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Feb 5

An update

Posted on Friday, February 5, 2016 in My life

Some of you may have noticed that I have been missing for a while. The reason is that I’ve been in hospital. My blood pressure was up and my legs were swelling and I ended up staying until after the C-section. I really hate being in the hospital. :/ At least so far things seem to be going well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the future. My blood pressure is still a bit too high and my ankles and feet are still swollen (yuck). Other than that I feel fine, but tired. I’m a bit low on iron too, so maybe that’s why.

The twins are doing ok, but not eating enough to grow as much as they should, so we have to feed them through a tube (?). It’s a thin plastic thing that has been inserted into their stomachs (?). I’m really no expert on these medical things, but it’s creepy but quite easy to handle things once they had been set up. It’s usually quite nice to feed the kids from a bottle, but this – well, at least it’s easy and convenient. The twins were born almost a month too early (because twins usually are) and apparently that’s pretty good for twins. They’re so tiny. They’re also quite a lot alike (in looks) and quite different (in personality). Maybe this is too much info for most of my followers so I’ll keep all that to a minimum. I’m not sure how much anyone will want to know. I can tell you that having a planned C section worked out exactly as I hoped it would – no pain, not even afterwards. There were uncomfortable moments with injections, blood tests etc, but no actual pain, not before, during or after the surgery. So that was good.

We’re back at the house now and are supposed to handle things ourselves from now on. Again, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

In other news, I failed at finishing my three YA books :(. Now I have no idea when I’ll be able to do any writing at all. I don’t even have time to read (and hardly to eat and sleep…).

Even though I can’t write at the moment, I have come up with a new fanfic idea for Call the Midwife, which was totally unexpected. I never thought I’d write anything in that fandom. So maybe some day – next year? – I’ll do some more writing.

Mar 27

Lectures and haircut

Posted on Friday, March 27, 2015 in My life

Table Hill

Here’s an update about what I’ve been doing lately. First of all, what I haven’t been doing lately is writing, I’m afraid. 🙁 I’m stuck in the middle of my latest children’s book and so far I haven’t been able to get unstuck. I’m looking forward to getting some help from my sister but at the moment she’s too busy with work and her studies to be of any help.

So what I have been up to lately is mainly going to lectures. Usually, I try to go with either my mother or my sister, but so far, they haven’t had time or felt up to it so I’ve been going alone.

The first one was about this town and surrounding area during a time or rather times of unrest (ie war), back in the 17th, 18th and early 19th century. It was interesting, except for the fact that the lecturer (the head of the museum) kept referring to sources for genealogists. which my family and I are, but at the times the lecture referred to no one in our family lived around here, so I always feel a little bored when that comes up. Anyway, I’d already heard a little about this in an earlier lecture by the same man.

At the end of the lecture I went up to ask the man about something I’d heard of before. Some of you may remember that my sister and went on a guided tour of the cellars underneath the ‘Residence’ of the ‘governor’ (not sure of the exact translation of the Swedish term). Anyway, that’s about the oldest parts left of this town. Except for the rumoured baking ovens beneath the old prison, now converted into an exclusive apartment building. As it turned out, there are no ancient ovens left, but apparently there are some vaults or a vault anyway, where the ovens used to be. The man quite decently offered to show it or them to me, since he lives in the building. Unfortunately, I lost his card, but my sister works in the same building and knows him, even though her archive doesn’t have anything directly to do with the museum’s archives so she can get in touch with him. I hope we can both go and take a quick look at the vault. It may not sound very exciting, and the man himself didn’t seem to think so but again, we’re talking about some of the oldest parts of this town, so I’d still like to have a look. I’ll post about it later if I do get to go.

The second lecture was about the Swedish language and it was quite interesting, despite the fact that the woman who held it, a professor of Swedish at the University of Gothenburg, and the Dean (I think that’s the word) of the local college, was really proud of herself and her ancestry and never let a moment go by without pointing out what an illustrious ancestry she had or how brilliant she is to have been appointed to many prestigious councils and other exclusive academic groups. Apparently she didn’t like my questions so she tried to silence me by being condescending, while flattering an older man in the audience (entirely made up of retired people, except for a guy who seemed to be there as the driver of his grandfather or someone) for his questions that chimed in well with her narrative. Oh, well, like I said, it was interesting, but I didn’t like that woman.

Finally, I went to listen to someone give a talk about the ancient mythology of the Table ‘mountains’/hills around here. Some people are of the opinion that all our ancient mythology can be traced to them, or rather one of them in particular, one that is right nearby (see image above). The whole thing was entertaining, and since the subject refers to ancient times (more or less – in the Mediterranean, they’d refer to this time period as ‘Late Ancient Times or Early Mediaeval) anything might be true. However, this recently retired man, not sure about his actual qualifications, who used to be the head of another museum nearby, was so completely convinced of his own ideas, it was a little scary. He made little half-hearted jokes about how he ‘might’ be wrong about a few little things in his research, but his facial expression and tone hinted that he didn’t think so, at all. Despite that, it was all quite fun to listen to and made sense up to a point. Our Nordic mythology might have originated here, it’s a guess as good as any and like I said, some of his arguments made a bit of sense.

Other than these lectures, all I’ve done is have a much needed haircut. I might post a photo later on. Anyway, any readers I might have, will surely have tired of my ramblings long ago. 🙂

Nov 9

Update

Posted on Sunday, November 9, 2014 in My life

Recently, I had to go and have a few tests done. A very tiring day turned out to be a success in the end. I hadn’t slept at all before leaving for Gothenburg. (The tests are for my big project, that most of my friends will be familiar with by now). I was totally exhausted even when I left, not to mention when I got back.

On the way to Gothenburg, just as we (my sister and I) had got on the bus, there was this guy who missed the bus by only a few seconds. He waved his bus card, but the driver ignored him, even though my sister called out to tell him what was happening. A few minutes later, the guy caught up with the bus at a red light, but the driver still ignored him. That guy looked so disappointed. I’m wondering why the driver couldn’t have been a little more accommodating.

On the way back, we made such good time we ended up back a couple of hours early, by, among other things, getting off at an earlier station and walking really quickly.

Fortunately, it didn’t rain, though we’d been told there was a risk of that. We were also really lucky that the train was on time both ways (though there are delays or complete stops almost every day).

So now we’ve finally done the tests (except, sadly, one – a difficult one, not sure what to do about that). After a while, we both got a clean bill of health, which was a relief and a printout to send to Estonia.

Then the other day, we set out for a little outing – this time to the next town, Thn, to go and hear a lecture that sounded really interesting – about Sweden during WWI (which, as you probably know, we weren’t actually in). On the way there, again, the driver asked if we were adults (over 19, apparently, LOL).

Before the lecture was supposed to start, we managed to go to a store and buy new gloves. I got a pair of new red, touchscreen gloves. My old gloves were beginning to look a little worn.

When we entered ‘The People’s House’ (fancy name for a house dedicated to culture, in this case a library, a theater and lecture halls.), we had trouble finding the theatre, though we’ve been there before, several years ago, and walked back and forth in the foyer, and up and down the stairs, no doubt looking confused. When we returned to the foyer we found that someone had written in red letters on the whiteboard announcing the lecture, that it was cancelled.

Feeling a bit let down, we decided to go out to the big mall that is right between the two towns and try to do some shopping (for food, since the other shops would be closed). We finally managed to get our favorite vegan products (fake meat and cheese) and some chocolate.

It’s getting colder now, so I suppose winter is coming. At least there’s no snow yet. The trouble with snow is that in such a humid place as this, it instantly turns to ice and that’s no fun to walk on. So now I’m switching to my warmer scarf and I’ll be wearing my gloves every day. I’d already started wearing my parka. (TMI?). Don’t worry, this is it. Blog post over. 🙂

Aug 27

A little update

Posted on Tuesday, August 27, 2013 in Humanities, My life

I suppose it’s time for a little update about what I’ve been doing lately.

First the bad news: I’ve spent the last couple of days more or less in bed, sleeping, trying to get rid of the worst cold I can remember having at least for the past ten years or so. Ugh. I’m getting better now (except for the dreaded cough), fortunately, because I have plans for the next couple of days, but more about that later.

All this summer I’ve been indulging in a bit of shopping. Mostly clothes, but also a backpack that I really love. Not that I really needed it but still…

I’ve probably mentioned this before a couple of times, but we also spent at least the early part of the summer trying to get workers up to our cottage in the woods, to get us indoor plumbing and a few other things that needing doing. Apparently they were all on vacation… So we missed our chance to spend the summer in the countryside. Sob. It would have been alright, if I’d only been happy living here, but as most of you know, I’m not. Oh, well… Maybe our luck will change this year.

Anyway, last week, my mom and I went to an outdoor musical show. It’s a sort of ‘preview’ of the Gothenburg Opera House’s program for the autumn/fall. There were hundreds of people. I had no idea this town had so many music lovers. At least people who love this type of music.

There was a bit of Benjamin Britten, which I, quite surprisingly, liked a lot better than I had expected (normally, I’m a fan of much older music). I also loved the Gluck pieces, especially Dance of the Blessed Spirits. Finally, I also liked a piece by one of our Swedish composers, Alice Tegnér, mostly known for her children’s songs, but this was a different kind of work. I didn’t expect to find it very cheerful because it was named for Goethe, but it was.

There was also a little preview of a Swedish opera about a notorious con artist who made people believe she was a diplomat and scientist, related to the Rockefeller family and the Japanese emperor… In reality she was a Swedish hairdresser, with a lot of imagination. Too modern for me, too much jazz, but interesting all the same.

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