Holidays

Hello, we've been on a holiday.  To those of you who want to point out that the whole of my life is a holiday, I say 'pah!' This is the first time in 5 years when the most responsibility I've had is to choose a white or red wine with the lovely sizzling skewer of meat and vegetables on the table before me.  We fetched up in a little hotel in a little bay in the south of Gran Canaria, chosen mainly because there were no white plastic chairs in publicity.

This doesn't mean to say that I haven't been learning, of course.

1) 4 books were almost not enough.  Unfortunately, I got a humdinger of a cold from the Danes, so books by Nobel prize winning scientists were not going to cut it in that situation.  If you're interested: Ragnarok - AS Byatt (fab), Dead Man in Depford- Anthony Burgess (very good writing, but didn't like), Thinking fast and slow - Daniel Kahneman, (excellent),  Act of Creation - Koestler (didn't finish cos of virus infiltration)
2) White Rioja is really, really good on a hot day.
3) The 80:20 rule really does work.  If you are at all body conscious, do NOT go to a resort with lots of Swedes. 80% will look and dress better than you. If they are Danes, 80% will be better dressed than you, but dumpier.  If you go to a resort patronised by Brits, 80% will be dumpier and worse dressed, so best to do that.
4) There is a Marks and Spencers in Las Palmas!!  Hurrah and lots of t shirts and ready meals.  Saved us a fortune cos there was a microwave in our hotel room.  Marvellous idea, a mini-kitchen in a wardrobe.
5) We are officially middle-aged.  We went on THREE coach trips, yes, three... We did redeem ourselves slightly with two local bus trips, but still.... all we needed was a thermos flask....
6) I absolutely LOVE Gran Canaria.  We are seriously considering moving to Teror, because one has to live in terror....  No but seriously, I may close the cafe for a month next January and move to the south of Gran Canaria, possibly Mogan or Porto del Mogan and write.  Graham can bring me tapas and white rioja at regular intervals, so he'll have something to do.

Ahhh, holidays....

The view from 'our' sunbeds

 

Groaning Boards

This anniversary Graham gave me quite a treat.  Usually I get taken to sample the gastronomic delights of MacDonalds, or, as a special treat, for our 25th I had fish and chips at the English pub in town here.  However, this year, we booked at a lovely, little, hotel in Mullsjö to sample their famous Julbord.  The Christmas table is very popular here and people go with their workmates, families, friends etc several times to several places in the run up to Christmas Eve. Then everyone talks about how it's all gone downhill since last year and they'll never go again and they can never look a meatball in the face again.  It's traditional.
Every Julbord has the same basic ingredients: several million types of pickled dill, smoked cold meats, several different ways of doing salmon, mackerel, herring and cod, cold sauces by the thousand, beetroot salad and mimosa salad, then hot stuff - meatballs, small hot dogs, spareribs, ham, brown beans, red cabbage, janssons temptation, lutfisk (cod preserved in quicklime), boiled potatoes and dop (bread dipped in broth), a cheese board, a sweet table with sweets, a pudding table with traditional cheesecake, fruit, creams of various sorts and biscuit type things.
At Björkhagan, it was all beautifully prepared and very well cooked and there were piles of people all queueing politely.  I'm so pleased I booked in the family name and so we got in early and first (yay for using what you've got!).  There were also piles of food, with chefs running in and out, 10 sorts of pickled herring, 5 sorts of salmon, assorted mackerel, smoked elk, lamb, wild boar, turkey, etc etc.  juicy spareribs and meatballs, etc.  However after looking at the alleged cheddar, I feel that trip to Neals Yard should be mandatory for all Swedes and tinned mandarins and pineapple rings on the pudding table were bizarre, but hey, why not! Graham had a big bowlful and felt quite nostalgic for the 70s.  Apart from a small amount of boiled peas for the lutfisk and lettuce garnish for the eggs, mayo and caviar, there were no vegetables or salad.  Lots of sauces, and cream etc.
After 5 sorts salmon, and some hot stuff I was groaning gently in a corner and was persuaded to try a melon slice before I threw in the towel.  How people pack it all in I have no idea.  We didn't drink anything but a small bottle of Julmust (a cola type drink) and normal water, but people were stuffing their faces with glogg, aquavit and beers as well as all that food.  Now I have to go back and try the cold meats, pickled herrings, breads, sweets and puddings.  May be it'll have to be another 2 goes!

The Joy of DIY

For 25 years I've had a dining set of handmade Arts and Crafts chairs, table, dresser, sofa, serving table and two plant stands. The set was made for my grandmother's parents as a wedding present, came to my grandparents as a wedding present and then to Graham and me and are lovely. Oak, carved with apples.  Apples are unusual as the most common motif is pear, and this sort of furniture is two a penny around here, if you want some. My grandmother had had the dining chairs recovered in the 1970s. Fair enough, they were in constant use.... re-covered in brown vinyl.  This has been on them, wearing extremely well, being extremely practical and looking foul, until this summer.  I've been meaning to reupholster them for years, but never got around to doing it/finding suitable material etc.  And then, a pile of material samples came into the Second Hand shop where I've been volunteering.  Well!  strike whilst the iron is hot, so to speak.  All you need is a heavy duty stapler and you can go from dark brown vinyl to this.

Really, it is that simple!

Jar o'whisky o

"wine makes life merry" according to Ecclesiastes, but getting hold of it over here is an, errrmmm, interesting experience.  Take Graham for example.  For years didn't touch a drop, had a few beers on occasion and a glass of wine on special occasions, but definitely no more than 2 and was perfectly happy with that state of affairs.  You would have thought that he would do well in a country with a huge history of alcoholism and hence very strict alcohol controls.

You can only buy alcohol over about 3% from the state controlled shops "System Bolaget", no delivery and if you buy a lot, they quiz you, age of consent is 20 years old and there are posters about drinking too much all over the place.  The choice is OK, but limited really and the prices are about 1/3 more expensive than the UK.  There is also far, far too much cheap (?) Riesling available.  As you go around, you get increasingly furtive, your nose starts swelling and going red and the tendency to go 'hic' increased exponentially.  It has improved though, when I was a child, you had to place your order in advance, go round the back alleys to a hatch and have your brown paper bag passed through, cash only.  It was easier to buy hard drugs.

Sunday dinner came around this week and we had a glass of wine (chardonnay, yes, I know!!) with the chicken.  He sat contemplating it, sipped it, sighed with appreciation and said 'it's so nice to have a glass of wine, it feels so sophisticated, I'll have another thanks....... [pauses] the system alone here is enough to turn you into an alcoholic'.

Before he was quite happy to not drink, but the sheer disapproval rating here is enough to make you want to go 'nahhhh' and drink a bottle of vodka at one go. Terribly teenagerish, I know, but there it is.  I long for the days when I could go into Majestic and buy 12 bottles, to have a G&T to relax after a hard day's work a couple of times a week.  Here I'm filled with a terrible urge to explain myself after buying 3 bottles, I sup furtive glasses of wine from a box at night and no G&Ts (cos of no Plymouth Gin, just stuff I've never heard of, allegedly from London) and no one I know goes out for a drink.  If I do they get completely rat-arsed within 10 minutes, which is not fun.

Pricing does work though, we buy much less, but then, we never had a drinking problem...

Shopping

One day a while back, a chap had an idea.  He would buy up stock from bankrupt firms and sell them cheaply in his own little shop in a little village in the middle of the forest. This turned out to be a good idea, so good that he expanded his little shop and his little village, which was in the middle of a landscape that must have studied the picturesque to university level, found itself with a yellow plastic brick warehouse surrounded by concrete blocks housing other shops and even a hotel. The car park alone must have taken over several farms and there is a constant stream of cars coming from all corners of Sweden, And a television programme.
And there was me, meandering along to give it a go.  Well!!  The car park, let's begin there... Try Tescos on Christmas Eve, just before it shuts, except on steroids. Fortunately the Viking pensioners steering their Volvos like longships hadn't encountered the London Car Park Glare (for those of you who don't know - "dare and I will have the chainsaw out of my handbag and in your face before you blink" and I was able to defend my space, whilst doing the worst piece of parking I have ever done in my life. but I really didn't dare go more than a metre from the space.  A granny would have whipped in.

Got out, and ambled towards the entrance.  I have never seen or heard so many trolleys in my life.  Read the bit in Reaper Man (Terry Pratchett) when the shopping centre hatches, it was so like that.  Hordes streaming past me, grimly holding onto their trolleys for dear life, rattling like there was no tomorrow.

Just getting that far meant I had to stop for a coffee and a fan.  Fortunately there was a Swedish equivalent of a Little Chef just by the entrance and I was able to regroup over a coffee (surprisingly not bad) and a 'home-baked' bun.  Yeeessss, not sure what sort of home it was baked in, but it definitely did need a social worker.

Once I reached the entrance, I thought that I should get a basket and that was one of the best decisions of the day.  Anyway, I'm not sure that there was really room for one more trolley in that place.  Goodness knows what would have happened in Children's Toys if the fire alarm would have gone off.  There was literally (Yes!!) no room to move in some of the aisles.  People were using the shelves as barbeque racks and living off stray wandering children, whole families had been born in the Barbie aisle and Fisher Price was being passed in to teach the children-of-the-shop to read. I have honestly never seen anything like it. I found myself sucked in as I made a dash from Women's Clothes (people changing in the aisles, shudder) to Kitchen Ware and only escaped by lodging my basket between two trolleys and bouncing back out into Music.

The quietest place was the checkouts.  I was expecting IKEA type queues, but no, they'd got it sorted.

Ullared does definitely have decent stuff at very good prices, so I can sort of understand the urge to go, but as I made my way to the checkout bearing a hotplate for the cafe and various little things I had to get for the Charity Auction on Friday, I decided that if I did go back, (to get things for the cafe you understand,)  it wouldn't be until after Christmas and only then after a strict meditation and calming regime.  Two hours drive and you have to make it worth your while somehow!

Curling

Yesterday the local curling club had its annual open day.  One of the women in our knitting cafe group is very, very interested in curling and invited us all to go.  As I quite like watching it on the telly, if it is on, I thought I may as well give it a go.  I like boule and the curling players scuttle around very easily on the telly, so hey, what's not to like.
I can't really say that the curling club are big on advertising, or signage, but thanks to a very nice, young security man, I found the hall.  Another very nice young man showed me the hall, and found me a pair of shoes, whilst I waved at Anita and Gitten through the glass.  Then I went out into the hall, got my protective headband and broom thing and had to step on the ice.  At which point, I realised something.  Ice is slippery, I hate slippery.  The entire skuttling easily over the ice thing was a big con!
One of the shoes is the grippy shoe and the other is the slidy shoe (technical names!). What is that all about?  and to slide the stone, you have to slide too! on the ice! which is slippery! and I'm terrified of slipping! Arggghhhh!  Anita, Gitten and yet another nice young man looked at me, I looked at them, they looked at me, I looked at them and said, 'there's ice', "yes" said Anita, "curling is played on the ice". "Yes" I said, "I know, I'd just forgotten that ice is slippery". "what?" said Gitten, "you'd forgotten?  since last winter?". "yes, it looks so no slippy on the telly".  Nice young man III was totally bemused at this point and didn't really know what to do, so I took pity on him and slide my left foot about a bit, whilst leaning heavily on my broom and wobbling, at which point he looked a bit panicy, so I asked him what one did next before falling over, so he sensibly decided to ignore that bit and showed me how to push the stone thing.  I bobbled over to the pushy-offy bits and tried to imitate him, but forgot to let go of the stone, so was dragged spreadeagled across the ice for miles, with the howls of laughter from my 'friends' echoing in the hall.  The second attempt was better, apart from the getting up from the push bit, but I then got the hang of using the grippy foot to lean on - yay, Winter Olympics here I come!
My hopes of a future career were dashed within a few minutes, I sent my stone winging down the ice and promptly toppled over just as the 'big man in curling' came in and gazed down from his lofty heights in the viewing bit. Sigh.
Anyway, it was great fun, although as I never mastered the actual sliding bit, I couldn't do any sweeping frantically in front of the stone, but I have long realised that you can't get everything in life. And there's always next year...

A Day in the Village

On Saturday, Bottnaryd, our nearest village, had a 'fun' day to raise money for the equivalent to the UK's Cancer Research. There was a whole day's programme and all the shops got involved, the shop and the pizza place donated a portion of the day's takings, the beauty palour did 10min massage/hair things and the gym had spinning classes and stuff.  The Pentecostal Church did the cafe for the morning and the Swedish Church in the afternoon, there were concerts by local talent, inspirational talks from people who wanted to cycle from here to Paris, who had survived cancer and stuff, a fun run, a jumble sale, the scouts had fun games and popcorn and there was even a bouncy castle.

Graham was already booked to work down the church (they are redoing the grounds at the front), so he had the car, and managed to contribute to the effort by eating pizza for lunch - he does have a hard life!  I decided that, as I'd managed to change the voice in my head to 'look after yourself', I would cycle.  It's only 5km and only 2 hills after all.  It was a bit grey and cloudy for the first time in 4 weeks, but that was OK.  So I decked myself out in my best 'sitting in a cafe, listening to live music, being charitable, whilst occasionally throwing balls at things' look and set out.  The air dampness started halfway up the first hill (yes, I was walking! live with it!), it coalesced into drizzle on the straight over the lake and became serious drizzle at the top of the second.  It was possibly a bit damp...  Fortunately part of the look was my old Post Office duffle, which is guaranteed to keep out all Welsh weather - drizzle? pah, it laughs.

It was great fun, music was good, the Pente coffee brilliant, scout games fun, fun, fun and I chatted with loads of people.  The dampness and need to not look in a mirror got too much and I left for home at 2, so couldn't compare the Swedish Church coffee and hear the country band (shame...???  who were also very good examples of the genre), but it was actually great fun cycling home.  I felt terribly, terribly french, probably the combination of turtle neck jumper, moleskin skirt and wicker basket.  and for a village of about 800 inhabitants (plus us country odds and sods), they raised over 75000SEK!