Mah-mah-mah-my my Mackerel!

Bob had a really good day fishing today and landed 8+ mackerel. So he kindly passed a couple downstairs to us. Mackerel goes off very quickly and you pretty much have to eat it the same day. So we stuffed it with rosemary & garlic and threw it on the bbq! Yum. They were massive fish!

Faster than a speeding Fiesta...

Well, I've taken one step closer to being a 1950's housewife. First came the martinis, then came the obsession with Smeg items, and now I give you... the sewing machine:

Elna symaskine


Cool little box with all the attachments:


Range of stitches:

What £35 gets you

After



Before

Arrrgh, Matey. Quiet on the course!

Yesterday, we braved the Aberdeen summer to play miniature golf down at the beach with Joni & Derek. We chose the outdoor pirate course, as opposed to the indoor (only in Britain!) jungle one. It was great fun! I won't brag much about my 2 holes-in-one, nor that I got a free round for next time because I also got the ball in the 19th hole... :)

After golf, we went inside the arcade/amusement area, played a couple games, tried for some stuffed animals, and bumped the heck out of each other on the bumper cars.

Then, we hit up Pizza Express for dinner and then had a couple pints at Ma Cameron's, before retiring for an early evening. We'll miss them when they leave.

Signs & Wonders

When we were driving around in Sweden, I suddenly took notice of their road chevrons (signs indicating turns/curves are coming up). This was because they were blue & yellow - the colours of the Swedish flag. I thought this was a funny coincidence until getting back to Denmark, where I noticed theirs were red & white - the colours of the Danish flag! I managed to get a speeding shot of a Danish sign.


The only one I could find of the Swedish chevron is from a travel blog online, hence this, um, person in the photo.




Back in Britannia, they're boring black & white. So, what do you think? A Scandinavian thing or do other countries display national pride through their road chevrons?

Seeing Sweden

I'm slowly getting around to putting more photos of our time in Denmark up. So, here's the latest batch. Only, they're from Sweden. We took a ferry from Helsingor in Denmark across the Oeresund Sea to Sweden, where we visited Helsingborg, a nature reserve, and Lund. On the way back, we crossed through the bridge at Malmo.

Enjoy!

Movin' on up

Many congratulations to Derek, who graduated earlier this month with his PhD, and who has secured a job at the esteemed Loyola University in New Orleans!

We knew somehow that it was inevitable, but when the announcement came from Joni & Derek that they were actually going, and not staying in the UK, well, it kinda diminished the excitement of the new job, which is really a great opportunity for them both. They've been such great friends of ours these past few years that it's sort of bewildering to think ahead to life when they're gone. But I guess that's the nature of the academic beast and we all knew this day would come – we too hope to move somewhere else when Ole finishes, so we're equally guilty of those intentions.

So, best of luck to you, Finchams. You've worked hard for this next step and we wish you every success in it. You'll always have a place to stay with us (wherever that may be!) and we can't wait for the summer conference meet-ups!


Apologies for the out-of-date photo; it's the only one on the "new" computer!

Jammy!

Lynne's been gone these past couple of weeks, so we were instructed to help ourselves to the garden, which we did and thus harvested about 2kg of strawberries. That's a lot of strawberry to eat, so we made some jam today.

Vordingborg Festuge

On Monday, we went to the world famous Vordingborg Festuge. Aside from stuffing our faces with hotdogs, ice creams and snegles, we watched the Prins Joergens Garde (marching band) parade around.

What do you do when your bangs are too long?

Why, pin them back, of course!




Rosie is loooong overdue for a furcut...



so this is the immediate solution.

Studenterfest - Danish Style

I thought I'd write a bit about an event we attended yesterday, mostly because it was typical of how Danes celebrate (at least in my experience).

Ole's cousin Rasmus graduated from high school and, as is customary in many countries, the family threw a party. Only, this was much more formal than most weddings I've been to.

The event - Studenterfest (they wear funny hats, like above) - was held at Rasmus' parent's house in Køge, a beautiful town in its own right. Everything was outside, so we started with canapes on the lawn and drinks at 1300. Around 1400, we moved to the marquee/tent, where the tables were laid for the meal. There was a self-service bar with beer on tap and lots of drinks and a crazy jukebox, in the sort of entry to the tent. It was beautifully decorated with lots of Danish flags. Anyway, we started with a fish course with white wine and then moved to a buffet with various yummy bbq'd meats and salads (and red wine). After that was dessert - brownie and ice cream with dessert wine. Then came coffee, which was served with conganc (very traditionally Danish) and other dessert liquors, as well as little chocolates. We left at this point because it was about 2100 and we were all hot and tired, but the rest of the family kept going. There was a little meal to be served later in the evening, which would consist of "finger" sandwiches and the like.

It was masses of food, but because it's spread out over so long, you can really enjoy things, so it was quite nice. And as all the family were there, we got to talk to everybody, so that was nice too. We leave for Aberdeen tomorrow. I'll try and get some photos up in the next week.