To have memories

Found this little treasure on the floor today. It should be tucked away safely on the bookshelf but think a certain little lady got interested. It's my paternal grandmother's "bookmark" album (not sure about translation here), neatly dated "1936" by my grandmother. Her parents passed away the year after, both within a year. She was 12 and moved in with her eldest sister. It breaks my heart. This was probably one of the few things she had left as a memory from her childhood before growing up too quickly. And now I'm the custodian of the album, which is resting on a bookshelf in a flat in London; to once again be admired by the great-granddaughter. A little bit of family history.

To let the right light in

More light in the house in an attempt to chase away the November gloom. Found this lovely string of light which brightens up the bed room including my wedding veil and my first pair of shoes. I discovered that the bird cage is perfect as a lamp. Before I only stored empty wallets and jewellery boxes inside, not as pretty.

And hold on,  we have even decorated the Christmas tree(!),  it's us and the High Street now.  Not ready to share a picture just yet. It's a mixture of 1950's style baubles and bright pink reindeers (daughter's choice) so will take some time to get used to.  It is extremely early indeed but we can enjoy it for longer and now we're all prepared for the pre-Christmas celebration a la Swedish style next weekend.

But I've mainly been talking about artificial lights and candles, and cheerful and pretty as they are, what  really cheers me up is having close family and friends around me when things feel a bit dark and it's not only because it happens to be November. For that I'm always grateful and it's always added to my "10-a-day grateful list". It's high up there with Christmas trees and candles.

PS. If you're not doing it already - be grateful for 10 things everyday (even if it's only for that you don't have to shave your toes)  and things will certainly feel a little bit brighter, with or without candles.

To chase away the grey

A bit early for Swedish Advent stars and "candles" but after a grey day,  not only referring to the weather, we needed to cheer ourselves up a little. Stars in every window as well as in the hallway, as there weren't enough windows.

My parents arrive next week and we're going to have a pre-Christmas celebration which means I can buy the Christmas tree extra early this year. I love real Christmas trees but this might be the year when we check out an artificial one, just so it will last till the New Year. And to finally give in and accept that my parents are allergic (they've been suffering year after year as my brothers and I always won the real tree vs artificial tree battle, 3 against 2 - or threatened with not coming home at all...)

To try something new

We're creatures of habit but sometimes we go wild and try something new - like a new kind of potato. This one's called "apache" and is just beautiful, and a roasted version is yum as we just discovered.

Happy Sunday!

To have fun

Birthday party, the first one with the new class and lots of fun at the School of gymnastics.

The sweetheart didn't stay still enough to be captured properly on camera. Got to know a few more of the parents, had a good catch up with a few others and exchanged phone number with Sweetheart's mum (American and very nice) so think M will be very happy as she has asked for a play date for a while and they have also talked about marriage. We'd better get to know his parents.

To be caught

Say no more...Nutella is hard to resist.

To have a day full of play

Yesterday, after school we invited a friend (same school, different site and an "old" nursery friend which we just reconnected with) and her mum to our house for play and Swedish waffles. Eliza's mum works with conservation of listed buildings so for someone like me, with an interest in history, ethnology, and art/architecture we shared a lot of interests. We both got very excited about Dr Lucy Worsley and her domestic history series...Luckily the little girls got on really well too.

And today we had two play dates; one Swedish mum and her daughter I just got to know (Internet forums are a wonderful thing sometimes) came around and had coffee at ours and then went to the park for a walk and some (big) leaf picking.

In the afternoon we were invited to another friend's house; someone I saw a lot of when we're on maternity leave and got to know then but haven't met up with for two years(!). The girls played really well and we had a lovely time. I was finally introduced to her husband, who's Swedish, and his dad who was also visiting - and happened to have worked as surgeon at my old local hospital back in Sweden. It's a small world. We're now planning to have a Swedish mulled wine Christmas party which I'm looking forward too. If I'm really lucky my husband will agree to go to IKEA tonight so I can get some gingerbread snaps (pepparkakor) to help me get into the mood.