What to Call the Belly Dancer 2

What happened to the name-the-belly competition you might have asked yourself?! Well, it was a close race but there was a winner in the end; a name that wasn't even in the competition really.

So I present Belly Dancer!

week 22+3

week 24+0

I'm currently at 25+3 so the second photo is a week and a half old and I have grown a little bit since then but not much.

I really like Belly Dancer even though I didn't intend for it to be one of the entries in the competition; I just found it when googling for a good title of the post. But now I think it's a very fitting name. He or she sure dances a lot - this very moment it's just a calm ballet performance but I can tell you s/he is an avid waltzer, hip hopper and salsa fan! I think s/he has even thrown in some Finnish disco dancing in there and at night the Belly Dancer takes on the serious clubbing scenes.

That said, I don't think we will call the belly and the baby Belly Dancer - or BeeDee for short as per my friend Kim's suggestion - at home really but it's fun to have something to call him/her here on the blog. At home it is likely to be a mix of "bebisen" (the baby), "den" (it) and Vildingen (the wild one). And Malin - you can continue with Loppan! :)

For the sake of transparency, here were the results of the blogger jury:

- Other (e.g. Belly Dancer): 5 votes or 31.25%

- Loppan: 4 votes or 25%

- Lilla vännen: 2 votes or 12.5%

- Vildingen: 2 votes or 12.5%

- Bebisen: 1 vote or 6.25%

Wednesday Recipe: The Makeover

Thought I'd get this going again but today I can't offer you a specific recipe, just a taste of my ongoing recipe project; I'm weeding recipe print-outs and clippings and pasting into a recipe book.





Via Anna's iPhone

Anniversary...of Sorts

Today is this blog's sixth anniversary! I actually set it up on 29 September 2004 and blogged once or twice that year. But since I didn't really start until March 2005, the real anniversary is perhaps not until the spring. But still!

Summer Nostalgia: Our Week in Nice

It was a beautiful autumn day today with sunshine and blue skies (never mind the 10'C and heavy winds...) but I couldn't help remembering that there was a summer not so long ago. Here are some photos from our week in Nice, France.

We had rain one day

Rain close-up

After rain you can see the sea; otherwise there's too much sun haze

Sea close-up

Posing on the balcony

Peter enjoying a glass of wine (and one for me)

One of many meals on the balcony

Typical light summer dinners

Excursion to Sainte-Maxime

Sainte-Maxime


Beaulieu-sur-Mer, one of our favourite beaches in the area

Sitting under a palm tree reminded us a little bit of our time in the Maldives

Beaulieu is situated beautifully below the mountains - I like the mix of high hills and sea

Beaulieu also has a little cute marina

Boats up close

Beautiful views on the road towards Italy

Looking out over Monaco and Monte Carlo

Monaco close up

Walking through town to the harbour for dinner on our last evening

Nice harbour

Markoolio & Tobbe Trollkarl Do Dirty Dancing

Such a great performance! Too bad this particular clip doesn't have the last few seconds (couldn't find another one), but I can tell you that they managed the lift! The performance is from a TV4 production called Dansfeber, where the proceeds from the tele voting goes to various good causes.

Show & Tell: A Comment/Remark I Will Never Forget

Time for Olgakatt's last theme and it's a tricky one. I can't remember anything "major" that I can focus on so I think I will just list two sweet memories I have.

Both memories involve my American aupair children who are no longer children, but young adults (one just turned 21 and the other one is turning 23 next month). Both comments were made in the summer of 1996; the children were almost 7 and 9 then.

We were talking about an aupair friend of mine and her medical condition (though nothing she suffered from), which meant her organs were reversely positioned inside her, i.e. her liver was the left instead of right side. Etc.)

Nine-year old K. thought about this for a long time before she asked:
- "So does that mean her belly button is on her back?"

We, the adults, couldn't help laughing, but in a way, a perfectly logical question, especially from a child who doesn't yet have a view of how things are supposed to be and who is meant to question things that we have started taking for granted.

The other memory involves K's younger brother D.

We were watching Sound of Music and I commented that if you lived in such a big house (the house of the von Trapp family), you would need lots of help (i.e. people). D. looks at me and says sincerely:
- "No, just you, Anna."

I thought that was so sweet and the comment went right into my heart and stayed there. (We yelled at each other too that year, especially that summer, as we were both sadly aware that my year was coming to an end, but most of time we loved each other :)

Pettas will take over Show & Tell in October!

P.S. At work right now so only tell today as I can't upload pictures from here.

UK Roadtrip: Lake District

The last episode of the UK Roadtrip series, the Lake District, is long overdue but here it comes!

You may remember that we were last in Edinburgh and from there it took a couple of hours to drive to the Lake District. We entered from the north-east, in the Ullswater area. The weather was a bit mixed, as you can see, mostly clowdy but not any rain really.

I was really positively surprised by the Lake District. I had heard so many nice things about it and of course expected it to be beautiful but I didn't think it was going to be so spectacular! I was expecting valleys and hills (and lakes of course), but not that the landscape was going to be so hilly with high mountains and low valleys (at least for the UK; not comparing with the Himalayas really). I hope the pictures show a little bit what I mean.

Ullswater

Many, or most, roads in the Lake District are lined with stone walls and sometimes right at the edge of the road, making meeting another car on a narrow road a bit tricky, especially when you're not that used to driving on the left side.

Below illustrates that some of the road network in the Lake District is at a high altitude, the highest peak being almost 1,000 metres.

I like this picture with the lone tree

In the Lake District you have to be prepared to share the road not only with other cars and hikers on foot, but also many, many sheep.

Beware of sheep

We decided to pick Ambleside as our "home" for the two nights in "the Lakes". Ambleside is situated at the top of Windermere, the Lake District and also England's largest lake. We stayed at a B&B called Elder Grove in a beautiful room with a so-called half-poster bed. The breakfast was lovely; cooked breakfast was on offer (of course) in addition to cereal, fruit and very delicious home-made bread and jams. The only thing I can complain about is that our room had a faint smell of damp - not sure if it was something in the carpet or the walls. It was just noticeable for a the first moments upon entering the room but I did wonder if it was just typical English house damp or something the owners should look into (but we didn't bother telling them actually - maybe they will read this?).

Bridge House is probably Ambleside's smallest house (it's almost square-shaped). It was built as a summer house and apple store 300 years ago but is now an information centre for the National Trust.

Ambleside has a lot of shops and restaurants for being such a small town. And THREE CINEMAS! I assume most of them and definitely the cinemas are closed in the winter though (??). Even if the lakes are quite popular all-year-round the main tourist season is the summer. The first evening we went Italian at Zeffirelli's (the bar area upstairs as the main restaurant was fully booked) and the second evening for more English or local dishes at Sheila's Cottage - can recommend both! Among the curiosities of Ambleside is the Homes of Football, a photograhic art museum. We didn't go in but saw some of the photos in the window and it looked quite interesting (if you have more time).

The second day we explored the area around Windermere lake as well as another smaller lake to the west, Coniston Waters.

Sailers on Lake Windermere

Peter finds a furry friend

Coniston

Typical steam yatch gondolas touring Coniston lake

The second and last evening we went to the country club our B&B is linked with for a swim and a sweat in the sauna, followed by a walk in Ambleside before dinner. It was that time of night when the light is so beautiful, especially when the sun comes out after the rain (not the blue hour yet perhaps but still very beautiful).









That's it, the series is over! Hope you enjoyed the ride!

Democratic Dilemma

It was a sad, sad day today. The party I voted for didn't do well at all, very bad actually, even though it remains the largest party (by less than a percentage), and the collaboration it is a part of did not get enough votes together either. That's unfortunate. But the worst aspect of the election result is that Sweden now has a far-right, anti-immigration party in Parliament, the Sweden Democrats. "Welcome to the world of nasty parties", a British journalist wrote before the election. Sweden has been one of few democracies without this type of parties, and I had been hoping we could keep it that way, but... Let's hope they just stay for this mandate period (though I'm not so confident that it will just be four years...).

I'm not going to go into why this happened, why people vote for them and what role they may play as king maker in Parliament - can't bother right now (though I'm working on such a piece at work) - instead I want to express support for Aftonbladet's campaign campaign "We life different".

I also want to bring a dilemma I have at the moment. I discovered today that members of my extended family have (at least two out of the three people concerned, it seems) voted for the Sweden Democrats. I feel this is just so wrong that I don't know what to do with the information how I feel about it. Do I show my disgust for their opinions by "breaking up" with them; do I just remove them from my Facebook friend list for a while; or do I do none of the above and instead constantly take the debate with them?

I have thought a lot today about democracy and was reminded of one of political scientists and a piece of work that had big influence on me during my studies; Robert Dahl and his book "Democracy and Its Critics". The core question in the book is whether democracy is about the process or the end in itself.

I am definitely a big supporter of the democratic process and understand that we have to accept the opinion of the majority and that sometimes others have a different opinion - like right now with more people voting for the centre-right Alliance rather than "my" guys the Red-Greens - and that sometimes these opinions may be really unwanted ones. But there is a limit, a border, which sometimes should not be crossed and this situation is such a case. That said, we still need to accept the situation - this is the drawback of democracy but democracy is still the best system available. But I will never accept and respect people with racist opinions.

Show & Tell: My Worst Fear

Olgakatt's third theme for September is nojor - stupid, irrational fears, i.e. phobias of sorts.

I don't have any particular fears, at least not anything I can think of, except perhaps the fear (which is not completely irrational or stupid) that something would happen to Peter. But it's not something I think of every day.

Hence I wasn't sure what to write today. But as always, Google saves the day. The first hit on "nojor" was a site where you can share your "dark inner thoughts" (image borrowed from site).

Some examples from the site and commentary based on personal experience:

• * Why are they looking at me? A few times I have thought this and wondered if I have something on my face or something. But it's not such a strong fear that I have to find a mirror and look. Instead I try to think that probably that guy was looking at me because he found me beautiful! :)
• * Sitting alone in a bar waiting for friends and thinking "what are people thinking? That I'm a loser sitting her my myself, a loser without friends? What if my friend doesn't show up?" This thought has sprung to mind a few times. Luckily I have an iPhone to play with while I wait these days!
• * Thinking that everyone else thinks that I have a strange walk. Just worrying about it made me walk funny. Not in this way maybe, but if you start thinking about how people walk and then how you walk, walking sure starts feeling weird and unnatural.
• * "I was at a party at a girl's place. For those days I tried to contact her because I had forgotten my hat and gloves at her place, but had no response. So I thought she was angry with me and that I had made a fool of myself somehow. Went through the whole evening in my head, all I had done and said. Wrote an e-mail and apologised for doing something stupid. Then I had a response - she was completely unsympathetic and didn't know what I was talking about." I have had thoughts like this but usually I end up thinking "nah, that's just silly, and if s/he is angry with me, it's her/his problem and s/he has to bring it up with me, not the other way around". But first I think that there's a perfectly natural explanation why the person hasn't responded yet.
• * "When I've been in a shop and not bought anything it always feels like everyone thinks I have shoplifted." Ha ha, definitely! Probably look really guilty too even if I'm completely innocent!
• * Having to return home to check that the oven or the iron is off, even if you had made it halfway to work before you had to turn around. I can only remember doing this once. But I sometimes check appliances - if I've been using them that morning - just before I leave.

That's it for me today!