Category Archives: Life

Anything specific happening in Anmara’s life that she thinks might be worth sharing with you.

Happy Crazy Monday!?

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Happy Monday? Well, I dunno. Crazy? Yep, definitely. A “super Monday” it was in quite some respects. It started with snow slush on the way to work in the morning. IMAG2325

It continued with all sorts of strange questions in the work-inbox waiting to be answered.
On a day where you get calls like “Oh, is it not the owner of a bike that chooses a starting number? Really, the rider chooses a number?” and then on top of it an email from a work buddy at the British federation mentioning something like “Regards from a sunny bladiblah…” (sunny? England??), then you know it is one of those Mondays that you just have to survive :-D.

After all, “What can possibly go wrong?!”

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Well, in the early evening back at home it was time to put on the running shoes. Not only because it was part of the plan for today, nope, by then it had become a pure necessity to get the brain cells back on track. Just a bit more than 4k it became tonight, a rather short run, but nice, despite today’s grey, cold and wet weather.

And look what I found – some small green buddies sticking their head up into the cold, Swedish pre-springtime air:

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So, let’s give the week a second chance tomorrow! 😉

 

#7 of 100

A totally new meaning of blog(g)100

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Last Friday the world’s oldest (known) blogger was guest at Skavlan, the most popular Scandinavian Talkshow.

Her name is Dagny Carlsson, and she started blogging at the age of 100 years. Now or never, one could translate her motivation. When she was younger, she didn’t dare to put her dream of becoming a writer into action, and also, when she was young, women did not have the same possibilities as today. Another fact is that today’s technique makes it easy to write and publish online. It is amazing that Dagny at this high age tackles modern technique and starts blogging. But as she says in the interview at Skavlan, the biggest hinder in life is oneself.

For that, Dagny is a real inspiration to many of us, an example of “It is never too late” and “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Not to mention the detail that she at her age is a walking Wikipedia of history. She remembers a lot about the old times and writes about it on her blog.

The old times were NOT better, she emphasizes. So I’d say, let’s just do what we want to do – it is not sure that we get the chance to become 100 years old, so that we then can start realising our dreams. Let’s start NOW.

Another advice she gives is “Be curious!”. For her, blogging has an important social function – she meets a lot of people online and offline. She does not know anyone her age, all old friends passed away. She has a younger sister who is over 90 years old, the only family that is left. She never had children of her own, since she first married a guy who loved alcohol too much. The second one, who she spent over 50 years with, she met at the age of 40. Then she was too old for children, she thought. After she left her first husband, she went to Norrköping and became a “konfektionstekniker”, someone who is an expert in fabrics, patterns, sewing technique – an important role in the textile and clothing manufacturing industry, even today. Norrköping was at that time still Sweden’s Manchester with loads of textile industry and many women were employed there. (The concert hall Louis de Geer I went to yesterday is a part of the old, now totally rebuilt industrial area.)

Dagny has by now more than 1 million followers, and this is her blog:
http://www.123minsida.se/Bojan/ 

If you understand Swedish, then you can watch and listen to this interview with Dagny:

#6 of 100

An afternoon with SON, Bruckner and Jurowski

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This afternoon it is time for the second last concert in our subscription with Norrköping’s Symphony Orchestra (or SON – “Symfoniorkester Norrköping”).

Since we luxuriously enough live a 15-minute-walk away from the home of one of the main Scandinavian orchestras’ home, it is almost obligatory to go and listen.

This afternoon, Michail Jurowski, a very well known Russian conductor will lead the complete concert of Anton Bruckner‘s 5th symphony – a piece of about 80 minutes length.

This will probably be the longest classical concert I listened to and I am actually looking forward to it! (I remember a situation during university where I successfully avoided Wagner’s opera “Tannhäuser” which is on for more than 4 hours with intermissions.)

Wagner and Bruckner lived during the same time. What I noticed when I read about Bruckner’s 5th symphony is, that it has been written during the same time as the early years of our old railway station in Grythyttan, which we try to renovate. The composing periods where 1875 – 1878 and 1877 – 1878.

It will be fun to listen to some music from that time period! Grythyttan’s station master will not have been able to enjoy the music at home, though. The phonograph was only invented in 1877, and Bruckner’s 5th did not get recorded until 1937.

On Youtube one finds some nice introductions to the piece, like this one, played by Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra conducted by the famous Herbert Blomstedt, who by the way was principal conductor in Norrköping between 1954 and 1962.

Enjoy the music!

#5 of 100

Friday Night Nibbles!

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First of all thanks for some great food inspiration to my colleague Pernilla! 

Everyone wants good Friday food, right? Then you should try this recipe and experiment a bit with it.

You need:
– a muffins form
– a packet of puff pastry ( ideally with 10 or 12 square slices)
– 1 egg
– a bit of spicy oil, such as chilli oil
– some grated hard cheese with about 30-35 % fat (such as cheddar or here in Sweden “Västerbottenost”)
– some ingredients for a savoury filling (this is where you can be creative!!)

I had 10 slices of square puff pastry, and the fillings I chose to do where these two: 
1. a bit of frozen whole-leaf spinach and about 5 slices smoked salmon
2. half of a sweet red peppar and 5 mushrooms, all finely chopped, and almost half a packet of herb cream cheese, such as Philadelphia.

How to put things together:
– preheat the oven to 220 degrees centigrade
– defreeze the puff pastry so that it is really soft
– prepare each compartment of the muffins form with a tiny bit of chilli oil. This will add extra taste and makes the pastries come out easier when they are ready.
– mix an egg in a cup, and then put a thin layer of egg onto each puff pastry plate.
– place the puff pastry like small cups into the compartments of your muffins form
– then place the filling into each puff pastry (I had smoked salmon and spinach in half of these, and then the peppars mixed with mushrooms and philadelphia cheese in the remaining ones)
– top each one of the pstries with one (or more) spoons of the grated hard cheese.
– you can choose to close the the puff pastry pockets or you can choose to leave them open. I closed them and then I put a bit of the egg on top.
– the remaining egg I mixed with some chilli oil and put it into one of the two remaining empty compartments of the muffins form.

Put the form into the preheated oven and let everything get ready, it takes about 15 minutes. 

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Take the form out and let it cool off about 5 minutes. Then lift each pastry out of the form a table spoon will help you. Serve with some fresh sallad if you like, or enjoy them as they are.

Very important – don’t forget to enjoy a glass of redwine with it! After all it’s Friday night! But they also work with other beverages or plain water of course.

ENJOY and have a LOVELY WEEKEND!

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Running in the morning….

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…. has several advantages:

  • One wakes up on the way (one certainly isn’t when dressing for running, trust me, that phase is called “auto-pilote”).
  • One feels really great once the day’s activity is accomplished and one actually IS awake, thanks to millions of oxygen molecules having just been pumped into your lungs and body.
  • Ever experienced turning up at work amazingly awake, overly happy and then enjoying the effect of the sentence “I just ran 5k before breakfast” on your colleagues, who try to achieve the same awakenes level with a cup of coffee or tea (often even several cups)? No? Well, you should then.

This morning I even met 3 fellow runners! Rather rare at half past six in the morning on a week day in Norrköping.

This year I am a bit more disciplined with running, since I am registered for Göteborgs Varvet, the biggest Swedish half marathon.

Let’s bring it on!

Springa

Photo taken from Instagram @anmaratube .

 

Christmas Eve 2015

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This year, we decided very early in autumn to stay at home in Norrköping during Christmas.

We also decided to follow the tradition of our friend Anneli, the tradition of walking the streets of one’s town on Christmas Eve, after 3pm. At 3pm, most of the people are at home, watching the traditional show with Donald Duck & friends.

Sooo… the streets are empty! While Anneli was enjoying Stockholm at that time, we were walking through Norrköping.

See a selection of the pictures taken in the album  Christmas Eve 2015 .

Happy New Year to all of you!! 

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Norrköping Walkabout

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Today the BF suggested to take a loooong walk through our town, Norrköping. And yep, off we went, almost 10 km from South to East and West of town. We discovered a few new sights and places, and it was a real pleasure to be able to enjoy all the Christmas lights in a halfway decent weather. You must know, it has been pissing down with rain most of the days, and November was a month with only a few hours of sun. December hasn’t shown much of an improvement for that matter either. But never mind, let’s focus on the nice things in life!

Follow the link and join us on our Sunday afternoon Norrköping Walkabout!

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Route10 km in 2,5 hours, if anyone is interested. A great round for runners as well!

Rediscovery of the LP record

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If someone would have told me in the 90’s that I would buy LP records in 2014, and sort of “dump” music on compact discs….yeah, right. But here I am, having spent money on two brand new albums of artists like LORDE and Weeping Willows. And of course in second hand shops as well as at Norrköpings Vaxkupan, the browsing of used LPs by now is a standard procedure.

How on earth did this happen, you might think? Well, thanks to the beloved, who is quite a nerd of sound technique, we have a greatly working vintage stereo equipment at home, involving a record player and amplifier of the known Swedish brand Sonab .

Together with Mirsch (also Swedish, they worked with Sonab in the 70’s) and Sony loudspeakers, the playing of vinyl records all of a sudden became real fun. One notices a so much richer sound from an LP than from a CD. I am no expert in technical details, but there is indeed a difference in sound quality between these two types of records.

So I reckon at home, there will be quite some vinyl playing from now on, even though one has to go and change the sides of the records (part of the fun as well, though). While travelling it will be totally digital music, though, either iPod or Spotify.

I found a nice article on digitaltrends from 2013, which explains quite well why vinyl is back.

The feeling that listening to vinyl makes music come alive, in fact makes YOU come alive, a lot of people share, and I totally agree. Read this forum thread on Singletrack and you get an idea.

In that sense – keep the turntable cool!

Norrköping Sunday Morning Walk

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Having been bed bound during almost the entire last week due to a nice office flu, I was very happy to finally get out into sunshine and fresh air. Time for a Sunday morning walk through Norrköping, between about 09.15 and 11.15, before the shops open and the city really comes to life. The camera accompanied me, and I took it veeery easy during the almost 7 km long stroll through town. Partly because of the nice weather, but definitely because not all the nice germs left the body yet. So join me on the rest of a lazy Sunday, maybe checking out the pics I took today.

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Merry Christmas!

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Today I went for a short trip to Linköping. Presents were already bought earlier, so today it was more about getting the hair done (happens about twice per year) and general browsing and people watching. It was a relaxed atmosphere on the streets. People stopping and chatting with  each other, carrying the last presents or food shopping bags home. In most of the shops, the attendants were a bit worn out after the Christmas shopping time, and I reckon they will just be extremely happy when they finally can go home and relax, even if they might have difficulties to adjust from Christmas rush to Christmas peace with the family and loved ones (been there, done that for quite some years).

Anyhow – all of you, have a Merry Christmas and a great start into the New Year!

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(Storgatan in Linköping, fully dressed in Christmas.)

Flimmer!

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Last week it was time for the annual film festival in Norrköping – Flimmer! The festival was organised for the 15th time this year.

These are the movies we saw – a good mix as you can see, and all very much recommendable!

Cykla med Molière

Inequality for all

Good Vibrations

In a world…

A River Changes Course

Hot Flashes

Big Sur

Pics from the CNEMA-sessions

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Norrköping in autumn colours

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Last weekend we had best autumn weather ever. Here are some impressions in pictures of an Indian summer afternoon.