Lizardek

21
Jul
2013

LONDON, PART THE SECOND

Goodness, time gets away from me the second I start working again. I made it through my first week of work after 3 weeks off, but I need to post about the rest of our trip so I can move forward. 🙂 We took the train from Covent Garden out to Watford Junction (which, incidentally, is close to where my UK office is), which took several changes and a very long time. From there, we took the a shuttle to the Warner Brothers Studio, where the Making of Harry Potter tour holds court. The bus was covered an a giant...

15
Jul
2013

LONDON, PART THE FIRST

We left Salisbury on the 11-something train and found our way to our final destination…a few blocks down from the Gloucester Road Underground station. Anders had downloaded an app called Tube Map which made our visit much easier…it has the full London Underground map with all kinds of information like departure times, lines, notifications about delays or closures, when the first and last trains are going, etc., but the best part is that you don’t need to be online to get routing info or stand by the huge confusing full map and trace lines in a confused attempt to figure...

13
Jul
2013

FOURTEEN

It’s hard to remember the details this far forward, but I remember how I cried when the ultrasound technician confirmed that our second child was a girl. I was so glad that I wouldn’t have to consider being pregnant again, since we’d have one of each which is what we both wanted. Of course, then Karin arrived and was the biggest tomboy ever born, so all I could think was “be careful what you wish for”, haha! Neither of my kids wanted to actually leave the womb, and despite being three days early, a welcome change from her big brother...

09
Jul
2013

STONED ON SUNSHINE & SIGHTSEEING AROUND SALISBURY

We had mostly great weather the whole time we were in England. Lots of sunshine and I even got sunburned a bit, which is rare since I don’t sit in the sun very much. After we left the boat back in Leighton Buzzard, we took the train to Salisbury. I think of England as being so small and populated that it’s coast-to-coast towns but there sure is a lot of beautiful landscape and farmland everywhere. Salisbury is a lovely old medieval town with a great deal of ancient architecture. All you have to do is look up above the first...

05
Jul
2013

LONGBOATING

We flew into Stansted and took the train to Leighton Buzzard, where we spent the night before picking up our longboat the next day. After dropping off our suitcases in the shipyard, we walked back into town and hit the Tesco for groceries, enough to supply breakfasts and a couple of other meals for the week on the boat. We didn’t see much of Leighton Buzzard, just walked around a little bit, and spent a pleasant hour in the church of All Saints which had a lovely old cemetery huddled within the close. When I looked up Leighton Buzzard on...

04
Jul
2013

R&R

Vacation traveling with teenagers is a lot different than vacation traveling with young kids. It feels harder now, because they are so much more opinionated about what they want to do, or rather about what they DON’T want to do, which is invariably whatever WE want to do. But we mostly manage to compromise or get someone to give in, and mostly everyone gets to do SOMETHING they want to do, and everyone ends up satisfied, for the most part. Though it sometimes takes a lot of eye-rolling and sarcasm to get there. And nowadays, it’s all about the free...

21
Jun
2013

UPDATEY

First day of a 3-week vacation and my brain wakes me up before 7 am. WTF brain? Couldn’t get back to sleep no matter what I tried so here I am to talk at you. Just realized that I haven’t posted for ages. I’m a little tired of how time flies, wish it would slow down just a bit. I worked until nearly 9 pm last night, long after the last warriors had fallen, the day before the midsummer holiday. Because I was on a training trip to Germany on Wednesday, I lost a day of getting things done that...

13
Jun
2013

ANOTHER (SCHOOL) YEAR GONE

I can’t even look at my children sometimes without boggling. They’re both taller than I am and it’s happened so fast. Martin will be 16 in December. I just asked him how old he was and when he gave me a very sarcastic, “I’m FIFTEEN”, I said, “That can’t be right.” Time flies, yes, it does. They both had their last day of school yesterday and when I said I was probably going to go to Martin’s if they were at the same time, Karin got all upset and said no one loved her. So I was relieved to find...

08
Jun
2013

SPOILED

We’re getting spoiled over here. Spoiled with summer. Spoiled with sunshine. And spoiled with long weekends. There are a lot of them right in a row during May and June here in Sweden. The weather has been fantastic and even though I’m not necessarily out in it all day, I’m enjoying it so much in my own way. It’s nice to feel like the zoom button on my life has been turned to low for a bit, even though I know it’s only temporary and part of me was freaking out completely just the other day over the fact that...

03
Jun
2013

TODAY IS THE TOMORROW YOU WORRIED ABOUT YESTERDAY

OMG two posts in a row! Apocalypse! I figure I can’t get bummed out and upset about the fact that no one blogs much anymore if I am just as guilty. Plus, I feel like writing, and whether or not I have anything to write about: here I am. I have to tell you a story and you have to promise not to laugh. Because I am really, really embarrassed about it. In fact, I think it’s good enough to possibly bump one of my top three most embarrassing moments off the list. Go ahead, go click that link and...