Word for the day - mustasch

As everyone who reads this blog is probably already aware, my little beardy brother is participating in Movember this year, to raise awareness and money for men's health. This has basically involved him shaving off his beard, cultivating a moustache for the entire month, and turning into my uncle. Please sponsor him by clicking here and pledging him some of your cash, so that his chilly chin isn't all in vain. Cash for the tash!

At the beginning of the month.

These days.

Noshbox, du är en hjälte!

Hej då!
x

Adjö Åkesov

There is a Misha shaped space in my life today. It's right next the Chops and Spoons shaped ones, and it looks like this:

I left Åkesov for Thorildsplan this morning. With a TONNE of food that I forgot I would have to move, and a very bulky duvet. It's been joyous living there, in the most interesting flat on earth, with the sweetest beastie. I will miss the allotments, and the tea shop, and the magpies, but most of all Misha. Fingers crossed for some cat-sitting soon.

So this evening, I get to cycle back to my new place, in a fluorescent jacket and bright green cycle helmet. I look like a ninja turtle, but a very visible one. And then I get to find out which bags I've put everything in.

Photos soon,
Hej då alla,
Laura x

Operation Re-EBs

Hej all, 

My Mum and I have just driven 1000miles. 

Phew, I am wiped out. Since arriving in Sverige I have been trying to get EB (my car) through the system of form filling and tests to get her Swedish car citizenship. In six months effort all I have managed to achieve is obtaining permission to start this process (which cost me £70), and a parking ticket on an unmarked street (which cost me £65).

And now winter is coming, and in two weeks I legally need to have snow tyres. Or not be able to drive. So I'm done with that. Instead, Mum flew to Stockholm on Tuesday last week and from Wednesday to Thursday we drove her all the way home again, plus two ferries and a short sleep in the most over populated city in Germany. 

I nearly scuppered the entire operation by locking my passport in my filing cabinet at work, and only remembering I didn't have it when Mum did a last check as we were leaving. I would have made it across three borders without anyone noticing, but wouldn't have managed to board the ferry to the UK. Which would have been a bit of a bummer. So instead we started the trip with a detour to KI. 

I don't look so tired here, but we were only about an hour out of Stockholm.

We paused for a short sleep in Bremen, in Germany, where we had to try about six different hotels before we found one with an empty room. Giant hotels. In a small city. On a Wednesday night in November. All completely full. When I asked one unimpressed proprietor what was happening in town to mean there was no accommodation for grabs he told me that it was always like this. Whaaaaaaa?!

Apart from that it was smooth sailing, apart from the actual sailing, which was exceedingly rocky. Especially between Denmark and Germany. I even found Pingu and some Hendricks gin on the Holland - UK ferry, an excellent bonus.

Looking sleepier. But delighted to have met a childhood idol.

Once safely in London things took a turn for the even better. We ate Swedish and Mexican food for lunch (Nosh was jealous, and he's in Mexico), viewed the Olympic park, crossed the Thames on a cable car and, best of all, saw the musical version of Matilda, the music and lyrics for which have been written by Tim Minchin. Oh. My. Goodness. I literally wept tears of delight when Bruce Bogtrotter started singing.  

Best ever. If you've ever read a book, you should see it. Even if you haven't read a single book, there is still a character in there for you.

My new ethos. Already gone out the window.

Olympic stadium!

The return to Sweden was somewhat quicker, but a lot less fun. Thank you Mum, for a most excellent time.

Now I'm off to learn some Swedish!
Hej då all!
x

Word for the day - skedar

Happy birthday to you, 

Happy birthday to you, 

Happy birthday dear Spooooooony, 

Happy birthday to you!

A good day

Today has been a good day.

First off I went to my favourite cafe on the way in to work for an excellent mörk varm choklad and some valnöt bröd for lunch. And they had some kind of tasty treat disguised as ghosts! Or maybe there were ghosts hanging out in the cake display. Either way, I was delighted.

Then I got caught pretending to turn on the motion sensitive lights in the corridor using my magic powers, by two sensible-looking chaps getting out of the lift. I acted like nothing had happened. I feel this was the best course of action in this situation.

A good day all round.
Hej då!
x
 

Word for the day - vänner

I have been absent for quite some time. Apologies. It's been a gloriously busy Autumn hanging out with all these wonderful peeps.

Now to prepare for winter and my fourth flat of the year!

Hej då!
x

Warning - old post II! Back to Stockholm, word for the week - bat

Boats, boats, boats.

When I returned to Stockholm after holidaying en France, Rich came with me. I invited him, he didn't just happen to tag along. So for a week we did that that fun thing where you get to be a tourist in your own city. Which, when it's summer and the city is Stockholm, means boats.

Boat the first: the Djurgården ferry to Djurgården (unsurprisingly), to laze about at Rosendals slott and play cards. And then back to Slussen to have a BBQ at Herman's for dinner. Anyone coming to visit me - we will be going to Herman's. It's the greatest.

Boat the second: a big fast waxholmanolaget boat out to the archipelago. Warning to other Stockholm travelers; the archipelago timetable is sort of there as a guideline. Boats typically leave whenever they feel like it, which often means early. Despite missing an early departing boat and ending up very hot and discomknockerated on the next one we made it out to Gällnö, in the east of the archipelago. Gällnö would be quite perfect, but for one thing. Mosquitos seem to quite like it too. It's warm and forested and surrounded by water. Turns out, we were a welcome snack. I was still recovering from the mozzie-mauling a week later. Other than that, it's a tiny delight, and a good spot for an onion pie, a gin and tonic and some boat envy.

Boat the third: a row boat! We rowed from Gällnö to the neighboring island! It was so 'Swallows and Amazons' and intrepid. (It really wasn't that far, I was just over excited.) Sadly, Vambö is even more of a mozzie haven, so we didn't stay long. Despite an abundance of intriguing turds. Cows, or moose?! We will never know.

On Thursday we took a well earned break from seafaring for some highly successful vintage shopping. And then, on to...

Boat the fifth: canoeing in the city centre. It's possible to hire kayaks and canoes near KI, and kayak right round one of the city islands - if you are fast enough to get back within your hire time.Which I haven't been yet. But we did manage to canoe right down to the City Hall, where you pop out from under a bridge and find yourself in the Baltic looking at Gamla Stan. The waves are somewhat unnerving, but the view makes up for it.

 

As a boat detour that same day we went for a walk and discovered a bridge with a padlock shrine. Well, Rich knew about it already, so it wasn't so much by chance, but it certainly is intriguing.  They are all chained to the middle of the bridge, and have initials scratched into them.

 

Boat the sixth and last: over to Birka - Viking Island. On the final day of holiday we went all out touristing and took the boat to Birka Island. Our tour guide was an actual Viking! Except that his Dad kept calling him on his mobile, which rather spoilt the illusion of all the Viking clothing and long hair.

On the boat, in an outfit that resulted from the highly successful vintage shopping trip!

This is a model Viking village, not a GIANT GIRL in the background.

Beautiful lunch spot.

Viking boats

Many and varied boats make for a good holiday! Plus, I get the impression that in the winter they are not so feasible as a method of travel, what with all the water being solid, so it's good to get as much boating in as possible.

That's all for now chums, hope you are enjoying your weekends, 

Byeloveyoubye!

x

Warning - old post! Nous avons retourné from Brittany!

A post that should have been posted a month ago! I feel like I am just resurfacing and finally getting stuff in order!

Bonjour mes amis,

Nous avons retourné from Brittany, all relaxed after a week eating cheese, drinking preposterously cheap beaujolais and rampaging around medieval ramparts.

The ramparts of St Malo.

We stayed in a tiny hamlet called la haute houssais in a gite on a farm. I didn't know what a gite was initially. In my understanding it appears to be a bit of a barn transformed into a little apartment with a wood burning stove and a beautiful garden full of camomile and mint to turn into tea. There we were terrorised by local chickens and a multitude of skinny cats, one of whom I nearly brought home. Only the thought of how either Chops and Spoons or Misha would react stopped me.

La Haute Houssais

This kitten! Nearly ended up in Stockholm...

Beautiful Gite.

We started every day with croissants from the local bakery on our terrace, and then ventured out into the surrounding Breton countryside in Nicole the Renault Clio (on the wrong side of the road, in the wrong side of the car. Eeeeeps!). During the course of these ventures we had numerous adventures.

On the first day we explored the ramparts of Dinan, the nearest town. We took a detour, crossed a gothic bridge and took a walk which ended up at a beautiful ancient abbey. Along the way we passed some kind of mad jousting tournament, on boats rather than horses. The aim seemed to be to row at each other really fast, spurred on by a 'Last of the Mohicans' style theme tune blaring from surrounding speakers, and whack a guy off the other boat with a fishing rod. The surprisingly large crowd went wild every time.

Last of the Mohicans jousting from the safety of a very high bridge.

Other day trips took in a melancholy chateau, a 1930s seaside resort and even a quick jaunt to Normandy to visit mont-saint-Michel. The churros, whilst perhaps not traditional fare for French monks of old, were delicious and sustained us on our fight through the legions of other sight-seers.

Mont-saint-Michel. Busy, but astounding.

A couple of days we ended up staying closer to the gite, due to the fact that I inadvertently drugged myself, making me unfit to drive. My hayfever was really bad, and I accidentally took drowzy anti histamine two days in a row before realising why I had literally no energy.

My favorite bit was Friday afternoon, when after a few days of either inaccessible beaches or inaccessible sunshine at the opportune moments, we stumbled across a beautiful sandy bay with a castle and turquoise water in the late afternoon sun. I swam and swam until it got too chilly and I got too hungry, and then found a cafe in nearby St. Malo to eat a galette with scallops and leeks. Om nom nom.

Rich tells me his favorite bit was waiting for three hours at Southampton airport. The only airport in britain without a Boots. I think he's joking... Yes, apparently his actual favourite  but was a walk we did in the forest owned by the people who owned the farm and the gite. And the amazeballs vegetarian BBQ we had afterwards. It is possible, don't scoff my bacon-mad friends. It's amazing how much of this post (and that week) focuses on food.

As you can probably tell, we loved every minute. And now, with autumn already in full swing in Stockholm, it seems like a distant dream!

Some more up to date news soon!
Byeloveyoubye,
x

How many dancing Princesses?

I'm coming home tomorrow! For a dose of the Fringe. I am not planning on sleeping at all, but on seeing Rich during the day and then heading off to the Gilded Balloon at night. This plan has rather put me in mind of a book my Dad used to read to me - did anyone else ever read 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses'? I had the version illustrated by Errol de Cain and it was so beautiful. I think I wanted all the dresses. And the boats.

The premise, as far as I remember it, was that these twelve princesses were locked into their room each night, but each morning they had worn away another pair of shoes, and nobody could understand it. I could keep going like that for a while before anyone noticed a dent in my shoe hoard, but evidently the king was very attentive to his daughters footwear. Of course, what no-one realised was that they were traversing gold, silver and diamond forests, and sailing across a lake, to get to the Gilded Balloon and go to Late'n'Live or Hot Dub Time Machine every night. In the end they were busted, but I'm going to be keeping a sharp watch out for Princes in invisibility cloaks, so we should be fine.

See you tomorrow chums, I am so excited!
x

Off to GB...

Shameless plug post

Hello dear ones!

This is a shameless plug post. I have started a science blog. Apparently it's what all the cool kids do these days. It can be found by clicking right here. There's not much on it yet, but I am hoping to iron out some copyright confusion on my part soon and then there will be an avalanche of glorious pictures of neurons.

Also, if you are someone who takes pretty neuroscience pictures (Chantal and Rochey, I am looking at you) and you want them on a pretty neuroscience picture blog then send them to me!

Happy Friday one and all,
I am off to see some Rumba and Swing in an outdoor square, nice!
x

Word for the day - röstat bröd

Toast! May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil realises you are dead!*

What kind of chump doesn't keep any bread in the house? All I want in the world is some toast, and yet my dinner options are baked salmon (a bit much at 10.30pm) or muesli and yogurt (deeply uninspiring but the winner by default). Ahh, the minutiae of life!

Hope your evenings have been less lacking in baked goods, 

x

* This is a saying that Bam, Fran, Kate, Morven and I found on a wooden plaque when we were young and carefree and travelling round America. It took us a full week to realise it meant 'toast' in the raising a glass sense. Not in the warming of bread sense. Until this epiphany we were deeply confused by the juxtaposition but bought the plaque anyway. I think it is in the cupboard in Kirk Street these days.

Sigh

I just thought to myself that I'd do a bit more work, and then head off at 6pm. Then I looked at the clock and realised that it is already 6.22pm. Sigh. It's going to be another late night. On the plus side, Susanne has joined the lab. She's great, and she bought me a plant to keep my grant writing spirits up. And my files look awesome, so it is in no way all bad news.

Have a good evening all,
x

What a day in history!

Hej chums,

I know I have disappeared for a while (one word - grants), but today is a double celebration so I though I should say...

 and...

I hope you are both having days as splendid as you are. That could be a really backhanded hope, but luckily for you two, I think you are really splendid.

Much birthday love!
xxx

Nosh and Elp’s day of fun

I’ve been home this week! For a conference of motor neurons and ceilidhing, which was both enlightening and exhausting.

Today, however, was a day off, so last night I drank a few delicious cocktails in delightful company and then sauntered off to Kirk Street to flea-treat the beasties and stay with JH. Nosh promised to be round at 9am so I got up and started annoying Jen early, only to leave at 11am, after she had already been awake for three hours.

First we headed to Kilimanjaro (on the bridges, not in Tanzania, for any non-Edinburgh folk) for one heck of a brunch. I should have taken a photo, but we ate it too fast to get one.

This photo is a copy of one my Mum took TEN YEARS ago, I look older now. If you look closely, Nosh is in this one too.

Then on down the Royal Mile for some culture at Holyrood Palace, where Nosh had never been. Hilarity started when our audio tour told us to exit the quadrangle via a door on our right. “If the door is closed,” it advised us, “please turn the handle, and go through.”

Cove with an audio-guide.

Would you trust a guard who looked this cheeky?

Just in case the audio-guide hadn't given enough instruction on how to get through a door.

Not snapdragons, but very pretty foxgloves. 

I think the audio-lady was telling him he could come back for free all year.

We saw some good portraits and learnt some gory history before heading to the photo exhibition in the parliament building, for some much more contemporary and thereby more disturbing history. After that we had some bracing fresh air on a walk round Arthur's Seat (where we saw a stoat! They are stoatally tiny!), and an earthy coffee before heading home and getting ready for holiday!

Off to Brittany at 4am, so it's maybe time to go to sleep. Happy Friday 13th one and all!

Au revoir!

x

Specially for Bambridge.

Guest Blog - Duffers and JH (staying above the law...)

First of all, let's make it perfectly clear that we're not here to make friends.
We're just trying to stay above the law and make it to our next birthdays...

The City of ENTERTAINMENT

We kicked off the trip by visiting the largest Ikea in the world, where we befriended a shark and cockatoo. We also indulged in some delicious pizza and weinerkorvs (that's hot dogs, to the non-Swedes out there).

Entertainment in Stockholm is fruitful and varied. For example, of an evening, we have known to find ourselves swing dancing in a converted cinema, gallivanting in a theme park, and loitering fruitlessly outside a club, at the mercy of Stockholm's rude bouncers and non-existent queuing etiquette. The latter evening was salvaged by personalised cocktails in a much kinder establishment.

No entertainment section would be complete without bridge. Needless to say, we have whiled away many a happy hour playing three-person. Our hearts ache for the absent Bam. But luckily, we have coordinated our nail polish, our pajamas and our cards, so all is well.

The city of HISTORY
"DO NOT TOUCH THE CANNONS."
Brush with the law number one occured at the palace, home of the Swedish Royal Family (God bless 'em). Foolhardedly, we thought it acceptable to have a photo with a cannon. How wrong we were. The booming tones of the palace guard still resonate today. For future reference, when in Stockholm, as a general rule we would recommend staying well clear of cannons.

This is not the offending photo, which has been burnt from the camera.

History in Stockholm isn't always dangerous. We also spent a lovely evening in the Nobel Museum, seeking inspiration from wonderful, artistic scientists who had sketched their discoveries. We also enjoyed reading about and watching short films about the incredible historical figures who have won the Nobel prizes over the years; truly an inspiring museum and well worth a visit.

The short film about the achievements of Dr Duffin is under construction.

The city of GEOGRAPHY

Stockholmers love a boat; they literally can't get enough of them. And what better way to learn about the geography of the city than to ride one?! Our boat expeditions have been numerous. We sailed the seven seas of the greater Stockholm area, nourished only by macaroons and diet coke. Scurvy was rife, but luckily we pulled through. Our destinations included Djurgarden (home of the theme park, see above, and nordic animals, see below) and the Archipeligo, consisting of shedloads of islands.  "It is pretty spectacular; it can have a capital if it wants one" - LH Comley, 2012.

Jen left us for dead on Lizard Rock.

Survivor of the Lizard Rock Disaster, 2012.

The city of SCIENCE AND NATURE
Nordic animals have played an integral part in this trip, most notably the moz (moose). On Laura's day off (huzzah!) we took a day trip to Skansen, a lovely big open air museum full of animals and very old Scandinavian buildings. We frolicked with the likes of otters, seals, goats, bears, rabbits, bison, hogs, wolves, reindeer, and a cheeky lone fox. Obviously this frolicking occurred on the other side of the appropriate glass/fencing provided for safety; we are staying above the law, after all.

Such is the magic of Skansen that houses grow out of the ground. Perfect for grazing goats.

We have been fortunate enough to observe the most ferocious of the nordic animals in its native environment at close proximity....MISCHA. Laura is sharing her flat with the most delightful, hard-of-hearing, up-in-your-grill cat. We are big fans of her work, except when she is all up in our grills and/or drinking our water straight from the glass.

The city of ARTS AND LITERATURE
We spent a lot of time reading our books, but this was too boring to photograph.

The city of SPORTS AND LEISURE (including FOOD AND DRINK)

Sushi. Macaroons. Diet Coke. Pimms. You get the picture. It's been delicious.

We ate sushi literally every other day; Laura had it twice on Friday. Other delicious meals/snacks have included a lovely vegetarian meal (spice for some, hammocks for all), a delightful cafe overlooking the water (an ideal setting for bridge), and a spectrum of ice creams. Travellers among you, take note - when buying ice cream in Stockholm, do not yield to the pressure of Jen's bladder and be tricked into paying 590 SEK for ice cream. Turns out, this is a total rip-off. We would suggest that 350 SEK for 2 scoops (400 with sprinkles) is a reasonable price.

Happy 4th of July, chums! Gnocchi and the Union Jack...as American as apple pie.

"But isn't it almost Jen's birthday?!" I hear you cry. Don't worry, we've got it covered...

Laura, like the team player she is, covered the sports category by cycling to work. Jen has pitched in with some successful sprinting up to catch the T-Bana at short notice. Duffers does not excel at sports; this shouldn't come as a surprise. However, we were all enticed into some energetic swing dancing. Jen was amazing, whilst Kathleen struggles to walk without falling over, so you can imagine how that went.

The city of WHIMSY
Fans of the blog will be wondering, where are the pictures of people emulating statues?! Don't worry friends, here they are, Pimms and all!

Stockholm, we salute you!