡

Taco bout a party!

We are currently recovering from a weekend of celebration - celebrating Nathan's big 50th birthday! Hourray!

He had invited just a few friends down to Yas Bay, and had a private part of La Carnita booked. Linnea and I had brought a huge bunch of balloons to decorate to make it look really nice:

We had the room for a few hours of free-flow nachos, tacos, guacamole and all the Mexican food; together with Prosecco, SideHustle beer - and Margaritas, of course!

Some family photos before it all took off. We missed Lucas of course.

And photos with the closest thing to family we have here in the sandpit, the Dehlis who had come down from Dubai.

Peta was there too:

And Browny, and Johan! Linda unfortunately had to miss it since she was in Newcastle for a work thing, but Johan was intent on determining if these Margaritas had anything on my Thermomix ones..! Verdict is still out by the way.

Peter was there, and Karin and Holger.

The McGeehees also came from Dubai.

To really create the Brunei 2.0 feeling, Peta and Pip's parents Sandy and Pete also came by for a quick hello.

Linnea and Ida.

The girlies had some fun with their parents in the photo booth:

I took charge in bringing the balloons home for the next day, and walking down the waterfront everyone kept wishing me happy birthday... so I had to keep saying "They're not mine!" Not just yet anyway..!

There was even fireworks to celebrate! Hip hourray!