Now I am worried

A quick visit at home to water my plants and to check out the bathroom.
Monday the man in charge said they would start the tiling on Thursday, Tuesday it was Friday so today I got worried when I saw the walls. Will they be ready on Friday when I’m moving back home.

And when I do I’ll have some serious cleaning to do. This is how my hall looks today.

Any way … He is still here!

First update

I have been up twice since they started on Monday. It’s a mess at home. My hallway is filled with stuff. I could hardly make my way to the bathroom. My poor plant that I couldn’t move was in a mess, I pushed it back into the pot and dirt and can only hope that it will survive this adventure.

On Tuesday the bathroom looked like this …

Yesterday I went strait to my yoga class and then home to Petra without passing my flat. Today it had advanced to this state.

After work tomorrow I’m first going to check into the hotel and then head home to my brother’s to take care of my niece and nephew for the evening. New photos will be up during the weekend.

Something else that has been up for the first week is the strawgoat.

Now it just need to survive another 22 days until it's Christmas.

Stella

Stella has accepted the sofa as hers. The sign is that she hid her candy among the pillows and then made a "nest" with the rest.


Stella has had a hard time with all the changes at home and to make things worse. One Saturday morning I found her in my bed among pillows, blanketts and her stuff too. I was mopping the floors.

Renovation update

During the past months things have changed on the outside and inside. It took the constructors about 6 weeks to finish. Today all that is left to do is the planting.

But as you can see that will have to wait …

On the inside:

Well, after having the kids over for an evening I was left with just a few books, the rest found new homes. Getting rid of my childhood books meant I could go on with the next steep and today the room has got a new function.

Now, moving the couch from one room to another meant that I needed to get a new one and one thing led to another. With that said I now have got rid of even more furniture.

As I’m writing this I’m staying at “Hotel Lagerbäck” aka one of my dearest friends home. For 8 nights this will be my home with a break during the weekend when I will be staying at a hotel. Now that is something I haven’t done before, staying at a hotel in my home town. Reason for this. Let say this is how my bathroom looked when I left for work …

And this is how it looked when I came home this evening.

Renovation time

Right now there are renovations going on both on the outside and on the inside.

A few months after I moved into my flat October 97 I suggested at a meeting that we should do something about the grounds around our houses. I was made fun off. Now 13 years later things are happening. On the 6th of September things happened, well it really started last year when we got to see the suggestions a landscape architect had done. Earlier this summer I came home for lunch and the large tree outside my balcony was gone. And on the 6th of September things really started to happen.

Last Saturday, a month later ...

I have to admit I’m a bit worried that they won’t be able to finish before the snow comes. I do not want to think about how it will be outside if they don’t.

Now that was the outside. …

On the inside this is happening.

On the 29th of November they will start knocking down the walls in my bathroom. It is going to be new walls, floor with floor heating, a ceiling with spotlights and new furniture Stella will once more be staying with my parents but this time it will only for a month before we get to be together again.

Another thing that is going on is that I’m finally doing something with my spare room. That room has been storage when I have been working on the other rooms, it is my computer room, my library, that is where I put things I need to keep but don’t know what to do with and so.

I have carried 8 paper bags with books and the same amount with cross-stitch magazines to the Red Cross shop. Next Friday the kids are coming over for a “tacos and book choosing evening”. I hope that when they go home none of my, my siblings and parents childhood books are left in my living room. If there are, a choice will be made depending of age and memory. Are they my teenaged books no problem – Red Cross next, my parents old books – storaged.

Copenhagen

Yesterday I went abroad for the day. I still find it hard to call Copenhagen abroad but yes; it is in another country, they do speak another language and so on. I do understand what they are saying in Danish but have to admit that I use English as much as possible just to sure.

As always I went strait to my favorite confectionary: La Glace. It was opened in 1870 and the enviroment is like it was with minor changes to upgrade it to the 21st century. I always have their speciality "Sports cake". It's made out of crouched nougat, whipped cream, macaron botton and has caramelized chaux pastry on it. They have been making it since 1891. (www.laglace.dk)

I didn't do any shopping this time; instead I was a tourist. I started off by visiting Rosenberg's Castle. It was stuffed with people like me and with several guided tours going on it wasn't easy to look around. Even with this said the place was a bit of disappointment as there were a lot to look at but not a sign to tell what I was actually looking at. All we got was a paper with a map saying what room I was entering. I guess I should had bought the guidebook. Not even the crown jewels were that impressive.

The David collection was next on my path. It's a museum that is housed in the building that once was occupied by the founder C.L David. It has 3 different exhibitions: Islamic art, European 18-th century art and Early modern Danish art. In art they mean not only paintings. Mr David owned some very nice furniture that I wouldn't mind having myself.

After a quick lunch at some Italian place since I couldn't find the place I was looking for, I continued to Thorvaldsen's Museum. It was opened in 1848 and very much looks like it did back then. It houses nearly all of his orginal models for the sculptures, sketches, drawings and his own collection of subjects from acient Greek, Roman and Egypt. From there it was just across the road to Christiansborgs Palace and the Royal Reception rooms. One had to wear shoe covers. One thing did disappoint me and this is my being really picky. Being able to read and understand both languages I noticed several translation mistakes. The worsed one was when a small snake was called a small worm. On the tapestry the text was describing it is very clearly a snake.

After a quick snack after this I was definitive ready to go home and after 1½ hours travelling I was back in Trelleborg. The bus ride from Malmö was so bad that one woman as we steped off said "one could think he had stolen the bus"

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to get some more samples to my Hoya collection. At least I should be ... there are 250 different sorts and I only have 21.

Time - where does it go?

Outside the rain is pouring down. I have two very wet dogs next to me and I guess you all know how a wet dog smells! I guess they think the same of my wet odor!!

The summer has been absolutelly wonderful, that until my holiday started. It has been raining , the autumn has started to show its face and I started it all off with a flu. However I shall not complain. I want to have a late holiday, I had 8 wonderful days in London in May, the topical weather that we had in July meant that Stella and I were able to have picnics om both weekends and after work and last week I got to spend two days with a childhood friend and meet some of her family. And I still have my visit to Copenhagen to look forward to.

While walking the dogs I always let my mind wonder away. I find it such a good way to solve/sort out things. Unfortunate it is also a way to start a "problem" or make things worse. Today I realized that I need to do somethong so that I don't lose my English. I used to mail almost daily with Linda and very often to a friend in Burr Ridge. The later is now having such problems with her computer conections that mailing isn't any idea at this point. A few years ago I also used to be active in different groups, writing my stories etc - now nothing!

For some reasons I find it hard to get active in The Writing Desk once again. Why I don't know? I didn't know anyone when I first joined in 2004 so why does it feel like I'm facing Mount Everest this time? The Alan Rickman och Peter Breck groups I'm in are "dead", nothing has happend in them for ages. I have other interest, I could join a group for them perhaps? Nah. As for my writing - well it seems that even if both stories are done "in my head", the connection between mind, fingers, energy and time seems to have lost its way somewhere. I just can't get myself to sitt down and write them down. In fact if I look at the time I do spend by the computer at home it's almost only the hour in the morning for checking the mail and newpaper, perhaps a little more during the weekend. I guess there is one of the problems - not computer time - no writing. Which brings me to todays worry about my knowledge in the English language.

I do know there is a time and place for everything but I wonder what time and place I need to be in so that I don't dropp the language I feel as strongly about as my native Swedish?