Time to taste!

And finally, I could taste the elderflower cordial for the first time. Yummy! The weird thing in the glass is an ice cube with some elderflowers...

Bottling time

So yesterday, after three days, it was time to filter and bottle the elderflower cordial...

Elderflower cordial

During this morning's walk with Inga in the lovely weather, I collected more than 60 bunches of elderflower. Back home I rinsed them in water and then let them sit on a towel, waiting to become elderflower cordial. I never made elderflower cordial before, so it's kind of exciting, but it's not hard to do so I am quite sure it'll taste just fine.

After rinsing the flowers, I placed them in a big casserole and covered them with three lemons in thin slices. Then I added 2 liters boiling water, 1,5 kg sugar and 50 g citric acid. I stirred until the sugar was dissolved and now it's supposed to stand covered for three days before filtering. Then, hopefully, we will have about 3 liters of concentrated elderflower cordial...

The Royal Wedding Chocolate

This past Saturday our crown princess Viktoria got married to her prince Daniel (he wasn't a prince until they were married, but just a "regular guy" who happened to be the boyfriend of our princess). To celebrate this occasion, we split a big box of chocolate with our friends Samuel and Jenny. These are the remains on the day after the wedding. They didn't last long...

It's getting darker...

Now it's getting darker again. Today the sun rose as late as 4.22 am and it will set "already" at 9.55 pm here in Lund. In the north of Sweden (where I grew up) the sun rose at 1.00 am and will set at 00.06 am... How I love the summer nights in Sweden!

Summer is here

Today it has been a really nice summer day with high temperatures. So when Inga and I walked through the botanical gardens today I wasn't surprised to see lots and lots of white skin... Yes, we Swedes tend to undress as soon as we get the chance. I am however sure that many will regret this later on when their skin is bright red since not everyone uses SPF 20 like I do...

You know that you are old when...

... you are surprised there's a new Robin Hood movie coming up. Wasn't it last year Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner ran in the theaters?

More flowers

These beautiful flowers came to us this week. It was my colleges at the school where I worked who sent us them to congratulate us to our little girl.

The sun

Today the sun rose at 5.31am and it will set at 8.39pm here in Lund. The days sure are getting longer. But it's much darker here in Lund than in Boden where I grew up - there the sun rose at 4.04am today and will set at 8.59pm. In Brugg, where we lived in Switzerland, the times are 6.14am and 8.32pm...

Springtime

Now spring is really here. A couple of weeks ago, the ground in one of the parks on the way downtown was covered in blue, scilla. I just learned that another name for these flowers is blåstjärna which translates into blue star. Beautiful name for a flower that really shines like a star in the sun!

The scillas are slowly fading now and instead it's the wood anemones that take over. I really like them. These spring flowers are something that I didn't grow up with at all since they don't exist in the northern parts of Sweden. My mother, born somewhere in the middle of Sweden did miss them a lot when she lived up north... Her favorite is the Hepatica and when she was here we spotted them downtown, outside a restaurant. But I haven't seen them anywhere else here in Lund and according to my flora they don't thrive in here in the southernmost parts of Sweden.

Now all the trees really start to burgeon so very soon it will be very green here. In the north of Sweden they still have lots of snow and will have to wait another month or more for the green leaves...