Don’t You Just Love That Hat?

My mother is still going, not strong perhaps, but she is going. Yesterday she turned 88. Sadly I could not be there, but I will see her in two weeks’ time.

I was in fact frantically scanning old photo albums so I can return them when we go for Christmas. That’s when I came across this wonderful almost 69-year-old picture of her and her best friend at teacher training college. She was still 19 years old that summer when she graduated. I believe this photo is from early spring 1942. So elegant, a real class act! (She is the one on the left by the way.) The hat might be dated, although beautiful, but the rest of her outfit would have done a modern business woman proud. What a good dresser she was!

Oh, What a Party!

We went to Sweden (Malmö) to celebrate my brother’s 50^th birthday. Before the party itself, one of the highlights of the trip took place, when my mother met little Hampus, her great grandchild, for the first time.

But I kept hold of him most of the time, what else did you expect?

The party had been moved to 6^th June, which just happens to be the Swedish National Day, hence the abundance of flags.

Then the party got underway with interesting drinks, delicious food, good company, loud music and dancing, some funny and emotional speeches, a musical tribute and a lot of good humour.

By the time I went to bed at nearly three in the morning (!) this was the view from my mother's balcony.

The sun seems to be hiding only just below the horizon. Some party people might have been hiding in bed the day after, and some might even have been in need of these to get back into shape.

(Only joking; it's my mum's weekly medication, but you knew that.)

Throats were a little sore from talking over loud music and the body knew it had been dancing for far too long. But it was all worth it; we all had a great time, everybody from my mother (86) down to Hampus and Måns (2 1/2 wks), who went for the quiet option.

Who said it is not fun getting older? I certainly had a lot of fun when my brother got much, much older than before.

First Blogger Anniversary

Exactly a year ago I posted for the first time to this blog. Although I had registered the blog in September 2005, it lay dormant and almost forgotten out in the blogosphere all that time.

In this first year I have got to know online blogger friends, exchanged ideas, opinions and information. Sometimes I feel guilty about the time I spend in the blogosphere, but then again, I honestly am a very moderate user of this parallel universe. Some people must be spending most of their time there, judging by the number of posts they produce. You know who you are! ;-) However it genuinely is a great way of getting to know other parts of the world, looking into other people’s lives through this online keyhole and also to share some of your own life with relatives, friends and the accidental visitor.

To celebrate this I give you this YouTube clip (my sister emailed it to me) with a 4-year-old drummer! I have tried to look for evidence it is a fake, that it is not this little kid playing, but I have not been able to. Look at his face how the drumming is reflected there. Sound and picture seem to be in synch, and it seems to be a proper, home-made video, without any sophistication. See what you think. Is it genuine?

How was Christmas?

Some of my readers might remember that I had a big birthday just before Christmas, so we set off as soon as we possibly could. As so many times before we stopped over in Bremen. I had booked a table in a very nice restaurant we had visited before, or at least I thought I had. When we arrived at L’Oliva it seemed to be very full, and low and behold, there was no booking in our name. But it was my 60^th birthday! The staff were incredibly understanding and helpful, apologising many times. They asked if it would be OK to sit in the Hilton bar area, since they were joined by the hip so to speak, and they would serve us food from their kitchen. Yes, please.

We had a complimentary glass of Sekt to begin with, extremely good service and finally a complimentary, extra dessert as well, see below. So, if you are in Bremen and you fancy a high quality meal, I can strongly recommend L’Oliva in the town centre.

When we got to Sweden the following afternoon I celebrated with my family and was lucky enough to get, among other things, a Liverpool shirt with my name and two-digit birth year on the back. I don’t know when to wear it, but maybe the team will play better if I wear it while watching them play on the telly?

A superb meal was finished off with a beautiful, home-made cake. Thanks Mrs S!

Then the great anticipation set in. Little Amanda could not wait to get her Christmas hat on first thing in the morning.

As always on a Swedish Christmas table you will find not only the big ham, but also an assortment of “sill”, herring to you, in a variety of flavours. Yummy!

Then the big moment came when Father Christmas knocked on the door, asking if there were any "good" children. He did not bother with the other two or three generations, we are just expected to behave, or does he think we are all naughty?. Anyway, he was carrying his traditional sack with some of the pressies…

… but most of them were already displayed under and around the Christmas tree, making up a true mountain.

Everybody enjoyed the long day of eating, talking, watching TV and some more eating. Towards the end we all felt a bit like this floppy Santa hat.

But the following day Amanda had plenty of time to play with her new toys.

Her only problem was to fit them all in her big case on the plane back to Stockholm a couple of days later. She did manage, because here she is in her new, snuggly coat on her way to do some more shopping in the sales with mum and dad.

Now I have to cure my bad cold, which has prevented me from posting on this blog since we got back. I do not recommend meeting up with old friends for a day’s chat when one’s vocal cords are already affected. I sound like Joe Cocker!

1947

This is the actual midwife’s note from when I was born. It has been sitting in my childhood album all these years. I was a healthy little baby who arrived a few days early. The doctors had predicted I would be born on 24 December, but I could apparently not wait that long. I was born at the darkest time of the year, but I like to think of it as bringing the light, because this is when the days start getting longer again. Be positive! Just like my wife tries to convince me to feel happy about the up-coming birthday, not everybody gets to be this age, which is true, I suppose.

As a child I always suffered from having my birthday just before Christmas; all aunts, uncles, grandparents etc always combined my birthday present with my Christmas present, so I only got one when everybody else got two! ‘tsnot fair! I thought. Nowadays I can just about cope with it.

This is a picture from my christening a few months later. There were two more siblings to come.

The money in Sweden looked like this.

One of film’s objects of desire.

A popular Disney film of the day.

And the very first SAAB. Doesn’t it look futuristic!

When I googled the net I found some facts from the year I was born as well as the day, mostly from Wikipedia.

FACTS

In 1947 Pakistan, India and the CIA were created; Pakistan and India, a messy conflict left behind by the British. CIA – I dare not even comment!

Liz and Phil (Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh) got married on 20 Nov.

In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

The International Monetary Fund begins to operate.

Saab produces its first automobile.

Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day, 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

August 14 - After 90 years of British colonial rule, Pakistan gains independence from the British Empire. While the transition is officially at midnight on this day, Pakistan celebrates its independence on August 14 compared to India on the 15th. Muhammad Ali Jinnah became the first Governor General of Pakistan.

August 15 - After a long struggle India gained independence from British rule. Pakistan splits from India. Rajendra Prasad is the first President of India. Jawaharlal Nehru takes office as the first Prime Minister of India.

American test pilot Captain Chuck Yeager flies a Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound, the first man to do so in level flight.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is founded.

November 16 The British begin to withdraw their troops from Palestine.

November 29 - The United Nations General Assembly votes to partition Palestine between ArabsJews. and

Mikhail Kalashnikov designs the AK-47 assault rifle.

In a cave in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea), several tall pottery jars containing leather scrolls are discovered, which later became known as the Dead Sea scrolls.^[1]

Born this year:

Hillary Clinton, Elton John, David Bowie, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, David Letterman, Salman Rushdie, OJ Simpson (oh dear me!), Carlos Santana, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stephen King, Meat Loaf, Marc Bolan (I know exactly against which tree he died!), Kevin Kline, P.J. O’Rourke, Ted Danson, Farah Fawcett, Dan Quayle (Mr Potatoe Man!), Sandie Shaw (“Puppet On A String”), Mitt Romney, Glenn Close, James Woods, Iggy Pop, Johan Cruijff (Dutch footballer and coach), David Blunkett, Arlo Guthrie, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall (Prince Charles’ wife), Brian May (Queen guitarist), Richard Grifftiths (British actor), Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), Willy Russell (British playwright), Barbara Bach (Ringo Starr’s wife), Sam Neill, France Gall (French singer), Richard Dreyfuss, Jeff Lynne (Electric Light Orchestra) and Paco de Lucia (virtuoso Spanish guitarist) same day as I.

21^st December

On this day in…

1620 - Plymouth Colony: William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims land on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

1913 - Arthur Wynne's "word-cross", the first crossword puzzle, is published in the New York World.

1968 - Apollo program: Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At 2h:50m:37s Mission elapsed time (MES), the crew performs the first ever manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave the Earth's gravity field.

1970 - Elvis Presley meets with President Richard Nixon to discuss the war on drugs.

(Didn’t work, did it?)

1988 - A bomb explodes on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.

And then of course, adding to all the famous people above, …. I was born.

Meme

Since I have not been a blogger, or a blog reader for that matter, for very long, I was a bit puzzled when Haddock left a comment on my blog, saying I had been tagged. Well, I understood roughly what that meant, but meme? What the heck was that? I went on whatis.com to find out and then I had a look at Haddock’s blog. After that I had the whole picture.

I don’t ‘know’ many other bloggers yet so I will have to see how many I dare invite to take part. I feel a bit uncomfortable approaching ‘strangers’. What will they think? How pc is that? What about blogosphere etiquette? Throw caution to the wind? Well, I have put up a proper photo of myself in my profile now, so why not be bold and harass a few people in the kindest possible way?

Rules: Each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people; then visits those people’s sites and comments, letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.

1. Inspired by CanadianSwiss I will reveal what I wear in bed – ear plugs! It’s a habit from the days when we lived under the Heathrow fly path. Now it keeps out early birdsong, snoring (yes, I snore too) and noisy neighbours.

2. As a little boy in Sweden in 1958 I managed to get the autographs of the whole Brazilian World Champions football team, including Pelé, Garrincha, Didi, Vava etc. My father, whose favourite foreign language was Portuguese, interpreted for them on a couple of occasions, so I had easy access. Sadly, later in life I lost the autograph book with all the valuable signatures. Sentimental value, but also real money value. What would they have fetched on eBay, I wonder? A fortune I guess!

3. I saved somebody’s life on Hammersmith Bridge once, or at least I thought so. I was walking across the bridge when I saw a man standing on the outside with his arms behind him, clutching the railing. His briefcase and coat were behind him on the bridge. He was a big chap and the Thames was rushing out towards the sea far below. Without thinking about my own safety, I instinctively hurried up to him, grabbed him under his arms, held hard and said something like ‘What are you doing?’ All of a sudden the place was swarming with police, first-aid people, camera crews etc. They had all been hiding in little wooden hides, which I presumed had something to do with the forthcoming Oxford-Cambridge boat race. They were filming for a recruitment ad campaign for the Special Constabulary to see how people reacted in different scenarios. So, did I save somebody’s life? In a way I did, I suppose.

4. My own life was definitely saved 30 years ago when I was a passenger in a car crash. What saved me? My good habit of always putting on my seatbelt, even before it was made compulsory. Despite the trouble of lifting up three pairs of skis to fasten the belt, I stuck to my routine. It was quite useful when the car hit a lorry sideways in the fog. Every morning for many years after that, I said to myself ‘It’s good to be alive.’ It certainly is!

5. A life that wasn’t spared was that of a pheasant on the M25, the London Outer Circular. I was doing ca 85 mph and the dumb bird smashed up my front. I pulled over, walked back to try to recover my lost number plate and was severely told off by motorway police who had spotted me.

6. In the sixties I played in a band in southern Sweden. On a number of occasions we were the first support act to famous British bands. We ‘played with’ all of them except the Beatles and the Stones. Everything was so much simpler and small-scale in those days. I felt rather insignificant standing next to John Entwhistle of the Who tuning my bass guitar. We were becomingly embarrassed the time we played (from our regular repertoire) some Spencer Davis numbers, which they repeated an hour later on the same stage. Dooooh!

7. I still feel guilty sometimes for once having prevented a female colleague of mine from getting Paul McCartney’s autograph and photo. We were having an after-work drink in the Sun Inn in Barnes, London, when we spotted Paul having a chat with a friend. My colleague had the camera, paper and pen, but I convinced her to leave him alone. Even worse, a few years later a friend of mine gave me a birthday present, a demo single with a personal dedication from Sir Paul. I feel not a little rotten about that.

8. Five years ago I had a pituitary adenoma, a tumour/growth, which killed off my pituitary gland. So all hormone production was wiped out. Before I was completely diagnosed and got the proper medication sorted out (ca 2 months), I experienced something which is normally the domain of women, namely hot flushes. So, menopausal women everywhere, you have my full sympathy. I know what it is like!

I have tagged the following bloggers for this meme: TBA ASAP

Happy Birthday, Brother P!

Just back from holiday so it will be a quick Happy Birthday. My "little brother" is 48 today. Have a lovely barbecue with all the family. I could not do this with you today!

Easter Holiday

I remember six years ago when we came to Normandy to view properties at Easter, it snowed and hailed. This year we were much luckier.


We had glorious sunshine all the time, not a cloud in sight for ten days and it was lovely and warm during the day but turned a bit chilly in the evenings, so we had an excuse to light the fire.


We always take some gifts from Germany to our friends and neighbours, wine for instance. Yes, wine to France. I suppose that is like coal to Newcastle or ice-cream to Eskimos you might think, BUT there is an awful lot of very indifferent plonk in France, to put it politely. In our supermarket we really have to look hard to find some really good, French wine, and then it is normally quite expensive. German wine might not have the best of reputations, but some of it can certainly compete with the French. In my opinion the French are being left behind by the New World viticulturalists. How about an Aussie Shiraz? Yummy!


We had our Easter eggs delivered by Mr Bunny, or M Lapi in French, who arrived on his little bike. Some of them ended up in the Chicken Box.


In order to celebrate Easter like true Europeans we had, not only the bunny, chicken and eggs, but we also had a witch on a broom stick, which is a Swedish, pagan custom. Tradition has it that all the witches mount their brooms and fly off to Blåkulla (a mountain) at Easter to party with the Devil himself. They are often depicted with a black cat and kettle on the stick as well, although I am not sure about the symbolism in that. Flight attendant with an inflight drink, perhaps? Our witch was made by my niece C, who was nine at the time. Excellent work, don’t you think?


The warm weather had had its effect on plants and trees of course and the plum trees were in full blossom; beautiful!


Since we don’t have a landline we have to use mobile phones, which can sometimes be a bit of a problem due to poor network coverage. The signal comes and goes, but we have certain spots that tend to be reliable; you really don’t want to be disconnected in the middle of a sentence. One spot is at the back of the garden by the fence to a farmer’s bull field, the other spot is a hundred meters down the country lane by another field, One day I was standing there talking on the phone with my back to the field, and I got the feeling that I was not talking to my mother only, but that somebody else was listening in. I turned around and saw this chap taking an interest in my private conversation.


When I told my mother she roared with laughter; she could hear the animal breathing! I don’t think my mother has ever had such a heavy breather on the phone before. Show some decency, please! Then all his mates queued up to take part as well. Hey guys, behave!


Talking about cows and bulls and other creatures, there is another strong, rural feature that dominates at this time of year, manure. All the farmers pile it up in the fields to ‘mature’ before they spread it. You just have to get used to it. I’d like to think it clears my lungs, kind of medicinal.

Next stop Stockholm and hopefully somewhat fresher air!

Two years old!

After Normandy it was time to pop up to Stockholm for my granddaughter’s second birthday. Doesn’t time fly? So did we, with one of those low-budget airlines that treat you like cattle, not as well as French farmers treat theirs even! You queue at the gate, well, not British style in some sort of organised way, but more like a free-for-all, greased-elbow fashion, only to race across the tarmac overtaking as many fellow passengers as you can on your way to the aircraft. Once on the plane, you have to have a well-developed technique of squeezing past others in the aisle to get to your desired seat, preferably by one of the emergency exits; otherwise you have to sit so tight to the seat in front of you that you might as well take off your reading glasses when you read the emergency instructions on the back of the seat in front of you! Somehow it does not seem to matter that there is no complimentary meal being served, because, how the hell would you eat it without encroaching on your neighbours’ space or making a mess of it all? The airport bus in Stockholm was much more comfortable in comparison. We got there in the end, to the party.


My greatest contribution to the party was inflating most of the balloons; the whole place was full of them, they were everywhere. Then of course there were presents, which little A managed to unwrap with some paternal assistance.


During the day, several people, who were not able to attend the celebrations, would ring and speak to the two-year-old. Her vocabulary is not of Shakespearian magnitude yet, but she managed quite well, and, as you can see, she used an ear-piece in line with Swedish safety thinking. Well done, Mum and Dad!


To complete the picture of a successful birthday, Mum had made a birthday cake which we all enjoyed. But perhaps the best of all is that little A now can say ‘farfar’, Swedish for granddad. My heart melts. Happy birthday sweetheart!