Last weekend we arrived back from a all-too-short week away in England.

Its the first time that I have been back in quite a while and one of the ones that I have most enjoyed. Firstly we flew in to London City Airport dodging the bad luggage of Heathrow, the bad connections of Stanstead and the general grottyness of Gatwick.

It only took about 30 minutes to get to our hotel, the Hoxton situated nicely on Great Eastern Street. Upon arrival the hotel lived up to our expectations, and generally exceeded those of you would expect of a cheaper hotel in London. Clean silky beds, nice big shower and bathroom and all quite modern and well looked after.

On the first night we met up with some old work colleagues of mine at Liverpool street, a short walk from the Hoxton and had a good time.

Saturday was introduced with brunch at Smiths on Smithfields - a great English breakfast, though I think K was rather surprised with people already having Pints and champagne so early but I rather enjoyed the Bloody Mary that they served up! Then we went on to the V&A museum - perhaps my favourite because of the sheer variety of exhibits on offer, and after a short train ride some shopping and coffee and other things. We met up with Eric and Ellie at this point, and after a brief visit to some more shops, we all went back to have a drink at the Hoxton.

Jem, Katherine and Matt soon joined us for more drinks and then we went to a Vietnamese where I tried the frogs legs. Surprisingly good.

Sunday was spent at Spitalfields market - much better than the tourist trap of Camden, then Bricklane for a breather before going to Neals Yard and Covent Garden to be socked in the July rain.

Next update will be soon, when I have time to write basically!

So now we have moved in the decorating is in full swing. There has been lots that we have done, but much still to do. K and I have been talking about building a floating wall for the living room, I think that needs some more thought but first off its the easy things like curtains. So last night we went to Marimekko and chose a design by Erja Hirvi called Lumimarja.

There are plenty of other really nice fabrics and designs in there, but this will probably go really well with the Sofa, floor and the colour we are thinking of having in the room.

Is this the greatest wine bottle design ever? (from thedieline.com).

Fat Bastard redesign: “

A redesign by Turner Duckworth for Fat Bastard wines. I love that they integrated the name and visuals in a witty and sophisticated solution for a wine that is affordable yet has a lot of weight behind it.

”

(Via TheDieline.com: The Leading Package Design Blog.)

Time seems to be flying by as I get even closer to my next birthday, with the minutes rolling into hours, the hours in to days and so forth.

Last night we had a friend over and I cooked a meal, of recipe for which is conveniently on the internet: Roast Pork with Rosemary and Caramelised Apples. I added some peas and some Roast Potatoes for good measure. Was quite good, though probably not the best thing that I have cooked.

And of course I was playing with my latest purchase a Nikon SB-600 flash with my camera. I used a unnatural whitebalance setting and a really old lense (which might or might no be a Nikon) from Kristin’s old Nikon film camera and it gave this kinda hazy shot. Well I like it.

The eating out continues, this time with friends on a Friday night at Helenes Krog, St Eriksgatan. The main thing that impressed everyone was the portion size, its apparently “their thing”. Well not quite sure that I agree with the concept but it wasn’t bad.

Värmland, originally uploaded by timc3.

Went to Värmland this weekend, and it was beautifully sunny and green so we spent quite a bit of time outside and relaxing..

Argh! The boxes! Stockholm has been having quite changeable weather recently, and of course everything is in boxes and bags and until the new wardrobes arrive. All the clothes are scattered all over the place and I can’t find anything. Let alone if I go sailing this weekend with all my winter clothes packed up.

At least the TV and the sofa are now up and ready, and of course being used. The whole move has worn me down quite a lot more than I would have thought it would.

So for the moment we are waiting on the new wardrobes, and to take a lot of the empty boxes down in to storage… The fun never ends.

And I must sort out the template for this blog - its all over the place.. Add that on to the list of things to do.

Finally finally! On Friday we got the keys and sorted out the paper work, moved all our things from Solna to Södermalm and started to unpack! It feels great to finally be in though there are lots of things to sort out, though the most important room is pretty much there.

More of an update soon.

So we have 16 more days to go before we move in to the new apartment and the wait is getting frustrating - I want to be in already. I think what is frustrating is that we have all these ideas of what we want to do, but we can’t really finalise them until we have a good idea what everything looks like and in typical Swedish house buying style we haven’t seen the apartment for weeks now.

I find the buying process rather strange: go and see a viewing of the apartment with lots of other couples and in a day or two later the bidding process starts. This can go very quickly - in our case just a day I think, and then you sign the papers and its more or less yours. After this you don’t really get to see the apartment until you move in. I guess that we could make a request to go and see it but that doesn’t seem like the done thing. So its been almost 3 months without seeing the place!

All that furniture we have/want - where is it going to fit? Is it going to fit? How big was that space again - the documents drawn up by the estate agents for the plan are not exactly accurate.

So now is the frustrating wait to the en vitiable pain of moving, and the fun of unpacking and deciding exactly where the forks are going to live in relation to the dish washer.

Longest 16 days of my life - spent looking at furniture and cat trees (probably the ugliest things you can put in an apartment).

So, lots of thing have been doing on lately and I have been rather remiss in updating this old blog, I suppose getting things done takes a precedence over writing about things that are happening at the moment..

So a couple of weeks ago my Mother came to visit me in Stockholm as I hadn’t seen her in ages, and it was a good way for her to see the town that I lived in, not having been to Sweden before. It also gave her an opportunity to meet Kristin which was good.

On the night that she came over it was her Birthday so we took her out to Sonja’s Greek, just around the corner from us in Södermalm. On the Friday we just relaxed a bit, as I had to work, then on Saturday after working we met up at Medborgarplatsen for a couple of drinks before going to Humlehof on Folkungagatan for a nice meal. Sunday we had booked Falstaff at the Royal Swedish Opera house which was really nice, I particularly enjoyed watching the music being played, and the hall itself is splendid.

Monday was mum return home, but for us the start of lots of things to do in preparation for the move in to our new apartment. Cleaning, packing, moving things is now the order of the day and whilst not on its own the most fun thing to do with our spare time - I think that its worth it.

Alessi Spring/Summer 2008: “

Alessi have just released their Spring/Summer 2008 range. I’m liking the look of the Orientales collection above.

”

(Via Made in ENGLAND by Gentlemen.)