Show & Tell: Half-Year Check, Second Half 2009

I'm over two weeks late with my Show & Tell posts so I thought I'd better get them done before it's time for the last theme of the month (and before Christmas). Nilla's second theme of the month was Lucia - more about that below - and her third theme, to provide a half-year check, i.e. an inventory of the last six months of 2009 through photos, starts here! (All photos can be enlarged with a simple click!)

JULY

I worked most of July. It was the first month of the Swedish Presidency of the EU so it was quite hectic despite it being the height of the Swedish holiday period. I went twice to London on business and to the political week in Almedalen (a Swedish institution!) as usual. A very good friend and colleague H. sadly left us for Oslo :( On the bright side Peter's cousin S. got married and we had a great time at the wedding, or the party rather (which included inpromptu rope jumping and climbing...).



AUGUST

August equals holiday! We spent a lovely week in the southern and south-western parts of Sweden, followed by 10 days or so in the US, seeing both the west and east coasts (which reminds me I haven't finished my travel diaries from there). Since I will definitely write more posts about the US holiday I have just included our Swedish road trip in the collage.



SEPTEMBER

I went back to work on 1 September. It was still summer though for most of September, resulting in lunches out on terraces and balconies up until the very end of the month! I went on a very interesting work trip to London, where we simulated the climate negotiations (which went roughly in the same directions as the real ones...) As for our social calendar, we fit in one wedding and two crayfish parties.

OCTOBER

October was cold, much colder than normal, and we didn't have much sunshine (though it wasn't as bad as November...). Highlights of the month were a Michael Jackson tribute party, taking a friend's daughter to Walking with Dinosaurs and attending our good friends C. & J.'s son's baptism.



NOVEMBER


If October was bad weather-wise, November was just pure misery. Stockholm had 17 instead of the usual 55 hours of sun (average). Luckily we saw some sun on a weekend trip to Berlin (which I blogged about here). November featured the births of two babies in my circle of friends, a christening and a surprise party for a friend who turned 40 (same friend whose son was baptised the month before). We also bought some wild boar from a friend whose husband goes hunting and made minced meat (among other things); the mince are now meatballs that we will devour as part of our Christmas meal tomorrow!



DECEMBER

And now it's December, a month dominated by Advent and Christmas preparations. Which brings us to Lucia. Nowadays, at least for the last four years, the only Lucia celebration that I'm a part of is the one at work. I'm not a singer (even though I always used to be on the school choir) so I don't join the other girls (yeah, mostly girls), instead I just enjoy the glögg and lussekatter with the performance. But when I think of Lucia in general I think about memories of Lucia performances with my cousins for my grandparents at 6 am in the morning, being one of the contestants for the "role" of Lucia in ninth grade (didn't win needless to say), going to pretty wild "Lucia wake" parties during upper secondary school, and celebrating Lucia at (or organised by) the Swedish churches in New York, London and Brussels.

December also saw a great colleague leaving us after four years - he's the one in the Pippi wig! :)

Check out my last inventory from June!