Move.

So, just over a week until I move to Göteborg. Life is busy as you can imagine.

Flat is sorted, all I need to do is finish packing & organise the move, contact banks etc to let them know change of address, and say goodbye to people... to Mike (if only for a few months!).

I'll most likely be more active when I start getting busy. Ha.

If I drank wine...

I'd only drink this. Sitting in a window, in Paris. Wearing a red dress with a wide skirt and a boat neck, sleeveless. I'd probably read a novel, in Russian or French. I might smoke a cigarette. My view would be of the river and all the lovers walking hand in hand towards Montmartre. Dusty Springfield would be playing on my grammophone and I would always be running late. My kitchen would be full of mismatched crockery, most of it red. I would sleep until 11 every day and not go to bed until the early hours of the morning. I would never miss sunrise. I would watch Audrey an Katherine in old movie theatres and I would take long walks through crowded streets and see new things every day. I would sleep so close to you every night, with your breath on me and my toes on yours and when I woke up I would make you a coffee and we would sit in our Parisian window until it got too cold and we'd have to go back to bed.

I don't drink wine but if I did...

Fy is approximately high front

You might know that I'm teaching Mike Swedish. Ok, ok, he's learning Swedish and I'm trying to take credit for it. That's besides the point.

One of the first words he picked up was 'fy' (The People's Dictionary translates it to 'ugh' which is an odd choice - I'd go for 'shame on you'. Depending on context, obviously.). Only he reckons I put an alveolar lateral approximant in there. Whassat? An /l/ sound.

My thoughts exactly: I most certainly do not!

So what's the reason for this? Is it me slurring sounds together and producing a holy mess of highfrontlateralness? Or is it Mike's ears making stuff up? I think it's a bit of both.

My articulation of the high front vowel (/i/ or /y/) is really quite close in Swedish. And I can see how it can be heard as an approximant. Though perhaps something more front than /l/ - labio-palatal perhaps. (Please note that when I suggested this to Mike he laughed. Hmph.)

And I've still not forgiven the person who suggested to Mike that this makes me sound posh. I'll never hear the end of it.

Old cat lady.

I went to visit my friend Gill from uni a while back. It was just for a night, and I don't see much of her anymore (boo!!) so it was really lovely to see her.

On the Sunday we were sat in her living room for a while, chatting and eating splatted pie and their cat jumped up on the armrest of the chair I was sat on. I started petting it and after a while it climbed carefully onto my lap and sat there.

Now, this was pretty amazing. Not that a cat had climbed onto my lap, but that THIS cat had done. You see, this was very much my friend's grandma's cat. Her grandma passed away quite recently and since then the cat has not been close to anyone. Even before grandma passed she wouldn't give anyone else the time of day.

So for this gorgeous cat to sit on my lap - and later, actually LIE DOWN and let me stroke it for absolutely ages was pretty amazing. Gill was in shock. I was in shock. I'm not much of an animal lover, having never really been around them I'm not used to them. But this was so nice.

When I came home I told Mike what had happened. His first comment was 'must be because you're such an old lady.'

Cheers!

Who the heck is Kenneth Williams?

Last week we went over to some friends and had yummy dinner (and raspberry-amaretti cake!) and we played some games. One of them was Cranium (I think?). I don't know if you know it, but basically it's a board game where there are 4 categories of activities. So, questions, performance, words and creative. Basically. For one of my performances I got the 'copycat' card - where you have to act as a famous person and your team mates have to guess who you are.


Of course, I got someone I've never heard of. Oh, I've heard of the Carry on films. I've even heard the catchphrase 'oh matron' (which a quick google suggests to me is not actually uttered in any of the films?). But I'd no way of connecting either of these to the esteemed Kenneth Williams.

What I'm actually trying to get at is slightly deeper than failing to impersonate Mr Williams. It's this fear as a foreigner of not being fully immersed in the culture of the country you're in. Sure, I've been here nearly 7 years and I'm not hopeless with the cultural references and jokes. But every so often something comes up and you have a choice. You either laugh along, because you really can't be arsed with option 2: asking what the reference is.

Option 2 usually results in one of two things, if you're lucky someone will quickly and quietly explain. If you're unlucky - which seems to happen more often than you'd like it to - you will get the whole group (or someone in the group) making a big deal out of you not knowing. 'Oh, you won't know who that is, will you Julia...' 'Oh, that won't make any sense to you... or did you have XYZ in Sweden??'. (funny how these things are always prefixed with 'oh.' I'm sensing a theme here...)

Now I don't mind it really. Not with friends at any rate. And the Kenneth Williams thing was just funny (and as soon as 'oh matron' was mentioned I made the connection). But it's the way some people have of making you feel stupid for not getting a reference. In fact, I find the same with age things - if I don't get a reference due to my age rather than not having lived here my whole life, I seem to get the same reaction.

Of course I'm not saying I want this exchange of cultures to stop. And obviously I'm exaggerating - it's not a big deal 96% of the time. But I do worry that people - including me?? - will be doing it to Mike when the poor lad moves to Sweden. If I do, you have my permission to slap me across the face with a fish. (yes, we did have that one in Sweden.)

A hard day's life.

Inspired by the inspiring Spiderchick.

07.40-08.00 - we wake up, after all our alarms have stopped going off.

08.02 - shower, brush teeth, run about trying to find my dipper card for work (which is always in the same place...)

08.15 - bike/drive (well... get driven!) to work.

08.30 - settling in at work, open up emails and sigh a bit. I ponder breakfast.

08.45 - breakfast time! Porridge at work = best way.

08.48 - work.

13.00 or so - lunch! Usually a short walk to buy a salad/sandwich/soup... and maybe a muffin.

13.15 - back at desk, eat sandwich whilst trying to look productive.

16.00-17.30 or so - home time!

10 minutes later - if I was clever and biked in, I'm home by this time.

...or 30 minutes later - if I'm having to walk back...

18.00 - Mike arrives home, starving. So this usually means it's dinner time! ;)

Bit of TV/reading or maybe the internet (ha! never!) or some charity work. Or all of the above. Until...

22.30 - I start moaning that I'm tired. Mike convinces me to stay up '10 more minutes'.

23.30 - I realise it's been more than 10 minutes and moan some more.

00.00 - I go to bed, moaning some more at Mike to get him to stop working and come to bed so we don't sleep in the next day.



...wow, I do lead an exciting life!!

X marks the spot.

We took a walk to the polling station in the drizzle last night. It was a lovely night, and as old as this sounds I have to say it - we've been needing some rain.

Being a dirty foreigner, I didn't get to vote in the AV referendum. Which I suppose makes sense, as I can't vote in the general elections here - so obviously I couldn't possibly have an input on how these should be done. Luckily, Mike's views aren't a million miles from my own so I feel like I've had half a vote, at any rate. Kinda like I had half a vote in the general election last year, and that turned out to be a useful one... But anyway.

I do get to vote in the local council elections though, which I quite like doing. I had a strategy this time around: I decided not to vote for any party who has put reams of leaflets through my door. I wanted to put a sign on the door to that effect but wasn't allowed - but perhaps this blind approach is more effective?

So, that meant no Labour and no Lib Dems. One or two leaflets would have been ok, but... I really wish I'd saved them all, to be able to give an accurate picture of the ridiculous amount of paper wasted on rehashing the same information ('Tories can't win here!' seemed to be a favourite... not exactly telling me much about the party).

I can fully understand why they do it. Any vote they can sway by churning out leaflet after leaflet is another vote in their favour. And I fully support them distributing information materials. But when it's the same information over and over, when it's photos of the same guys in the exact same pose over and over, when it's trying to insinuate that more leaflets = more activity in the area = better party, or when they send us separate letters - one addressed to me, one to Mike, in separate envelopes, through the same door... I'm less inclined to give them my vote. Why? Waste of paper.

Ok, I know not everyone has easy access to the internet. And I know not everyone has the inclanataion to go look up what the different parties stand for (reading status updates on Facebook does not count, I'm sorry to say). And I know not everyone cares that this much paper is wasted (I'm not exactly the most environmentally conscious person but... seriously. Next time I'll save the leaflets and show you!). But what's wrong with producing one or two good quality (content-wise, I mean) leaflets, and trust that your party's policies are sound enough to persuade the doubters?

The party I ended up voting for didn't put anything through my door. Which was lucky, cos it was the party I was planning to vote for anyway. They won't win, but maybe they'll inspire some to be a tad greener.

Reasons why I love the UK.

1. People are so friendly. Even though they drive me to absolute distraction sometimes with their chit-chattering on buses and their 'loves' and 'sweethearts' it's kinda nice that people connect (the shallowness of it all is immaterial).

2. That we can have a wonderful summer and as soon as there's a week of rain people claim we've 'not had a summer at all'. This may in fact not be specific to the UK but I'm counting it.

3. Tall dark-haired men with Yorkshire accents. I don't need to say anything more on that. (Ok, more like 'general northern' but doesn't sound as lovely)

4. Tacky seaside resorts such as Blackpool or Scarborough and wishing I could have seen them in their hayday (heyday? I could google the spelling here but I won't).

5. Agatha Christie.

6. Lemsip. Although I'm told Panodil do a version in Sweden?

7. People speaking English. English is nice.

8. Accents I still can't understand. Having to ask people to spell their names and being asked to spell mine. Surname, that is. They're usually ok with Julia (apart from when I get called Julie...)


I'm sure there are more reasons. I'll come back to this.

Dag 29 – Mina ambitioner (my ambitions)

My ambitions vary. I'm not sure what I want to do when I grow up. I'm not too bothered about earning loads of money (although, of course, that'd be nice...). As long as I have a job I enjoy with people I don't mind sharing 37-odd hours a week with, a comfortable home to come home to and a nice person to share that home with I'm happy.

Dag 19 – Detta ångrar jag (this is something I regret)

I don't regret much. There's just no point to it. If you make a mistake, you chalk it up to experience and move on.

But something I kind of do regret is not getting more involved in stuff when I was at uni. I tried a couple of things - the gospel choir where the nasty girls were in charge; the fencing club where I just got too intimidated and left...

Ok, I know that I was away from Lancaster a lot, after meeting Mike... and I don't regret that at all. But I wish I'd tried writing for the student paper maybe, got involved in the radio station - tried some new things.

Oh well, never too late to try new things!

Swedishness*.

At the airport coming back from Sweden we bought some sweets. I know, big surprise!

Among other things, I bought a big bag of dark salmiak. Like so:

(click for image source)

Last night I convinced Mike to try one. You know, as a nice ending to our Swedish evening of meatballs.

He did not care for them at all.

I don't think he's Swedish enough yet. But I guess there's enough time to convert him yet... failing that, more licorice for me!


* Ok, I think these sweets are actually Danish. Close enough.

Home time.

Not really had a proper headache in ages (being ill doesn't count) but today I've got one. Moanmoanmoan. I moan too much.

It's really windy outside, maybe a refreshing walk home will make it all better?

Have finished work now but am still sat at my desk. I quite like it here. The thing I liked the least about my job in Manchester (as well as other jobs I've had - but that one in particular) was that my back was towards everyone else in the office. Not that I'd take the piss and surf the web all day, but I don't like people being behind me like that for many reasons. Certain technicians used to take full advantage of this and sneak up on me. Anyway, my point was... that I'm basically in the corner here. Half turned away from a colleague but no one can walk up behind me. Win!

Had lunch with a Nathan today who has his own office. Well, nearly his own anyway! Was nice to catch up a bit.

Got my step counter on today - so far I'm on 9332 steps today. Which, considering I have a desk job, isn't too bad...

Poor Mike's gears have all fallen off, half way to work... Gears on his bike, that is. Not car, luckily... I guess that's what you get for trying to be healthy ;)

xx