One of my earliest memories

by Anne on June 19, 2013

That I know is a memory and not just something I’ve been told, is picking my grandfather up at the hospital and bringing him home for a visit.

I know it was the summer I turned four in 1987, as I had one sister, we had a blue Volvo station wagon and not the Renault, and he died in January 1988.

My grandfather was in a wheelchair, and I can, sort of, remember how it was standing next to him whilst he was sitting in it.

I remember driving to the back of my grandparents’ house with my Dad and my grandfather. Because of the wheelchair, we couldn’t go through the front, because the house was not wheelchair accessible by any means. So, we stopped in the back, on the parking lot there, went to the back of the Volvo, and got the wheelchair out.

I know from pictures that we sat under an umbrella in the backyard, my sister on grandfather’s lap, and I think I remember that he also went into the house. (I’m not sure if the latter is actually from an earlier memory and if I have mashed them together, or if it is the same time.)

In reality, most of the earliest things I remember is from that summer I turned four, so I guess that is also when I started to become a bit more self-aware and remembered events – or simply the events I remember, this, breaking my arm… are so major I would have remembered them anyway.

What’s your earliest memory?

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Name dilemma? (100 things #11)

by Anne on June 18, 2013

The Telegraph writes that Prince William and Kate Middleton in name dilemma.
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Quotation Monday #16

by Anne on June 17, 2013

It’s an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That’s always been a tug of war for me.

Jodie Foster

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Making pasta from scratch

June 14, 2013

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at pasta making for a while. Mostly because the options for different filling in ravioli in Norwegian stores is not very good. I got a pasta roller, and with the help of the enthusiastic sister, set to work. We started with the seven-yolk pasta recipe from The Smitten [...]

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Happiness

June 13, 2013

Happiness – when I want to smile all the time and do random, crazy things, when I’m happily content without the huge outwards gestures or just when all is right in my world.

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Citizenship of Madeleine’s children (100 things #10)

June 10, 2013

Barbara D over at the Scandinavian Royals Message board had a question about the citizenship of the future offspring of Chris O’Neill and Princess Madeleine, as their children will be in line to the Swedish throne.

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Quotation Monday #15

June 10, 2013

Creativity is a great motivator because it makes people interested in what they are doing. Creativity gives hope that there can be a worthwhile idea. Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. Creativity makes life more fun and more interesting. Edward de Bono

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My favourite bit from Princess Madeleine’s wedding

June 9, 2013

was the children singing the entrance march. It would have been so easy to go for the traditional here, but the children singing made it less formal. It was definitely a sweet way to start the wedding.

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Royal Guest Lists (100 things #9)

June 8, 2013

Can someone please explain to me the logic of the courts when they reveal their guest list to royal occasions? There is a mish-mash of languages involved, a miss-mash of titles and in the case of the Swedish court – the guest list (or any information, such as engagement announcements) seems to be leaked to [...]

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30 day abs challenge

June 7, 2013

Last week I found this image on imgur. 30-day AB challenge. I thought it sounded interesting – I needed to get some work in on my core muscles and I can definitely do something for 30 days. (Well, as long as it does not include jumping jacks. My knees did not enjoy Jillian Michaels’ 30 [...]

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Norwegian independence day

June 7, 2013

Given the Norwegian media coverage of the Swedish wedding this weekend, it seems appropriate that today is the anniversary of the Norwegian independence from Sweden. If we had celebrated this as a national day instead of May 17, there would have been a trifecta of Scandinavian national days in a row. Denmark on June 5, [...]

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Review: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

June 6, 2013

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin My rating: 4 of 5 stars I just finished reading this book. I did not think I was going to like it, and I’ve had [...]

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Now that GoogleReader is disappearing

May 9, 2013

My stats from the past 30 days… From your 216 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 8,966 items, clicked 130 items, starred 21 items, and emailed 6 items. Since 22 April 2010 you have read a total of 300,000+ items. And that’s just the past 30 days, and I’ve cut down since the [...]

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The abdication and the investiture

April 30, 2013

I didn’t take the day off for the Cambridge wedding, but I’m enough of a royal watcher still to take today off at work and spend the day in front of the television set. I’m fortunate enough as a royal watcher to have the transmission going on in two channels, with both Trond Norén Isaksen [...]

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Ah, the memories

April 21, 2013

Last summer, when I was in Paris with my sister, we took the train to Versailles. Although the sheer magnitude of the palace, such as the mirrors and chandeliers in the picture below, is undeniable, there were something else that also caught my attention.  Like my 90 year old grandmother, I’m a chocoholic. There is [...]

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Conference life

April 9, 2013

Conference living part of this week. Must admit I don’t get the appeal of dry biscuits in the breaks, though they do improve when dunked in tea. But the content of the conference is good, and the lunch includes nommy food. Nice.

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Wi-fi

April 7, 2013

As a foreigner, without a good dataplan abroad, I’m very thankful for the multitude of free wi-fi spots everywhere in London. Well, save for McDonald’s. Couldn’t get that working. But everytime I walk past a Waterstone or a Starbucks… I’m up and running. Although yesterday, I had two hours in a Starbucks with just writing. [...]

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