September 2004
carry car
spotted first thing sunday morning on the street of stockholm. it’s a carry car.
wisdom of the young and old
i tried to teach kezia wisdom last week but forgot to mention it. the conversation happened at the dinner table:
jane: “kezia, what would you like for your pudding?”
kezia: “yoghurt please mummy”
jane: “you had yoghurt for your dinner so you can’t have one for your tea i’m afraid”
kezia: “oh. in that case i’ve changed my mind. i DON’T want yoghurt for my dinner. So can i have it now instead ?”.
me (spotting my moment): “you can LEARN from the past, but you can’t CHANGE it”
everyone: stunned silence.
RESULT: kezia had an apple
more face painting
it was anna’s birthday today and jane helped out with the face painting. here are kezia and cousin thomas looking at the face painting manual after getting back from the party. and here also is esther’s new hat.
but who was the fantastic mr balloon at anna’s party ? none other than regular blog reader, my good friend Tony.
the swedish national symphonia orchestra:
when in stockholm jane and i stumbled upon the swedish national symphonia orchestra practising in Skansen.
We didn’t know they were practising at the time and it looked like a live broadcast with people doing proper ‘links’ between items. here is our host:
our camera man (excellent cigarette work):
big fat brass instrument (with and without mute):
potty signing ladies:
when we got back to our hotel room that evening we switched on the telly, and there was the orchestra playing introduced by the same lady. it was the actual performance being broadcast live !
caution: boys crossing
girls are no worry. but watch out for the boys.
10 years old
my company is 10 years old this year which is not bad. i’ve been there for over a third of those years and with every year i stay that proportion increases.
part of the fun day was an it’s a knockout tournament. i wasn’t in a team as i’m useless (generally) and also we weren’t sure when the kids would run out of steam and need to go home. this proved to be a wise decision as we left about 10 minutes in to the games and you’ve seen what happened in the car
here is my boss transporting water on his head:
and here are some other colleagues getting wet:
fun fair
jane and esther on the dodgems
esther on a bungee trampoline
olympics
my company is one of the sponsors to TeamGB, the UK olympic team. As a result it’s been olympic fever for the last few months. here is one of the actual olympians actualy fencing at the funday.
face painting
my office family fun day had lots of stuff for kids. face painting was particularly popular with our girls:
nephew thomas is staying with us for a couple of days whilst our sister-in-law’s baby hatched (it hatched today and is a girl making me an aunt for the first time – i’m already an uncle to thomas of course).
nephew thomas is too macho to have his face painted so went for a sailor-style tattoo instead:
before and after
it was my work fun day today, but fun is such hard work. compare the going with the coming back:
apples
here is esther examining the garden apples for mouldy bits, bird pecked bits and wasp sucked bits. most of our apples contain most of these:
there were a few good ones which jane chopped up for the girls. they were so tastey that esther licked the bowl to make sure nothing was wasted:
sad robot
this robot is by the sea in Stockholm. i think it’s missing its friend from london. a very mysterious coincidence !
in a restaurant, no kids !
jane and i made the most of our trip to stockholm without the kids by having a meal in a restaurant. it was most lovely.
cycling in stockholm
if you have time to spare in stockholm and the weather isn’t too bad, go cycling. it’s great.
