I'm loving it.

Inspired by http://abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/08/10-things-i-love.html, here are 10 things I'm loving at the moment:

1. Dresses. I need some more, I'd for example gratefully receive any of these...

(All from Dorothy Perkins)

Most dresses in shops at the moment make me feel super-mega tall. I love these dresses but would prefer them to be shorter. (and yes, there was great effort involved in only picking ONE polka dot one for this picture... I hope you're proud.)

2. Avocado & sweetcorn. Other ingredients not necessary.

3. Mike. Always.

4. That I'll get to see my family & friends less than a week from today.

5. ...and Sweden!




Click for link

 
6. People coming together to make a positive difference and trying to counteract all the horribleness in the world.

7. Sewing. Will show some projects soon...

8. Musicmusicmusic.

9. Seeing more of lovely friends...

10. ...can I add seeing my sister soon? Even though it's partially repeating no.4?

Hippy happy hoppy lady day.

There's such a lot of celebration today. It's pancake day, here in the UK. In Sweden it's Fettisdagen (when we eat semlor). It's also International Women's Day.

I had pancakes for dinner. And I got cake at work - some students were marking Int'l Women's Day and gave out cake in return for writing a message on their banner. Sweet deal, I thought (geddit?). I've not had a semla yet but might make some at the weekend.

Anyway. To the point. I saw a lovely entry on a blog where the author is celebrating her mum today. It was quite inspiring. So here's a photo of the two best, wonderfullest and strongest women I know (and my lovely dad!). I love you.

We'll have a blue room, a new room for two room, where every day's a holiday, because you're married to me

After seeing this my sister sent me a picture.



Ignore my hair. And no, I don't know what I'm wearing. Looks like pyjamas and a suit-style jacket. As you do.



But anyway, there's the blue colour my walls used to have. It's now a very grown up, pretty colour instead. Though I have no photos of this either.

Dag 11 – Mina syskon (my siblings)

Well this is awkward. I've already written about her once! Shall I give her a whole other post as well or will she get bigheaded?

Well alright then.

I have one sister. She is 2 years younger than me (pretty much exactly) and I used to introduce her to people as 'Joanna without h'. Johanna is a much more common name than Joanna in Sweden and loads of people used to get it wrong. Clearly this annoyed me. I don't know if it annoyed her quite as much?

We used to play together a lot, and I think we still would if I lived in Stockholm. She's good fun - a bit too Lisa Simpson-esque for some maybe (hah! Sorry!) but I think she's just right. She knows what she believes in and she stands up for it. Nevermind that it's led to some arguments between us in the past, but that's the great thing about the people you love, you're allowed to disagree and fight and scream because you always make up, eventually.

When I was that horrible almost-teen age I was horrible to her. So please, consider this my public apology for the times I called you a bitch (I'd only just learned the word ok!), the times I slapped you and the time I told you dad was santa (ok, the santa thing might have been earlier than when I was an almost-teen, but I AM sorry for that too).

I miss you all the time Joanna.

If you want to visit her (rather brilliant!) blog you can find it here: http://blogg.joannaforsberg.se
There will also be a website there, soon. Soon. I promise.

Remember, remember.

Last year today my sister was visiting and we drove up to H'gate to watch the fireworks and bonfire. We got there, parked up and it was tipping it down.

So we turned around and went back home. We saw some fireworks on the drive home though.

This year - no sister. And no rain. But we can see lots of fireworks from our front room window so no need to go outside. And it's not as noisy.

Win!

It's nearly been a month, how did that happen?

Quite a lot has been happening - I'm sure I'll not post about it all so I won't promise I will.

Graduated a few weekends ago, it was nice. Parents & Joanna came over which was lovely - this flat may be big but it sure isn't big enough for 5 people... Bittersweet feeling as always when they left, I miss them. But should get to see Dad in March and all of them for Dad's 60th at Easter. Which reminds me, I've not booked my flight yet, oops!

The actual graduation was great, with good speeches from both the chancellor and the honorary doctorate. I'd never heard about him but I enjoyed his speech. May tell you more about it another day. Oh look, I'm doing it again - promising you things I'll probably never do...

After the ceremony we took loads of photos, Dad tried on my robe & hat (and they really suited him!) and then we went for lunch at Ask. Nice place, so busy on a Sat lunch though... And we were all pretty tired from getting up early + late night the night before. Then we went to the pub with some people off my course + their families which was really nice. Crazy warm though.

Was also elected as secretary for the charity I work with - not that anyone else stood for the role at the AGM, but still... Am quite excited but am still trying to get my head around it.

I shall tell you more about work another time - too tired right now!

Cleveland Show is on TV and it's so ridiculously bad. I expected it to be bad but not quite like this. I wouldn't recommend it.

Feeling hungover.

No, I didn't drink or do anything silly last night. I just feel odd today! Slept about an hour Friday night (got carried away making some jewellery - pictures later - and had to get up at half past 4) and had a very long day with lots of travelling yesterday. Slept a good amount of hours last night though, so will be caught up soon.

I'm really not very good at staying up all night. Yesterday I was alright as it was such a busy day, lots of people around etc. But the couple of times I've done all-nighters recently I've fallen asleep in computer lab whilst typing. It makes for interesting reading once you wake up, I'll tell you that for free. I think I fixed it all before handing in my dissertation though ;)

Joanna was here last weekend. She left on Tuesday and I miss her already. It was so nice to see her and have her all to myself for a while! We did a lot actually, I never normally do things! Went to the Castle museum which was great (thanks for the tip Paula!) - all three of us got in for £6.50 even though I'd left my York resident's card at home and Mike doesn't actually have one. Normally it's £7.50 per adult, but Joanna's Swedish student ID worked (it also worked in Outfit, score!). Thank you, nice lady on the till!

There were some great exhibitions, about cleaning and household appliances (sounds odd, I know...), they'd built up a Victorian street and loads of rooms from different time periods... The prison part of the museum was alright but I'd expected more - especially with all the hype about the e-fit of Dick Turpin. I'd been looking forward to that but it was actually only mentioned once, one tiny paragraph as part of a massive board display of other things. Oh well, I've seen some presentations of how they do it in general and the technology they use anyway so perhaps I'll survive.

xx

Film review: An Education

Image from Movie City News

I've not written a film review in a very long time - probably since school - but I wanted to give it a go.

This was a really good film. Went to see it with Joanna when she was visiting this weekend. I thought I knew how the film would turn out; it seemed predictable. But there were a few... well, not twists as such, but events and actions that I didn't expect. Which was great.

The story encapsulates humour, love, hate and hope as well as hopelessness. It's all so grey - but when Jenny meets the older man it's suddenly all in colour, all alive. She's a very strong character, Carey Mulligan. Alfred Molina gave a brilliant performance as the confused, worried and rather pathetic dad.

But my favourite part is the clothes. I wish I was a 60s girl - just have a look at these... (click on the images to see sources).

Definitely go see this film. I very much enjoyed it.