Celebrating with friends!

Had a fabulous birthday weekend, which began on the eve of the actual day, as it were, with Martin bringing home something which he knows I am a lot more interested in than roses…

On my birthday friends Sarah & Matthew and Andrew & Lianne with children came over for an afternoon of food…(to the below was added Martin’s home made pesto bread, lamb meat balls and chicken drumsticks. Would also like to comment that the salad on the big plate is a Moro favourite; blood oranges – finally in season! – feta, roast pistachios and parsley salad)

and cake, the latter courtesy of master cake maker Sarah. Lovely to be serenaded by three gorgeous little boys!

Of course, then Happy Birthday had to be sung a second time, so that they’d all have a go at blowing out the candles…fr left Jacob, Jake, James and Lukie.

And the gorgeous Emily!

And my dear friend Sarah.

The rugby was on (England v Wales), which is a must in this crowd! Luke probably knew the least about the game out of everyone who joined Lianne on the sofa (her parents were watching the game actually at Twickenham!)

The next day, Carmen came over for Sunday lunch and a bit of messing around at the allotment. And we spotted the first daffodils flowering in the Wordsworth garden. It’s been over 10 degrees every day since – spring is here!

Visiting Dronningen

Last week was half-term, and Luke and I headed for Sweden to visit family…and royalty. We spent one day on an outing with Mormor and Morfar, to Copenhagen, where we watched the changing of the guards at Amalienborg, the residence of the Danish Queen – Dronning Margerethe (cousin of the Swedish king for those of you who keep track of blue blood lines…).

After the changing of the guards, we had some really delicious Danish open face sandwiches (Smørrebrød) at a nearby restaurant. Roast beef, herring, home made pate…and Luke loved his fried plaice. Which set him up well for two hours at the Experimentarium, a fantastic interactive “museum”. Thank you Mum and Dad for a brilliant day out!!

All and all, it was a very social week…

We visited Luke’s Godmother Liza, who has just had a baby daughter, Lucy Ofelia – gorgeous!

And her older brothers Ezra and Leo are favourite play mates of Lukie’s…

We also hung out with our friend Ulrika, and her baby Sid (9 months), and Luke was very sweet with him. Such a happy baby, all smiles:-)

Thanks to Facebook, we had managed to set up a reunion of old colleagues at the magazine (AGI) where both me and my sister Ulli used to work. It was a really good night, with lots of fun memories. Amazing group of people, all very individual and all fun and interesting. (sorry about the glowing eyes). Nearest the camera on the right is Jonas Nordström, who was my predecessor as editor-in-chief. And across the table from him Ulli of course.

On our first weekend at Ulli’s house in Malmö we got some snow, and Lukie went sledging with his cousins…Poor Ida (13) had to pull them all to the slope:-) Ture (11), Sara (7) and Luke.

Luke was a lot more adventurous than previous years, and loved flying down the hill on a tiny “stjärtlapp”. I just stood at the foot of the slope and watched him go up and down. Hurrah for 5 year olds!

Luke also loves the indoor play at my sister’s house, not least because he can use toy guns (not allowed at our house…) Yeehaa!

Those of you who know his weariness of dogs, will notice that he is quite happy for the lovely Stella to play with him. This was a complete revelation, suddenly he was keen to play with her, even to the point where he was on the floor, letting her lick his head. Yay!

Our second weekend was spent at my sister Johanna’s (a k a Myhanna) flat in Lund. We visited the fantastic Kulturen, a sort of indoor/outdoor museum with focus of folk culture and traditions. Luke absolutely loved it, and is keen to take Martin next time we’re over. He was fascinated by all the old farm houses and the way people lived, the old toys, and most of all an old Linotype typesetting machine. His great great grandfather, great grandfather and indeed morfar would be proud!

The lovely playground at Kulturen will be even better in warmer weather…

A huge thank you to everyone who made our half term such a memorable one, especially my sisters and parents.

Sledging Sunday

Finally – snow in Grasmere. When Martin said to Luke last Wednesday; “You know what, Lukie – we’re going to get snow this weekend!”, Luke replied, “You say that every week, Dad!”. Well, this week Martin was right, we got about 15 centimetres on Saturday, and Sunday it was sledging time down the road for a lot of the village kids, including Luke’s friend James.