Pinot Noir

Lately Pinot Noir wines have become a real favourite of mine. A bit surprising actually since I found Pinot Noir very watery and weak the first couple of times I tried it. Not any longer. OK, the colour is still quite pale and looks a bit watery. But on the nose and palate... I’m hooked. And really who says a red wine is better just because it’s darker.

On Friday night I tried a quite rare limited Pinot Noir, at least for being in Sweden, Coombend Moulting Lagoon Pinot Noir from Tasmania. A wine that more or less has travelled from one side of the world to another. For being a Pinot Noir the colour is rather deep red. The nose is filled with fruit aromas such as strawberries and cherries. Hints of ginger and nutmeg can also be found. The palate is sweet, soft and silky that show off flavours of plums and sloe berries. The tannins are rather structured and give the wine a balanced body.

In my opinion a very good Pinot Noir and it doesn’t cost a fortune which is always nice.

You make me

A couple of days ago I found this photo from Tate Britain taken last summer. My first thought when reading "You make me" was angry. You make me angry, pissed off, mad, annoyed, cross, furious and offended. You don’t like me and I don’t like you. Period.

But you, yes you, you make me happy, glad, pleased, chipper, delighted, jolly, ecstatic and thrilled. You love me and I love you and together we make magic.

Amazing what a few words can make you feel and think.

Summer holidays

As usual this time of the year I start thinking about what I should do on my summer holidays. Being a Swede it means I have a whole month off from mid July to mid August. Heavenly, even though people in many other countries think it’s a bit weird. Sweden is more or less on half speed from June until the end of August, because people are on holiday.

For the last couple of years the first week has been the week when I go somewhere by myself, i.e. solo travelling. I’ve been to Ireland, Scotland, South England and France by myself and I love it. Travelling alone is very empowering and I always come home with new experiences and memoires of people I’ve met. As savvy as I sound I’m not the type who just takes off and see where the road takes me to. I plan quite carefully before where I’m going, where I’m staying and what things I’m going to see. Boring perhaps but it is what makes me feel secure and confident when I’m out there.

This year I’m not really sure where to go. It needs to be a place that has a lot of things to do and see. Also there should be a good network of trains or busses so I can easily get around and experience as much as possible. The French Rivera was perfect two years ago with the local trains going up and down the coast. Being a woman travelling by myself I also like to go to places where no one cares if I eat by myself. France is a great place for that (even at the cheapest brasserie they treat you like a queen) and most of Northern Europe is totally fine too. I would love to go to Italy or Spain, but I’m not sure how I would be treated. The Anglophile in me tells me to go to the UK. I’ve never been to Manchester, Liverpool and northern England, but going to the UK always means I might get a week of rain like I did in Ireland. Not that I’m a beach bunny, but rain is something that I get more than enough of back in Sweden.

Or maybe I should just stay home. It will save me money at least... Nah, that’s too boring. I need to get out, but where?!

Going to the cinema

A friend and I finally went to the cinema on Thursday seeing The King’s Speech. A wonderful feel-good film and so very British. The Anglophile in me had a lovely evening with all the great British actors. Both us noticed that some of them have become quite old. Like Derek Jacobi and Anthony Andrews, and no we’ve not grown older as well...

It’s been a while since I went to the cinema and now afterwards I realise how much I’ve missed it. Or really I've missed watching films for that matter. As a child I went to the matinee every Saturday watching one or two films (depending on how much money you had). Then as I teenager my best friends and I more or less went to the cinema every Friday night in the city. Before the film started we always went to somewhere to eat. Burgers and chips I guess or tea and cake when we got a bit more sophisticated. When the film was over we all took the bus home to suburbia and I’m pretty sure our parents were very happy that we behaved so well and were not out causing trouble.

I kept on being a film buff as long as it was possible to rent videos or DVDs, but then when everybody started to download films from the Internet I stopped. The techie girl never and still hasn’t figured out how to do it. And in Sweden it is illegal to download and, as you might have realized by now, I’ve always been a good girl... So nowadays I hardly watch any films besides what’s on TV from time to time. Going to the cinema every now doesn’t really cure my need of a nice evening in watching a film. I either need to get out more or take a crash course in how to get films from the Internet. Films are definitely part of the good things in life and something I shouldn’t miss out on.

Bring on spring

February is the coldest month of the year and this year is no exception. The snow finally disappeared about two week ago, but then yesterday afternoon. Big snowflakes kept falling and by the evening the city was covered in snow again. Ugh! And then we have the the wind… Goes through your bones and sucks the life out of you.

I’m so ready for spring and warmer weather, but until then this photo has to do. Just seeing all the flowers makes me happy and I can almost feel the sun in my face. Mmm...

At the PC Doctor

Last weekend’s odd behaviour from the computer turned out to be signs of a near death. When I got home from work last Monday the computer was dead. It had turned off itself and when I tried to start it nothing happened. No screen and no boot. When I pushed the on-button the blue light came on but that was it. Wise from earlier experiences I let it run for almost an hour before I decided to do restart. If it had worked during the weekend it might work now, but no. Nothing happened. I’m quite stubborn and don’t give up easily when it comes to things that can be fixed, but by then I had just had it. I turned off the whole thing, closed the blinds and went to bed instead to read, drink tea and eat biscuits. Really nice and most of all very peaceful and relaxing. Shows that one can have good evening without being online...

The next day at work I told the techies what had happened and that I had had enough and was now looking to buy a laptop. The guy who has helped me the most then offered to take the computer back to his place and go through it from top to bottom as last resort. So on Wednesday he picked it up and he’s now looking into changing the power supply and trying with another graphics card. I’m crossing all fingers and toes hoping that it will work. If not, it’s really time to go and buy that new shiny laptop. I'm tired of the computer saga now.

Valentine’s Day

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. A day we all have a special relationship to. Being in a relationship you should love it and being single you should hate it. But what if it’s the other way around? If you’re stuck in a bad relationship and all you want to do is to leave. Or as singleton you think Valentine’s Day a great day to celebrate yourself. Then it probably gets a bit tricky... On the other hand it’s just a day. One measly day when we are suppose to show love and affection to those we love. It’s a bit sad that we can’t do that the rest of the year.

As a hardcore singleton I have very mixed feelings about this day. It would of course be very nice if I got a card, a text or if someone said Happy Valentine’s Day, but I would also be extremely surprised. So should I celebrate myself then? Nah, I celebrate myself all the time with doing exactly what I want to without asking anyone. Will I feel a bit sad tomorrow? Most likely, but at the same time no. I am what I am and being in a relationship would not change that. So I will treat tomorrow like any regular day and Monday as it happens to be as well. I’m still worthy all the happiness and love in the world though, but that I know already and don’t need a special day to remind me.

Quote of the day

Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes... Just be an illusion.

~ Javan ~

Daydreaming

Sometime when I can’t sleep I daydream. (Or is it called nightdreaming being right before you go to sleep?)

I daydream about my house in Notting Hill/Holland Park or somewhere else in north London. How my perfect kitchen looks like. How the cabinets look like, what sort of cool kitchen gadgets I have and the best of in the corner I have an AGA. From the kitchen I can of course go down into my wine cellar.Champagne, Shiraz and Chablis. Old world mixed with the New world.

Continuing through the house I have a big study with lots of books, easy chairs and a desk by the window. My lounge has big fire place and sofa with plenty of pillows. In the dining room next to the lounge my Gran’s old chandelier is the main attraction and of course a big diningroom table. The downstairs’guest bathroom is tiny but perfectly decorated in light green colours. Going up the stairs the master bedroom has a view over the back garden and an on-suite bathroom with both a bath and a shower. Of course I have also a walk in closet. There are also two other smaller bedrooms. One acts as a guestroom where the best teenager-in-the world (the best 4-year-old has grown up) stays whenever she visits. The other room is a TV-lounge with a widescreen TV and comfortable chairs where you can sit either watching TV or films. I also have a big library of all my favourite films.

I usually fall asleep around here, thinking about what films I would like to have. But Gone with the wind and Sliding door is definitely on my list. My little dream will probably never come through, at least not all of it, but it is nice to dream. It keeps you sane.

It ain't over...

My computer saga that is. After consulting the techies at work again (soon they will start charging me I'm sure) I went and bought a new graphics card on Tuesday. The card snapped very easily into the slot and when I restarted the computer everything worked very well. Getting back my wide screen resolution was pure heaven and I felt so proud of myself for managing this as well. OK, with advice but I had done all the work by myself

Wednesday went by without any problems. Both monitor and computer worked without any hiccups, but then starting the computer on Thursday morning the monitor didn't want to work. The monitor blinked once but that was it. Restarting several times didn't work either. (What is it we think will work by restarting, really?) After the last restart I went to have breakfast rather annoyed and let the computer just run without the monitor working. Some coffee and porridge got me a bit less annoyed so I decided to restart the whole thing one more time, and voilà now the monitor worked. Hm...

Yet another consult with the techies and they told me it sounded like a mechanical problem, i.e. there is a glitch somewhere since it works after a while when computer has warmed up. So I should check that the graphics card is properly set into the slot, make sure the monitor works with another computer and upgrade the drivers. Also I should make sure that the BIOS really knows that it should use the new graphics card instead of the built in one. Did all those things yesterday and still there is no signal from the graphics card when starting the computer cold. But if I let it run for about 10-15 minutes and then restart it works perfectly. Aargh!

I could live with it like this. Just knowing that I have start the computer and then wait a while before the monitor works, but it annoys me. I want it to work from the minute I turn it on. Time to consult the techies tomorrow again (Maybe it's time to bring cake to keep them happy?) The computer saga ain't over yet...

A long way to go

The last couple of days we've been enjoying milder weather and a lot of rain. And for once I've been very happy seeing the rain. Most of the snow is now gone and leaving the streets covered in grit instead, but still that is so much better than ice. The big piles of snow are also slowly disappearing. The days have gotten a lot longer and you can really tell the different in the afternoon especially if the sun is shining. You can also hear the birds singing in the morning and in evening, which is is music to your ears. Again we have managed to survived another winter and things will only get better from here.

Still thought it's only early February and walking past one of the canals earlier this afternoon I realized that spring has a long way to go. The same goes with the harbour. It's so much ice there it looks like a giant cocktail glass on a hot summer's day. Not that I would drink what comes out of the canals or harbour... But a girl got to dream. So another month or so and then I think spring might be here for real. Now it's just a bit of teasing.

Exercise

I need to find a new exercise. I didn't go to the gym all autumn because I find it so incredible boring. On Wednesday night last week I was suppose to try Yoga, but work came in-between. I had totally forgotten that a major release means a lot of work and support and that long into the evening. (That's what you get with offices in different time zones...)

I love to walk and walk back and forth from work every day as long as isn't too cold (I draw the line at -10)or too icy, but I don't think and know it's not enough. Either I need a PT who can motivate me at the gym even if I find it incredible boring, or I need to find something new that I love. Running used to be one of my favourite things to do, but for the last couple of years not so. It takes quite some time before running gets comfortable and nice, ie finding the flow, and I'm far from there now. It's just huffing and puffing, but I still remember how wonderful it used to be. Even though it doesn’t help much now...

So what to do? The lazy part of me says keep walking and then get back to running when the snow is gone. The other part of me says go back to the gym and use the treadmill at least. Start walking and eventually you will be running and then when the snow is gone you can run outdoors which you love without the huffing and puffing.

Decisions decisions...