Yes, I Cried (But Not My Eyes Out)

Very happy with the dress! Very Grace Kelly. And very happy with it being Alexander McQueen. Not as happy with William's hair (let it go, dear boy, let it go). Baby sister Pippa a little too tanned for my taste (it is a royal wedding after all, not Club Med). But her dress, yes please. Very happy with "Jerusalem" and the "Live your life as God intended it and you will set the world on fire". Not as happy with the Queen's clothes. Easter is over, after all. A little depressed over the fact that there isn't a woman anywhere doing anything but being pretty, no priest, no singer, not a girl in the chorus etc. But overall, very content! May you live happily ever after.

I'm Thinking About Myself (Yeah, I Know)

To just be there.
To run my bike down the hill and hear her screaming "Nice shoes, Mommy!" from behind.
To have nice shoes.
To see him in front of me, hair going wild beneath the helmet, bike a little big, jeans as well.
To push the swing and share some chocolate when everyone else is eating sliced apples.
To go home before the rain falls and make dinner and do a little homework and draw for a while.
To be there.
To be around.
That's pretty much all I want.
And I wonder.
Why is that?
Who is that?
How did it happen?

Hard Knock Life

The e-mail server has died and the office is going bananas. But we have nice shoes. That's Ebba top left and me bottoms up. (Chunky ankles model's own.)

Charmed, I'm Sure

No Easter without a few påskkärringar! Here's Blanka with sweet summer friends Albin and Malva (little brother to the left, big sister to the right). Wilhelm felt too old to participate at first, then realised that nothing is worse than having a baby sister with candy when you have none yourself, so he did dress up and let me draw a moustache and everything (which was swiped off at the last minute). But there was no posing for pictures (gotta draw the line somewhere when you're all of seven years old). Albin and Malva are the children of my summer friend Anna (no, our parent's generation didn't have a whole lot of imagination when it came to naming their children), whose grandmother is from the same village as my grandmother (the aforementioned Midsomer, which really isn't called Midsomer at all, but that's another story). Seeing our kids do together what we did ourselves thirty (ahem) years ago made us a little nostalgic. But you know, in a good way. Not in an I'm-so-old-I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-myself-kind-of-way. Since I'm over and done with that. Yep.

Easter Sunday

To come home.
To stand in the house looking at each other, loving these four walls and what they hold.
To make scrambled eggs.
To say "eat your chocolate in the garden" and have a garden to eat chocolate in.
To sit in silence as night falls.
To have a second cup of tea.
To have faith.
To rest in that and wish you all a good night.
And a Happy Easter.

Dear Virginia Woolf

Tonight I'm longing for easy and order and pretty, so I'm looking at these crayons at Anna's sister Katie's. I just want to rest my eyes for a moment and not think about the work that's waiting after I finish this post.

Tomorrow Holy Week continues. In Swedish it's called Silent or Still Week, but so far it's been neither. It hasn't been bad. Just not Silent, Still or very Holy. But maybe I'll get there tomorrow. I hope I will.

Thanks for reading. Especially when I have nothing to say, but still need to claim this space as my own. "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." Not that this is fiction. But one can dream. And it is, very much, a room of one's own.

Old News

Things are different this week.
Turns out I like it better when they're not.

Thirtyseven Isn't Halfbad (It's All Good)

So last week the much talked about birthday finally happened. And with excellent timing the midlife crisis decided to vanish (not without a trace, no) only two days before D Day (B day?). And my dears, let me tell you. It was a good one. One of the best! There were cards in the mail from lovely sisters-and-mother-in-law, there were homemade flags and the best breakfast in bed ever, there was a dreamy dinner and parents in town and a plum tree (planted this weekend by Husband of the Year) and a sister and sunshine and newly swept streets and coffee with BFF (still gorgeous after all these years) and a. new. bike. A red new bike that is mine and mine alone and doesn't come from a dumpster (yep, the old one did) and I lovelovelove it. Listen to me, I sound like I'm fourteen talking about it. That's what a new bike can do to you. Or a birthday. Thank you so much. I'm all new now. Reborn. My name is Anna Ander and I'm 37 years old. (Hello Anna Ander!)

Berlin Three (Is A Magic Number)

There are vacant lots like this one in every street. And buying an apartment is still much, much cheaper here than in Stockholm, Paris, London or Milan. I wonder how long it will last.


I'm not big on monuments. But places like Brandenburger Tor, where history feels like yesterday is different. I had chills walking through the majestic arches, and it wasn't all from the wind.


Some places looked exactly like my image of Berlin. I was there for 48 hours and spent all my time in the old East, so I don't know if this goes for West as well. But this? Textbook.


Hello baby! They named a street after you! This is the first/last street on the East side after/before the wall. After this it was no man's land, war ministry, Brandenburger Tor and then bang! the wall.


Another image of East Berlin that looks like something I've dreamed up. Glücklich Am Park. Like a movie set.


The Holocaust memorial is awful. And I mean that in the best possible sense of the word. It was... real, for lack of a better word. Beautiful, disturbing, awful and amazing.


I tried to imagine these gaps being filled with cement, like they were uptil 1989. A whole world closed. And then on top, little holes where you could climb up stairs and sneak a peak into West. How did we ever think that this was a good idea? A wall. A wall, for God's sake.

The Best Part

The best part of coming home was sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night and finding someone very small and very warm under the covers, someone who wakes up and looks at me with sleepy eyes and says "Mommy, I've missed you. I've missed kissing you." and then does just that and falls right back to sleep.

Berlin Two (When Blogs Collide)

Dear readers, meet Aymo. Or Aymeric, also known as Lovely French Guy. Aymo has been a friend of Leo's forever and ever, thanks to Emi and LFTC. (I have so many things to thank Emi for right now that it qualifies for a post on it's own. And she needs your lovin' today, so stop by and say hi.) Anyway. I was in Berlin Monday night and so was my dear friend Aymeric. He lives there now. And if he had his blog up and running he would probably tell you why, but I won't. See, I'm discrete like that. Let's just say that Milan hasn't been the same since he left. But I digress, again. It was lovely to meet a friend I'd never met! We greeted each other like long lost family and started off the conversation where we left it last time. I love this. Just like seeing Jennie of Copenhagen Follies this summer in Stockholm, lovely lovely (read all about it here). Internet's a beautiful thing. So is Aymo. Bonne chance au travail, mon ami!

PS. This is the least terrible picture of me and probably the least flattering of Aymeric. I know, huh. Unbelievable.

Berlin One (In The Name Of Love)

It's good. Berlin is really good. Will post properly when I'm not working.
Thanks for reading (more like looking today).
Schüss!

Ein Bischen Tripschen

Well, whaddyaknow. Turns out I'm going to Berlin Monday. Just like that. (AGAIN with the perks!) This is of course wonderful in many ways. But apart from the excellent work I hope to be doing, I just might, if I'm really lucky, meet one of my readers. How about that for brilliant? Monsieur Aymo, keep those fingers crossed! I know I am. And sweet Kansas Anna, in a way I feel like I'm getting to meet you too, since Berlin is after all your city. Now I have to go practice my language skills. Guten Tag. Ich bin ein Berliner. Mutti, Mutti, Ich möchte ein Souvenirführer haben.

I didn't take this picture. Nor have I any idea who did. Please forgive me, internet.

At Last

Today we stopped for icecream on the way home. The first outdoor icecreams of the season. Spring is officially here! Just this morning it was still Novemberish with dark clouds and heavy skies, but something happened around 2.30 pm and we decided that spring was it. Home to mud and waterguns we went, happily riding our new bikes (Wilhelm) and dreaming about decent coffee (me, but it didn't happen). And I don't know if it was the sun or the ten minute love fest slash lunch I hade with Marylove and Becks, but I've decided that the midlife crisis as of today is officially over. So that's that. Spring here, crisis gone, all is well with the world. Thank you for your love and support. I'm back on track.

Il Faut Cultiver Son Jardin

Couldn't post yesterday due to midlife crisis. Will be 37 next Friday. That is thirtyseven years old, ladies and gentlemen. So yesterday, no posting. Yesterday only excessive whining, lousy hair, weird clothes, awful bikeride and (finally) lovely evening with new friends and two glasses of red and three cigarettes (see, it IS a midlife crisis). Today much better. But now I have to do the work I should have done yesterday, when I instead choose to ponder the miseries of losing one's face to gravity for three hours. See the irony in that? There really is no need for a midlife crisis when one has the maturity level of a nineteenyearold. Now if only I could get that twentysomething-ness transplanted onto my face...

Happy Friday to you all. And thanks for talking again. Makes me very happy.