My sister and her boyfriend are coming up to Göteborg this weekend. Emma and I will go and see the West Side Story musical at the Opera on Saturday (it’s her birthday gift from my brother, Linda, Simon and I). The plan for the weekend is also to attend an Advent party at a friend of mine, bake som lussekatter (the classic Swedish saffron-flavoured buns) and make a couple of gingerbread houses. Simply something to look forward to.

An oldie but a goldie. A pic of my sister and I taken just a few years back.

Check out our fringes, starting on the top of the head. It’s a classic.

There is so much going on at work that’s stealing energy right now. Changes, rumours and speculations. Add trying to divide our time between all the people we would like to spend time with and all the things we need to get done before we leave for Australia and you have a nice little stress package neatly wrapped with a little Christmas bow. There is just not enough hours in the day or days in the week (at least not the weekend).

Yes, it will be strange not spending Christmas at home but I’m excited about experiencing an Aussie one. And we look forward to catching up with friends and family we haven’t seen in a loooong time and to escape this grey autumn/winter and soak up some Australian sun (with lots of sunscreen on of course). Despite all that the thing I look forward to the most are the four weeks of relaxation and quality time together with Simon. I think that’s exactly what we need right now. So with that said I’m just going to add…

…weeks to go!

Bor du i Australien och saknar Djungelvrål, Marianne, Gott & Blandat, Ahlgrens bilar eller annat svenskt godis? Då kan jag tipsa om Mammas Godis, ett nystartat företag i Australien som kan leverera dessa svenska sötsaker direkt hem i brevlådan när den svenska godistarmen skriker för mycket.

To buy a whole lamb that is. I went to pick it up last night trying to navigate my way on windy dirt roads in the pitch black countryside without a GPS. But I went old school with a printed direction instead and it worked out well (just a little hard to read the directions in the dark).

Now we have the next issue. Our 17 kg lamb needs to be cut and I have no idea how too. I don’t even know what all parts are. So now it’s just sitting in the fridge and I have to figure out what to do with it this arvo. Any tips? If not I’m sure Google will be able to help me out.

We stick to the edible theme here with the next thing we need to make sure we do when we’re in Australia – eat Tim Tams. Tim Tam is a brand of yummy Australian chocolate biscuits manufactured by Arnott’s. A Tim Tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling, and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate. Chocolate with chocolate, it can’t go wrong!

Linda and I just beat the guys in the trivia board game “När då, då?“. Girl power!

These questions were (allegedly) posted on an Australian Tourism website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a great sense of humour (not to mention a low tolerance threshhold for the brainless!)

Q: I have never seen it rain on TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you’ve been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney – can I follow the rail road tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it’s only three thousand miles, take lots of water… Read more

The tests are up and running again and according to information posted on Trafikverket‘s website they would call everyone that had their written driving test cancelled and give them a new test time, yesterday. No one called Simon. Surprise, surprise!

I tried calling them today and got the information that a lot of people were calling right now and the queue was full so I was asked to call back later…..