Normal Life Day 2

Day 2 is being uploaded/downloaded/sideappatured on day 3 because I left my computer in the cafe, still good things come to those who wait.... [Ed - ?????relevance????]

The day started off as normal with alarm at 6, loaded the car with all the bags and zoomed off to make carrot cake, fetch the buns and passionfruit cake, order the bread for paninis, make chocolate balls and lentil pies... open up and then collapse in a weeping heap in front of everyone..(as they say here for everything - only joking)

Never thought I'd live to see the day I used sprinkles! (only joking)

Behind any great quiche/cake is a load of washing up

Managed to have a 5 min break and look out of the window.  The slope is still covered with wood anemones, like stars.

There was an evening (!) meeting at 6:30 of the Habo Tourism Network, which was very interesting and potentially very useful.  The women from #sveciatravels were certainly pros.  It was fun meeting people too and putting faces to names. Bit of a bombshell with the announcement that Landhs (one of the best cafes in Sweden) are buying the local cafe here.  

Left just after 9 to drive through the STILL DAYLIGHT!! It's such a lovely drive home (not joking).  (only joking)

'Normal Life"

In the strange world of Facebook, I have been 'challenged' to provide photos and a commentary on 5 consecutive normal days.  Presumably normal in this context means the next 5 days, come what may.  I guess most of us won't win the lottery or a Nobel Prize in the window, so it's a little vignette of how life goes on.  I thought that this was quite a good idea actually, so I've decided to also blog them.

Starting with yesterday, naturally.
Tuesday was the second day of my weekend.  It's the equivalent of the wage slaves' Saturday and yesterday kicked off with the dentist and a root canal filling.  Surprisingly, there are no photos.  I had thought to get lots of other shopping for the cafe, but felt unable to do more than food shopping and I also managed to stop at a garden centre (shame!) and got 10 geraniums.  There are rumours of good weather coming!

Got home, collapsed, had a cup of tea and then heaved myself up to start the accounts, paying invoices and filing.  It's illegal to use Excel here, so I have to pay for a proper book keeping program.  I have no idea how to use it, and keep filling in things in the wrong spaces, but I have every hope that things will turn out alright in the end...

After a bite of lunch, I thought that I'd better iron some tea towels and table clothes for the cafe. This is only half of the way through.

I so need to get a more cheerful ironing board cover!

That lasted until G came home and I was bound by my duty as a good wife and cat slave to start dinner. As I haven't yet got routines going, such as, what G is going to buy on Sat so we can have dinner on Tuesday, we had salmon from the freezer, boiled potatoes and dill and peas pureed with mint.

The cat was very, very pleased with the salmon, ate one skin almost without stopping to chew and promptly went upstairs to sleep it off.  Didn't see her again the rest of the evening.

This is Psychokitty halfway through her dinner, she's not that keen on her picture being taken and hasn't got a diners instagram account.

After that, well, it was getting things in bags, piling them by the door for taking to work the next day and then collapsing into the sofa (again!) and listening to Radio 4 as there was nothing on the telly.  Tell a lie, there was ice-hockey, but I guess we're not yet completely Swedish and so fail the Norman Tebbit test... Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

May flowers

I know it's a cliche, but May really is the most beautiful month.  Even when the weather has been pants, like this year, it's lovely.  The pines and firs send out their new shoots, light against the dark and the birches are like spring green mist.  After a long dry spell, the rain came and it's been raining on and off with daytime temperatures of around 8-12C for a week now.  It feels colder than minus temperatures, probably because it's meant to be nice!  However, the smell is delicious, rich and light with the promise of sun and flowers.  And the cows have been let out!  It's a real family day out, even in the rain!


I'm sitting now in my café, watching the blossoms spiral down from the tree outside the window, hoping for nicer weather and some customers.

"You are the brand"

The café is up and running, though I'm waiting for my first electricity bill to see if it can pay for itself yet.  It's not exactly packed, though people are coming back and bringing friends.  As it's not on the main drag, it's more of a special visit sort of place, so it makes it very weather dependent.  I've been amusing myself by guessing how many visitors will come when I read the weather for the day and so far I've been very right!

Marketing is interesting though.  Trying to convince my marvellous, though London, graphics man that it is actually OK to put up laminated A5 bits of paper cos it's the only thing that works on a hamlet notice board.  Social media is definitely good, if you are prepared to use it to communicate things totally unrelated to any sort of real life and to be relentlessly perky.  It's having a sort of BlackBook effect on me though, probably one of those balance of nature things, like sugar and insulin.

 I've been firmly resisting, so far, fame.  ??? I hear you cry, 'how on earth can you be famous'.  Indeed, but apparently the web abounds with blogs that net huge earnings, lucrative deals and general well-knowness etc. On the same floor as my humble cafe is the office of one of those bloggers, who shall be known here as Cup Cake Queen of Norway.  CCQN is very good at what she does and works relentlessly. She jets off over the world and stays in 5 star hotels advising princesses etc having been a normal housewife before she started the blog thing. It seems so unusual to actively go against society's wish for fame/ the desire to leave something of worth that I think that it must be a hangover from childhood upbringing/indoctrination.  It probably explains my resistance to updating this blog and improving my writing skills.   I'll have to get fame therapy, there must be a blog somewhere....