Candy for grown-ups!

Yum yum!

Some times done deeds don't go unpaid.

Recently I helped Lene from Liber Vin write some texts she needed to advertise her wines.

So yesterday she gave me this bottle:



...oh golly! It's a Valpolicella, partly made after the Amarone method. Meaning that 30% of the grapes have been dried partially in wooden boxes before the wine is made. And it is so delicious! The scent just rolls out of the glass - full of dark tones and forest floor and vanilla ... and in the mouth it has so much presence, fruity and full without being heavy and sweet.

It is from the year 2000 so it is completely ready to drink! It can lie for another 2-3 years, but I don't think that will happen now!

THANKS LENE - ME LIKES...

Champagne bubbles

Yesterday I stopped in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of my day - and felt bubbles in the pit of my stomach.

Bona fide champagne bubbles, because life right now is good. Flow ... I sense flow in what I do.

My worklife runs smoothly - I've just been given a new field of responsibility and a title I fought for, but couldn't have, a few years ago. I juggle a lot of different tasks easily (to the worry of my project manager), but I can easily fit in a few more.

August has been full of nice experiences. Having my young son home from vacation at his fathers - happy and content. A lovely girls trip to Rome. A pleasant evening in the company of my female co-workers. Re-uniting with my stampclubfriend (who recognized myself on my blog :-) and all the other people from my school years.

And then just ... flow ... on the private front as well. Amourous looks from the lovely man I share last name and double duvet with. A happy and relatively manageable teenage daughter, that is thriving with what she does. An oldes son, in love in a harmonic relationship, knowing what he wants to do with his future. My youngest son happy as usual - loving and good. My bonus children well on their way - also happy and busy, with their under as much control as you can hope. My own heart full of joy over all this.

Champagne bubbles - light and pearly in amber fluid - in my stomach.

And I haven't drunk a drop.
Then why does it tingle so on my tongue?

Longing

I've really gotten used to having my lovely man at home.
Last year he was off here and there, for several weeks at a time - but for the past 6 months he's only taken off for Kolding every day :-)
And then what happens??

2 days in Sweden this week. 2 days in Germany next week.
And then it's the season for exhibitions - mostly in Germany.

He left early monday morning (kissing me right in the middle of my sleepy face before he left) - and fortunately he will be back home tonight. I look forward to sleeping next to him again - the bed was too big, and my feet were cold last night!

But somehow it is really nice to miss - when it's just for a couple of days.

Bodil takes off from the nest...

Well - not right now, that is.

But when next school year starts - for a long time now, she's talked about a year away on a boarding school, and we have researched the possibilities. Today we visited what we believe is THE school - namely Højer Designefterskole.

The school aims at different types of design, and Bodil - creativ as she is, she has long wanted to learn the craft of cutting and sewing. That I cannot help her with, as my sewing skills are really only up to sewing fruit bags and curtains...

The school has a textile design line that appealed to us - plus the fact that the school is directed at design in general.
This is quite opposite many other schools, where textile design is only mentioned in the passing.

Our impression of the people, the school, the rooms, the surroundings - everything was positive, and Bodil was exited! She is ready to start tomorrow...

It is also good, that you can drive there in just 1½ hour.
All we lack now is filling in the application form. We soon will.

And then Bodil will leave the nest for a while - in a year.
How peaceful this house will be :-) good to know she will come home on the weekends with her big gestrues, warm hugs and loud outbursts!

Revisiting the past

Most of them were actually there.

I still recall the goosebumpy feeling. I knew and recognized where ever I turned.

Many of them I haven't seen in 10 years. That is how long it has been, since my class were together. Others I believe not to have seen in the 25 years its been since we parted - they were the ones in the other 9th grade class.

We'd all gotten older - but as we looked in each others eyes and heard each other voices, things happened. We weren't strangers - not really.

My first boyfriend ... how amazing to see him again! Looking just like himself - a bit taller than back then, a bit heavier and a little older - but still just like I remember him, down to the luminant smile and the overactive eyebrows. Still sweet and easygoing.

Present were also old girlfriends, that I drank buckets of tea with, giggled over boys with and grew up with. Seeing them was just pleasant. One is now a daycare mother, and a bit more voluminous than back then - but she was lovely and warm, and we talked so well. Another friend I remained in touch with up until about 10 years ago. Then she and her family moved out of the country and things slipped. Fun to meet her again - she lives in Ringsted now.

And my stampclub-friend .. as expected our tone was just as comforting and warm and easy as it was 10 years ago, the last time we met. It is special to meet a person, that you built clubhouses and played soccer and kick-the-can with, someone you've know through your childhood and teen years and always trusted. He is so like himself - a really pleasant boy!

Before my mentioned first-boyfriend, I had the hugest crush on a sweet, brownhaired, quiet sort of guy in the other 7th grade class. He was just cute - and probably scared witless by the fastmouth blonde, who was really only covering up her insecurety and shyness with her sharp tongue and her reading-acquired knowledge.

He was there as well yesterday, and besides the fact that he is now taller than me, quite gray haired and perhaps a bit heavier than then, he looked just like I remember him! ;-)
Now I finally had the guts to tell him how deeply I sighed for him in the 7th grade - he looked slightly scared (still being that sweet, quiet sort of bloke - just 42 instead of 14) - and then he said that he DEFINATELY never suspected that!

He compensated for the wasted years by dancing with me (several times - and completely voluntarily), and we also talked more last night than we did in the 9 years we went to school together. It was nice to discover, that he was actually as sweet, nice and smart beneath that shy and quiet surface, as I always suspected - maybe my life would have been less complicated, if I'd dared approach him - back then ?? :-)

I could keep going on about one person or another, that I was immensely pleased and touched to meet again. It was nearly unreal, but also undiscribably precious to be handed a piece of my childhood on a silver platter like that. Meeting all these people, that in some way or another had played a role in a long and treasured part of my life - the grade school years.

After the grade school years came high school - and I never felt comfortable there. Too young, too unsophisticated for my surroundings, I bruised myself on them so much, that in the hindsight that comes with age, I probably nursed a minor depression in those years. I wouldn't go through high school again for anything - even though I also met lovely people there.

Grade school was the best part of my childhood. And yesterday, I got a bit of it back.

Friiiiiday!

I enter the weekend with a head that is quite less long haired than it was at the start of the week - it's NICE! This weekend will contain:

Girls gathering tonight with the women from my department - there aren't many of us, so we have had to form a club...

Reunion with my old grade school class - in whose numbers you find THE girlfriend through my school years, the guy I was buddies with and had countless stamp collecting clubs etc with, and last but not least - my very first boyfriend!

It is quite a separate story. He came to our school in 8th grade, with an exotic Zealand dialect. He came from Albertslund near Copenhagen, and that was damn exotic in those days in the north of Jutland. He had bright superblue eyes, broad shoulders and a smile that lit up the room. And it was me he found attractive ... quite a chock to me at the time, as it had never happened before!

He was my boyfriend for a little less than a year - a long time at that age. When we weren't off shooting airguns, playing table tennis or racing on his model racetrack, we'd be in his room performing red-cheeked kissing and fondling. Very telling of the borderland between child and adult, that we were in.

At some point he broke up, and it was my first heartbreak. I was crushed! Until one day I looked up, and into another set of beautiful blue eyes ... that was how it was back then.

I look forward to meeting him again - and fear it a bit. What if he's gotten bald and fat? Or even worse - if he's superfit and much younger looking than me??

Good to know I have my stamp-club-friend to fall back on - we were always able to find our way back to fun and easy conversation ... :-)

Desperate desire

OH ... I need it so much!!

It is SO long overdue. I really need it. I should have happened a week ago at least, if life was fair.

I believe it shows from the pictures of me in Rome - yes, look for yourself! I look NEEDY!

But release is on the way. Tomorrow I will walk lightly on the earth. Breathe easier.

Because fortunately I have a hairdressers appointment tomorrow afternoon.

Arrividerci Roma!

I'm back home!

We had a really fun and cozy trip, and we have seen and experienced so much...



We had some fun times over cold beer and pizza...



We've been to the Colosseum and heard about the times when 50.000 people watched other people fight wild animals or each other...



We had little parties featuring beer, rosé wine, grappa limone and various snacks at our hotel room at night - one of the nights it ended up with me singing "You've lost that loving feeling" with Connys shampoo for a mike... and giggling hysterically while making and translating nicknames for the hotel staff (3 people in all) to italian...



We sat on the spanish steps, but forgot to kiss...



We found a restaurant, that Bruno never told us he had!



We had good times on a LOT of sidewalk cafés and restaurants...

...and loads more .... and finally we flew back home again...



Great trip, wonderful company. But I want to bring Bruno down there the next time.

If you toss a coin in the Trevi fountain, it means that you will go back to Rome. I didn't bother - I believe I WILL be back, with or without the help of the fountain!

I recommend Rome!

Family weekend

This weekend our house is going to be brimming with life.

Kristina and Andreas arrives tonight. Andreas has a few days leave. Mette and Christina comes friday to stay overnight - saturday night they attend a friends wedding in Horsens, so they need to borrow the mazmobile (and they better take good care of my nearly-new car!!).

For all the kids to be here, we only need Lasse and Michelle.

But I will miss it entirely.

This afternoon I hop on a plane in Billund, that will take myself, my mother and my sister to Rome, and I am not coming back before monday evening.

I am exited to go! This girly-trip to Rome is some kind of family weekend, too...

Life and death

While I was sleeping soundly saturday night, life ended for my colleagues 10 year old daughter.

She has been ill for a long time - and this weekend the braintumor she has been struggling with, killed her. Besides her parents, she leaves behind a twin sister and two younger siblings - sisters as well. Along with whatever heartbroken family there might be besides that.

This is when life seems random and death meaningless.

"Why?" gives no answer. I hope the family manages to pull together and use each others warmth to move on.

My unholy sunday

Once upon a time it was the general belief, that you should keep sunday sacred - as in: Don't do any sort of work!

In that perspective, I have had a quite unholy sunday!
The result is that my house is shining like a new penny. Closet scrubbed down, taps polished, table tops soaped white, my toilette table freshly soap-treated, the bathroom scented with cleaners ... it is just nice here!

The house needed it badly after all these honeymoon-days, just spent ... well ... honeymooning!

Bruno has been busy too. He polished my little mazdamobile, and it was in great need! Red cars get SO ugly, when they need wax! But now the mazdamobile is red as a wet cherry candy, and it looks like a million! :)

Tomorrow it is getting a new muffler, and is checked through, when Bruno is taking it to my car-clever brother-in-law, John. My car will be brand new!
Tuesday it is going in for a lawful control, and I think it will slide through no problem, just as usual, even though it is an elderly lady (from 1991).

Now we have wrinkly fingers and hungry tummies. It's a good thing dinner is nearly ready!

My town

Fredericia is a good place to live.

Situated on a central spot in Denmark, yet close to woods and forests. Towns like Kolding, Vejle, Middelfart and even the cities of Odense and Århus are within reasonable driving distance - and to boot, buying a home is not that costly here.

It is nice being able to drive easily to larger towns - sometimes it's nice to see other shops and facilities. But nine times out of ten I get by just fine with Fredericia.

You won't find me rolling my eyes and going on about how lousy a shopping town Fredericia is - but maybe I'm just not very demanding :)

Friday I enjoyed my walk in the center of town after visiting Lund+Lund. I had to get that birthdaypresent, and I also had a gift certificat from my bonus children, burning in my bag - it just had to go!

For quite a while now, Downtown has been under reconstruction. We got a lovely new city hall square (nobody did anything to improve our ugly city hall - sadly), and the shopping area has gotten new tile and water sculptures etc.



On city hall square there was commotion - stands were set up, and some guys were playing swingin' jazz of the oldfashioned foot-stomping kind.

I hurried on, coz I was set for the purse-shop. My old white purse with Disney characters on it was coming apart at the seams and needed replacing. I fell promptly in love with a gloveskin thing in brandy brown. The price tag said 2000 kr. (about 280 EUR)- I thought that to be a bit much, considering what I usually put my purses through.

So I ended up with this:



Thanks for the gift, Lasse and Christina!

On another square - Ryes Square - tables were out in front of the irish pub, and a team of basque folk dancers were at it.



The music was fiery, feisty and sunbaked, and there was a great atmosphere.

When I got home, I got yet another gift. My self-bred chiliplants, that has been altering between overwatering and drying out all summer, had grown fruits - without me noticing!



Impressive, considering the treatment they have been getting. But that is life - stubborn and bountiful...

Yummy Yarn!

Today, when I went for errandss in Fredericia, I stopped by Lund+Lund. It is for sure the most advanced hand crafts store in town. You don't find cheap synthetic yarn there, but a store just oozing joy of hand crafts, atmosphere - and quality.



Some years ago this was an antiquarium, dealing in old magazines and books. Back then the long, narrow shop was full of exiting messes. Now it's predominated with pleasant setups and colours.



Like these machine embroidered hyacinth covers. Here you can get anything from luxurious textiles, over yarns in all the colours of the rainbow and to your hearts desire of embroidering equipment. You find buttons, zippers, cool chochet-needle with crafted shafts, round-counters, magnet tablets for keeping up with your knitting pattern - and least but not last, you can have some good advice from Susanne and Jytte, that own the store.



I wouldn't mind if Susanne gave me this bag for christmas! I am working on plan to get some of our kids hitched up, so we can be relatives ... but I don't think I'll succeed. ;-)



There is just so many luxurious yarns, in so many lovely colours. Actually Susanne and Jytte also host a knitting café - where they share their great experience and knowledge of knitting. Here despairing amateurs like myself can come for help.



And why am I writing all this? Am I getting a provision? Not really - I just like the shop. And I have known Susannefor many years - as she is a co-worker of mine at Bankdata - only a part time one, as the shop takes up the rest of her working hours. She minds the shop along with Jytte, who is by he way her sister in law.



And I really love, when someone like Susanne and Jytte don't just talk about how cool that ultimate craftshop would be, and instead go for it! I think that is cool - respect! They didn't just talk about it - and that is lucky for my town.



My visit took a fair amount of time today. I took pictures, caressed pretty, soft yarns and ran my fingers over shawls that looked like they were made out of pretty spider webs. I was seriously tempted - but at the moment I am knitting a patch blanket out of cheaper yarns for my daughter, and I want to finish it before I go and buy more yarn. I did find a nice wool yarn that really wanted to come home with me...



Even though the shop was busy, Susanne and Jytte found a bit of time to chat. Recently they extended their business to include a
webshop ... it is not quite the same, but still...

You'll have to excuse me now. I gotta go finish that blanket for Bodil!

It's been for ever...

...since anyone bothered to comment in here *sniffles* ....

Am I just blogging for myself??

Time to ourselves

The vacation period is nearly over.



Kristian is going on the last couple of days of vacation with his dad. He will be coming home sunday, happy and with a few more sun-freckles. I look forward to seeing him, and hearing all he has to tell.

Bodil came back wednesday from her grandparents. She was there for a bit over a week, and they had a good time! Her cousins live nearby, and a penfriend, that she has payed a visit to as well.

And hanging out with grandma is not the worst thing in the world. Bodil has a sweet graandma, and I bet they had som good talks.

I have even had my big kid - Andreas - this week. He came tuesday night, and left last night, and this weekend he is having his first turn as a guard at Amalienborg.

So in spite of what we'd thought when the summer started, Bruno and I got a while on our own. And boy, did we enjoy it!



When we just started up as a couple, the change in me was very easy to see. Joy bubbled up, and on me it really shows on the outside. It's very hard to hide.

That led, back then, to a sour comment from a female co-worker, who has been married for (too?) many years: "Yes, it's all very good - your honeymoon days will be over sometime too!"

And I guess they are - but certainly not in the way that my colleague had imagined. Our joy of being together is completely intact. "In love" has grown a solid foundation of lasting love, and a 2nd floor of belonging together and trust. We still can't keep our hands off each other, and we find each other company indspiring and joyful.



So time to ourselves ... that means a lot for us. Its time to enjoy and be lovers. The house can stay a mess, the garden grow weeds. When the weather is like its been this year, we enjoy long days and evenings at the beach, trips into the country to pretty places, movie dates ... and days where we just relax and read on our porch.

We had the perfect lovers-date this tuesday. We packed food into a cooling bag and brought our beach gear and mini grill to a beach on Northern Funen. We enjoyed the sun and the air, and when we got hungry, we barbecued and had our dinner. Then we sat on our camping chairs and watched the sun go down, the conversation waxing and waning and going in all directions.



It was a splendid evening. There were intertwining of fingers and batteries reloading. There was the sun setting over Jutland, and a cayac gliding by soundlessly on the water.



There was the sound of the silly sheep on the field behind us ("Baaah - BAAAAH!") and the strange cries of the seagulls. There was the flame at Shell, that we could see all the way over here. And there were us - in the middle of it all - and a flock of seagulls doing a polesitting competition. They still sat there, when we left.

Left to go back to our everyday life - our non-honeymoon days. That are not really dull and sour at all, because we have each other.

Watching others work

I love watching others work.

Here is the view from my first floor, when I stepped out just a moment ago to get a bit of fresh air...



The lawn was really in need of a mowing. Bodil was hard at work.

Yesterday and today...

Yesterday:






Today:






...it's been a great weekend!

Hey??

Beach weather?? Where'd you go??

Well - never mind - we don't care. We allready figured out something else we can do!

Total amazement

They must have an awful lot of money, them swedes. Otherwise you wouldn't take a cab all the way from Skåne to Fredericia?? Damn!

Poor us...

We have been gaining weight - so now we are on a diet.

That means, that all we can have for our evening snack is this:



Life is so hard.

The recipe (in Danish, alas) is here - you have to look under "Bagværk".

Romance in the air...

Tuesday night we went to the movies to watch the movie about english writer Jane Austen. It was a wonderful movie - being a fan of her fiction, I enjoyed it immensely!

Playing was altså Die Hard 4 - but I didn't have to drag Bruno by the theatre playing that movie, I really think he'd rather watch "Becoming Jane".

I, on the other hand, would not object to being invited to watch Bruce Willis - he may be ageing, but he is very charming still - in his own extremely masculine way :-)

You might say I have a broad taste ... considering that my last trip to the movies was to watch cars transform into robots and vice versa ....

Or maybe I'm just a bit schizo....