San Lorenzo, Wimbledon

The number of dinners from M&S...

Old favourites

Foretaste of New Year's Eve

"Slippered" over to Beautiful J last night, loaded with two giant pizzas and a bottle of wine.

We have spent a number of New Year's Eves together, including the millennium. When celebrating in a smaller party we have gone through our respective chronicle including the aspirations for next year.

Yesterday we jumped the gun and had a foretaste as we are not going to be together on New Year's Eve.

We are both into starting the new year clean. Clean meaning many different things:

• Organised wardrobe free from "some day may be" and "had no idea I still had this" clothes.
  
• Complete photoalbums with highlights from the year. The albums provide the paradigm for a specific year and are to be blamed (or blessed) when we think the summers were better in the old days.
• Clean hopes, free from dilutions caused by a harsh reality.

Our aspirations stretch from happiness and being in harmony to the more materialistic ones in the form of a new computer or a piano.

It's fascinating how a new year gives you new hope and energy and how you can wrap up one year to fully embrace a new year coming.

Christmas break part 2

A Chrismas full of all the ingredients you would hope for: more food than you can eat, more drinks than you need, tempting sweets in every corner and a family in harmony. And on top of that the most beautiful Christmas Eve I can ever remember with soft, cottonlike snow transforming the landscape into a light fairytale of goodness.

There is an end to everything and last night I decided I had made enough snowmen and beadwork and returned to the city.

Now there is a long TO DO list in front of me - dry cleaner, gym, jewellry shop, buying present, prepare for coaching... Two days free of choice! And there is always the possibility of postponing everything in favour of the couch, the books and the matinées.

Happy white Christmas

Dolphin rolemodel

If you had the perfect zoo, not the crowded, horrible kind of zoo that we are used to seeing, but a zoo where the animals would be happier than anywhere else, what animal would you have in your zoo? You have to pick one.

That was the question on the table.

I thought for a while and out of the three animals giraffe, orangutan and dolphin I went for dolphin.

Next question.

What are the dolphin's qualities and features that you value the most?

Playful in a smart manner, quick in mind and body and of course beautiful...

Now what?

Well, apparently in this little game, that is how your friends see you.

True? I don't know, I didn't make up the rules of the game. Blissful thinking and something to wish for.

Preparing for Christmas

Sushi, sweets, Sex and the City and brilliant company in the shape of Adorable.

We sent a thought to all those stressed mums running around the kitchen to get ready for Christmas and for the relatives to arrive. Seven different kinds of herring, Christmas ham and Jansson's "temptation" (you have to be Swedish to understand this). All happening while we are wedging on the couch watching some of our favourite episodes with Carrie and co.

You can't have it all and tonight I think we are in the winning camp.

Everyday philosophy

One text message to my past and one to the future. No answers. May be a sign to stay present and not worry too much about what could be or what has been but rather what is. My philosophy lesson on a quiet, ordinary Monday evening.

Weekend of celebrations, family and friends

Woke up with a hangover and a smile.

Yesterday evening was a mosaic of friends from various parts of my life. Roads have crossed before and friends have made friends with each other. Well, may be not all of them, but enough to create a festive atmosphere when in a room together (and supported by drinks). I love my friends!

Someone said you are the product of your five closest friends. I should be so lucky to pick
sense of style and fashion from...
humour from...
witty and sharp comments from...
general knowledge from...
body control from...
and the list could continue.

No, I'm not playing favourites with my friends and I can't pick five. I need all my friends for different reasons and at different times.

Amuse-bouches

Celebrations

Thought for today

My coach recommended a subscription to Thought for today. Every day you get an email with a a thoughtful message. And this one is so true.

"The biggest disease of the mind is over-thinking, especially too much thinking about others. Thinking too much is like eating too much. The heaviness makes it impossible to remain light and flexible."

I think I know what the most effective treatment is.

Yoga. Being present to gain the power of now.

Christmas dinner conversation

Christmas dinner with the girls – Adorable, Little B, Sweetest M and her friend. After three hours of non-stop chatting we concluded that there was one recurring topic throughout the evening.

It wasn’t work.
High performing women in the middle of our careers you would have thought that work would be a natural conversation topic. If we were men this is definitely where the focus would have been, but no.

It wasn’t men.
Finding Mr Right or if you have Mr Right, bragging (or complaining) about him. Interesting dates, miserable dates, or no dates. We hardly talked about them at all.

It was waxing.
The fascination we all have when it comes to hair and no hair. What should “it” look like and how frequently should you wax. And if we don’t have a partner, we still do it. And why is this? The engaged discussions we had on this quite mundane topic…we would do a great talk show on telly!

Our wax lady knows more about us than we remember telling her. We all agreed that in pain we talk talk talk and she remembers remembers remembers.

So if I don’t know what Adorable and Little B have been up to, I can always book an appointment with wax lady and she will give me their highlights.

12 of us in a room together ....

I received an email this morning that I was supposed to forward to 12 very special girlfriends. I'm not a big fan of chain letters, but I couldn't agree more with the content. So here you go - read it on a voluntary basis and I trust that if you are reading this you are also one of my very special girlfriends. For obvious reasons!

I am supposed to pick 12 women (who have touched my life) and who I think might participate. I think that if this group of women were ever to be in a room together (with a lot of wine) there is nothing that would be impossible. I hope I chose the right twelve. May my hugs, love, gestures and communications remind you how special you are. Please send this back to me.

Remember to make a wish before you read the quotation below. That's all you have to do. There is nothing attached. Just send this to twelve women and let me know what happens on the fourth day. Try not to break this, please. Did you make a wish yet? If you don't make a wish, it won't come true.

This is your last chance to make a wish!

Quotation: 'May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.'

The winter has arrived

What would I do without slipper friends?

I did a real cartoon fall on the way to work this morning. It resulted in me limping around the office all day with a knee twice as big as usual.

Convalescent and slightly worried, I called Beautiful J when I got home to ask for some advice (how do you know if your knee is REALLY bad kind of advice). She happened to be just around the corner - big advantage of slipper friends - and three glasses of wine later my knee is feeling so much better. Or may be I'm just numb. Anyway, the loving company and support definitely helped.

Christmas fetich

Today's ration of Lucia Cats - the saffron buns that I'm addicted to: 2.5.

That is 0.5 more Lucia Cats than yesterday and 1.5 more than the day before yesterday.

If I continue at the same speed I will have 10 Lucia Cats on Christmas eve. No wonder my jeans are tight(er). The gingerbread biscuits are not helping.

Mirror mirror on the wall

On Monday around noon I will know whether this will be sitting on my wall in the near future.

Saturday hour by hour

This is the plan:
10-11:30 IKEA - stocking up on cocktail glasses, candles and napkins to drinks party next Saturday

11:30-12 Birkagott, Stockholm's by far most delicious sweet shop - stocking up for the same reason as above

13-14 Bukowski, viewing mirrors up for auction next week, hoping to find the one mirror that nobody else likes and to get it for a reasonable price

14-17 Afternoon tea at the Grand with Lovely L - very sophisticated and gives me flashbacks to my London days when we used to go to Brown's hotel to gorge on ridiculous cucumber sandwiches, scones with raisins that I had to remove and litres of tea (leading to at least two visits to the luxurious bathrooms with Molton Brown products)

17-19 Christmas Cocktails at one of my colleagues in anonymous yet so right city

19 and onward - home sweet home (am I boring?)

Christmas lights in the archipelago

Guess who continued

Two year's ago I went on my first yoga retreat. The other day I was talking about it with two of my colleagues and I went to the website to show them what the venue looked like. Got a big surprise when I found myself in the middle of deep (?) meditation. I took it as a sign that it is time to go again. And that's how I got my Thailand trip to look forward to!

Guess who??

Project Glamourise Gothenburg airport

Prawn sandwich and non-alcoholic beer at Gothenburg airport in an attempt to immitate the Seafood bar at Heathrow.

Travelling out of Heathrow I used to make sure I always had time for a plate of fresh salmon and a glass of white wine. Chablis of course.

Gothenburg airport is not really getting me in the same luxurious mood. To be fair the poor prawns are not to be held responsible but rather the surroundings. It's sooo slow and boring!!

Glamorous work trips?

It doesn't happen very often anymore, but this week I have two days of travelling: day 1 to Gothenburg and day 2 to Sandhamn far out in Stockholm's archipelago.

Gone are the days with destination Paris, New York and Hong Kong. Gone is also BAs privileged executive membership of a certain colour. The upside of the less glamorous destinations is being able to make it back to my home sweet home in the evening, but still...

I wouldn't mind switching a day in Gothenburg for two days in New York. I miss parts of my old life...

Beautiful J

Had one of those rare evenings out with Beautiful J. Started with drinks in backslick city and moved on to noodle soup and beer in more anonymous yet so right city.

There is something very special with a friend who has stood by you through some of life's milestones like the first excessive alcohol experience and the first real love (including the close to death experience when it didn't last). It's been a while now and I'm so lucky that she is one of my slipper friends.

From business to pleasure

I have been spotted in cyber space by previous business contact from 1.5 years ago. Weird and unexpected, but still welcome, right?! I mean it's not the first time in world history that people working together go out for a drink together. To be continued (I think).

8 o'clock on a Wednesday morning

We are living in a constant darkness, meaning there must be people elsewhere with sunshine overflow. I'm going to join them. Thailand, here I come! Have to wait for a couple of months, but at least I know it's there.

New insights to the Millenial Generation

Today was the seminar that I was hoping would give some answers to the much talked about generation Y.

The key note speaker was from New York and he shared some unbelievable examples from Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young and other big players in the financial industry. Apparently it's not uncommon that parents call HR to complain about their son's/daughter's annual performance appraisal. And Merrill Lynch even organise "parents days" where they invite the parents to the office to present the company and the work environment their children are in. Yes, one of the characteristics of the Millenial Generation is that they are very close to and dependent of their parents...

Many trends tend to come from the US so I better be prepared. I have had som practice already when an upset husband to an upset employee wrote to me.

May be I should suggest an open house invite to all parents and partners of employees in our Group. Something to add to the meeting agenda with my boss 9 o'clock tomorrow morning!

Out of practice

Finally I can control the cough from my second cold in 4 weeks and I managed 50% of an ashtanga class. Progress! Slowly waking up the body again and reminding it that there are muscles somewhere and convincing them that it's OK to stretch without demanding the impossible.

Just listening to the soft, soothing, English voice from the teacher makes it worth coming to the studio even if it would just be for sitting. She has such a calming impact and still somehow energising.

So with this soft and rewarding class I will continue my getting-back-to-where-I-was-shape (wherever that was) tomorrow.

UGG - nice, huh?

This is what I need to embrace Swedish winter. When it arrives...

Lucia cats alias saffron buns

Serious cooking inspired by Cool P

Fricadelles of veal in a spicy tomato sauce served with whole wheat and a green salad.

What's in your box?

An empty box made of corrugated fiberboard

An elaborate wooden box

Box (plural boxes) describes a variety of containers and receptacles for permanent use as storage, or for temporary use often for transporting contents.

That's the official Wikipedia definition.

What's of more interest is of course what you put in the box.

"Bag in Box"; great innovation really. Makes it so much less controversial to have a glass of wine on a Monday night when you don't have to make a big deal out of popping a cork. Very discrete.

"Box Experience" as the fall back birthday present for the friend who has everything (or when your fantasy has drained... I'm not convinced.)

Or why not "Man in Box"?

Best birthday present ever if it works. Adorable had three single men in a box from posh girlpower friends. Fantastic! Three pictures of goodlooking and tested bachelors promising to take Adorable out for a spectacular date. At least that's how I interpreted the content in the box.

The best is that being pro-recycling I know Adorable will pass on the hit and miss guys in the sequence of organisms. So get those dates going!

Friday night in

Exquisite team dinner

Shrimps, crab, salmon, lobster, moules and more... We abandoned the traditional Christmas dinner for the luxuary seafood alternative. Seafood offers a certain freshness that is impossible to achieve with the heavy Swedish Christmas buffet. And wine is so much better than snaps! Although we didn't have Chablis, but Chardonnay...

Yoga for the lazy

Also called Thai massage. 2 hours of bliss and now I have to wait until March when my massage therapist is back from two months in Thailand. She got it right.

Ready for Desperate Housewives

Got home to a clean flat - I love my cleaners. They know me very well considering we never really meet. Two years' ago I got a small glass shoe for Christmas so they obviously picked up my interest in shoes somehow...

Now parked on the couch with a glass of wine next to me, waiting for Desperate Housewives. I'm blaming a second cold for this (I thought one per season was the rule) as I'm missing out on my favourite yoga class of the week... Hence the wine to cheer me up!