Lovebirds
I’m off to England at the end of the week —
It’s a very special occasion.
My brother is getting married!
So there will be celebrations, the eating of good food
And some long walks up on the South Downs, I hope.
I’m looking forward to a love-filled week.
(I’ll be back on my blog in a week or so. Until then, take care!)
For more love stories, please visit: Our World.
Singing in the sun
My daughter is singing at The Royal Wedding today, Saturday, with her class.
(Princess Madeleine, second daughter of the King and Queen of Sweden, is marrying New Yorker, Chris O’Neill.)
Yesterday, she was all geared up for the dress rehearsal
And in a happy mood.
Of course, Oscar had to escort her to the station
To make sure she got to the church on time.
For more royal guests, please visit: Camera Critters.
As you can imagine,it’s a busy weekend so please excuse me if I don’t get round to visiting you.
UPDATE: If you’re interested in seeing the class’ performance, then you can see a short video here.
Le Grande Interview – part one
How do I look? No spinach in between my teeth or holes in my trousers, I hope! Good… I’m ready for my interview with the very funny Po aka the South African Sea Monkey. She had a lot of questions, so after a quick cup of coffee, we got started. I was going to offer her some home-baked cakes, but she declined. I wonder why?
How did you meet Sir Pe and how long before you got married?
Gosh – she does know how to pick them! Well, I had just written a Student’s Book (to learn English as a Foreign Language) for a large Swedish educational publisher’s and they invited me over to Stockholm to write the Teacher’s Guide as well as other educational goodies for kids at Swedish schools.
So, I took a three-month sabbatical from my teaching job in England, and without a single word of Swedish in my baggage, turned up in Stockholm one sunny day in April back in 1996. After a couple of weeks, I decided that I ought to at least know some phrases in Swedish (it gets a bit monotonous saying Hej! all the time and sounding like the Swedish chef out of Sesame Street). So, I enrolled in a Swedish class for beginners. I found myself sitting next to the only Englishman in the class: his bow tie was a dead give-away!
This gentleman invited me to his 40th birthday party in The Limerick, a good old Irish pub in Stockholm. The date: 14th May. We went there after class, and some of Bow Tie’s workmates were there – including Sir Pe.
Now, I thought Sir Pe was a native Swede because he hadn’t spoken English for so long that when he did, HE sounded like the Swedish Chef with really bad English. Turns out he was a Swedish citizen (still is), but came originally from England.
We exchanged e-mail addresses (he was one of the few people I knew back in 1996 who actually had an e-mail address), corresponded for a couple of weeks and finally went out on a date sometime near the end of May.
Dazzled by my wit, modesty, good English and cooking skills (I burnt a hole in his coffee pot the first time I made coffee), we got engaged on 1st July 1996.
The words whirlwind romance perhaps spring to mind. Either that or: They’re nuts! After my three months were up, I went back to England, resigned from my job, packed up everything and found someone to rent my flat.
We didn’t get married in haste though – and waited for nearly a year before tying the knot in England on May 17th, 1997.
Oh my – doesn’t time fly by when reminiscing? Only time for the one question… Po had to get back to her place PDQ because she is hosting Strange Shores #4. So, visit her blog for a plethora of more real-life tales from nutty ex-pats.
Who says what?