New born!

Baby giraffe born in Prague! Not just one, but two apparently. My favourite animal - or one of them - with the most beautifully patterned fur. Just sad to see them locked up in a zoo.

May be lack of colours...

...but spring is definitely in the air.

Dinner with the girls

If baby showers were a Swedish tradition, yesterday evening would have been just that. But as the opposite rules, i.e. giving the mother-to-be baby presents before the baby is born could mean bad luck, we just called it a girls' dinner.

A given dinner conversation was names. Combination of names, associations to names, old and new favourites. This little baby will get the sweetest name filled with family history and love. And then we moved on to mothers-in-law. How much do you expect your mother-in-law to be part of your family and what does that mean in terms of her spending time with the grandchildren? Babysitting Vs socialising with you and your other half? A sensitive topic filled with disappointments and different opinions.

Moving on we sadly concluded that the much talked about glass ceiling is now a reality. Time after time heads have been banged in the ceiling that we all thought was a myth belonging to generations before us. Oh no. It's still there and it still needs to be broken.

All this while we enjoyed chicken à la Thai, chilled white wine and assorted sweets as a Monday night treat.

On a grey and rainy Tuesday

Small things that can cheer you up:
A longer than usual breakfast with freshly baked bread from next door café together with summer sweet jam and time to read the paper.

I decided to work from home in the morning to do exactly this. So after the usual Tuesday morning yoga session, with a group who stood up to the unpleasant weather god and made it to class for the early start, I made my way back home for my treat.

On grey days you need to be extra kind to yourself and find pleasure and happiness and the small things.

Now time for work!

Temporary window shopping

London Fashion Weekend at Somerset House. No, I didn't make it. Instead window shopping in Stockholm. Saving the £ for a belated London weekend. Flight booked, hotel reservation made, meeting with financial advisor (about five years late) planned. Now fingers crossed that my much missed English friends are around.

We need to talk about...

A passing lady on her mobile: 'Well, you know, Silvia isn't a Swedish name either!'

The topic that seems to be on everybody's lips: Estelle. Good or bad? Right or wrong? Everybody has an opinion. I wonder how much of tonight's dinner party conversation will revolve around the baby princess and her parents' choice of her royal name.

On the topic dinner party conversations, according to the Guardian, the two w's should be avoided at all costs. Work and weather.

So if we are to avoid Estelle, work and weather, what are we going to talk about I wonder?

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

Dirty dancing, the Swedish version. A night out with favourite sister and favourite mum. That doesn't happen very often. Family sweet family.

5 pm and it's light

Leaving the office for a get together with silver as a theme. Wine and pretty jewellery can't go wrong.

When in need call a friend

Wednesday evening after a tough day at work, conversations filled with unpleasant undercurrents and possible misunderstandings. It's raining outside.

How can you top up the energy that seems to have sunk through earth and disappeared to Australia?

May be a sushi take out and a glass of Chablis together with Beautiful J and her little Princess. The energy is slowly returning just by the thought of it.

Sickest month of the year

February that is. Apparenty the month with most sick days in the whole year. No wonder as we have been deprived of light and sun for so long and the rough weather doesn't always invite you to spend time outdoors.

But here it comes! Spring is just around the corner, starting with melting snow from the roof, bird song in the morning and warm sun rays bringing vitamins, hope and life.

The beginning of a new season, the beginning of a new chapter. This is going to be an exciting part of the book, of that I'm sure.

Lunch at favourite café

Train your Performance Princess

Q: What is a Performance Princess' greatest challenge?
A: To do nothing. To be a couch potato for a day.

So stressful! The whole inside revolts. The body and mind scream. Can't just waste valuable time when you could achieve so many things (cleaning the oven, defrosting the freezer, running on the treadmill, doing research for work, preparing for class or visiting a museum).

I have tried a few times and always the same reaction. Sometimes I manage to trick the mind for a couple of hours into thinking that being a couch potato is also an activity on the TO DO list. It doesn't really work on weekdays and it never works in the mornings. But sometimes late afternoon on a weekend...

With a weekend coming up, may be there is time to practice the couch potato pose. I already feel the resistance!

The early bird catches the worm

Off to morning yoga.

Self observation

For a brief moment everything was exactly the way it was supposed to be. Some ways to describe the sensation could be that the mind and the body were at the same place. Or that I was in synch with the rest of the world. Or that yin and yang were in balance.

I'm sure it happens all the time. What was remarkable this time was that I really noticed it. A sense of blissful harmony and presence. Short, sweet and transient.

BBQ in hibernation

The BBQ season is still far away. Days like this when the sun comes out, the snow is sparkling and the birds are tweeting it's ok.

Happy milestones

Catching up on my reading, I'm learning the history of happiness according to Harvard Business Review. Years to remember include:

• 1926 when the song "Happy birthday" is composed
• 1963 when Smiley face is invented
• 1977 when Mc Donald's introduces Happy Meal
  

More happy learnings to be shared soon!

Time to read

A cancelled meeting turned into me-time. Lunch at a favourite waterhole in the bohemian parts of the city and catching up on stacks of reading. This is how new ideas and inspiration are born.

Is that a heart in my coffee...?

My morning meeting, coaching of a young professional on his career options, is the closest I get to a Valentine's date. Then again, I never was a big fan of celebrating All Hearts' Day.

Mind the gap of history and politics

The new interest for Margaret Thatcher and the British politics during the eighties is of course connected to 'The Iron Lady'. The movie raised a number of questions, which revealed a vast room for improvement in my general knowledge of history and politics.

This is one of my blind spots. History and politics just never really grasped my attention growing up and somehow I got used to get by with 'history and politics for dummies' (read: faking your way through social conversations). I never really read the newspaper when I grew up. I never discussed elections, G7 meetings or wars. I could blame boring teachers and competing subjects such as maths and languages. I could blame equally disinterested friends. Or I could hide behind my gender. Apparently a number of studies have found that males tend to have greater overall general knowledge than females.

Or may be it's all about how it's presented. Having lived in the UK during the post-Thatcher period, remembering the news reporting on the Falklands war (the headlines from the eighties probably got recorded by my subconscious mind even if I didn't read the newspaper), the movie awoke my interest for something I honestly think I should know more about.

So yesterday's lunch at our knowledgeable friend's house was spent going through the Thatcher era. We asked the questions and our knowledgeable friend gave us very comprehensive answers. Slowly I'm filling the gap and the newfound information is finding a place along references relevant to my life. That's how I work.

Google

Margaret Thatcher, goulash and Borneo. Pretty much sums up my googling today. To be continued.

Treated by my hairdresser

Coffee, chocolate and gossip. All being served while he is doing wonders to my hair, restoring it to its natural colour and shape.

Training to become an actress

Shy in the beginning but warmed up after the first exercise.

An afternoon with a Princess

Today I'm a stand-in-mum, doing the nursery run followed by after-nursery activities and dinner at five. How does everybody do this? Working full time clearly doesn't allow for picking up anyone at three in the afternoon, let alone after-nursery activities. You have to work part time, or have a well paid job where you can afford for somebody else to fill in between three and six. Unless you want your offspring to stay at nursery until five thirty and skip any kind of extracurricular activities, which seems unthinkable as s/he would be the only one.

The equation is somehow missing one or two variables.

Reminding and reassurance

Make space for what you want and start living as if it is already happening. It works. Call it the power of the mind, the law of universe or naivety. It doesn't really matter what it is called if it works. But you have to believe it works.

As always an inspiring conversation with my coach. She sees something I don't. She knows something that I need to be reminded of. It was a while ago but today it was the right time to meet again.

Judge Not

"At times you may feel yourself to be the victim of other people's bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities. Try not to judge them - things aren't always what they seem. And it could be worse. You could be them!"

A random piece of advice that happened to catch my attention today. May be because I needed it.

Lime fruits and white lillies...

...can mean two things: either an estate agent has been around to prepare flat for selling, or it could be leftovers from a cocktail party.

Tomorrow night is the night

And here is the cocktail menu for those of you who already want to tease the taste buds...

Cocktail menu
Fancy Facebook's Official Drink? - Apple Martini
Balance the Twist - Gin & Yang
Get in touch with the Brazilian in You - Caipirinha
Do a Hemingway and order... - Mojito
The Spirit to Adventure - Moscow Mule
Timeless Traditional - Gin Tonic
Stay Fresh as a Daisy - Margarita
Like a Virgin - Sea Breeze (non-alcoholic)

May be an opening

The meeting went from a soft catch up to hardcore business. How to market yourself without feeling like a vacuum cleaner salesman? I hope by asking lots of question, listen more than you speak. Rephrase what the person opposite you say and add a few well selected arguments or ideas. Without revealing a solution (if you have one). A sales pitch without powerpoint and meeting rooms. Just a catch up meeting in favourite café. And now waiting for the penny to drop. His penny that is.