Lees Blog

Perhaps its the wonderful crisp winters day, and the fact that I have been outside playing with the Kids, perhaps it’s because I have been thinking about the rapid onset of middle age, or it could be the naughty glass of wine I am enjoying on the balcony right now, but I am thinking about the rose bushes that were planted all around the playgrounds I frequented as a small boy...

I am not sure what they are called, but they have really pretty small pink flowers, the hips are bright red in the autumn, and the Swedes make a quite vile soup from them, (they are also ubiquitous around Swedish playgrounds...) the only thing I remember the "berries" being good for was throwing or it was said if you could dry the insides out, it made a wicked itching powder, unfortunately I believe both these uses have now been banned under EU law, so I guess it’s only rosehip soup these days.
Anyway, the main thing I remember about these bushes is the fact that they had more thorns per square centimeter than any other plant known to man, and any child unlucky enough to fall (or be pushed!) into the huge thickets surrounding every playground suffered near mortal injury, and was due for not only a bollocking for ripping their clothes when they got home, but also a session with the tweezers and Germolene. OUCH!!!

Now I can be a nasty piece of work as much as the next man, but even I shudder at the sadistic nature of whichever bastards decided these were the perfect plants for children’s play areas, and the fact the Swedes have them all around the parks here also worries me, perhaps there is a rational explanation such as they are to deter kiddy-fiddlers from lurking in the bushes, or more likely the position of "playground planner" just attracts lifes more bitter and twisted individuals..( I shall have to enquire as to crazy cat ladies™ previous occupation ). If anyone has any ideas, please let me know...

Posted by loonyman at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi folks,

Im sitting blogging on the train, which due to snow and freezing weather, is running 3 minuets late, which is quite ironic as Ive spent the morning watching the chaos in England which has made the international news!! Running out of salt for the roads and everything having ground to a halt, oh how we chuckle over here in Scandinavia!!

Things are very much as normal here, I have been flued up for nearly 2 weeks, Nova has been sick also, and Luka went down with fever and the snots on Monday, but respect to the recuprative power of youth, he is fit and well and back at daycare today (Much to Daddys relief!!)

We held the first meeting of The planetary society volunteer network Sweden last week, the organising of which has been taking up a big chunk of my free time. It feels good to be organising something I realy enjoy, and we have gatherd over 20 members allready. Basicly its an excuse to sit around and talk astronomy with other nerds, which gives Malin a break!! And as we have contact with bonafide astronomers and scientists its educational as well!!

Other news... I have brought myself a scanner, so there will be many new old pictures appearing on my website and my facebook... Im loving all the pictures old friends have been posting recently, I allways wonderd if some of them would come back to haunt me, and they have!!

Nova has been given a start date of April 1st for day care, it seems so soon, and Im just getting the hang of being a house husband, but im sure she will like it, shes a tough, social little girl, (she has to be tough with a bouncy big brother like Luka!! ) so it will be fun for her, allthough Im not looking forward to the day I have to leave her for the first time....

Sexy telephone update.. (are you listening Dene?? ) , I have allmost got to grips with my Xperia now, my final verdict is that it could be a little more user friendly, and there are a few flaws in the softwear which I am sure will be ironed out in future updates, but once you get the hang of the thing, its bloody brilliant!!! I have messed around with it so much I have had to do a hard reset (to restore it to factory settings) but I pretty much know it inside out now and Im still impressed...

Anyway, since I started writting this I have moved from train to coffee shop, and now to pub (strangely enough, I was on my way back from town, and didn't have time to go home, but was too early to pick Luka up from daycare..... Time for plan B! ) , but now I should go and get the little fella, perhaps we will do some sledging on the way home.....

Love to 1 and all

Lee.

Posted by loonyman at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Continue reading "cool photo" »

Posted by loonyman at 01:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi folks, This blog entry finds me sitting on the balcony tapping out a posting on my shiny new xperia. its so complicated it took me an hour to figurer out how to make a phone call!!, however I love it! I suppose its true about boys and toys....We never grow out of them, and this is the first thing I have ever bought that the insurance option seemed like a realy good idea, (I have a long history of losing or breaking thigs) so hopefully I will be able to blog a little more frequently now, wherever I Am. Our xmas and new year, and Lukas birthday all went off realy well, it was nice to see my parents, including my new step mom Wendy!, but with the sad exception of Tony,who was working, and we missed Malins family who were all up in Norrland, however it looks like we will be holidaying with them in Gotland this summer so the kids will be able to hang out with them then. Both of the young uns are doing great, Lukas potty training is going well, and Nova took her first steps on new years day, not bad for 9½ months old! so I suppose the trouble realy starts now. She has an uncanny knack of heading directly for whatever will cause the most havoc/mess/explosions/whatever, so now we need even more eyes in the back of our heads. I got my camara back from England today after forgetting it on our last visit, so there will be a load of new photos on my main site shortly, for those who like that kind of thing...... anyway, Im going to sign off now and see if I can post photos with this thing, if I can there will be a photo attached, if not, well I guess there wont! Much love... Lee.

Posted by loonyman at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi folks,

 Well it seems Im crap at blogging, even when I have "plenty of time", Unfortunately, the plenty of time I have doesnt occur in the same room as the PC (Nova is a VERY light sleeper, and she sleeps in the same room as the computer   ) , so my blogging, and writing are not coming on as well as I would have hoped for. Never mind, I will just have to wait until January 1st, when I can get my new telephone, the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 ( http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/overview/x1?cc=gb&lc=en# ), possibly the coolest phone ever built, and then I will be able to blog where ever the heck I am!!

 

 

 

 Anyway, there is not so much exciting happening in our world right now, we are slowly getting ready for Christmas, and Luka's birthday, which is almost as much fun as it was when I was a kid, He nearly got a Wii , but after he tried out a friends it was a little hard for him so we decided to wait a year until he's a little older .

 Otherwise, we had a week of Winter over here last week, which was also great fun, about 6 inches of snow over 2 days and Luka loved it, although I think his Mom was a bit harsh getting him to drag her about everywhere..

 More photos to be found here---   http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=43999&l=bd00b&id=685711763

 Luka was very sad that he couldn't ride his sledge at daycare without a helmet, so of course, Daddy went out and spent about 30 quid on a real nice one, then the snow melted the next day!!!

 The only other news is a new instalment from the Crazy Cat Lady™ , 

 We received a semi- anonymous letter signed only "Elsa with 3 indoor cats" , telling us she had heard how we have a cat that we abuse, leave out in the rain and don't feed properly, etc etc, and that we should be aware that the penalty's for cruelty to animals had just been raised, and also perhaps it would be a good idea if we gave him to someone that would care for him properly!

 We have compared the handwriting to Crazy Cat Lady™'s , and it is not hers, the letter was posted somewhere in Stockholm, she knew which floor we live on, that we have 2 Kids, and actually spelled my name right, ( 99% of Swedes spell it Stevensson, the Swedish way.). After much gossiping with the rest of our neighbours no one seems to know who "Elsa" is, but everyone agrees it must be either a friend, or pseudonym of the Crazy Cat Lady™.

 Well, I bumped into Crazy Cat Lady™ yesterday and asked her how her friend Elsa is?, she ignored me, and tried to scurry away, but I corned her, and asked her if she understood what "Dont talk about me, or my family" meant, she stammered that she "had not said anything to anyone", So I told her that as she is the only person in the village that has a problem with us, I knew she was involved somehow, and if we heard one more thing, I would call the Police and get her done for harassment. Perhaps if angry Englishman can't shut the old hag up, the threat of arrest might!

 One final note, I really hope that her  friend Elsa does call the Swedish RSPCA to us. As usual Oskar is now in "Winter Mode" , in the summer he goes dead skinny , but this time of year he has the same build as a small furry hippopotamus. It would be fun to get an experts opinion on just how abused he is!!!!

 

  Love to one and all, 

 

 Lee

Posted by loonyman at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)