september highlights

Hello there. 

It has been over two weeks since I blogged. (The reason is not that the blogoversary celebrations where heavy. Really.) And it certainly isn't for a lack of matters to blog about. I've written lots of posts in my head these past few weeks. None of which obviously haven't made it to online status. And now I'm not really sure where to begin.

So, this won't be structured. This will be deeply emotional, this will be light-hearted and possibly frivolous, this will be about sorrow and happiness. In other words, this will be a bit of a long post.

:: First of all - I didn't get the part-time job I had hoped for. They said they'd settled for someone with slightly more experience of the tasks, but they thought I was great too. At least they took the time to call me up and tell me that. Which is a rare rare thing these days alas... Apparently they never got in touch with any of the referees either so the person they hired must have been oustanding in their fields.

But you know what? The more I thought about the job, the more trapped I felt. Sure it was within easy access from home by train - but it would also mean crossing the county border thus forcing me to pay 100% more for the monthly train card. Sure it was a brilliant half-time job - but instead of me working 2,5 days per week they wanted me to work half-days every day. Which is just crazy since that would mean I had to waste 1,5 hours commuting every day and not really being able to do my best for neither them nor running my business with focus for the rest of the time. And having to comply with that schedule for one year - scary and limiting. Also, the salary level crossing the county borders (even if really, it is a suburb of Stockholm still) means lower payment. Which would obviously mean quite low given half-time plus that mad train ticket as well as the stress of having to deal with working in an office environment every darn day for a year.

So all and all, in hindsight I feel this was for the best. Now I'm all open to exciting stuff instead, that suits my lifestyle and what I want from life. To be honest, I was more upset with the fulltime marketing and community manager job that never happened - because if it had been as great as it sounded on paper and felt after the first interview, it would have been something new and exciting to deal with.

So I'm all good about this. In fact I'm proud of how great I am at this resilience thing. And I'm looking forward to more work and clients that suit my needs and wants better. Welcome, welcome.

:: The Indian summer weather has been pretty glorious for most of the days, sure the evenings and early mornings for most days have become distinctively chillier. But the average temperature has been around +15C degrees, some days even more. From a global warming perspective this scares me a lot. But in the here and now I try to enjoy the surprising warmth and generous sunny days, the vitamin D.

:: Since September 1st I've been consulting per hour for my May client. Which is pretty good, it may not be creatively exciting tasks as such, but I know the organisation and what they want, the people are really nice and I have been able to invoice a decent amount since then. I've calculated that if I could do this regularly - and obviously it doesn't have to be for this client only - for 3 days/week I would almost meet my monthly goal in what I want as a salary. And it's enough that I pop by their office on the odd occasion to talk things through. Perfect.

:: It is now six months since M passed away. For me to move on to the next stage in the sorrow process (whatever that may be, I'm not sure myself) I realise I have to tell the people that have hurt me the most during his passing, his relatives, just how I feel and have felt about their behaviour. 

So I wrote draft a couple of weeks ago - only finally writing it was a relief - and have returned to it, rewritten and thought about it since. I will email it this week. I just want to tell my side of the story, I don't expect or want any explanations or discussions. They have clearly decided to delete my importance from M's life, something I will never be able to forget, obviously its incredibly hurtful for a lot of reasons. Perhaps I will be able to forgive some day, but not now. But just sending this email is catharctic and important for me. Not doing so would seriously belittle both myself and M, and our years together.

:: I've been meaning to write about that organic. muesli I 'discovered' at the Yelp event in May, but I've never gotten around to it. But since I won an annual consumption worth of it last week on Instagram, I might as well write a few words right now.

It's a lovely, German brand called MyMuesli - which encapsulate a lot of things I love: organic, colourful, healthy, vegetarian and vegan (when the products don't contain honey or dairy products like chocolate) with a dash of humour. When you sample the mueslis in store there's always oat milk or soygurt available too.

As far as I know they only have stores in Germany, Switzerland, UK, Netherlands and Sweden (Stockholm), possibly you can order online in the rest of Europe too. You can either mix your own unique muesli (which makes for endless variations) or chose one of their regular lovelies. Because yes, lovely they are. Most of the mueslis I've tried has been great (with a couple of exceptions), but my favourites so far is the Paleo Coconut, Mango, Berry and the brand new one as seen in the happy winning picture above - StockholmMuesli. Lovely design of one of my favourite views of Stockholm and a crunchy, fruity granola-like muesli. Only available in Stockholm or the Swedish webstore obviously (like four other limited editions for Sweden).

I'm such a happy, happy winner! Obviously.

This makes my third awesome win in an Instagram competition in a year. I'm thinking I should add this special knack to my CV.

:: The trip to Freiburg is now booked! One might think booking through a travel agent would make things so much smoother, right? Well it has not. Because even if I'm pretty flexible about dates, it has been quite tricky to get a room at a conveniently located central hotel that accept vouchers. But now I have one - and since I definitely prefered that over a more expensive hotel, for various reasons, I also get to fly with a bit of luxury added - as well as the plane- and train tickets (from Frankfurt to Freiburg, looking forward to travel by train in Germany!). It's weird that it's more expensive to travel solo than in pair, so the 4 days for 2 did not extend into at least a week for 1, but 5 days and 4 nights. Which I suppose is rather perfect for a solo trip as this.

So the week before my birthday I'll head south and enjoy some lovely, lovely days exploring a green city on my own. And before I had even booked the trip I did get that new suitcase I contemplated, it's darling and in bright, apple green. Ready to be filled my many, new and fabulous memories.

:: Early March I saw this stunner of a coat from Marimekko online. All flowery in orange, yellow and white on a black background. It wasn't obvious what kind of material it was made of, but I saved the photo on my mobile and have had a crush on that coat ever since. 

When it finally turned up in the Autumn collection last month it turned out to be a padded coat devoid of animal matter, which made me want it even more. Rather pricey, but not nearly as prices as some of their other coats or clothes. I thought I might at least try it on in store to see if it was something I should continue to dream of or not. It was gorgeous. The upper sleeves were too tight for me, but the rest was just as stunning as in that initial picture.

I've thought a lot about this coat. In fact, as ridiculous as it may seem, it has become symbolic in many ways. Apart from its gorgeousness - the print is a revival from 1970 called Pieni Pioni - it's vegan (I'm not shucking out my old wool clothes or leather shoes, but at least I can make better choices from now on) and completely different both in fabric and style from anything else I have in my wardrobe. It's another kind of happy coat than the Marimekko one from 3 years ago, for another type of weather.

I decided it would be one of those new, positive memories, from a year that turned my life upside down in sad sad way, and what would be better than give it to myself as an early birthday gift? From deciding on that to it arriving at my door, less than 48 hours.

And you know what, it fits so well! Just as the above mentioned happy coat #1, even if the model is very different. And given it'll be a great autumn/winter coat for many years it's a reasonable price really. Welcome fabulous happy coat #2!

There, happiness, sorrow, frivolity and emotions - two weeks of my life turned into one blog post of highlights.

my perfect contemplation corner

Remember when I painted this Adirondack chair years ago? Since it's actually pretty comfy it has been residing indoors since. But when I changed things around a bit this spring - due to unexpected life events... - I put it out in the garden near the fragrant mock orange, which has since obviously been overgrown by the amazing clematis. Didn't realize it would become one of my favourite spots in the garden this summer, but it certainly has been!

Weather and time allowed it is the perfect place to enjoy breakfast, fika and contemplation. It's my thinking and life enjoying chair. Sitting there on a warm summer day, in the shade, mild breezes and the cats flocking around me for cuddles I know I'm so blessed and grateful for all the wonderful things I have in my life, have had, will have.

My clematis is bigger than yours! And the picture does not do it justice.

Hopefully there will be quite a few more moments of this and breakfasts al fresco still this season. But one thing's for sure, I will miss my perfect contemplating, gratitude corner lots when weather turns autumn.

How many cats can you spot here?

Do you have a perfect contemplation spot too?
Tell me all about it!

london spy

The excellent British crime series "London Spy" with the always awesome Ben Whishaw is currently running on TV in Sweden. I'm in awe and enthralled. The plot is intriguing. And sad. The actors and casting brilliant. The filming beautiful.

Next week the last episode will be shown and I'll save it for later, enjoy it Apple TV fully in the morning. With my latest breakfast favourite.

Have you seen 'London Spy'?
What did you think?

semla + waffle = true

A while back my current Stockholm cafe crush, Älskade Traditioner, asked its guests and followers on Instagram what new waffles and wraffles we'd like to see (and eat).

I suggested a vegan waffle with fresh fruit and whipped soy cream plus a semla waffle (lots of cardamom in batter, a really good almond paste, whipped cream and a sprinkle of icing sugar on top). The first suggestion got thumbs up from the cafe - they're currently working on a vegan waffle with fresh fruit and almond butter - and the second one too, though they'd already come up with the idea themselves (two great minds!) and removed my comment becasue it was a secret.

And behold, the secret turned into reality - a semmelvåffla aka semla waffle! Had it this morning and it was delish. The almond paste was good and not to sweet, even if not as top notch delightfully crunchy as my own. But overall, many thumbs up for execution of a lovely idea.

And much much better than last year's hyped semmelwrap.

the original creamy vegan sheese

I've recently discovered the delightful vegan cream cheese from Bute Island Food Ltd and I'm absolutely charmed by it! The Sheese (as its called) is a solid proof that you most certainly don't need to use the despicable palm oil (and sorry, how things work right now I do not trust the so called certified sustainable palm oil either) in creating a great vegan cream cheese. Hooray!

I think the company has a lovely little story of artisan food to tell too, even if they now do so well that they've moved into big production and of course something as charming as a really decent, animal free cream cheese stems from Scotland.

I've only tried the original unflavoured sheese yet, but they have several flavours that I'm looking forward to try. Plus slices and not least feta sheese, how awesome and new isn't that latter?

the innocent orange juice

Yes, I may have *some* views on innocent's recruitment procedures, but that aside I still love their juicy smooth products. Apart from the smoothies I love their apple juice, but surprisingly (since I've never concidered myself to be an orange juice kind of person) it's been the orange juice I've been gulping down the most with breakfast this past year. 

Because it really is THAT superior to any other orange juice on the Swedish market. I think Swedes have become so used to and jaded by all the nasty concentrates and frozen juices, which have either put us off orange juice (if we don't make freshly squeezed one ourselves) or disturbed our palates.

This is always fresh and so full of flavour and delicious. Now I've stumbled over a family sized bottle too, which is much kinder to the wallet. Let the juice fest continue!

Which is your favourite breakfast juice?

delicious vegan breakfast

Say hi to my new favourite breakfast! Or possibly lunch or dinner. Because to be honest it's such a quick and satisfying fix for when you're not very keen on cooking. 

I have been enoying the vegan Alpro Mild & Creamy soygurt since 2013, but this pomegranate flavour is pretty new and it's delicious.

The organic granola is from Swedish organic brand Kung Markatta (= King Long-tailed monkey), it was launched in three different flavours only last autumn and I discovered it just before Christmas when another granola I was looking for wasn't available. The three different flavours are Apple-Almond-Cinnamon, Strawberry-Raspberry (haven't tried yet) and Blueberry-Coconut. My favourite is definitely the above one! Light, crunchy and it's lightly sweetened with coconut-sugar which isn't very sweet and basically only enhances the natural flavours so its not so sickly sweet as some granolas are.

And it plays oh so well with the pomegranate soygurt. So despite it being a very cold dish and I do prefer warm food in the winter, I still can't seem to get enough of it. Morning, noon and evening.

a scrumptious december breakfast

Behold today's lovely lovely breakfast at darlin' Älskade Tider retro cafe - the first time I had a sweet waffle and not a savoury wraffle and it was delicious. A befitting for the season saffron waffle with  red berries and cinnamon cream. Together with a cup of chai rooibos tea it was a perfect start of the winter day.

M had a banana split waffle and enjoyed his very much too, even if he would have liked more bananas for perfection.

Älskade Tider opens at 10 am Mon-Sun and is usually pretty full by 10.30 on the weekends. Today it was surprisingly slow at least until we left at 11.30, which made the breakfast even lovelier. I adore empty or slow cafes. 

vegan food in helsinki

So. I've been enjoying a fantastic array of vegan food here in Helsinki. The Yelp-app has helped in finding those gems that didn't exist when we were here in 2012. And I have rekindled with old favourites. Yes the food has been great. The cakes not so much alas, but the odd cinnamon bun thrown in has been fabulastic too.

I have yet to write reviews on Yelp for most of the places, but I can still give you a hint on where to go for a kind and great meal if you find yourself in Helsinki! (And be sure to check out my When in Helsinki-list on Yelp, I will slowly add things to it. These have been my favourite food moments over the long weekend:



Classic vegetarian - vegan restaurant Zucchini was just as good as I remembered it from 2012. Old school, healthy and very flavourful vegan and vegetarian food. Kind staff that speaks both Finnish, Swedish and English. (This was a potato cake with tofu and spinach plus a great salad and ratatouille.)



This is a wonderful vegan meze plate at Just Vege. Lovely textures and flavours, the pita bread is fab. Mostly organic stuff and just as the name says, an all vegetarian (mainly vegan apart from the halloumi) place were they make their own bread and falafels. The owner got so excited about the bobbaloos he took a lot of pictures too - myself I politely declined to be in them. M had a seitan kebab plate which he enjoyed a lot.



Remnants of a, surprisingly given the looks, good vegan pie at cafe Bergga. Simply filled with great, firm tofu, carrots and onions in a flavourful gravy. Their cakes weren't nearly as good, quite the opposite, but this savoury pie, mmm...



A simple falafel from Fafa's - which is a chain of falafel bars that, unfortunately, offers some meat dishes too - which wold have been rather nice (but of course not as lovely as the falafel at the Stockholm place Falafelbaren) if M hadn't said yes to extra chili and we'd gotten it as takeaway...



At another vegan fast food place Soi Soi, situated in the same street as above Just vege, we had these vegan burgers and sweetpotato fries that was quite heavenly according to at least me. Mine is a tofu burger in oat bread and M's is a hot chili tofu in pita bread. I really really enjoyed the texture of the tofu here too, in Sweden the tofu despite claiming to be firm often is to soft, not in Helsinki obviously.



This was the nicest, by far, breakfast (brunch) I had in Helsinki. The popular (amongst all ages and walks of life) cafe is called Tin Tin Tango and they have different breakfast menus of which this is the vegetarian. I don't eat egg, so M got that one, but I fully enjoyed the rest, including a strawberry smoothie, orange juice, an apple, two rolls, cheese and veggies. Plus tea of course. Who knew there was such a thing as a heart shaped roll, too cute!



We shared this freshly baked cinnamon bun too - it was delicious. All and all we shared three different buns at three different places, they were all very very good in their own ways. Conclusion: Helsinki knows how to make a most pleasing bun for a discerning Swedish fika high liver.

eating out - älskade traditioner

Today I spent my morning in a lovely place - a newish cafe in Stockholm called Älskade Traditioner (Precious Traditions) - in lovely company - my old school friend with whom I rekindled a couple of years ago - pre-birthday celebrating with a vegetarian brunch. Her birthday is on the 24th, mine on the 25th, we hadn't seen eachother in ages and instead on just going to one of the usual spots I decided to find something new and special.

I was recommended Älskade Traditioner via Yelp, it sounded really good and I have to say it was love at first sight! Übercute interior á la 1950ies diner, very hipster, very Stockholm Söder (but in a good, unpretentious, service-minded and friendly way).

The food selection is lovely, specialize in wraffles (food and waffle in one, savoury or sweet) but we opted for the 'small' breakfast (tea or coffee - juice or yoghurt or smoothie - sandwich). Turned out they used oat milk with berries for their smoothie so I changed my mind from juice to smoothie and then we got a half half instead, a smaller glass of each. Sweet.

The sandwich was absolutely delicious and so much more than your average breakfast cheese sandwich - a generous amount of salad, pickled onion and cucumber, mustard and cheese on a freshly baked rye bread.

The tiny little blueberry cookie was lacking a decent amount of sugar, but the bobs enjoyed it all the same. They have, for obvious reasons, a special fondness for smallsized food.

Yup, even the toilet was adorable. (I want that waste bin!)

It was so lovely to catch up with my friend - not to mention discussing the pros and cons of running your own freelancer business. A good reminder that you are not alone when it comes to annoying, weird and wonderful clients. - and hopefully it won't be as long until the next time.

And I can't wait to visit Älskade Traditioner again, wraffles anyone?

breakfast habits

I am definitely not a person who always stick to the same kind of breakfast - unlike my grandparents who really couldn't deal with the concept of variety and always came visiting with their own food. Yup, really. - 

but the breakfast combo mostly eaten is some kind of bread (often toast) with cheese and veggies, orange juice and tea.

It has been quite a while since I had the soygurt, fruit and seeds breakfast - which  I used to eat often, probably so often so it turned boring - but the other day I did. Plain Alpro soygurt (I do prefer flavoured) with frozen raspberries, a sliced banana, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, goji berries and chia. It was really lovely and refreshing for a change. I have now stocked up on flavoured soygurt and plan to do this more often. And vary the fresh fruit topping.

Do you have any special breakfast habits? Are you rigid with breakfast routines or do you like variation? What's your favourite breakfast and what do you usually have?

mmm, vegan cheese

The cats love the vegan cheese as much as I do - and as usual they obviously know that sharing is caring. They are actually more interested in the vegan cheese than they ever were in the dairy one.

I find it curious that they are absolutely crazy about whipped soy cream but they're not really interested in neither soy nor oats icecream.

Yes, this household is happy to leave the cow's milk to the ones it belongs to, the cows' babies.

from holmes to sherlock

I'm surprised at how much I like this Swedish biography-ish book about Sherlock Holmes by Mattias Boström. Because a) even if I do enjoy a bit of the older move adaptions of SH now and then and of course the latest Sherlock TV-series I've mostly found the character really annoying. And b) I may have been a bit intrigued by the book but I mainly bought it because it was on sale.

Little did I know I would be smitten from page one. It's written in a rather endearingly patronizing way combined with dry humour and interesting facts about pretty much everything Sherlockian from the author Conan Doyle and his sources of inspiration up to how the 21st century Sherlock-series came by. I'm appalled at the lack of copyrights before the early 1900s and I had no idea just how extremly popular teh Sherlock Holmes stories were back when it all began.

Of course I have no idea if I'll love the book through all its massive 460 pages, I'm only 1/4 in to it yet. But I'm impressed by the clearly well researched story and all the little factual tidbits through the centuries. It's strangely enough quite an exciting read, like a suspense novel in itself.

Don't know if it has been or is planned to be translated in to other languages. But if you're lucky enough to read Swedish I, 125 pages in, do recommend it.

breakfast at the reichstag roof in berlin

On top of the German Reichstag (parliament building) in Berlin there's a cupola - which is a symbol for democracy, transparency and also an environmental project that is a great way to lessen the building's carbon footprint.



And beside that cupola on the roof is a restaurant opened for breakfast (lunch and dinner). If you book your breakfast you don't have to stand in line with the tourists and groups that want to visit the cupola. Still have to go through the same security check as at an airport though, but if your there early its a swift process.

So we had breakfast there at 9 am. And it was admittedly frightfully early for me to get up. And it turned out to be surprisingly difficult to find a nearby parking spot, because there were so many inclosures for unknown reason.



In the end we had to park quite far away, having to walk back in the rain and cold winds. Up on the roof the view over Berlin was spectacular. And being there so early in the morning meant there were much less people around of course. It was a nice experience, but way too early for some. If not others.






The restaurant itself was really nice, open and light - although honestly the toilets smelled quite a bit, they should do something about the plumbing... - and with grand views. Too bad it was such a rainy, cold day otherwise the glass walls would have been open to the terrace.





And what about the breakfast? Well, we accidently ordered three of them for two persons so we didn't exactly leave hungry or with completely empty plates. But tastewise, nothing exciting or supertasty, just nice and forgettable. There are so many better places in Berlin to have breakfast. But the food AND the panoramic view, that's a different story.



The Reichstag is a beautiful, old building (first idea in 1871, but the buidling didn't begin until 1884 and was finished in 1894) and the cupola is a fine, young part of it (built 1995-99). It's a building with a fascinating story, a factual and practical symbol of so much that has affected the rest of the world.







I think it's a nice thing that the place is opened to the public and the symbolism of the dome, the transparency of democracy and that, in the right light, you can look down at the speaker's chamber below where politicans work.



It was an overall good experience, I wish I hadn't been so tired  though, But as it happened, by the end of the week I got a nasty cold - which I haven't had for 1,5 year now - so I guess it was all way for my body to show exhaustion.



Also on our way from the visit suddenly there were a gazillion police cars out and about, new inclosures, the traffic lights not working. Suddenly we were abruptly stopped by police, cars, cyclist and pedestrians alike. Far away in the road I noticed lots of bluelights and even more police cars. Clearly there were some sort of police escort. People started cheering and we had no idea who was coming. So I snapped away and when they passed us close by and waved right at us in the car I realised it was queen Elizabeth and prince Philip visiting.



Needless to say really, despite this unexpected Berlin experience, which granted was a bit fun, I'm still very much a republican. In the European sense of the word of course.